of my arm. The darkness of the chamber was intimidating, but there was no way I could’ve saved the lights and gotten through to her without being detected by the roboguards. It helped that I’d been there a hundred times. I knew the counts. I knew the turns. The dips. The rises. All that was left was to get through that gate. I could get to her. I could save her. I knew I could.
As I trudged through the sludge, my mind raced. With all the hype about shared global resources, lack of funding, and the New World Order, I knew this day would come. It was a secret pact of the top officials that those castoffs sentenced to Tabu and other such islands would be the first to go. Their escape from the islands and possible integration back into society was a moral burden and threat to the new peace. The security of these facilities was also a huge cost to bear and the secret was nearly impossible to keep. The guards. The droids. Military. All of those resources could be put to better use in the Co-op. The top officials involved in The Obliteration couldn’t have cared less about a generation of innocents born on the island, young adults who had never done anything to harm anyone. Guiltless offspring whose only sins were to be born of sinners. Girls like Ava Grace.
She was the reason I was here now risking my life. The reason I came back every summer, pretending I had an interest in learning my father’s work. The reason I had studied every integral detail of the island’s prison system, the secret entrances, exits, and holding chambers. She was the reason I had befriended the staff, doctors, agriculturalists, maintenance crew, or anyone who played a key role in the survival of the island’s inhabitants. Anyone who could get me closer to her. The guards became part of my inner circle. Their schedules, hangouts, and personal lives were all at my disposal. I learned their strengths and especially their weaknesses.
The day I was working in the culvert and overheard their decision was the day I realized time was up. I’d always thought when Ava and I were old enough, I’d strike some kind of deal with the committee to get her off the island and bring her home with me, but now it was too late for that. I had to focus on the Order’s plans of destruction and come up with a way to sneak her out before it was too late. There was no other way to save her.
My path had been chosen for me. Rather than working in agriculture like my father, I had negotiated a role in documentation and security at Tabu. Little did the officials know I was working with them so when the time came, I would stand a small chance against them. Lucky for me, my years of patience and plotting afforded me the knowledge and ability to create for her an identity outside of Tabu. One that she could take with her, if I was lucky enough to break her out in time. I just hoped my years of infiltrating the system would be enough to save her.
“Go,” I grunted to myself after struggling to raise the gate high enough to squeeze through. My breathing was heavy and my legs were shaking and fatigued from battling the heavy barrier. As I struggled, I second-guessed cutting the electricity before trying to raise it, but that would have certainly set off more alarms. I couldn’t afford the time it would’ve taken for an interrogation. The odds of me making it through were already slim to none. Exhausted wasn’t a strong enough word for the weight of what I was feeling. The only thing that kept me putting one foot in front of the other was the image of her sitting in the chamber, not knowing these were her final hours of life. The voices in my head were telling me to move quickly. Time was working against me. I had to get to my Ava Grace.
Panting my way through the dark corridor, my thoughts drifted back to the ocean. Even back then I came up with a plan after watching her with the driftwood that day. In my fifteen-year-old mind, it was brilliant. I would grab some baling twine from my father’s Ag shop and bring it to her. We would use it to tie a bunch of logs together and