“Because it could have all been a ruse. You might have just been trying to bait other hepers into coming out. It was a real possibility. So I just kept watching you. Even snooped around your house during the day.”
“So there was someone outside!”
Her shoulders slumped forward. “You should have come out. I was hoping you would. I stood waiting, hoping you'd open the door, step out into the sunshine. See me, standing right there in the sun with you. all mystery gone, everything out in the open, just like that.” She pauses. “Just think how things would be so different. If that really did happen back then instead of just now.”
I pick up the bottle at my feet, uncap it, and hand it to her.
She nods her thanks. I watch her mouth as she tilts the bottle toward her, her upper lip pressing into the opening as her lips slowly part.
Water pours out; a thin trail snakes down her neck and gathers behind her col arbone.
“Wel ,” she says, recapping the bottle, “here we are.”
I shift my legs under me. “You have a plan,” I say. “I saw you up to something in the Control Center, snooping around, asking questions.”
“What was a plan,” she says with mild frustration. “It wasn't going to work, I quickly saw that.”
“Which was?”
“I knew going in that I couldn't let the Hunt take place. It would completely expose me— there's no way I can keep up with the pace, the running. And even if I could, I'd be breathless and sweaty by the time we reached the hepers. And even if I weren't hot and sweaty— and I most defi nitely would be— there's no way I could eat the hepers. Kil them, yes, I could do that, but eating them? No way.”
I nod. That's exactly how I see things.
She continues. “So then I thought: What if I could somehow sabotage the whole Hunt? What if I could fi nd a way to lower the wal s of the Dome at night? The hepers would be left out there exposed and for the taking. Everyone would be fl ying out there, hunters and staffers within seconds.
Just like that, in one fel swoop, and no Hunt anymore.”
“Except?”
“Except there's no way to lower the Dome wal s. No button to push, no lever to pul , no combination of buttons to press.
It's all automated by sunlight sensors.” Her voice, which has been rising, suddenly stops. Then quieter: “So that took me to Plan B. That was what happened today. Except it turned out more like Plan B Fail.”
“You used the sun protection equipment,” I say quietly, fi nal y understanding why she and Beefy ran outside. “You used them to convince him. That with the equipment, he could get to the heper vil age even in the daytime. Where he'd have the hepers all to himself.”
She nods. “That's what I told him. That's what I was hoping for.
I knew the equipment wouldn't work for long, not against the afternoon sun. But if it got him halfway there, close enough to see and smel the hepers, it wouldn't matter anymore.
His desire for heper fl esh would take over, he'd choose the taste of heper even if it meant dying in the sun.”
“You were right. That's what happened. He total y lost it.”
“He wouldn't believe me at fi rst. But then I told him I didn't care what he believed, I was going out to get the hepers al for myself, he could stay inside and eat leftover pasteurized blood and pro cessed meats for all I cared. He saw me fl ying out with the protective blanket, saw how the equipment seemed to be really working. So then he came out himself.”
“It almost worked,” I say quietly.
“How close did he get to them?”
“You didn't see?”
She shakes her head. “I fainted, completely blacked out.
When I came to, you were walking back already, the Dome closed. I mean, I could see he didn't make it.”
I'm glad she didn't see. She would be asking me why I tried to stop Beefy. And I wouldn't be able to answer her.
Because even I don't know. “Do you have a Plan C?” I ask.
She scratches her wrist. “How about I tel you after you tel me your Plan A?”
I pause. “Break my leg.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hours before the Hunt begins, fal down a fl ight of stairs.”
“For real?”
“Yes.”
“That's pretty lame. There are so many holes in that, I can't even begin.”
“Like what?”
“Wel , for starters, breaking a leg without spil ing blood is possible, perhaps, but I wouldn't want to stake my life on those chances.
For starters.”
I don't say anything.
“Any other plan?”
“Wel , I just thought of another one. We have FLUNs now.
We can just take out the other hunters.”
She stares incredulously at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You're not serious?”
“What? What's wrong with that plan?”
“Where do I start? Ten seconds into the race, they'l be out of range. Leaving us behind. With the hundreds of spectators gawking at us, wondering why we're so slow.
We'l be barely out of the gate before we're mauled to death.”
I raise my hand, then stop. Ever so slowly, it fal s back down.
“Should I go on?” she asks, a friendly smirk on her face.
“No, it's okay—”
“My Plan C, then,” she says. “I also only recently thought of it”— a fl ash of humor in her eyes—“so we'l need to work out the kinks. But do you remember when the Director was tel ing us about the start of the Hunt? How an hour before dusk, the building will be locked down to prevent any bandit hunters? Wel , that got me thinking. What if we were somehow able to disengage the lockdown? With all the hundreds of guests already here for the Gala, there's—”
“Going to be a chaotic free- for- all ,” I say, nodding.
“Disengage the lockdown, and suddenly everyone's going to be tearing out of this building, hunting down the hepers.
Sheer pandemonium as all the guests and staffers rush out into the Vast. Nobody's going to even notice our absence.”
“And two hours later and all the hepers are dead. Hunt over.
We survive. Us,” she whispers. And her eyes hook into mine. Something stirs in me.
I stare at her, nodding slowly. Then I stop, shake my head.
“There's one fl aw.”
“Which is?”
“We don't know how to disengage the lockdown.”
Her eyes twinkle. “Yes, we do. And it's easy. For us, anyway.
The other day, when we were visiting the Control Center, I was snooping around. A guy started tel ing me about how the lockdown works. Can you believe it's a button? Push the button down, and lockdown is set for an hour before dusk; push the same button again and the setting is canceled.”
“No way. Can't be that simple. For security, they'd have to —”
“And they already have a fail- safe system. The sun. They don't close the shutters in the Control Center in the daytime, remember?
To keep people out. So that means the only time you can cancel the lockdown setting— before dusk— sunlight is pouring in. You can't get to it. They can't get to it. More effective than if that button were surrounded by laser beams and a moat of acid. It's genius.”
“And so is our plan.”
“My plan,” she adds quickly, the suggestion of a smile on her lips.
“It really might work,” I say, excitement uncharacteristical y slipping into my voice. “That really might work.” We rack our brains, trying to fi nd weaknesses in the plan. By our silence, I know we can't fi nd any.
“I need to wash up. Shave.”
The water feels good on my face. I scrub my neck, my armpits, and then there's no water left. I take out the blade, graze my skin just so. My nails are chipped in a few places, but nothing to worry about. Just a few more nights, then I get to go home. That's the plan, so it seems.
When I walk back, she's gone. I glance up at the clock. Just past six, ten more minutes of daylight.
Only she hasn't left. She's in the reference section, where the sunbeam is. She's holding a book up in the air, her back to me. The beam of light is hitting her square in the chest.
“So you found the beam.”
She spins around and the sight of her face— haloed by the light— still s me. There's a gentle smile on her face, a daring display of emotion. I feel wal s between us crashing down, dirt bricks and cement chunks hitting the ground, the feel of fresh air and gentle sunshine on pale, deprived skin.
“Hi.” Her voice is tentative but friendly, like shy arms extended, hopeful for but uncertain of an embrace.
We look at each other. I try not to stare, but my eyes keep snapping back toward her. “You found the beam.”
“Hard to miss. But what's it all about?”
“You don't know the half of it. So much more than meets the eye.” I walk over to where she's standing. “At just the right time of day, the beam shines at the far wal ”— I walk her over—“then re-fl ects off this smal mirror, creating a second beam that shoots off to another mirror over there. It then hits this spot right around here, on this bookshelf right at this journal—”
It's gone.
“Oh, you mean this journal?” she asks, holding it up in her hands.
“How did you—”
“It was the only book not shelved, just lying here on this table.
It's been here for a while, even back to when the Director met us here. So I put two and two together. You must have forgotten to put it back.”
“Have you looked inside it? The Scientist guy, he wrote a whole bunch of stuff in it. Pretty out there.” I look at her. “He was just like us, you know.”
“How so?”
“You know.” My eyes look down.
