Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles #1)(73)
Gavin turns to frown at me. “What’s going on?” he asks as my veins turn to ice.
I don’t need to hear the screams from the passengers in the cars up ahead to realize what’s happened.
“She’s flooded the tube,” I manage to say before a wave of freezing water rushes into the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Caution: For your safety, Sector Three is under quarantine until further notice. There is a possible biohazard situation due to leaks in labs and mechanical areas. Failure to follow instructions could result in injury or death.
—SIGN LOCATED IN TUBE STATION, SECTOR TWO
It takes no time at all for the freezing water to fill the car. The saltwater sears my eyes and the wound in my arm, but I bite the inside of my cheeks to prevent myself from screaming out. I need to get to the rebreathers. I know they’re around here somewhere. It’s not like I haven’t done countless emergency drills for just this occasion, but I can’t remember where they are.
The cold water has made not only my limbs and body cold, but seems to have frozen my brain, too. I spin around in circles, little bubbles of air foaming around me as I look for anything that resembles storage. I refuse to even look at Gavin and see the panic and fear in his eyes. It won’t help me find the rebreathers, and will only remind me how hopeless things are.
Finally I see it: a little door on the floor. I swim down and start tugging on the silver handle. Gavin quickly realizes what I’m doing and swims next to me to help me pry open the door. Finally the whole door pops off and he tosses it to the side, where it slowly drifts back to the floor.
Inside are several rebreathers. They look like black vests, but there’s a tube that juts off to one side and has a mouthpiece attached to it. There’s a large red button on top of the mouthpiece.
Lungs screaming, I grab one and shove the mouthpiece into Gavin’s mouth, pressing the red button. Instantly, I doubt myself. It was the red button, right? But what’s that gray one? Red and black spots form in front of my eyes and I can hardly see to grab my own rebreather.
I have to breathe. Just one little breath. That’s all I need.
As I open my mouth to do just that, something is pushed past my teeth. I taste rubber and saltwater and only instinct prevents me from choking by shoving my tongue into the mouth piece when Gavin presses the purge button and a rush of saltwater tries pushing into my mouth, but when I inhale through my mouth, sweet, sweet oxygen pours into my lungs.
I greedily gulp in air, gently kicking my legs to keep me buoyant. When the spots recede, I see Gavin is watching me. He gives me a questioning look and a thumbs-up. I return it and he hugs me, his strong arms pinning me to his chest.
That’s when I remember the other people in the other cars. I yank on his arm and swim down the tube outside the train as fast as I can. My arm screams with the movement, but I don’t stop. If those Citizens didn’t get to the rebreathers, we may still have enough time to help them. With a mixture of relief and horror, I see there is only one car with people in it, and even then it’s only a handful. Unfortunately, none of them got to the rebreathers in time. They’re all just floating at the top of the train, their eyes glassy with death, the rebreathers floating next to them.
I share a horrified look with Gavin. How could she do that? How could she just kill people without a thought? These people had done nothing except get on the wrong train at the wrong time.
Gavin pulls me out of the car toward the end of the tube. I’m relieved for his help. My arm protests each time I try to use it to swim. When we get to it, the huge metal doors are locked tight. I don’t know how to open them.
I signal for Gavin to look for some sort of release on the left side, while I swim to the right, but it doesn’t really matter, I don’t know how Mother flooded the tunnels. Water could still be pouring in. And if it is, what happens if we do open the doors? Will we flood the Sector, killing more innocent people? And if we can’t open the doors, what happens? The rebreathers won’t last forever.
After a few minutes of swimming up the side of the main door, my fingers find some kind of lever. It shows a picture of a filled tube on the top of the lever and an empty tube if I pull the lever down. I yank the lever. And even though fire erupts in my shoulder, the lever doesn’t budge. Not so much as a millimeter. Then I notice the scanner on the side of the lever. Hoping Mother hasn’t gotten past the new security I placed in her computer and I’m still in the system, I place my hand on it. The pad blinks red as it scans my palm, then green.
I try pulling the lever again and this time it slides easily. The water slowly drains until I’m no longer able to swim and am standing on the tracks next to Gavin.
He pulls the mouthpiece out. “What’s going on?”
“I think we’re waiting for the tube to drain completely. Then the doors should open.”
As if to prove me right, the doors stutter open with the sound of grinding gears and clinking metal. Using the tracks as leverage, we climb up the slight embankment toward Sector Three’s Tube station.
When we get to the station, I collapse onto the platform. No one is around. Probably already in their new quarters, ushered there by Guards and Enforcers. My eyes and arm are on fire. I just want to curl into a ball until the pain goes away, but Gavin has other ideas.