Lora knew next to nothing about weapons and fighting, and her father didn’t either. But she could tell that his mind was made up. “So you’ll force me to go?”
George shook his head. “No, Lora… I won’t make you go. Stay if you must. But I hope you’ll come.”
Lora didn’t want to leave the Sanctuary for the same reasons other people didn’t, but the prospect of parting company with her father was more than she could bear. “All right,” she said reluctantly, “I’m in.”
George’s face lit up. “Really? That’s wonderful! Now, remember… What we’re going to do is a closely held secret, so don’t tell anyone. And work on getting well. I would delay the departure date if I could, but the longer we wait, the more likely a leak becomes, and we’ll only get one opportunity. If we blow that, it’s over for good.
“Now, take it easy,” George added. “I’ll move this stuff to my bedroom. The protectors could drop by at any moment.”
“What should I tell them?”
“Tell them the truth minus the meeting with Matt. It has nothing to do with the beating and there’s no reason to get him in trouble.”
“Should I go to school in the morning?”
George grinned. “No, you have the perfect excuse not to. I’ll call Wilkes and tell him that you’re in a lot of pain.”
Two protectors arrived shortly after that. George let them in and listened while they asked all the obvious questions. Did she recognize her attacker? Did he use a weapon? And so forth. Lora answered honestly and they left.
After a light dinner, Lora went to bed, but she couldn’t sleep. Not with the day’s events running through her mind—and fears about the future to confront. But after an hour of lying there, she was able to drift off. A jumble of troubled dreams was waiting for her.
Lora was in pain when she awoke. Everything hurt. So she hobbled into the bathroom, swallowed a pain pill, and began to take inventory. There was a scratch on one cheek, her upper lip was swollen, and an angry-looking bruise appeared as she removed her tee. She touched it, winced, and turned to the shower. Having kicked her panties off, Lora stepped in under the pulsating spray. It hurt like hell. She made the necessary adjustment and uttered a sigh of relief. She knew that soaping herself would be painful, so she let that step go and just stood there, water running down her body, wondering if that was the last hot shower she would ever have.
After toweling off and getting dressed, Lora listened to see if her father was up and around. He wasn’t, and that was just as well, because there was something she wanted to do—no, had to do. Something he wouldn’t approve of.
School was going to start in an hour, so when she sent the text message to Matt, she was pretty sure that he would respond; the reply came seconds later. Lora put her comset in her pocket, slipped out of the apartment, and made her way to the central elevators. Each step was painful and made all the more so by her attempts to walk normally. There wasn’t any way to conceal the fat lip, but the last thing she wanted to do was attract attention by limping across the sky bridge.
However, most of the people she encountered were on their way to work and not inclined to pay much attention to those around them. Still, when Lora got off on Level 7, she took a quick look around to make sure that she wasn’t under observation. As far as she could tell, no one was paying attention to her.
So she crossed a sky bridge to the east side and followed the circular walkway to the spot where she and the rest of the students in Agro 105 were installing the new irrigation system and where Luke had attacked her. There was one last hose to attach to the manifold, and she was determined to finish the job before leaving the Sanctuary.
After removing a screwdriver from a plastic toolbox, she went over to the spot where she’d had been working the day before and lowered herself to the ground. Various parts of her body still hurt, but not as badly as before. Maybe a little bit of exercise would be good for her.
And that’s where she was, making the final connection, when Matt arrived. He was dressed for school and sat down next to her. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. They arrested Luke… and a good thing too.”
Lora completed the hookup and then sat cross-legged. “He deserves it—that’s for sure.” She was silent for a moment. “Matt…”
“Yeah?”
“Can you keep a secret? An important secret?”
“Sure. How ‘bout that time you cut school? I never told.”
“No, you didn’t. And I appreciate that. Well, here’s the deal. My father and some of his friends are going to leave the hab about nine o’clock tonight. And I’m going with them.”
“Holy cow! You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope, I’m not kidding. We’re going to take some seeds to people who need them. But I couldn’t leave without telling you. You’re the only friend I have.”
Matt looked embarrassed. “Yeah, well, that goes for me too. If you leave I’ll be all alone.”
“You’ll have Cory.”
“Do me a favor… Take him with you.”
Lora laughed as she stood. “Thanks for everything, Matt. And remember, don’t tell.”
“I won’t,” Matt promised. “Take care of yourself.”
Lora turned and walked away. Tears were flowing by then, and she didn’t want him to see.
The rest of the day passed slowly—from her perspective, at least. Because unlike her father, who had lots of mysterious errands to run, all Lora could do was place some personal items in a case her father gave her and wait. They had dinner at six and tried to take naps, but Lora couldn’t sleep.
Finally seven forty-five rolled around and George gave Lora a final briefing. “Okay, hon, we’re going to leave at eight o’clock straight up. Bring the case I gave you but nothing else. It would look suspicious if we were seen carrying all sorts of stuff through the habitat. That’s why everything we need was assembled over a period of months and is stored close to our point of departure.”
“What about clothes?” Lora wanted to know.
“Like I said, everything you’ll need is waiting for you. Now, when we leave the apartment, we will follow the walkway to Corridor Four, and that will lead us back to the emergency stairwell.” Lora was familiar with the stairwells, having used them for short trips from level to level and during fire drills, so she nodded.
“We’re going to follow the stairwell all the way down,” her father declared. “I have a key to the door at the bottom. It will allow us to access one of the catwalks that we use to maintain the biofiltration plant.”
George was a biofiltration engineer, one of a team responsible for the habitat’s septic system and wastewater treatment plant. As such, he had access to the area under the Sanctuary’s lowest level. “Once we reach the central column,” George continued, “we’ll board a service elevator.” That was important because the regular elevators were transparent.
“Once we reach the very top, one of our people will be there to let us into the A Deck maintenance area,” George continued. “That’s where we’ll gear up prior to opening a hatch and leaving the Sanctuary. Do you have any questions?”
Lora had questions. Lots of them. Would the leavers be able to leave? Would the barbarians kill them? Would she freeze to death? But Lora couldn’t bring herself to voice her fears, not given the look of bright-eyed excitement on her father’s face. So she shook her head. “No, I don’t have any questions.”
“Okay,” George said. “Let’s take one last look around. It’s the last time you’ll see this dump.”
But it wasn’t a dump. It was Lora’s home, the only one she could remember. She knew there had been an upper-level apartment once, back before her father began to express his political views, back when her mother was alive. Lora felt a momentary longing for the mother she had never known, double-checked to make sure that the picture of her was in the case, and wondered if her death had something to do with her father’s radical views.