The truth of the matter

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Time Running Out The world seemed to spin around me. I thought the jolt was going to overwhelm me. Waterman dead. Executed by the Homelanders while I lay unconscious and undiscovered in the Panic Room.

And all the others? Gone. Escaped? Dead? I didn’t know.

I stood up and staggered back to the door. I leaned heavily against the frame.

Waterman was dead. My contact. My ally. The only ally whose name I knew. Even if I managed to get out of this death trap alive, where would I go now? Who would I turn to for help?

A wave of hopelessness washed over me. I felt as if all my strength had drained away. For a second or two, I actually thought I wouldn’t be able to move again.

But there was no time for that. No time to indulge that sort of emotion. The bomb was ticking. I had to keep going, had to. Waterman was dead. All right. That’s the way it was. He had died trying to protect America from its enemies-trying to protect liberty from its enemies. A lot of people have died that way in a lot of places over the years. God knows their names-every one of them-I believe that-but they’re beyond my help. The only thing I could do was go on, never give in, keep fighting the fight they fought.

I pushed off the door. I forced down my dizziness and sickness. I felt something flaring up inside me, a new heat, a new fire of determination. I knew I had only minutes to live. But I was going to use every one of them. I was going to do everything I could to get out of here, to find help, to find someone who would believe me when I told them about the Homelanders, to find someone who would help me stop them, help me bring them down.

A new bolt of pain went through my head, and for a second I was afraid another memory attack would knock me over. I couldn’t let that happen. I massaged my brow with my fingers, trying to think. My eyes went to Waterman’s body one more time. The pool of blood. The outstretched hand… I wondered…

As much as he could, Waterman had tried to watch out for me, to think of me and my safety. He had brought me to this bunker in the hopes of evading the Home-landers. He had hidden me in the Panic Room so I wouldn’t be discovered during the memory attacks. He had left me the symbol so I could escape if he was captured or killed. And now…

I looked at the pool of blood on the floor. The trail of blood leading into the room. The second pool beneath Waterman’s head.

He had been shot in the doorway. He had struggled to get into the room. He had managed to position himself before he was shot again-position himself with his hand outstretched, pointing…

I turned and followed the direction of Waterman’s hand. He was pointing to the slim section of wall beside the doorway. That’s all it was, a slim section of wall between the door and a metal shelf. Blank wall.

I went to it. I raised my palm. I traced the shape of the house against the blank wall. Instantly, there was the sound of a motor. A panel slid back. A small panel this time. A hidden cache about the size of a paperback book.

I reached into the cache and at once my hand touched a metal object. My fingers closed over it. I drew it out.

I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It was the little gizmo Milton One had been holding when I first came into the compound. The little control panel the size and shape of an iPhone. It was the thing Milton One had used to control Milton Two, that flying security robot that had blasted me when I tried to escape from Waterman and Dodger Jim.

I looked from the little device back to Waterman’s body where it lay on the floor.

“Thanks,” I whispered to him.

The Homelanders had killed him-and now they were trying to kill me, to make sure there was no one left who could stop them.

Well, they could try. But at least now I had a weapon. Waterman had left me a weapon.

And I wasn’t going down without a fight.