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Law? 
Impossible.  We've broken plenty of the old ones, surely.  But this?
    "As such, this Outpost has been marked for
cleansing," the voice continues in unconcerned authority.  "All
residents are to be processed for erasure.  Form a single file line at the
Outpost gate.  You have two minutes to comply.  Any resistance will
extend the punishment for all residents to immediate death."

Chapter 4: Two
Minutes
    Faces are white, living corpses.  A girl beside me
stumbles and clings to an older woman at her side.  Horror manifests in
widened, staring eyes, and then in sobs.  Wailing.  People are
calling out for each other.  Trying to find family members.  Friends.
    I've only one hope.  If I get in that line, I'm
dead.  Jonas and Neveah.  Apollon, if he still exists.  We're
all dead.  We've already been marked once.
    Two Sentries come sprinting through the marketplace toward
the gates.  I ditch out of the way, narrowly avoid them.  The girl
next to me screams as her leg is crushed.  I grab her arms and drag her
further out of the main path, watching the backs of the Sentries
disappear.  They’re ours.  They’re going to defend us.  Matt
does have a plan.
    A clash of metal sounds at the gate.  People are
shrieking, running.  An explosion.  Smoke and flames billow skyward,
marking the battle that is happening at the gate.  More Sentries are
coming from the opposite direction.  This time, we’re lucky not to be in
their path.  They turn off before they reach us and run to join the
battle.
    Taylor’s arm scoops around my waist and hauls me up. 
“Let’s go,” he says, even as he pulls me away.
    “No!”  I’m reaching for the girl who is sobbing,
shivering.  She’s in shock.  “We have to help her!”
    Jacob’s eyes dart in her direction, consider the older woman
who has now made it to her side.  “She has help,” he says.  His
brother nods.  Each of them grab me by one arm and get us walking— fast—
toward the Rustler.
    We stay out of the street, where chaos rages as people flee
in all directions and more Sentries run toward the gates.
    I’m looking over my shoulder, straining to make out what’s
happening as they drag me along.  There’s only smoke and fire and clashing
and crashing.  A piece of metal goes flying into the air, spinning,
spinning on its way down.  It seems to take forever to fall.  A cloud
of debris tosses into the air as it crashes through a roof.  More
screams.  Then we’re at the Rustler, through the door, behind the bar, and
Jacob and Taylor are shoving me into the dark hole beneath the trap door.
    I growl under my breath as I allow them to push me in. 
A new kind of animal fear competes with the fear of the battle.  My
stomach turns.  I close my eyes, shivering, and tell myself that the darkness
is only because I have my eyes closed.  I’m not in a hole.  I’m not
in a box.
    The door thuds closed above me, and I hear Jacob and Taylor
shuffling beside me in the darkness.  They don’t say a word or try to move
me any further into the tunnels.  This should be good enough.  We
should be clear of any scanners, so long as we’re quiet.
    But in the dark, I think of Jonas.  Of Neveah. 
And try so hard not to think of Apollon.  Are my friends
safe?  Will they make it?  Will I have lost all of them when this is
over?  For a brief second, an image flashes in my mind, burning
there.  Me, Jacob, and Taylor climbing from the trap door, emerging into a
broken, battered Outpost in dead silence.  There is nothing.  No
one.  Everyone has been erased or slaughtered.  The flash moves to
Oscar.  To his happy little smile.  To dangling feet.  I crouch
low, leaning into the wall, hugging myself, biting off a wail.  Fear and
rage and grief and disgust.  I could have stopped this.  I could have
made this stop, if Matt had let me.  I have to get out of here.  Find
the white tower.  Destroy the Sentries once and for all.
     
    ***
    Moments or