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Chapter 29 - Divert - Jordan

Jordan and Jinho climbed the wall above the pool of water. At the top, Jinho grabbed Jordan's arm and made her stop to look at him. "What's your plan, Jordan? We can't just keep Andrew like a wounded puppy and bring them food when they're hungry."

She pulled away and started walking. "We can help him get better, and then show them how to get out of here."

"He's been shot, Jordan. And he could have a broken ankle. He needs to get to a hospital. Sooner, rather than later."

"He said his ankle was sprained and that the bullet went in and out and will heal on its own."

Jinho didn't move. He called to her. "He's not a doctor. What happens when it gets infected?"

She ignored him and kept moving.

"He could die out here, Jordan."

She stopped. Anger made her eyes narrow and her voice gravel. "We can't just take him into the dome, Jinho. They're looking for him. They killed a guy for walking around in the desert."

"He was trespassing."

"And what do you think those two were doing?" She stepped backward. "They shot him!"

"They weren't just walking around the desert. They were going to the dome."

"They were curious! And I would like to point out that you just called it a dome."

"This is not a joke."

"I know it's not a joke," Jordan sneered. "You sound like my mom."

They were silent until they reached the dome and Jordan turned to Jinho. She held a cell phone in her hand. "Can you make this work?"

"Where did you get this?" he asked. He tried to turn it on. "It doesn't work. The battery is dead. Did you take this from Andrew?"

She ignored his questions. "I know the battery is dead. I don't have a charger. Do you remember seeing one anywhere? Can you make it work?"

"I can't exactly go through people's personal items." He frowned, then brightened. "But I remember seeing one in the study center."

"Oh my God! Thank you, Jinho! I'm going to have Internet access!" she squealed, hugging him. He tried to hug her back, but she danced away wagging her finger at him.

"Can't blame me for trying."

She laughed and hooked her arm around his. "I will meet you in the cafeteria in an hour. You're the best!"

The chores board killed Jordan's good mood. She sighed as she headed into the kitchen where she found dishes stacked in the sink waiting for her.

After finishing the dishes, she slipped away to take a break in the underground food cooler. Naturally cooler inside the mountain, vegetables were as well-preserved as if they were kept in a modern refrigerator. Carrots, beans, tomatoes, and corn filled slatted wooden bins. At one side of the room, lids leaned against each bin with "ARGENT" sprayed across the top in bright white letters. At the other side of the room, the letters were sprayed in red paint. Each bin had a stapled tag with a code indicating which field the contents had come from.

Jordan liked the plants with the white letters the best. They included vegetables grown inside the dome. The tomatoes and corn were juicier and sweeter, the carrots and beans more flavorful than their counterparts from the greenhouse, and those outside were even worse. In her opinion, the vegetables with the red letters indicating they came from the fields outside the dome shouldn't even be saved.

She pulled a green bean from a bin and snapped off a bite, enjoying the crunch until she noticed two beady eyes staring at her from the floor. She took a tentative step closer and found a dead turtle leaning against the bin.

"Ew," she said aloud. "What is Marybeth feeding us?"

"Six jackrabbits."

Jordan spun around looking for a place to hide. Men's voices echoed down the ramp to the cooler. She dodged to the far wall where crates of vegetables were stacked two-high and dove behind one packed with ears of corn.

"That isn't much of a record if you ask me." The soldiers from the helicopter strolled through the door laughing. They each pushed a dolly and one walked to the crates where Jordan had stooped to hide. Slowly she slid back and lifted open a metal grate on the wall. A sign above it warned to keep the area free for ventilation.

She and Jinho had decided a sign was needed after they arrived one day and found vegetable crates covering the vent. They were too heavy to move so they had to go in and out through the greenhouse for a whole week and be extra careful to avoid being locked out.

After the crates of corn had been moved, Jinho had printed a sign. Jordan had laughed reading it.

"That's not very official looking. 'Don't put stuff here?' Who's going to pay any attention to that?"

Jinho's feelings were hurt. "Do it yourself."

Jordan bit her lip. She didn't have access to printers like he did in the labs. "I'm sorry. We can come up with something better. You know, something that sounds official."

"Like what?"

After a few minutes of arguing the merits of proper signage, they had come up with better language.

The sign had Maverick BioTech's watermark on it and said, "Ventilation in this cooler requires three feet of air circulation. Do not block vent." Three feet of space gave them plenty of room to swing the grate open and crawl inside.

Jordan slipped inside quietly and eased the grate closed. The vent wasn't big enough to sit up in so she stretched out on her belly to watch the men stack the crates onto their carts. She perked up when she heard Pierce's name.

"So what's the deal with Pierce?"

"Pierce? He's okay. He just takes his job seriously. Very seriously."

"And Sergeant Landon?"

"Pierce's. Don't even think about her, Finn. If I can't score that, you shouldn't even try."

Jordan frowned. Pierce's? Robin and Pierce?

"Wish I had been there when he drove into that crack."

"He's lucky he only got a bump on his head."

"No, he's lucky because he has Sergeant Landon to kiss his boo-boo and make it all better. She could kiss my–"

Something brushed against Jordan's shoe. Knowing exactly what it was, she slapped her hand over her mouth and laid still. Softly tickling, she felt a snake slither over her legs and move past her hip. Her eyes grew larger as it came up beside her face and was silhouetted by the light coming through the vent. She could see its tongue flicking in and out.

Holding her breath, she slowly reached forward and pressed against the bottom of the grate. The snake dropped out onto the ground and Jordan breathed again remembering this was not the first snake she had found in this vent.

A snake was how she and Jinho had discovered the vent in the first place. Marybeth had screamed and come running from the cooler one morning when Jordan was working in the kitchen.

"Snake!" she had gasped, out of breath and pointing. Jordan crept to the cooler with Marybeth hot on her heels and brandishing a butcher knife.

"Where?" she whispered. Marybeth hovered by the door ready to sprint away. Marybeth pointed the knife at a crate of tomatoes. Jordan poked around and finally found a snake no bigger around than her finger. She reached in and lifted it up. "This?"

Marybeth was gone. Jordan had laughed and carried the snake out of the dome where it slithered away into a row of corn.

Later, Jordan and Jinho had gone back to the cooler to figure out how the snake had gotten inside. When they were ready to concede that it must have hitched a ride in on a crate of vegetables, they discovered the vent. Missing screws, it hung away from the wall along the bottom edge. Marybeth must have been convinced it came in with some plants because she didn't report it to Pierce or Minjun or anyone else.

A crate was moved from the pile and Jordan could see more of the cooler. The soldiers were wheeling their dollies out.

Jordan climbed from the vent and stood up. The snake was already forgotten when she stepped to the door and peeked out. The ramp was clear, so she stepped back to a bin full of bright orange carrots and stuck two into her pockets. Their green feathery tops were sticking out and tickling her arm. She pulled her tee shirt down over them.

As she returned to the kitchen, she munched on a handful of beans. Her mom couldn't say she wasn't getting enough vegetables in her diet. Between the tomatoes she ate from the greenhouse and the beans and carrots from the underground cooler, she was probably the healthiest teenager of all time. She smiled at the thought.

After putting the last of the dishes away, she checked the time. The lunch crew would be in soon and she would be relieved of her kitchen duties. She was wiping down the tables in the cafeteria when Marybeth and some of the other dome inhabitants strolled in to begin lunch preparations.

With a wave, she wandered from the kitchen with a small bag of vegetable peelings and paper products headed for the composter. The inside fields were quiet and peaceful, the sun filtering through the glass bright and warm. A couple of people in bright white lab coats moved in the rows of corn measuring and checking color.

She could see why her dad loved working here and, as if summoned by her thoughts, his voice interrupted her reverie. "Hey, kiddo."

She froze. The smear of blood felt like a beacon. She spun to keep the stain behind her. "Hi, Dad."

"Slumming?" he asked with a smile. She liked how he tilted his head at her and couldn't stop herself from smiling back.

"No. Well, maybe a little. Just taking stuff out to the composter." She nodded at the bag in her arms.

He looked down at the bag. "I saw Pierce a bit ago. He tracked a stranger to the dome. You haven't seen anything...anyone, have you?

"No."

"Are you okay, Jordan?"

She shrugged, "Yeah, Dad, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You seem...I don't know...scared. Or worried. Anything I can do to help?"

"No, really, Dad, I'm fine. It's just...do you think Pierce and Robin are together?"

He frowned and considered her question. "Well, I don't know. I guess they're adults and could be together if they wanted to be. Are you concerned about that?"

She walked to him and wrapped an arm around his waist to hide any guilty look he might observe and that she didn't even know she made. "No, I guess not."

He hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. "Okay, I won't pry."

Jordan stepped back. "Thanks, Dad."

She forced another smile as she walked to the composter and glanced back to make sure he returned to the gardens. Relieved he hadn't noticed the blood on the glass, she dumped the contents of the bag into the composter.

The carrots were warm from being in her pocket. She dropped them into the bag and looked around. Everyone had gone to lunch. The gardens were empty. But they were anything but quiet.

Jordan's father had once said corn didn't grow quietly. He was right. It crackled and whispered as the weight of the growing leaves were pulled down by gravity. It was creepy.

Jordan hurried to the tomato plants. With another quick glance around to make sure she wasn't observed, she plucked two ripe tomatoes and added them to the bag. Three ears of corn joined the tomatoes and carrots before she hid the bag by her rock ledge and returned to the kitchen.

In the cafeteria, Jinho was picking at a plate of food. As Jordan walked up, he looked around. His head swiveled in every direction before he leaned over and asked, "Should I save any of this?"

She shook her head. "I have a bag of vegetables in the garden by my rock ledge. Where's Aurum?"

"I left him in the labs. I got some painkillers." He held out his hand. Two white pills sat on his palm.

"How did you know what to get?"

"Looked in the reference manual at the nurse's station."

"Let's go." She stood up, shoved her hands into her pockets, and meandered out of the cafeteria. Past the first row of corn, they ran to the rock ledge. Jinho caught up as Jordan grabbed the bag of vegetables and they sprinted for the greenhouse.

Out of breath at the greenhouse, Jinho stopped. Panting, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone to wave at her. "Tell me again how much you love me. Is it enough to marry me now?"

Jordan squealed and grabbed at the phone but he snatched it away from her greedy hand. "Tell me you love me," he teased.

"I love you! Give me the phone." She thrust her bottom lip in an exaggerated frown.

"As you wish, my queen." He knelt down on one knee and presented the phone to her.

"Get up! Is there a signal?" She turned it on before he could reply and whooped.

"I put it on the dome's wi-fi. I didn't have enough time to fully charge it, but it should last an hour or so." Jordan was walking blindly toward the gate, already lost in the heady world of the Internet. Jinho walked silently beside her. "There was a memory card in it."

"Uh-huh. A memory card..." Jordan muttered staring at the screen. "Oh my god, this shirt is to die for. Wait. Yes!"

She had turned on some music app and hopped around with her eyes closed.

"You call that dancing?"

She stopped hopping but continued walking and rocking her head with her eyes closed. He nudged her around a bush. "You probably shouldn't walk and browse at the same time. Besides, we're almost to the gate."

She blacked the screen and put the phone in her pocket. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, Jinho."

Before they even descended the rope to the pool, they could hear Andrew. His low utterances of pain were amplified by the curvature of the cave and seemed loud in a space Jordan found all too often to be disturbingly silent.

Andrew was tossing and turning fitfully in a tangle of covers. His hair was plastered to his head. Evan knelt beside him. He was stroking his head and making the kind of sounds Jordan remembered her mother making to her the first time she skinned her knee.

The bag of vegetables fell from Jordan's arms with a dull thud. A tomato rolled away to the foot of the sleeping bag. Jinho squatted down and righted the bag, scooping the tomato up and depositing it on top of the corn where the silk had turned brown and gotten stiff.

Jordan rushed to Andrew and put her hand on his forehead. "What's wrong?"

"He's burning up. He just keeps getting hotter and hotter," Evan said.

Jinho knelt down beside her and grabbed Andrew's shoulders to keep him from moving around. "We need to get help, Jordan."

No longer able to twist and toss, Andrew finally lay still. Jinho unzipped the sleeping bag, and Jordan unraveled it from his body.

"Oh, Jesus." Jordan recoiled from the blood-soaked sleeping bag. "He's bleeding again."

Evan gagged and turned away to retch. Dirty water came up and splashed the ground.

"He's running a fever. We need to get him help. Now," Jinho said.

Jordan sat back on her heels and nodded. She put her hand on Andrew's forehead and ran it through his damp hair.

Jinho stood up. "I'll be right back."

Andrew moaned. Jordan nodded again. "Hurry!"

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