Surviving Patorum

Chapter 19

The deafening silence starkly contrasts the piercing alarm that was on moments ago, but my heart still beats like a racehorse galloping down a track.

The silence reminds me that I'm wasting precious breaths of air each second I stand here, eyes staring wildly at Dally's hardened expression. My mind imagines the compound full of dead bodies turning plum from losing oxygen, and my stomach feels like I just rode a rollercoaster. Thousands of people. Gone. In just a few moments. That's what the future holds if I cannot figure out how to turn the MOXIE back on.

And how will I turn it back on? I don't even know where the damn thing is, let alone how to work it. Dr. Shepard could be in Air Purification, across the compound and up a few flights of stairs, or in his residence wondering why the emergency alarm is going off. He could even be in the Hub staring up at the Control Room like everyone else who came to investigate.

What do I do? Do I stay in here and risk suffocating to death trying to turn the MOXIE back on? Or do I go out there, risk being captured, to find Dr. Shepard? Both can kill me. It seems like there's no correct answer.

"What do we do?" Dally asks. I could see him taking shallow breaths, and I didn't notice I was, too, until my lungs ached for air.

"Either figure out how to turn the MOXIE back on or find Dr. Shepard. He was the one who invented it, and he'd know what to do."

"We can't leave the Control Room," Dally hesitates. His eyes flick to the door, and his finger fidgets with the hem of his flannel. "We'll get shot."

"I know," I take a deep breath, but it feels more like breathing in water than air. Am I already dying? "What's our best option? What do you think has a better chance at succeeding?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dally says while starting to pace. "We need just to pick one. We're running out of time."

A thunderous boom comes from the Control Room door, and my head snaps to the screen showing the camera footage from the Hub. My stomach drops when I see a group of guards standing at the door, bashing on it with the butt of their guns. And it's not a small group. There's a whole brigade of them. There's more than I can count on my two hands. I see the people below watching as the guards scream at us to open the door.

"Fuck!" Dally's hands grab fistfuls of his shaggy hair. His eyes move frantically around the room, and he starts to walk in a circle in complete panic. "What do we do?"

"We open the door."

"What?" Dally stops in his tracks. "If we open that door, we're dead."

"But if we don't open that door, we're dead."

"Can't we just hope they figure it out?" The urgency in Dally's voice makes the anxiety creep back up my spine. Dally's not scared of anything. But knowing he's worried now makes me feel helpless, like there's no hope of figuring out what to do. This might be the end of my life.

"They'll most likely need the Control Room to turn it back on. Dally, trust me. We're going ot be fine." I step toward the electronic pad that opens the airlock door. I know I can withstand a bullet to the chest, so if I distract the guards from Dally, maybe he can get away before I end up dead. "Brace yourself," I say, and Dally pauses but eventually nods his head slowly in approval.

I place my finger on the control pad, and the airlock door opens with a hiss.

"Get down!" The first guard that enters the room screams at me. The tip of his gun digs into the side of my torso, and I yelp in pain as I'm sent to the floor. The rest of the guards storm inside the room, enclosing us in a circle. I'm hit again, but this time with the tip of a metal boot. Shocks of pain send waves down my legs; at that moment, I don't think I'll be able to walk again. I try and move my arms to cover my torso, but they're yanked to my back. A guard jumps onto me and pins my body to the floor by sitting on my crossed arms. I grunt, pushing the pain down my throat as my head digs into the metal flooring. "Don't shoot!" I end up getting out of my mouth.