For the first part of the morning, the two groups are a mirror—three on one side, seventy-one on the other—trudging through snow on opposite banks of the river. The trio moves at a far quicker pace, of course, and soon they forge ahead. When they eventually disappear into the horizon of white—Argos’s muffled bark a final good-bye—Hope is surprised to feel a sudden emptiness.
Later that day, Hope hears a distant sound. It takes a moment to identify it, and when she realizes it’s the growl of a Humvee, the Less Thans and Sisters scurry for cover, throwing themselves to the ground. Cat is atop a ridge, and Hope crawls forward until she’s next to him. They peek their heads above the snow.
A lone Humvee appears in the far distance, and they watch as it snakes its way across the snow-blasted prairie. What Hope can’t figure out is why it’s out here, where it’s going. The one-lane road appears to dead-end at a small, snow-covered mound. There are no buildings here—no structures of any kind. Just a rusted chain-link fence encircling a tiny hill.
“Launch facility,” Cat explains.
“Huh?”
“It’s where they fired the missiles that day. My dad took me to one once.”
“There’s a missile there?”
“Used to be, in an underground silo. Nearly five thousand of them, scattered across the country. That’s how the world blew itself up.”
Hope has often wondered about Omega. She was young when her father first explained it, but somehow she envisioned airplanes dropping bombs from the air, not missiles erupting from the prairie.
She studies the hill. It’s a good quarter mile away, but she’s able to make out an upside-down dome on top of the mound. Burn marks scorch its edges.
“What’s in there now?”
“Not a missile, that’s for sure.”
So why is the Humvee headed there?
They watch as the military vehicle nears, then passes through the fence, skidding to a stop when it reaches the small hill. Three Brown Shirts emerge, cracking jokes, their laughter bouncing off the cloudless sky. One lights a cigarette before they disappear behind the far side of the mound.
“Where are they going?” Hope asks, more to herself than Cat.
Five minutes pass before the soldiers return. They each carry a large wooden crate. Stenciled on the sides is the distinctive symbol of the Republic: three inverted triangles. Beneath that are a series of letters and numbers. M4. M16. AK-47.
Military weapons.
The three soldiers slide the wooden crates into the back of the Humvee and then return to the mound. Hope rises to her feet.
“Where’re you going?” Cat asks.
“I want to see what they’re doing.”
Cat looks at her like she’s crazy. “You want to go inside a missile silo?”
“That’s right.”
“Where there are three Brown Shirts with weapons?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
She’s not sure she knows the answer, but it has something to do with unfinished business. Everything has to do with unfinished business.
Cat turns to the Less Thans behind him. Their hunger and exhaustion are obvious; many have fallen asleep in the snow. Cat points to the LT named Sunshine.
“Sunny, get up here,” he says.
Sunshine crawls forward. “What’s up, el bosso?”
“You’re good with a slingshot, right?”
“I’m good with any weapon.” He says it loudly, as if for Hope’s benefit. She rolls her eyes.
“Great. Then you’re coming with us.”
“What? I—”
“We’ll move in on their next trip.”
They wait for the soldiers to return.
IT WAS STRANGE TO be following the same path we’d used to escape from the Compound. Once more, we were racing to something we’d already escaped from. I longed for the day when we could just live in one place.
Red raised his hand and motioned Flush and me to stop. He pointed to Argos, who was sniffing the ground with a sudden intensity. When he lifted his head, snow encrusted his muzzle.
Directly next to his front paws were human footprints.
I lowered myself to the ground and analyzed the treads; they weren’t from the moccasins of the Skull People nor the rags of the Crazies. These were pre-Omega shoes: Brown Shirt boots.
Soldiers.
My body gave an involuntary shudder.
“How many, do you think?” Flush asked.
“Looks like two.”
“Recent?”
“Recent enough.”
The footprints veered inland, away from the river but in the direction of the Compound.
“Do we follow them?” Flush asked.
“Do we have a choice?”
We shared a look, and Argos took off at a trot.
The footsteps were easy enough to track, and by midafternoon Flush pointed to the far horizon. Squinting across the flat tundra of snow, all I could make out was a speck of a distant object, sparkling sunlight.
“Solar panels,” Flush explained. “I used to clean those things.”
That was his job at the Compound. While I was working in the Wheel, he was helping harness energy.
“So we’re close?” Red asked.
“Not just close,” Flush said. “We’re probably above the Compound right now.” We all looked at our feet, envisioning what was on the underside of the ground.
We marched on, eager to reach the Compound entrance … and dreading it just the same.
It was the smell that suddenly led us forward. The footsteps were still there, of course, but we could have reached the Compound from the scent alone.
No, not scent—more like stench.
“What the heck?” Flush said.
Neither Red nor I answered, because we each had a suspicion we didn’t want to voice. The Brown Shirts’ rotting, putrefying bodies outside Libertyville had taught us what death smelled like. But why was that smell so strong out here, especially the closer we got to the Compound?
When the footsteps forked in the direction of the Compound’s main entrance, we abandoned them and went the other way, following the smell instead. We needed to see where it led us.
We were now in a field of corn stubble, dead stalks jutting from the snow. With each passing step, the bile rose in my throat, and my imagination was working overtime. Did we really want to discover the source of this awful stench?
Argos stopped and began to whimper. At first, I thought he was picking up the scent of more footsteps. Then I saw the black oval—a small hole in the middle of the field. It was nearly invisible to the naked eye … and just wide enough in diameter to allow a human body.