“We open this door; it has the least amount of soldiers on the other side. We rush them,” Atlas decided.

One of the exits only had seven soldiers at it.

Even odds.

If the knot were combat trained.

Which they weren’t. The odds weren’t remotely even.

“We open all the doors.”

She looked up to find them all staring at her. It was she who spoke.

Romy stared at the screens. “If we open one they’ll rush to that exit.”

“The exits are at least five hundred metres apart,” Atlas said. “They won’t know which one to cover.”

“Exactly,” she said. But Romy had another plan.

Houston was busy wiping the medi-tech of information, transferring and destroying all evidence of Romy’s body.

The knot had none of their packs. Only the old map that Romy purposefully gave to Elara for safekeeping. It seemed pointless now, knowing Atlas was part of an uprising, but she didn’t want to leave it behind for the Mandate to see. Banging and crashing made her jump. Houston was smashing the machines. Thrym was helping him while Deimos looked on, swaying on his feet. The shot Houston gave Deimos earlier was beginning to wear off. How much more could he take? Apparently yet another shot of the energy-boosting substance; Houston administered it while Phobos joined in the smashing.

“Okay.” The doctor nodded to Atlas. “I’m ready.”

Romy had never seen him so serious. And she knew it was a bad sign.

“How far away are your friends?” she asked, rushing after Atlas as he left the room and entered a different one. One full of controls.

“Nearly two hours,” he answered tersely. “It will take us most of that time to reach the surface.” He shouted to Houston, who shouted back.

They were ready to leave.

Atlas closed his eyes, wiping at a sheen of sweat. Romy watched his actions carefully. There was a red button in front of each entrance’s camera. It seemed simple enough.

“What’s this one for?” Romy asked. There was another green button off to one side.

“It seals off the internal rooms from the tunnels.”

Atlas moved down the line, pushing on all of the red buttons. Red lights began to flash in the cavern, noiselessly alerting them that the bunker was open to attack.

Atlas grabbed her arm. “Come on. You’re up front so I can keep an eye on you.”

They ran for the exit with the least number of soldiers. Atlas pulled Romy along by the hand. They ran for half an hour, Deimos keeping up for now.

Romy looked back at Elara, who was flagging.

“Atlas,” she called. “I’m going back to help Ellie.”

He gave her a hard look.

“Or I can stay up here with you and we won’t notice when Ellie collapses,” she said harshly.

Atlas opened his mouth.

“Atlas,” panted Houston. “We need to move. We don’t have time.”