“We need to stop meeting like this,” I told the bars on the cell as the guards unlocked it and thrust me inside.

  I sat cross-legged with my back straight against the wall, watching the water drip from a small hole in the ceiling as Galton came forward, pressing his giant forehead against the bars.

  “Oh dear, locked up again. Will you ever learn? I suppose it doesn’t matter now, the world has just grown much bigger. How small it must make you feel.”

  “Come to gloat, Doctor Galton?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “And why shouldn’t I?” He chuckled. “Everything in this country is now under my control. Shirley Alvidrez herself would bow to me if I wanted her to. So would your precious Elian.”

  I scoffed.

  “Didn’t he hold a knife to your throat not long ago? I don’t know what world you’re living in but Shirley and Elian own you, so deflate your ego before you start taking off.”

  His eyes flickered dangerously. “You still don’t understand how this works, do you? You always were a slow learner, so let me explain it to you in a way you’ll understand. I have all the leverage. Don’t get me wrong, your lot are stains on a pristine Earth, but useful stains nonetheless. When Miss Alvidrez needs the country’s support, she’ll parade you around, talk of making things better for you to show how compassionate she is, but who do you think will be controlling how that parade looks? The Chancellor opened Pandora’s box by announcing the initiative to the public, but for me he simply opened a door.”

  “Why are you here, Galton?”

  “To see the look on your face when I tell you what I’m going to do to Vocafeum. Everything and everyone you’ve ever known and loved will be destroyed. And then, perhaps, when I’m sitting on a throne built from the bones of those who came before you, you’ll realise why scientists call their experiments ‘subjects’.”

  “What are you talking about? Shirley stopped the initiative–”

  “It can’t be stopped! Don’t you see? It’s too late. We’re too far gone to turn back now.”

  He saw the horrified look dawning on my face and twisted his own into a victorious smile.

  “Do you understand it now? What’s happening as we speak? The Chancellor signed off on it weeks ago. Shirley can’t stop the initiative taking place. Well, she can but not in time. And by the time she realises what’s happened it’ll be too late. Farewell Ayla. I’ll give Niles my regards.”

  My fist collided with the metal bars, then shot out so quickly I managed to grab the collar of his coat before he could dodge out the way.

  I brought my seething face as close to his as I could, my arm shaking.

  “If you lay a single finger on him I swear to god the entire Triumvirate army won’t stop me from tearing you to shreds.”

  “You’ll have to get out of your cell first. Tricky, when your Lion Legion friends have been captured.”

  He held up a set of keys, taunting me. I reached out again with my spare hand but the keys flashed out of view before I could grab them.

  “Unlike you, I’m a fast learner. I shall be going now. Keep the jacket.”

  He shrugged it off and strolled out of the cell, whistling some dreadful tune.

  I sat in the cold quiet for a moment, wondering what would become of the institutions, my country, now that new tyrants were replacing the old ones. Would the Lion Legion heal and rise again or were they a brief spark meant to extinguish before they could kindle real fire, real change. Was any replacement doomed to fall to the same fate? Was it really all just pointless?

  A small but confident voice spoke to the guards outside, rescuing me from the exhausting cycle of questions.

  “On behalf of the Chancellor of Saxanglain, you will let me speak to my prisoner.”

  It was a female voice, one I didn’t fully recognise until she stepped in, accompanied by two other people in cloaks.

  Estrella Endavell-Alvidrez came towards the bars, cyb-screen in hand.

  “Thank goodness that worked,” she said, then turned to me. “You’re lucky you have friends in high places.”

  The figure on the right threw back their hood, revealing black hair and hazel eyes. Niva’s black hair and hazel eyes.

  “Meet my hacker,” she announced, gesturing toward the Chancellor’s daughter, which was shocking enough. But it was the third figure who threw back their hood that made me lose the power of speech. Because there, staring at me with a ridiculous grin on his face, standing free and far away from Vocafeum, was Niles.

  “You’re not the only one who can save people,” he announced, and though my vision blurred due to the brewing tears, I could have sworn he was wiping some off his face too.

  “Niles,” I choked out, “But how… Who…”

  “It’s a long story,” he said. “How long have you got?”

  “Not long,” Estrella answered for me as she tapped on her cyb-screen. “I need to return to the ball room before the shitshow begins, and you’re not getting out of here without me.”

  A few more taps on the cyb-screen and the cell door swung open. I rushed out to hug Niles for as long as I dared.

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  “Come on, people, let’s move it.” Niva rolled her eyes. “Estrella, you know what to do.”

  She nodded, and I reached forward to shake her hand.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Hide near the door,” was her only answer, and the three of us used the few seconds we had to do as she said before the room was plunged into darkness.

  “Guards! The power’s gone out!” She cried, and as the guards burst through the door, we slipped out behind them as they attended to Estrella.

  We jogged slowly to the end of the corridor in the pitch black, speeding up when the reach of Estrella’s interference ended, and managed to get to the ground floor before a wall of guards blocked the way.

  Niva whipped out a familiar device from her toolbelt, its flashing red light a beacon of hope. The DNA bomb.

  “You don’t have our DNA registered on that thing.” I warned her, glancing between me and Niles.

  “I got Niles’s when I met him outside Vocafeum, and I took a cheek swab from you when you were sleeping so we’re good.” She shrugged.

  “You what?”

  She pressed the button.

  That white light exploded again knocking down the guards one by one as they collapsed in convulsing fits. We barrelled on past to one of the entrances to the Estate, bursting out the door to the outside grounds and made for the gates, black and shiny beneath the setting sun.

  The gravel path crunched under foot as we raced toward them, too late realising the sound alerted six guards on the night watch.

  Niva reached once again for the DNA bomb but our noisy escape had done its damage. In seconds one of the guards knocked it out of her hands and it clattered to the floor, broken at the same time he tackled her. The rest of the guards pounced, one diving for me, two diving for Niles. I managed to sidestep the dive, running in zigzag formation so my chaser wouldn’t catch up. I risked a glance at Niles, who’d knocked one to the ground and was fighting off the other like a warring bear, but his movements were slowing, and my own guard was gaining on me.

  “We can’t hold them off much longer!” shouted Niles and as I circled around him, my feet kicking up small stones on the path, I realised he was right.

  I stopped to scoop some of the gravel up in one fell swoop, the move costing me a few crucial moments but the reward worth it as I flung a handful into the guard’s face, and he fell back, clutching his eyes.

  He flailed blindly towards me as I neared one of the birch trees lining the path to the Estate and ripped off a decaying branch, smacking him upside the head with it. He stumbled for a moment, before collapsing on the floor in a dust cloud.

  Two down, two to go.

  I rushed to Niles’s aid, noticing the guard he’d knocked out rousing too late, and couldn’t stop myself before he stuck out a hand to trip me up.

  One down. It was one down and three to go.

  Before I toppled to the floor, I called out his name, and threw the branch as best as I could, hoping he’d catch it. He did, and managed to clobber his assailant in the groin, then across the face, as my own guard dragged my feet, setting himself on top of me and forcing my hands behind my back. I struggled against him but his grip was steadfast.

  Niles glanced towards Niva, who was giving her captor an earful, cursing about how she’d escaped the Roman army once and wasn’t going to be taken down by something as commonplace as a modern-day Estate guard. He wanted to help her.

  I took a deep breath and turned my head in the ground to better see my opponent, ready to distract him so he couldn’t see Niles and warn his co-worker.

  “Poor thing.” I mustered as much pity in my voice as possible. “You must be devastated you didn’t get to man the ball instead, stuck here outside while others get to dance the night away. So sad.” I tutted, and got rewarded with a grunted, “Shut it.”

  But the few seconds were enough. Niles had crept up behind Niva’s guard, who didn’t notice Niles swinging until the wood splintered on the back of his head.

  Niles held out a hand that made Niva go quiet, and I would’ve guessed from embarrassment at not being capable of saving herself, even if only just this once, but her face had softened so much that it couldn’t have been embarrassment from that at all.

  The one guard left loosened his grip as he saw his friends defeated, and I seized the opportunity, dashing out a hand to whack his throat, forcing him to loosen his grip further.

  Niles and Niva rushed to help finish him off, and we finally exited the gates, leaving the Estate behind. We raced for a black hov that came cruising down from the sky, piloted by a woman with mahogany hair and a man with blond.

  “Any time today!” Shouted Daniella.

  “Intel says Vocafeum’s sending Relegates off to be processed soon, we have to step on it if we want to make it,” explained Briar, looking up from his cyb.

  No sooner than the three of us had strapped in our seatbelts the hov dashed away. We cruised along the mag-road with the backdrop of the hazy sky darkening with dusk while we raced against the clock.

  “After we get everyone out, we can’t give the wardens a place to capture them again.” I turned to Niles. “Every weapon…”

  His face hardened in understanding, “Forged in fire.”

  From the front seat, Briar turned to face us, resting his head in the arm he’d draped over the corner of his seat. “If you two are planning to destroy Vocafeum I’ve got plenty of kit you can borrow.”

  “Is that the kit I told you to leave behind?” Daniella glared, and Briar took it with downright pride, grinning from ear to ear. In fact, something told me that glare was the only reason he’d brought it up.

  “Apologies, Captain.”

  Daniella rolled her eyes, focusing on the mag-road.

  “How did you escape?” I asked Niles, who turned to Niva.

  She just shrugged, and started fiddling with the broken DNA bomb.

  “I’d been planning it for a while,” he admitted, “Down in the forges you would not believe how many weapons we sold directly onto wealthy families without giving them to the Triumvirate first, and how many of those families are benefactors to the Lion Legion. Foolish people who thought when the rebels toppled the Chancellor they’d have a chance to take his place. Anyway, I negotiated with them in secret, offered twice as much as they paid for in exchange for helping you, me and Ramya escape. That was the plan, anyway, but then you got taken to the Estate. Anyway, I’m out now and soon Ramya will be too.”

  When I finally loosed a breath, it came out shaky, matching my voice.

  “I had no idea… Is that why you always carried two sacks when everyone else who worked in the forges only carried one? I thought you were just trying to build muscle to show off to the ladies.”

  He nodded, “It was a nightmare keeping it hidden from the bookkeepers but somehow they never found out. Turns out my judgement is pretty good.”

  Niva looked up from where she was tampering with her machine.

  “If you two are storming Vocafeum then your judgement is terrible. It’s a fool’s errand, and that’s even if we make it on time.”

  Niles turned a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to face Niva.

  “You don’t have to be involved. No one will blame you for opting out and choosing the safe route.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out of the window at the world that passed beneath us.

  “The safe route? Don’t be insulting. If I don’t get my mother out I’ll never forgive myself.”

  We had our work cut out for us, it seemed. Vocafeum contained thousands of people, and getting them all out, and providing them with all the equipment and medication they needed just to survive, was not going to be easy. But we had to try, for all their sakes.

  The city of Langlia faded like a dream in the morning, each massive building shrinking into the distance along with the taste of luxury, a life I’d never live again slipping away fast beneath the horizon, until all we could see was the mag-road ahead, stretching on for miles.

  That continuous silver path had quickly become the most important sight I’d ever beheld as the fate of thousands rested upon it.