The sky was a beautiful and deadly place. Gazing out the open bay door, Zane stared into the expanse.
No matter how magnificent the vast field of blue was, there was the constant and imminent threat of falling thirty-five thousand feet. Zane pictured his body somersaulting through the air, dipping through the clouds, the real clouds. It was a strangely appealing thought. Free-falling through the air had a sliver of beauty to it. He could know he was going to die in a couple of minutes, so he wouldn't have to worry. He could be free.
But he couldn't get over the fact at how real the sky looked. It had depth, unpredictabilites, a personality. The clouds moved of their own accord, pushed by the wind currents that shocked Zane with their suddenness. The sun was blindingly bright, and its harshness was nowhere near that of the fluorescent New Vancouver sun. He breathed in the sky air and forgot about their precarious situation, if not for a moment.
When Zane lifted his eyes and saw the jets, his hands went instinctively to his belt until he realized his knives were lying on a bed in New Vancouver. But he somehow felt relieved they weren't there with him. They only served as a reminder of Wawrzynski.
Looking around, he realized the others had discarded their weapons as well. If the weapons they'd had were essentially useless, what had Wawrzynski truly intended for them?
Zane could only come up with one explanation. Whatever Wawrzynski had planned for them, it had gone awry when they'd escaped. In a world dominated by nuclear weapons and heat-seeking missiles, what use was there for medieval weapons? Whatever Wawrzynski had initially intended, it was obviously impossible now.
It gave Zane a sense of satisfaction to know that, despite the man hounding them like Daisy hounded a box of Froot Loops, Zane and his friends were able to outwit him. They had proved Wawrzynski was unable to restrain them or control them, and in doing so, Zane felt far more empowered than ever. He felt they could truly escape the man's clutches.
The Shaurya missile was gaining, ever so slowly closing the distance between itself and their jet. Jonas was breathing heavily, his feet planted halfway down the descended bay door, his chest heaving. "Get back," he said softly, directing them backward with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Zane took the cue and retreated, placing his body as far away from the oppressive blue sky just feet in front of him. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively and self-preservingly.
The missile was within one hundred meters now, and still gaining. The plane stayed level, Anastasia freakishly calm and controlled when a nuclear explosion was imminent. Zane's knees wobbled nonetheless, nervousness creeping in and flooding his veins. It was like a drug.
Jonas heaved a deep breath and shoved his hands out toward the missile.
His glasses flew off his face with such a force they could have killed somebody. They twirled in the air, spinning vicious circles until they vanished from sight, swept up by the intense wind outside the plane.
And then Jonas shot backward like a bullet from a gun.
He hollered in fear and pain and defiance. His form starfished in midair, his arms and legs spreading wide. Zane clapped a hand over his mouth as a sickening bang echoed. Jonas's body had struck the wall next to the door to the bunking quarters. He whimpered once and slid down to the ground. His eyes bulged.
Zane looked back toward the missile, which was now flipping end over end, somersaulting through the sky like Zane had recently imagined his body doing. Its heat sensors and radar detector had clearly been jammed, for it redirected itself into the sky, shooting straight up.
With a deafening boom, it detonated in midair, several kilometers above them. The two other jets swerved to avoid the shrapnel the explosion made.
Zane rushed to Jonas, who waved him off vaguely. "It doesn't hurt that much," he said, yanking his shoulder back into place where it had dislodged once again. He gritted his teeth and stood up. "I have to do something about those planes."
He hobbled back to the bay door as the two jets regained their balance and resumed their course.
Jonas turned his head. "Zane, Joseph, grab those metal bars," he said, directing them to the steel posts that allowed the bay door to open and close. "You three, link between them and me," he said, indicating Mallory, Marcus, and Daisy.
They did as asked, Zane's hand encircling the thick metal pole. It was slightly slippery, oiled up so the door slid down easily. He bit his tongue as they all linked hands, Jonas in the middle facing the enormous jets.
"Hold on," Jonas warned. "It's going to get very strenuous in here." He smiled, turned, and closed his eyes.
Almost at once, Zane felt an incredible pressure on his wrist. Daisy had gripped it so hard his wrist popped. Mallory was screaming, struggling to maintain her grip on Joseph and Marcus's hands.
And then Zane noticed Jonas.
The boy's feet were sliding forward, finding no purchase upon the steel floor where the others found much. His arms were thrown backward, his body pulled outside the cabin by an intense force, the same one Zane had witnessed in New Vancouver at the hangar. His body was being drawn forward as if hell-bent on escaping the plane.
The air outside rushed past viciously, adding to the already barely manageable weight of the force acting on Jonas. Zane's arms felt like they were being ripped apart and broken into shreds, but he held on. He grasped Daisy even tighter as he struggled to keep his hand wrapped around the thick metal pole.
The effect on the two jets was immediate. They wobbled in midair and sped up, pulled to Jonas by the same invisible force he was tethered to them with. They came in from opposite sides, using the unseen force to their advantage. They converged on the lone plane, speeding up faster and faster as the pull strengthened.
Zane cried out as he felt his fingers begin to slip. The film of oil was making his hands and the pole extremely slippery. He planted his feet on the steel surface beneath his feet, but he began to slide just like Jonas. He feared they would soon go over the edge.
Jonas opened his mouth. Zane presumed it was to scream, but he was wrong. "Anastasia, full speed ahead!" he yelled back into the jet, his voice reverberating to the cockpit where she sat.
With a sudden jolt, the invisible force pulling Jonas disappeared, and they all tumbled backward, crashing to the ground. Zane smacked his head against the ground, but shook off the pain immediately. The jet shot forward and they all slid back toward the door. Their hands still linked, Zane grabbed the metal pole he'd been holding a moment before. Joseph did the same.
Jonas stopped with his knees hanging off the door, his legs swinging over the terrifyingly beautiful skyscape.
Zane watched as the two planes converged.
Without the plane in between them, the two New Vancouver jets collided in a fiery explosion, shattering debris in a wide radius. Zane gaped as large chunks of metal fell through the clouds, disappearing from view. In several moments, there was no evidence of the impact aside from a large column of black smoke rising into the sky.
"Woah," Zane muttered, awestruck at the event he'd just witnessed. Then he pulled everybody else back up with Joseph's help. Anastasia closed the bay door and they all stood up, free of any external force threatening to drag them into the atmosphere.
Joseph turned toward Jonas. "You're magnetic," he said. Zane creased his eyebrows. "In New Vancouver, it was the tasers that charged the air and pulled you in different directions." Jonas lowered his gaze, not meeting Joseph's eyes. "You dispelled that Shaurya missile and drew in those planes so they would crash."
Zane realized he was right. It was the only plausible explanation for what happened. What else could have pushed and pulled against Jonas so fiercely, hard enough to throw him backward at high speed and forward with such immense force? Zane remembered the sunglasses and how they had flown off of Jonas's face. The frames had been metal.
Jonas did not acknowledge Joseph's contradictions. He only looked back up, found Zane's eyes, and said, "Those were my favorite sunglasses."
A rumble of nervous laughter echoed through the plane as Jonas stood up shakily, cradling his injured arm. The strain had surely dislocated it again. Zane felt a pang of pity as he hobbled back to the cockpit to relieve Anastasia of her flight duties.
"Why didn't he say anything before?" Daisy asked. "That went on far longer than it should have." Her arms were crossed over her chest in a defensive position.
Zane sat down. "It could have killed him," he said.
"It could have saved us a lot of agony,"
Zane felt a spark of anger. "So his life is expendable?" he demanded, protecting the only other person he felt understood him. "If he dies but we all live, that's fine by you?"
Daisy spluttered. "That's not what I-"
"It is what you meant!" Zane yelled.
"No, it's not. I only meant we know shit about him," she responded. She began counting on her fingers. "We don't know where he came from and we don't know why he left." She tilted her head toward Zane. "I assume he's a magnet because of Wawrzynski, so how did he escape? It took five of us to get out of that place."
"Anastasia escaped by herself,"
Daisy's gaze softened, taking on a more normal expression with a glimmer of humor in her eyes. "Touché," she shot back. She continued counting. "We don't know how he found us, how he knows how to fly a jet, or why he helped us escape." She opened her other hand. "We don't even know his last name, Zane!"
Zane took a deep breath, unsure of what he should share with them of Jonas's past. But if Jonas truly wanted to be accepted by them, they'd have to know everything. They were no strangers to awful backstories.
Zane told them everything Jonas had told him, from being Wawrzynski's foster son to the danger of his microchip overheating. They listened intently, if not with a twinge of distrust and betrayal. He knew Jonas could hear what he was saying, but he didn't care. Anastasia had descended the ladder recently and was listening as well.
When he finished, their gazes were varied, Joseph's shocked and a little angry, Marcus's contorted in remembrance, Mallory's flooded with distrust. Daisy was nodding as if agreeing to a simple statement.
Anastasia was baffled. "He voluntarily injected himself with Wawrzynski's serum?" she asked unbelievingly. Zane nodded. "Why?"
"I think Wawrzynski realized he was a threat to his power, a cache of secrets. Jonas injected himself so he could have a way to defend himself if it came to a confrontation." Zane tapped his leg. "Jonas left before that happened, took shelter in that old bookstore. I don't know how long he was there, but he found me this morning. He must have seen his chance to escape."
"So he used you to get out of the city,"
"It's not using me if we had the same goal," Zane said confidently. "I wanted to escape. The feeling was mutual."
Joseph leaned closer. "If you had the same goal then, what does he want now?"
Zane had no answer.
Jonas did.
"I'm going wherever you go," he yelled from the cockpit. "Zane is my only reminder that New Vancouver has the capacity to do good. As soon as I saw him on the street, I knew I had to go wherever he was going, because somebody like him was the reason I ran away from Father. I had proof that not everything in New Vancouver deserved the rage I'd felt. I'm afraid it'll come back if I lose Zane."
Daisy chuckled and leaned toward Zane. "Another victory for the persuasiveness of Zane Morrison," she whispered. Zane fought the urge to roll his eyes at her.
The conversation faded into silence, the weight of Jonas's sacrifices weighing down on them. At one point, Zane pulled the files he'd liberated from Wawrzynski's office and flipped through them.
He only read his own personal file. He knew he would be invading their privacy if he read the others' files.
Just as he'd suspected, a large word had been scrawled underneath his New Vancouver citizen picture. Countermeasure. Below, it elaborated. Subject A7's rebellion is to be quelled with Subject A8, a model citizen without prejudice or revolutionary thoughts. The anticipation is that both will survive the procedure and receive the gifts the serum offers, becoming perfect weapons for the upcoming war.
Zane skimmed through the several pages after, which were just descriptions of the procedures performed on him and the results of the serum. On the last page, written over and over in black marker, making them pop out of the page, were the words Extremely powerful. Must be contained. Zane halted at this page for several moments before continuing. Whatever Wawrzynski wanted wasn't relevant anymore. Zane refused to acknowledge his growing concern at the words he's just read.
He flipped open the next file and came upon a pile of printed email correspondence between New Vancouver and various other nations. Why they had used email instead of holographic projections, Zane would never know.
The first email was sent to the most prestigious cities in the world. As soon as his eyes landed on the message, he knew exactly what it was. This was what had been sent to large cities to recruit subjects for the experiment. He saw the inquiry about twins, troubled kids, or rebellious teenagers. Zane held in his hand the exact document that had landed them all here together. This letter had caused everything.
He must have stared at it for a long time, because at some point, Joseph leaned over and said, "What's that?" His face was creased worriedly, his eyebrows drawing together.
Zane passed the email to him, the paper feeling rather heavy in his hand. Joseph's eyes scanned the message as his own eyes returned to the stack of papers before him.
The email circulated as Zane's eyes widened at what he was reading. It couldn't be possible, could it? Gasps circulated the bay at the email being passed around, but their reactions would be nothing compared to what he held in his hands.
Zane flipped through more pages, willing the first one he'd read to be a fluke, but email after email followed, all directed to a particular nation.
"This is awful," Marcus said. "This is what got me here."
"That's not the worst of it," Zane said, his right eye twitching. His fingers trembled as he held up the correspondence in his hand. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest and flop around the plane like a dead fish.
He looked at them all in turn. "Japan wasn't the only place to go silent," he said sadly. "New Vancouver joined them."
Joseph's eyes widened. "They're allies,"
Zane nodded. "We're not preparing to fight a war against Japan. We're preparing to fight one with Japan." He hadn't realized he'd referred to New Vancouver as we until after he'd said it. Nobody seemed to notice.
Everyone's astonished gazes followed his hand back to the folder where he laid the revelational email down. They seemed too dumbfounded to speak.
And then a nasally female voice chimed in from the cockpit, the scratchy tone echoing around the plane. "Intruders identified," it sang. "Automatic pilot remotely engaged."