Beneath the Red Sand

34 || Chapter Thirty-Four

Dinner ends with an announcement of a community meeting tomorrow night. Noah, Jacqui, and I head upstairs for our patrol shift. We're running late, so we don't claim our usual table in the atrium. There are still no cupcakes to be had, anyway. Tonight is our last night patrolling here. After this, we'll patrol around the greenhouse.

As I bring up my scanner, I frown when an image of someone else in the area appears on my screen. Nobody but Jacqui, Noah, and I should be here because of that stupid curfew still in effect. I hope they're going to abolish it tomorrow night at the meeting. Maybe we can rally enough support for our cause to make it happen. I mean, come on, we have to live, fully live, not just survive. Shouldn't patrolling the whole habitat be enough to put a stop to the danger? I hate the way Colonel James is making us put our lives on hold for the next seven months in the name of safety and security. It feels like an eternity. Maybe once the readings confirm that we can go outside of the habitat without the need for spacesuits, they'll lift the ban on being out after hours.

I zoom in on the figure on my screen and stop short. It's Colonel James. I've got to figure out what he's doing. Casually, I continue strolling my usual pattern through the now-shuttered art gallery and around to the depressingly dark recording studio, then around to the quieter hallways toward the crew stairway. That's where Colonel James stands, and he hasn't moved since I've been here, which is odd. He's waiting for something or someone. Up ahead, Jacqui is also heading this way from the opposite direction, and she's closer to the colonel than I am. Now I wish she'd taken Noah with her, but he's patrolling the other end of the floor from us. Sure, they both have to see who is here, too, but it'd be safer patrolling together rather than splitting up. In case our communications are being monitored through the scanner, I don't say anything to alert Noah. At first, I keep ambling toward them as if everything's fine, but then I break out into a run when the colonel grabs Jacqui by her arm. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. He knows about us breaking into his office and hacking into the computer. He could be taking her to the brig, or worse, kidnapping her.

"Let me go!" she screams, her voice echoing all along the hallway as he drags her away.

"Hey! What are you doing?" My shout gets their attention as I approach them, and both turn to me, Jacqui's eyes wide and terrified and Colonel James' lit with malice. I skid to a stop and freeze as he holds out a gun pointed at Jacqui's head.

"You two and that friend of yours, Noah, have been stirring up a lot of trouble — breaking into my office, hacking into my files to view top-secret information, having secret meetings with the aliens who are trying to kill us all. You're coming with me now. We're going to have a little chat about all this."

"We're not going anywhere with you," I say, hoping he's bluffing about using the gun. He wouldn't shoot us, would he? He works with our parents and would have to answer to them if we went missing or turned up dead.

"Oh, I think you'll do whatever I say if you want to live," he says, his voice flat and gaze fixed on me, unflinching. He holds his finger steady on the trigger, ready to pull it, and I know he's not bluffing. "Let's go."

The colonel aims the gun at me this time, and my insides freeze like they're filling with ice. My muscles stiffen, then shake like Jell-O. He really would have no compunction about killing either of us, and maybe he will, but if we die, someone's eventually going to know what happened to us. He can't make us disappear. I'll make sure whatever happens, he won't get away with it. My grip on my scanner tightens, and with a small movement I hope won't betray me, I press the record button with my finger to make sure it's set to send this conversation to Noah so he can hear this in real-time.

"What are you going to do with us, Colonel?" I ask.

"Come with me," he says. "I'll be the one asking the questions, understand?"