Sato hides behind one of the chambers, his gun fixed on Gunther's head.

"I believe in the cause, Alexander. You can't deny that in many ways, Roberts and Cooper and even President McCleary were right: Man is corrupt. You can rebuild the population, but man will always ruin what you've built. Unless you control the population. We finally have a clean slate. You want to allow the population to sneak back up to 10 billion again? You are asking me to support the end of man," Gunther says.

"You already did," Alexander yells in response.

"No, I supported the start of a new society."

"You've been brainwashed, do you hear yourself?"

"You know I'm right, Alexander. We can't control people unless we engineer them, and that's what we need to do."

"It's unnatural."

"No, Alexander, what's unnatural is creating so many medicines and technologies to maintain life that we negate natural selection and allow the population to get out of control. What's the difference between medically engineering people and creating our own engineered people?"

Alexander doesn't say anything.

"Exactly. Now... are you going to join me?" Gunther asks, pulling a gun out from his belt, and pointing it at Alexander. "Or not?"

"Stop!" I hear Winston yell, and his voice reverberates against the glass chambers. He approaches them from some separate entrance, armed. Sato loads his gun.

"You're surrounded, Gunther. Put down the gun," Winston says.

"Hello Dr. Fowler," Gunther says, moving his aim to Winston.

"Gunther, you need to stop this. Where is Phoebe?"

"She's with some of my best men."

"Is she alive?"

"I don't know."

"Is she alive?" Winston yells.

Gunther laughs. "I guess you two finally got together, huh? That was a long time coming. Well, in that case, I can tell you that she'll be waiting for you when you stand down."

"We won't ever stand down."

"Then I guess you'll never get Phoebe."

"She'd rather die for the cause," he says, choking a little on his words.

"Then we will have to do this the hard way," Gunther says. The back of the room fills with government soldiers, and as it does, Deathless soldiers follow in behind Winston.

Then, I can't tell who shoots first, but the room erupts with gunfire and blood. I feel someone grab my shoulder, and I jump a little before I'm pulled to the ground. It's Daniel.

"We need to get to that panel," I say.

"How?"

"Sato!" I yell. He turns back to me. "Shoot the panel!"

"I can't from this angle. You'll have to," he shouts, and tosses a second gun from his holster. I crawl out from behind the chamber to reach it before hiding again.

"I'll do it," Daniel offers.

"No, I can do this." I load the gun, and stand up to shoot. I find the panel between soldiers, aim, and release. A soldier steps into the bullet's path and it rips through his earlobe, but I can't think of the bloody bit that's been tossed from his body, or of how close I came to killing a man. I need to hit the panel.

Government soldiers have spotted me and turn to fire.

Sato shoots to cover me as I pull the trigger, sending a second bullet straight at the panel. I hit it!

One of the soldiers shoots at me, and their bullet whizzes past my head. I hide behind the one of the chambers for cover, and watch the blue lights flicker until they sputter to nothing. The chamber doors fling open, and frozen bodies fall to the floor.

"Retreat!" I hear Gunther yell, followed by the echo of footsteps running out of an alternate exit from the back of the room.

Daniel frantically checks me for bullet wounds, and when doesn't find any, says, "You can't do that, Isla. We have to communicate."

"I know, I'm sorry. I just wanted to show you what I can do now," I reply.

He smiles, then groans in exasperation as he combs his fingers through my hair. "I'm just glad we're together." He moves his thumbs over my cheek bones.

"Now is not the time or the place," Sato yells, coming between us. "We need to get all of these people up and get out here."

I look around, and see Deathless soldiers and Winston helping people to their feet; but I don't see Alexander.

"Where is—"

"—I don't know," Sato says. "Mitchell is here. He joined the fight right before you short circuited the panel. It's only us left."

"Dr. Patel?" I ask.

Sato swallows hard and looks away. "Nate killed him. He was found dead in one of the empty laboratories."

My stomach turns thinking about the man who saved Mom's life lying dead somewhere, but I push it down. We have to keep going. "So it's just us, Winston, and Mitchell?" I ask.

"And a group of soldiers, and now all of these people. We need to get out of here before Gunther regroups."

"Okay," Daniel says, and he runs to help the nearest refugee.

Sato turns to me and raises his eyebrows. "I like him," he says, before running off to do the same.

I rush to Dad, and begin lifting his freezing body from the ground. He is stirring, but not conscious.

"All the labs were cleaned out," Mitchell yells over the commotion. "They were ready for us to come."

"Yeah, Nate and Gabriela were the moles," I yell back, but I immediately feel guilty for blaming Nate. Yes, he was the mole, but in the end, he helped me. He should be remembered as a Deathless soldier, not a mole. "Nate saved my life, though," I yell.

"Tiger Lily?" Dad's voice is no more than a soft croak, but his eyes are open. He's alive.

"Dad," I cry. "Dad, you're okay. You've been frozen. Long story. C'mon you have to stand. We have to get back to Mom."

"5 minutes to self-destruction. Please evacuate the facility."

"Damn it, Gunther must have started it again," Winston curses. "We need to get these people out of here, move it! If you can lift yourself, please do. We will rescue all we can."

"Hold on, I can stop it," Daniel yells over the commotion, as he stands and runs back toward the control room.

"Okay, Dad, now we really have to go," I panic.

"Tiger Lily...," he starts, but as the yelling dies down, I hear a familiar hissing that sends chills through my body.

"Everyone be quiet!" I yell, and instantly everyone does.

I look up to see a smoky gas pouring from the vents. The knock out gas. Nate must have sent them the formula, and of course by now everyone has removed their gas masks to fight.

"Stay where you are, Deathless. You will die with the bunker," Gunther's voice sounds over the loudspeakers. Everyone stops. The President wanted to preserve some of us for our minds. Gunther clearly has different plans.

I run through the crowd, and find Daniel in the control room. "Daniel? Are you conscious?" I ask.

"No," he says blankly.

I remember how I felt when I was knocked out, helpless as my vision turned to darkness. "You're going to be fine. Just don't panic, okay?"

I spin around, desperately searching for anyone else still moving. Why am I the only one?

Nate's injection! He gave it to me for protection. He knew all along what would happen. He knew that I would need to find Daniel, and he knew that I would need to be immune to my own knock out gas to do it.

"Nate saved us," I say to myself. He believed in me enough to think I could save everyone. He gave his life to make mine better, to help all of us live. He was truly Deathless.

There's no time to waste.

"What is the code?" I ask. "Tell me the numbers!"

"No numbers, patterns," he says flatly, barely audible over the panicked screaming in my head.

I find the control panel and see what he means: It's a large display of blank keys in five rows of ten.

"Okay, Daniel, listen to me." He turns to face me directly. "Put in the code," I order.

He types in the code, and the lights flicker red. An automated voice sounds from the control panel: "Access override. Self-destruction programmed to commence in 4 minutes and 15 seconds."

I can't waste any more time.

I run back to the room of expressionless people: survivors still thawing and soldiers covered in blood. "Everyone stand up!" I say, and everyone does, even Dad. That's when I notice that all the survivors are men. Where are all the women?

"4 minutes to self-destruction," the automated voice says, this time not including the direction to evacuate the facility.

"Follow me out of the building. You need to follow me." I run out of the room, but when I turn around, I see that they are all limping behind. The frozen legs are locking into place more and more smoothly with each step, but we don't have time to wait for them to defrost. We have to keep going.

"Run!" I yell, and my voice echoes against the empty glass chambers. The bloodied soldiers, both from the Deathless and the government, have no trouble mindlessly running, dripping blood as if they feel no pain, but some of the survivors are tripping and falling all over each other. One survivor is choking on his breaths, drowning in the air. Others push past him, and even though I don't know him, I run toward him before he is trampled. Every life matters.

I wrap his limp arm around my shoulders, and pull him alongside me as fast as I can. His coughing nearly bursts my eardrums, but I can't just leave him. I can't leave anyone. Daniel joins the crowd beside Dad's hobbling, knocked-out body, both of their faces vacant from the gas, so I yell at him to pull Dad with him.

"That's it, everyone, follow us out of the building!" I yell, and the four of us run to catch up to the front of the pack.

"3 minutes to self-destruct."

"You need to run now! Everyone run!" I yell, and we all start sprinting. Up the stairs, back into the main foyer, and out the cement exit Alexander and I stormed through in the immersions. My shoulders are stiff with pain from carrying the survivor, who has since begun desperately drinking air into his lungs. At least he's not coughing in my ear anymore. At least he'll live.

"2 minutes to self-destruct."

"Run!" I yell behind me, and we all race toward the light at the end of the cement tunnel. I hope that no one is in the yard. We aren't ready to fight. I would be leading all of us to our deaths.

I let go of the survivor and arm myself as I race ahead of the group.

I enter the sunlit yard and spin frantically around to check for soldiers, but it's empty.

"Let's go," I yell. "We have to be clear of the bunker before it self-destructs!"

I hold the survivor again, and everyone runs past me through the yard.

"Everyone, keep running!" I scream. "We're going to make it! We're going to be okay!"

I watch as the group continues past me, my legs beginning to give out beneath me and the survivor, when I hear a rumble in the forest.

What is that?

I watch the tree line as chunks of the canopy crumble to the ground. A tank—smaller and less impressive than the Immortal, but still much larger than the tanks I've seen in books—rolls over trees and smashes everything to the ground.

"Wait!" I yell, and everyone stops. "It's a trap," I say.

"1 minute to self-destruction," I hear the voice sound out over the yard.

Gunther Quail walks out onto a railing at the edge of the tank, and peers down at us. He squints at me, his entire face pinching for the moment, and then, something shifts in his expression. As if he could control the entire tank with a simple motion, he waves his hand and a door at the base opens. "Everyone in," Gunther yells, and they all start toward the tank.

This has to be a trap! "Why are you helping us?" I call out.

"30 seconds to self-destruction."

I watch Gunther walk back into the tank. "Hurry," he shouts.

Gunther shuts the door behind him, and I watch as all of our people pile into the tank. The General is one of the first to disappear, then Winston, then Mitchell, then Daniel, oblivious to the fact that we're apart, once again separated by metal, like we were when the Prowlers took him.

What choice do I have? Gunther was too merciful for it not to be a trap, but at least we'll have a fighting chance.

"10."

I feel the survivor slip from my shoulders as he sputters toward the tank.

"9."

"Everyone run! Get in the tank! Hurry!" I scream, and I watch the rest of the bodies spring forward.

"8."

I start running to catch up to the pack. Did Dad already get on?

"7."

We're hardly moving. These tanks are designed so terribly!

"6."

"Go!" I scream, and push bodies into the tank.

"5."

I'm nearing the door, but I'm just not close enough yet.

"4."

If the tank is open when the bunker explodes, and the flames reach the doorway, that hallway will become an incinerator. I can't risk that.

Time slows, and I watch the rest of my short life play out before me: I will be like Laughiticus, and all the parts of my life will scatter so that those after me can live happily; I will be like Nate, and sacrifice everything to ensure the safety of those I love; I will be like Misty, and use what's left of my life to help others.

I will be deathless. Truly deathless, like Declan said.

I shove the last few people inside, and shut the door behind them.

"3."

Dad stumbles beside me. "Tiger Lily." No! How could I have lost him in the crowd?

"2."

Mom can't lose us both. Maybe I can still save us. I take his hand and do my best to run. We clear the tank, but it's too late.

"1."

The earth explodes, and we are shot backwards into the woods.