Free The Resisters by Eric Nylund Page A

looked like a huge mouth about to swallow the bus and Ethan.
    No one would swoop in at the last moment and save him.
    Ethan arched his back, pulling his arms and legs once more against the restraints.
    There was no way he was letting anyone take him away from his home! There was no way he was letting them take his mind!
    His struggles just tightened the seat harness.
    He slumped, exhausted.
    The bus entered the tunnel, and darkness filled the bus.
    “Welcome to the Sterling School for the Gifted,” said a friendly girl’s voice.
    He blinked back brimming tears. Video screens lowered from the bus’s ceiling. On-screen was a redheaded girl in a crisp black school uniform. She walked down an ivy-covered corridor.
    “You’re special!” the girl said. “And at Sterling, we know exactly how to put your special abilities to use.”
    She smiled, and the scene dissolved to a chemistry lab where boys and girls set beakers of boiling goo behind clear blast shields and watched the stuff explode.
    What was this? They would
never
let him do that at Northside.
    The girl in the video laughed. “We know you’re inquisitive and creative, and maybe you even got punished because you were ‘different.’ ”
    The scene cut to a field full of boys and girls in black sweats who sparred with padded sticks. They seemed to be having a great time beating the snot out of each other.
    Ethan gaped at the mass roughhousing. This stuff was totally frowned upon at Northside. Why make them aggressive
on purpose
?
    “We’re going to channel your natural leadership ability and make you stronger.”
    That was a lie.
    Ethan figured it was to keep these “troublemaker” students busy until they hit puberty. Keep them from finding out the truth and escaping.
    “We’re proud of our Sterling graduates,” the girl continued. “They go on to become senators—judges—policemen—and the leaders in
your
community!”
    “More lies,” Ethan said.
    He balled his hands into fists.
    The bus emerged from the tunnel, and the sudden sunlight made him blink. Through the windows he saw wheat fields waving in a breeze, windmills spinning to make clean energy, and a fruit stand selling apples.
    “It’s all lies!” He pounded his fist on the window—once, twice, three times.
    The video presentation stopped.
    A computer voice crackled through the speakers:
“Please do not damage Sterling School property. Demerits will be awarded. This is your only warning!”
    Ethan laughed. They thought demerits or detention were going to scare him
now
?
    “You want to give demerits for something? Try this!”
    He laced his hands and hammered them—right in themiddle of the window—again and again—once more … and a hairline crack splintered.
    It was weird. That crack was white and red against the green fields.
    Just as Ethan
knew
it had to be … because it wasn’t a real window. It was a computer monitor, showing him what they wanted him to see.
    He moved closer and looked through the crack.
    He saw the
real
outside. It was dusty and red and gray, and the sun blazed overhead. Huge machines rumbled in the distance chewing through the mountains.
    At least he knew he wasn’t crazy.
    He glared up at the speakers. “You can’t stop me from knowing the truth.”
    Ethan heard a gentle hiss from the air-conditioning vents and smelled a faint chemical odor.
    His heart raced.
    Like Felix had told him, they were going to drug him.
    While he was asleep, would they inject him with those chemicals that’d make him reach puberty faster? When he woke up … would he even be Ethan Blackwood anymore?
    He turned back to the window and hammered over and over.
    The single tiny crack resisted his efforts.
    A tingling spread over Ethan’s throat. He got dizzy.
    This was it.
    They were going to win.
    Ethan mustered all his strength, tensed his entire body—and hit the window with everything he had.
    A second crack splintered out from the first.
    He’d done it.
    But it was