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I shift my legs under me. “You have a plan,” I say. “I saw you up to something in the Control Centre, 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 definitely would be – there’s no way I could eat the hepers. Kill 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 find a way to lower the walls of the Dome at night? The hepers would be left out there exposed and for the taking. Everyone would be flying out there, hunters and staffers within seconds. Just like that, in one fell swoop, and no Hunt anymore.”
“Except?”
“Except there’s no way to lower the Dome walls. No button to push, no lever to pull, 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, finally understanding why she and Beefy ran outside. “You used them to convince him. That with the equipment, he could get to the heper village 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 smell the hepers, it wouldn’t matter anymore. His desire for heper flesh 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 totally lost it.”
“He wouldn’t believe me at first. But then I told him I didn’t care what he believed, / was going out to get the hepers all for myself, he could stay inside and eat leftover pasteurised blood and processed meats for all I cared. He saw me flying 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 tell you after you tell me your Plan A?”
I pause. “Break my leg.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hours before the Hunt begins, fall down a flight of stairs.”
“For real?”
“Yes.”
“That’s pretty lame. There are so many holes in that, I can’t even begin.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for starters, breaking a leg without spilling 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?”
“Well, 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’ll be out of range. Leaving us behind. With the hundreds of spectators gawking at us, wondering why we’re so slow. We’ll be barely out of the gate before we’re mauled to death.”
I raise my hand, then stop. Ever so slowly, it falls back down.
“Should I go on?” she asks, a friendly smirk on her face.
“No, it’s OK—”
“My Plan C, then,” she says. “I also only recently thought of it” – a flash of humour in her eyes – “so we’ll need to work out the kinks. But do you remember when the Director was telling us about the start of the Hunt? How an hour before dusk, the building will be locked down to prevent any bandit hunters? Well, that got me thinking. What if we were somehow able to disengage the lock-down? 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 flaw.”
“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 o
ther day, when we were visiting the Control Centre, I was snooping around. A guy started telling me about how the lock-down 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 cancelled.”
“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 Centre 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 uncharacteristically slipping into my voice. “That really might work.” We rack our brains, trying to find weaknesses in the plan. By our silence, I know we can’t find 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 – stills me. There’s a gentle smile on her face, a daring display of emotion. I feel walls between us crashing down, dirt bricks and cement chunks hitting the ground, the feel of fresh air and gentle sunshine on pale, deprived skin.
