“Please tell me you’re part of the Resistance,” he said at last.
I rolled my eyes at Jolie. “No, we’re just a couple of crazy kids with some TX-97s and a dream,” I said, patting my weapon. “Of course we’re part of the Resistance.”
“So am I,” he said. “My name is Ansel. I’m from B-97-250.”
“How did you get there?” I asked, nodding my head back at the outpost.
His face grew ashen. “We’re—we were advance scouts under our soccer coach, Mr. Tsu. Those guys took my whole team and tried to get us to talk. I was the last one.” His voice choked and he scrubbed a dirty, sweaty hand over his eyes.
Jolie took his hand. I-M-S-O-R-R-Y, she wrote. He looked mystified.
“Concentrate on what letters she’s writing in your palm,” I told him, and she wrote it again.
“Thanks,” he told her.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” I asked.
“At the bottom of a gully about a quarter-mile away,” he said, his voice sounding thick. “Not even burned.”
“Okay, Ansel, we’re about to come up to the rest of our team, who are waiting for us,” I told him.
“There’s a cell, B-24-23, not far from here,” he said. “We were headed to it.”
“That’s where we’re headed, too,” I said. “Gotta patch up one of our team.”
“Do you know about the city?” he asked.
I stopped and looked at him. “Yeah, we know about it. What do you know?”
“I know it’s the capital of the United,” he said, and my stomach turned over. “And they call it Chi-ca-go.”
I schooled my expression, trying not to look shocked.
“And,” he added grimly, “I know how to get in.”
56
WE INTRODUCED ANSEL TO BUNNY, Mills, and Nate, and the six of us agreed to make for Cell B-24-23 as fast as we could.
Its gate was closed, which was unusual. We’d have to take a chance that there was a friendly house here. In one of the deepest shadows of the boundary fence’s perimeter I crouched and took the wire cutters out of my pack. Soon we could bend back enough of the fence to crawl through.
Our field rations were just about gone, and there were now six of us again. Nate and Ansel both looked like they were running on empty, like they might fall over if they stopped plodding forward. The rest of us were hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. I knew if we weren’t, we’d be racing toward the humongous city we’d seen. It was just so hard to believe something like that existed.
Unlike at home, this cell wasn’t ringed by farms, acres of wheat and corn, fenced-in pastures with softly breathing horses or cattle. Instead, right after the traditional thicket of conifers blocking the sight of the boundary fence, we were immediately in a neighborhood.
“Fancy,” Mills said under his breath.
It was fancy, like the nicest part of downtown back home. But this wasn’t the downtown—it should be the boondocks. It was strange for everything to be this nice: houses painted, gardens manicured, no laundry forgotten in the chilly night.
“What’s that?” Bunny whispered, pointing.
Mills scoffed. “It’s a car, duh. Like a Provost’s car.”
“But it’s not,” I said. “Look—this can’t be a whole street of Provosts. Every one of these cars is super fancy.”
“It’s weird,” Nate said. “Keep looking for a sign, guys.”
Back home, our house had needed painting. Lots of people’s had. It all depended on how good your harvest had been. This place was just… really nice. We walked quietly down street after street, looking for a sign. The farther we got from the perimeter fence, the edgier I felt. As tired as I was, a cold drip of adrenaline trickled into my veins, making me alert and jumpy.