Chapter 12: Novagene Design Core
David refused to accept my help at first, but I reminded him that he had no choice, unless he wanted me to inform Scia of everything he’d just said. I never actually intended to follow through, but the threat worked.
It took us ten minutes to come up with a simple plan in which I snuck Altus a coat while David distracted the viewing room guards. I had hoped our roles would be in the reverse, but David didn’t have access to the room Altus was being kept in, and I did, since he was technically still my patient.
Once we worked out the details, David went back for a spare work coat, leaving me to pace anxiously out front. I knew I would look suspicious walking without purpose, so I forced myself to sit down on the smooth edge of a fountain.
Voices muffled by automated advertisements and musical notes floated through the air only to be drowned out by the soft gargle of the fountain. A teacher in dark purple robes, followed by a group of ten or twelve students on a tour of the city, stopped at the edge of the fountains to explain the historical monuments, some of which were almost as old as the dome itself.
Across from them, a mother squeezed hands with her young son, leading him up the steps to Central. He was watching the small silver electron rotate around the proton of his hydrogen atom balloon so intently that he didn’t notice the first step and fell face first. The balloon slipped from his hand, almost in slow motion, rising as if possessed, faster and faster, higher and higher. My stomach clenched. When the mother helped the boy up, his face was wet and swollen with tears, though she tried desperately to return it to its original state.
I squinted up at the bright sky, trying to see both the balloon and the canopy I knew was there, but couldn’t make out through the blinding light. When I turned away, black and yellow spots clung to my vision. The more they faded, the more I worried. Every second was a second closer to Scia searching for me. Every minute was a minute closer to the real Clint showing up, a minute closer to Altus being transferred to a healing level, and a minute closer to rendering our plan useless.
I turned back to the fountain. Gentle streams of water cascaded down smooth metal lines as tiny spouts simultaneously shot up in miniature arches of all different colors. Cautiously, I reached a finger towards the water, letting it graze the surface. Even though the sensation was pleasant, I pulled my hand back quickly, knowing it was against the rules. I settled with watching one of the hundred small spheres of granite that appeared to float unsuspended in the pond.
It was a full ten minutes later when David returned. Walking back to Central was terrifying. Everyone’s eyes seemed to glare accusingly at me, their footsteps drumming out my doom. I hoped I didn’t run into Scia. Checking our schedule for the sixth time, I saw she was still on the fourth floor. That was good. I glanced at her next patient on the list, who was back on the second floor. That was bad.
As I stepped onto the escalator, my mind was carefully calculating an escape plan, just in case. I was supposed to wait two minutes after David went in. If I didn’t see him anywhere, he was successful and I had approximately five minutes to free Altus. It was the approximant part that worried me.
I reached the second floor. There was still no sign of David.
After the two minutes passed and there was still no sign of him, I checked again to make sure Scia was still on the fourth floor, before starting down the familiar corridor.
Eyes down, I could feel the passing glances of busy healers and perceivers gloss over me until I came to room 218. My breath was held tight as I lifted my wrist to the scanner.
The door opened as usual. Altus looked up, blinking in surprise. For the first time since I met him, he seemed genuinely confused.
Rushing inside, I tossed the dark coat to him. “Put this on, quick,” my voice was rushed with fear.
He stared at me, looking up at the camera. “Val-”
“Hurry up, I know what I’m doing. David filled me in.” I prayed everything had gone all right with David, and the guards were well distracted by now. I didn’t want to think what would happen if they weren’t. “He’s got the cameras covered. I hope.”
Altus raised an eyebrow. He was already on his feet, his arms slipping beneath the heavy coat. “I must say—I’m impressed. I had hoped you had more potential than the rest of them, but after our little encounter the other day, I wasn’t so sure.” The white of his pants stuck out a few inches below the bottom, but it would have to do.
“Well, now you can be.” I swiped my wrist and moved aside, letting Altus stride out first, as if we were emerging from a routine examination.
“Diagnosis?” He asked casually.
“Healthy.” I replied, watching the other perceivers and assistants continue their routines, waiting for them to notice a patient had just walked out.
“Would you elaborate, please?” Altus stepped onto the escalator, the white gleaming at his ankle.
“Oh, you know, the usual.” I smiled nervously. Forbidding myself to look back over my shoulder, I kept my eyes fixed on the exit.
“Vallanie Sharp!” I felt the blood freeze in my veins the moment I stepped of the escalator. The only person who could turn my name into such a threatening phrase was Scia.
Dreading to turn but feeling compelled to, I crooked my head so I could make out the hardened glower on my mentor’s familiar face.
“Explain to me why Miss Lux said she saw you flirting with some boy when you were supposed to be-“ as if someone had flicked a switch, she instantly went quiet, her attention entranced by something over my shoulder.
Following her gaze, I was led directly to where Altus was striding casually outside, the white of his robes trailing at his heals.
“Is that a patient?” Scia’s voice nearly shook with rage. Whirling on me, she demanded, “Who let him go?”
I gulped, knowing I was in trouble. I couldn’t think of a single way out without explaining everything. Opening my mouth, I tried to find the words, but stopped, hesitating in confusion when she turned her back to me.
As she strolled towards the closest guards, I realized with mixed feelings that she was not accusing me at all, but stating her thoughts out loud. “Guards!” She all but shouted, pointing at the entrance. “Why did a man just walk out that door still garbed in his patients robes? Who is responsible for this?”
I doubted it would take the guards long to find the answer. Altus, approaching the end of the circle of fountains, had a decent chance of escaping by then, if what David said about being from outside was true. I, on the other hand, had little chance of getting out punishment free while standing twenty feet from the guards.
The unpleasant realization slid through me like burning wax. Unable to stand still any longer, I took a small hesitant step back, then turned, exiting as fast as I could.
“Where are you going?” Luci called in annoyance.
Without looking back, I walked as fast as I could to the entrance, ignoring Luci’s fading cries. The second I was outside, it took all my willpower to keep from running. Altus wasn’t anywhere in sight, but I caught the end of a dark coat disappearing around a corner and hoped it was his.
Increasing my speed, I turned the corner seconds later, only to crash right into David.
Regaining his balance, he looked at me with a mix of surprise and relief. “Val?”
“What are you doing here?” Altus demanded, straightening up from where he was rolling his pant legs up to his knees. His tone would have scared me if I hadn’t known him to be harmless. “Go back to Central, now.”
“No. Not until you tell me the truth.” My conviction surprised me. Part of me was impressed, while the other thought I was being just plain stupid. These people had caused me to commit the only crime I’d ever committed, and now they were the only ones who could get me out of it. And that was only if what they said was true. I swallowed uncomfortably. “Are you really from outside the dome?”
Altus let out a sharp breath of air. “We do
n’t have time for this.“
At that exact moment, as if to prove his point, a low-pitched alarm sounded from every direction. Tiny red flashing lights sprouted from the ground until everything in sight seemed to be overcome with electronic roses.
Around us, civilians stopped walking to gape in surprise. The alarm hadn’t been sounded in over three years, since the Delta-Jones escape, which was all over the news for months back home. Altus looked down as well, though whether his surprise was genuine or faked, I couldn’t tell.
I heard the click of airtight locks sucking into surrounding buildings and I wondered for the first time if my name would go down in infamy. Preparing to run, I stopped, awkwardly balanced as Altus held out his hand.
“We don’t want to look suspicious,” he said in a low whisper. Sure to take steady long steps, he began a casual stroll towards the busiest part of the street.
A single glance at David revealed he was prepared to copy him. I followed suit, glancing nervously over my shoulder every few steps until we were fully integrated into a pack of scared bystanders.
We made it to the edge of the alert zone, which was a whole two blocks, without any trouble. When we came to the last patch of red lights, a single guard stopped Altus and asked him politely for identification.
“No problem,” Altus replied confidently. “You have the pleasure of talking to Dr. James Voltus.” He placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “This is my son, Marcus,“ he gestured towards me with a polite smile, “and my apprentice, Vallanie.”
“That’s all right, Sir,” the guard said amiably, reaching in his front pocket. “I just need to see some ID.” He pulled out a scanner and held it up.
I glanced at Altus, who was still smiling away without seeming the least bit worried. He rolled back the sleeves of his coat and reached out his wrist.
The guard took a step forward and Altus sucked in a large breath, letting it out across his wrist. Powder suddenly overtook the air, transforming into smoky wraiths that surrounded the guard, who had just enough time to brush his fingers against his weapon before he fell to the floor, unconscious.
Around us, there were gasps and cries of horror as people literally ran in every direction, fleeing from us like we carried the plague.
“Shed your coats,” Altus ordered as the street cleared.
David and I did as we were asked, letting them fall to the marble sidewalk. Altus turned, running only to the closest corner, before he regained his casual stroll towards the outskirts of the city and the edge of the dome.
I tried not to look back. I tried not to think about what I’d gotten myself into. I wanted to run, forwards or backwards, I didn’t care, just as long as I ended up some place safe. But I knew running was the one thing that would ensure that never happened, so I kept my pace slow, my eyes scanning the distance for more guards.
Before I knew it, we were looking up at the tall tinted windows of Novagene Design Core’s headquarters.
Altus led us to a steel side door below a digital sign that blinked “Authorized Only” in bold red letters.
“We can’t get in.” I looked over my shoulder, expecting the entire police force to show up with angry expressions and fully charged weapons. “We don’t have clearance.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Altus scanned his wrist and I cringed, terrified an alarm would sound. But the world remained silent, except for the squeak of heavy metal as it retreated into the side frame.
“You sure you want to come?” Altus kept his gaze on me, stepping aside for me to enter, if I wished.
Before I could answer, a voice shriller than the alarms demanded us to freeze. Terrified a single blink was enough to get me shot, I stood uncomfortably stiff, until I placed the voice as Luci’s.
How or why she was there, I couldn’t begin to fathom, but I knew it wasn’t good. With a groan of frustration, I turned to tell her to back off, but stopped short.
“Don’t take another step,” she said fiercely, holding out a long metal pole nearly twice her size that looked more like a decorative curtain rod than a weapon.
“Come on, Luci,” I said, unsure whether to laugh or be afraid, “What are you going to do? Hit me over the head?”
She raised the pole, pointing the sharp tip directly towards Altus. “This man is a patient.”
“I know,” I said in annoyance.
She swung the point towards David. “And that’s not Clint.”
“I know.”
She turned to me in confusion. Relaxing her arm, she pulled back so the tip of her makeshift weapon was a mere foot from her hand, pointing at no one in particular, but in our general direction. Her eyes locked on mine. “What’s going on, Val?”
For a second, I didn’t know how to respond, because I didn’t get why she was asking. Then I realized she was trying to save me. She had come all this way just to warn me that the people I was with weren’t who I thought they were—or rather, who she thought I thought they were. It could have been touching, if her arrival hadn’t increased my chances of getting arrested.
Altus, determining Luci wasn’t a threat, retreated behind the door.
Luci tightened the grip on her weapon, but didn’t move.
Watching her carefully, David took small heavy steps back until he was certain he wasn’t going to be attacked, and retreated inside as well.
That left me alone with Luci. Eyes on me, she shook her head as if the confusion was an annoying piece of dust she could shake away. The curled spear was feet away, but pointed straight at my chest. She open and closed her mouth a few times, but was either too scared or too confused to decide what she wanted to say until at last the words that came out were, “I won’t tell Scia.”
Her voice was so earnest, I half believed her, but it still didn’t change my mind. “Sorry Luci,” I threw my hands over my head, taking a small step back. “I don’t care what Scia thinks.”
The spear slipped from her hand, clattering on the ground. “Val!” She shouted, her voice shaking with genuine fear, “Come back!”
Altus pulled the door shut behind me and the three of us were left standing in a small dimly lit room with doors on all sides. An ancient panel of buttons adorned the corner nearest us, and it took noticing they were numbered one to thirty-two to realize we were inside a sort of elevator.
Altus pressed a button that immediately opened the opposite doors and we walked past the retracted sheets of thick steel to the other side.
Machines roared in the distance, overpowered by a loud mechanical breathing emitting from a round black structure to our left. It pulsed inside a tangle of wires extended from the ceiling like giant tentacles, some of which were four feet thick.
The farther we walked, the dimmer the light became, until I had to rely on my companions’ footsteps to know where they were.
I started to panic. What was I thinking, following two strangers onto restricted property? This was the kind of story you heard about in old movies, back when the world had kidnappers and murderers. Did they still have them? Were these the last remaining two?
Those thoughts weren’t getting me anywhere, so I shoved them aside. They were ridiculous, but even they seemed more realistic than people living outside the dome. It just seemed so implausible. Why hadn’t anyone seen them before?
My thoughts were interrupted when the footsteps stopped. I braced for an attack of some sort, but nothing came. There was just a large white door to an emergency exit, barely visible in the flickering light, with an old-fashioned metal bar that had to be pushed to open.
“After you,” Altus said, stepping aside.
“Is it armed?” I asked, paranoid.
Altus replied, amused, “I certainly hope not. It wasn’t when we came here.”
I didn’t ask how long ago that was. I didn’t want to know. There were, however, a lot of things I did want to know. “Where does it lead?” I asked warily. It was like I’d unclogged my voice with that question, mo
re spilling out one after another in a jumble before anyone had time to respond. “And how did you get us in here? How did you even know about this place? Did you kill someone? Did you kill an Authorized? Did you kill that guard?”
The amusement faded from his face as Altus straightened his back. The dim lights cast eerie shadows across him, stripping him of his usual charisma. “No, to the ones about killing anyone. I knew about this place and I got us in because I am an Authorized. Legally,” he added, stressing the final word before I could pick back up the role of inquisitor. He paused a moment and added, “at least, I was.”
“Your chart didn’t say that.”
“That’s because it wasn’t my chart. It was one I made up a long time ago, before I quit working for Novagene, incase I ever needed to come back.” He stepped forward, casting aside the shadows. “I’d love to explain more—I really would—but the longer we delay, the more likely we are to get caught. I promise, I will answer any questions you have as soon as we are safe, but for now, I need you to either go back, or give me your complete trust.”
I nodded. I might not have known if I could fully trust them, but I sure as anything knew I wasn’t going back. Taking a deep breath, I shoved my palm onto the protruding panel of cold steel stretched across the door.
It was a storage closet. Long and narrow with half stocked shelves, it seemed to be in surprisingly good shape compared to what I’d seen of the interior so far. Altus stepped inside, emerging moments later with two pairs of silver scrubs. He told us to put them on over our clothes. David had to roll up his sleeves, and I had to tuck in my skirt. It still looked a little funny on me, so I taped my skirt down with medical gauze.
Altus put on a white lab coat, filling the pockets with items I couldn’t make out.
“Follow my lead. If anyone asks, I’m Dr.—” he looked at his digital nametag, which blinked, waiting to be filled in. He pressed a small button on the back, and waited until the letters arranged themselves to the last user’s name. “Dr. Sherman, and you two are my students.”
We exited back into the basement, continuing forward until we came to another elevator. This time, we rode it up a level, emerging in a hallway full of scientists in lab coats and scrubs identical to our own.
Cameras were scattered all over the building, but Altus walked past them without taking notice. Glass windows separated us from robotically operated clean rooms, controlled by men and women with thin gray gloves that clung to their hands, capturing their movements to be displayed on a screen above them.
We exited into a cafeteria, bigger and brighter than the one at Central, but more or less identical. Scientists and technicians gathered around tables in animated conversation, with the occasional loners sitting on the sides, scrolling through the news or over their morning’s work.
“And now for the hard part.” Altus said, grimly. “Wait here.”
David and I did as we were asked, watching Altus as he walked over to a table of scientists. Just as they looked up, he clapped one on the back, greeting him in a loud voice. I was surprised we were unable to catch most of the words from across the cafeteria, but they were jumbled over the rhythmic hum of machines and the laughter of two nearby technicians sharing crude jokes.
The scientists smiled and shook hands with him. A blonde haired woman said something, and the men around her laughed. Someone slid over, offering Altus a seat beside him, but Altus declined, gesturing towards the kitchen. He talked animatedly with a few of the scientists for nearly two minutes before he returned, tapping his pocket.
It wasn’t until we were well down another hall and out of earshot when David asked what exactly it was that his conversation accomplished.
Altus didn’t answer, but we found out when we reached the end of the hallway, marked by a steel door with a scanner. Unlike the ones I was used to in the dome, it had a single red bar over a black box protruding from the wall inches from the doorknob. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something resembling a radix, though a version I had never seen before. Lifting it to the scanner, there was a double beep, then the light turned green. An image of the elder scientist came up on a small screen above us.
The doors opened to a silver hallway, almost identical to the first, only it widened as it progressed. Men and women sat behind computers in plain sight, behind open arched doorways, doing their work as if they were perfectly content being looked in on. It felt like we’d stepped back in time.
Two security guards had their backs to us, their eyes glued to a nicely dressed man stepping through a spherical structure that scanned his body. Behind him, a man had taken off his shoes and emptied the contents of his pockets into a small box. Placing the box on an electronic belt, he waited for his turn to walk through.
The man looked surprisingly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him at first. It was the unsatisfactory attempt of a smile he gave the guard that reminded me of my encounter with him the previous night. What was Dr. Cecil, the perceiving president, doing in the Perimeter?
Turning away before he might spot me, I thought of asking Altus. Then, remembering our current situation, I thought better of it and let the question pile on the many others settling in my mind.
The guards, busy with Dr. Cecil and the others, paid us no attention as we walked past in the opposite direction.
The farther we walked, the more crowded it got. Individuals moved past us from one room to another across the hall. A group of scientists passed us with nods of greeting.
Altus smiled, nodding back. I was paying carefully attention to him, but even I almost missed the subtle flick of his hand that sent the stolen radix into the last man’s pocket.
We eventually came to an unoccupied office room. Light filtered in through tinted windows, casting shadows from the built-in shelves on an otherwise brightly exposed carpet. Altus stepped inside and ditched the coat. He told us to shed our scrubs and stay hidden until he returned.
We did as he asked, pacing quietly, or lingering in the far corner until I could barely stand it. “Do you think something happened to him?” I whispered, smoothing out my skirt for the tenth time.
David shook his head. “He’ll be here.”
I wished I had his confidence in Altus. Just when I was thinking of going to look for him, Altus returned in new baggy pants and an oversized sweater, carrying coffee stained scrubs.
“What happened?” David asked, sounding more curious than worried.
“It seems anyone can be compassionate when you give them a reason,” Altus replied simply, tossing the white garments in the garbage.
We stepped back into the daily routine of Novagene Design Core as we continued our way down the hall.
A scientist stepped out of a dark room with dim red lights pulsing in the ground. I caught a glimpse of giant round machines behind a glass wall before the door sealed itself. Images of embryos at all stages of development were displayed on large screens, numbered and labeled. I shuddered to think I spent nine months in one of those machines.
We stopped in front of a room that read “Employees Only.” A red light blinked, altering us it was armed.
I turned to Altus. “What now?”
“Now,” he said, a small smile forming above his beard, “we get caught.”
Chapter 13: Escape
The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp: Novice Page 12