“Overachievers,” I managed to say with a frenzied little laugh. “Get them out. Stay alive. Please.”
“You too,” she said hurriedly, clasping my arm. When I winced, she drew her hand back. It was covered in blood. “Josephine, you’ve been shot.”
“Oh. That was only a splinter.” I tugged her aside and killed a guard running toward us. Then I kissed her cheek and pushed her away. “Go!”
In the melee, it became clear that some of the Transistors were fighting one another. Radiance exploded like fireworks above us. I hoped, desperately, that the number of Transistors clinging to their loyalty to the House were fewer in number to those who were protecting us.
The Elders were beginning to stagger out from the wing that contained their council room at the very back of the House, far from the other Children of Industry. They were in disarray, some in their ceremonial robes, and others with wigs hastily thrown on. When none of them joined the fray, I knew they were all like Master Hayes. Nothing but greedy ghouls seeking power they hadn’t been gifted with. They’d stayed away from us, living in mansions in the city, convening far from our classrooms and dormitories. Cowards.
A shock of hot-cold pain erupted above my knee. I sank to the ground, yelping and startled. Blood poured from a neat hole in the muscle of my thigh like water gurgling from a fountain. In an instant, I felt fuzzy, as if the alarm bells had quieted and all the shouting came from a great distance. Looking up through a haze of agony, I searched for my assailant.
It was one of the Elders. He stared at me as his pistol smoked and wavered.
“You’re nothing,” I spat.
“Get up,” Ezra said, wrenching me to my feet. He was half dragging Julian. “Get up, Jo. Come on.”
“I can’t,” I slurred. It was an awful lot of blood. I watched it make my trouser leg shiny and slick. “Huh …”
Another shot grazed Ezra’s forearm. Swearing, he lifted his pistol to fire at the Elder who had shot both of us, and I recalled what he’d done before we’d approached on the raft. What he’d done to make sure I’d be safe.
The bullets were in his pocket.
“No!” I screamed, seeing it play out in my mind before it happened. Ezra would drop to the ground like that dead Transistor, nothing left of his beautiful face.
Ezra pulled the trigger. The pistol clicked impotently. Horrified understanding dawned on his features, and he looked up, anticipating exactly what I’d imagined. His messy, senseless death. He fell back, but I couldn’t see where the bullet had struck him. I shrieked with rage.
Then I saw that Ezra hadn’t been shot at all. He’d been pushed back. Julian, wavering, had shoved him to the ground and sent a thick, jagged bolt of radiance into the Elder aiming at us. The Elder fell, wailing, his pistol dropping out of his hands, his robes torched and his torso blistered with hideous burns.
Someday I’d help Julian learn how to stop a heart properly.
“You saved him,” I said to Julian, disbelieving.
Julian slowly looked at me, and then at his hand, and then at Ezra on the ground. Then he sank to a crouch, hugging himself and shaking his head with a soft whimper. He still didn’t know us, but something more powerful than recognition had surfaced in him. Something unwilling to let Ezra get cut down by the same machine that had devoured him.
Vision cloudy, I took stock of the situation. There were no more guards or Elders in the smoky hall. A few professors continued to help straggling students escape. Gertrude and her charges had made it outthe door, along with almost all the Generators. Only a handful were left trudging toward the light.
“We’re getting out of here,” Ezra said, taking me and Julian each by the wrist and dragging us to follow.
Stepping outside the House wouldn’t save us. I knew that. The Elders’ power extended far beyond the walls of this building. But the Generators deserved to feel the sunlight on their faces. And if I died today, I wanted it to be out on the streets of Sterling City—free.
Making our way as slowly as the Generators, Ezra, Julian, and I crossed the threshold to the wide steps in front of the House of Industry. The sun was so bright that for a long moment, I couldn’t see anything at all. I only heard shouting.
Chanting.
I leaned heavily against Ezra. Exhaustion made me feel muddy inside. Stars, I didn’t want to die on the steps of the House. Just a little farther. “What’s happening?” I mumbled.
“Look, Jo,” he said.
The street in front of the House of Industry was packed with thousands of people, stretching as far as I could see. They held signs and banners, and they shouted so loud, I couldn’t make out everything they were saying, only that the sentiment was not in favor of Progress. The fire brigade struggled to get their wagons through the masses, and no one seemed especially eager to make way for them. Nor did anyone allow the last of the hired guards to escape. I could see several tackled to the ground and restrained by angry onlookers.
“They didn’t even wait for the newspaper,” I said in a daze. The people of Sterling City had surged onto the streets, refusing to remain silent in the face of the House’s violence. I let their cries for justice wash over me. They shouted the names of the dead. They called for the Elders to be arrested. They demanded electricity for the people. It felt as if they’d taken all the anger in my soul and voiced it in unison.
A strange hush began to fall over the sea of resistance. As the shouting faded, crackling flames from the highest windows of the House could be heard. But the crowd’s attention wasn’t on the fire. It had turned to the Generators huddling together on the steps of the House, shielding their eyes from the sun. The silence was somehow louder than the shouting had been. I could feel the attention of thousands on us, on the Generators who had never been seen by the public before. The expressions I could make out were not angry but mournful, as if everyone watching understood that these people—barefoot and afraid—had seen unspeakable horrors in the catacombs.
In the hush, a person with a long silver braid dropped their sign and made their way hesitantly up the steps, wary of the Transistors flanking the group. To my relief, the Transistors allowed them to approach, stepping back so they could get closer. They opened their arms, showing that they meant no harm, and then embraced the youngest girl in the group of Generators. More people followed, touching the Generators’ hands and heads, offering them comfort they had likely never experienced. One of the oldest Generators sat down on the steps and began to weep, shivering despite the late-afternoon heat. A professor—one of the ones who taught the Transistors—sat beside the distraught Generator and put his arm around his shoulder, drawing him close in a sheltering hold.
Applause rang out, and the cries of protest became cries of celebration. The fire brigade finally made it through and began to unfurl a long hose from their wagon, but even the firefighters moved without urgency, spending more time offering water to the Generators than they did making their way into the burning House.
