Interviewer: Could you still see the Lincoln?
Ezra Mason: No. But we could see that the refinery had been hit. It was covered in this…I dunno. It’s hard to describe. It was like a mist? But it was black. Creeping in the air real slow, like molasses. Not smoke. It was…something different.
Interviewer: You said your father worked at the refinery?
Ezra Mason: Yeah. So of course I want to go look for him. And Kady still wants to go find Mrs. Grant. And the glacier is cracking open and the sky is on fire, and I think I can see BeiTech ground troops in the distance. And then I said it.
Interviewer: What did he say?
Kady Grant: He said, “You picked a hell of a day to dump me, Kades.”
Interviewer: …You honestly said that?
Ezra Mason: Yeah. So all hell breaks loose, and Kady is yelling at me and I’m yelling back. All this stuff that’d been building up for the last year and boiling just under the skin. Like, I loved her. I love her. But she had this way of just…It was so stupid. The world is ending all around us and we’re screaming about college applications and commitment and ****. I mean, can you believe that?
Interviewer: You’re seventeen, right?
Ezra Mason: Almost eighteen.
Interviewer: Then yes, I believe it.
Ezra Mason: Cold, chum. Real cold.
Interviewer: So what happened next?
Ezra Mason: I took off. She told me I was being crazy, but I was just…furious. And my dad is all I have left, so…yeah. Ran toward the refinery, burning cars and trashed buildings everywhere. I saw a Cyclone crash into an apartment block right in front of my face. Felt the heat on my skin. I was just keeping low and trying to get closer to the plant, but there were BT troops all over. Big, armor-plated goons in winter camo carrying guns you could kill a glacieosaur with. I didn’t really have a plan, I just needed to find my dad. Didn’t know what I was going to do once I hit that fog. But turned out that wouldn’t be a problem.
Interviewer: Why’s that?
Ezra Mason: Well, they shot me.
Interviewer: They shot him?
Kady Grant: I couldn’t believe it either. Those ****ers should have got in line. They’re not the ones who had to put up with his—
Interviewer: You said you’d parted ways at that stage. How did you find out he’d been shot?
Kady Grant: I started by heading toward my mom’s lab on foot, but there were a bunch of BeiTech troops in the way. They were putting carriers down on the ground and rolling out soldiers and all-terrain vehicles. I was a little concussed, I’m pretty sure. I know I stopped to puke at one point. I could see shuttles landing out by the labs to do evac, so I just hoped my mom was getting on one of them. I knew I wasn’t going to make it across town to her. I wasn’t going to make it anywhere without another truck. So I stole one from a BeiTech crew.
Interviewer: I’m sorry, you what?
Kady Grant: I am frequently underestimated. I think it’s because I’m short.
Interviewer: They didn’t want it back?
Kady Grant: Probably. They were pretty busy jumping out of the way. Also, I knew my way around the middle of town—they didn’t. I took some sharp corners around the back of the community complex, scraped the truck doors right off. But when I got out the other end, I’d lost them. Our people didn’t have weapons to shoot at me with, and theirs thought I was on the same team, I guess.
Interviewer: What happened next?
Kady Grant: There was this filthy black cloud oozing down from atmo toward the refinery, and I knew that was where Ezra was. I heard it was some kind of bio-attack. Is that true?
Interviewer: I don’t know. You said he was shot, so I guess you found him?
Kady Grant: On the wrong end of a BeiTech platoon, bleeding everywhere. I kind of freaked out when I saw it all.
Interviewer: Were you able to retrieve him?
Kady Grant: I, uh…Are there likely to be any prosecutions for stuff that happened down there?
Interviewer: They X-ed out a quarter of my crew. None of us are going to weep if you’re telling me you took out a BeiTech squad to get to him.
Kady Grant: Like I said, I’m pretty small, and there was a lot of blood all over everything. I guess my foot slipped on the accelerator. It was hard to reach, you know? I ran a bunch of them down and pulled up right beside him.
Interviewer: What did he do?
Kady Grant: He said, “Hey, Kades.” What a catch, seriously. The truck’s door was missing, though, so it was easy for him to climb in, and we took off like we were outrunning a blizzard. We could see shuttles coming down on the outskirts of town, and they didn’t have BeiTech markings on them, so we risked it. We were hoping they were evac sent by our research fleet.
Interviewer: And then what?
Ezra Mason: I don’t remember much. I think I made a joke about needing to see her license and registration. Because, you know, she just ran over a bunch of—
Interviewer: I get it.
Ezra Mason: Right. And then I said, “I’m bleeding,” and she said, “Shut up, I’m not talking to you,” so I just kinda concentrated on not dying. There was blood everywhere. It hurt so much I think I started laughing. Maybe I was going into shock. Kady was yelling at me to put pressure on it, but it hurt less if I didn’t. There were fighters overhead. I remember being really cold. I remember looking at Kady driving, covered in blood, with her hair crusted with snow and everything. I think I told her she was beautiful. Then the lights went out.
Interviewer: You made it to the shuttles?
Kady Grant: We made it close. We were driving a BeiTech truck now, so I had to stop and drag Ezra across the ice so they could see we were civis. A couple of the med center staff had made it out there, so they were putting the wounded on shuttles with those guys, and the rest of us into the others. I was screaming my head off, trying to get someone to help me lift him in. I don’t even know how I dragged him. The whole time there were these missiles arcing in and exploding around us, fires starting. I guess they decided if I could yell that loud, I wasn’t hurt bad enough to make the wounded shuttle, so they made me leave him with the doc. That’s how he ended up on the Alexander and I ended up on the Hypatia.
Interviewer: You’ve been very helpful. Did you see whether any missiles hit the refinery?
Kady Grant: I don’t think so, just the black cloud. They wouldn’t blow it up, though, would they? I mean, if BeiTech wanted the colony gone, they’d have just ratted to the UTA about it. They obviously wanted the hermium we were mining for themselves. They’d hardly destroy the only way they had to process it.