At that moment I realized Altus must really be defective. He was clearly insane.
I didn’t have time to speak, much less act, before he slammed his palm into the metal of the door, shoving it open.
Immediately, an alarm sounded overhead, accompanied by a frenzy of flashing lights.
He stepped through the doorway, into the darkened room beyond.
I was half considering turning and running, when David caught my eye and gave me a smile that was supposed to be reassuring. It would have worked better if he hadn’t followed it by biting his thumbnail with a nervous glance towards Altus. Nevertheless, he followed Altus inside, so I trudged along behind them.
The room was dark, with a single glass wall that stretched for half a mile or more in both directions. Behind it were the vaguely familiar streets of Civitis. We were outside the dome, looking in.
It felt weird—somewhat wrong—like I was watching footage of a dream I could have sworn was real.
My heart started pounding again as two guards approached us from one side, a third from the other. The closest one called out to us in a gruff voice, “This is for authorized personnel only.”
“Oh. Sorry Officer, we didn’t know,” Altus said, sounding much less intelligent than I’d ever heard him before. He seemed to fumble for words, slinging an arm over David’s shoulder and pulling him in tight. “I just wanted to show my kids.”
“Sorry Sir, but you’re not allowed to be here.” The guard stopped less than three feet away, eyeing us carefully. “There are signs everywhere. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“All right, all right. If it’s that much trouble.” Altus threw his hands in the air and turned to us with a dramatic shake of his head. “Take a good look kids, this is as close as you’re ever going to get.”
I was surprised they didn’t handcuff us as they escorted us out of the room. One guard stayed in front of us, while anther followed behind. The third had disappeared by the time we reached the end of the hall.
“Where you guys from?” The guard behind us asked, addressing me. I couldn’t help but stare at the gun he had slung through the strap of his belt. I wasn’t sure how to answer.
Altus answered for me. “California.”
The guard looked disappointed I hadn’t spoken and grunted in reply.
“We’ve come a long way,” Altus continued, “My wife’s from Florida, so we just decided to stop by here on the way.”
I didn’t want to think about what would happen when they found out the truth. But it would take time, I reminded myself. The elder scientist would have to realize his radix was missing. He would have to call security and they’d trace it to the poor fellow Altus had framed. That misunderstanding would have to be sorted out, and they’d have to pull up old security cameras. It would be easy to trace it back to us, but I hoped we’d be long gone by then. In all likelihood, our chances of escape were good, as long as Luci kept her mouth shut.
That left only our escorts to worry about.
They were surprisingly quiet the rest of the way, mostly because Altus was chatting enthusiastically about different historic landmarks and corporations I had never heard of before.
Before I knew it, the guards had led us out the front door and into the open air. With the simple request to “take care,” they turned their backs to us and retreated into their metal fortress.
I realized I was subconsciously holding my breath. It took a fair amount of effort to pry open my lungs, letting the last wave of fresh air dispense into the new atmosphere, unable to restrain the strange thick gases from rushing in.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought. The smell was different, though I couldn’t quite place it. It was dry, somewhat rough against my lungs. A gust of wind plowed over us—much larger than any we ever had in the dome—like there was some giant air conditioning unit just beyond our sight—sprinkling us in sand.
“That wasn’t too bad.” Altus pulled a piece of dust from his sweater and watched it flutter to the ground before he removed a strip of flesh colored tape from his wrist. I didn’t have to ask what it was; I recognized a fake ID when I saw one. Some of the older kids used them to buy adult simulator games. He sealed it in a small plastic card that he placed back in his pocket. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a walk from here. We’d take the bus, but I’m not sure we have time to wait around.”
We started across the flat gray land in silence, meandering around the various metal structures unevenly spaced between fading white lines. I tried not to stumble over the rough ground. Heat rose from it, hovering around my feet in a way that made me worry we were walking over a furnace.
After a few minutes, the heat became unbearable, the roots of my hair hot and sticky with sweat. When we came to the edge of the gravel, we could see only sand that seemed to stretch for miles, with no end in sight.
Hoping it was an illusion like the edge of the dome, I waited for Altus to press some button or pull some lever that would take us to a sanctuary safe from the harsh environment, but he did no such thing. He simply changed direction, leading us along the line where the two grounds met.
When I was nearing the point of complaint, a loud jolting noise blared from behind. Covering my ears, I spun around to see a dark vehicle screech to a stop, its large mud-stained wheels freezing mere feet from us.
Music blared so loud the ground shook, but it soon quieted as a glass panel retracted near the front. A girl—whom I recognized as the redhead from the Ortus, though her hair was much shorter than I remembered—leaned towards us across an empty seat. “Hey, slow pokes, you want a ride?”
“Kat?” Altus looked at her in confusion, taking a slow step forward, “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your lives, if you’ll let me.” She pressed a button and the doors retracted into the ceiling. The cocky expression seemed to slip of her face as her eyes widened in alarm. She leaned forward, pointing a crooked finger towards me. “What is that?”
I looked over my shoulder, terrified I’d see the entire armed forces moving towards us, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Looking back in confusion, it took me a moment to realize that she was pointing at me.
“She is Val,” David replied, climbing into the back. “She’s coming with us.”
“From the dome? Are you crazy?” Kat flung her arms around so dramatically, I was afraid to come any closer. “She could be a spy!”
“She’s not a spy.” Altus put a hand on my shoulder and took a step forward, leaving me no choice but to do the same. “Just another victim, like the rest of us.”
Kat let her arms fall with a sigh. Shaking her head, she waved a hand lifelessly in my direction, beckoning me to get in. “She’s government property,” her argument continued, though her voice lost strength, “Claudia’s going to have a fit.”
“Claudia’s not here,” Altus replied simply, sliding in to the seat in front of me and shutting the door behind him. “I assume you brought cover?”
Kat sighed and reached back to a pile of unevenly stacked open boxes and equipment, most of which were electronic in nature, though I did notice a random shoe, an umbrella, and a few pieces of silverware scattered about. After digging through various odds and ends, and twice barely avoiding an avalanche, she pulled out a small silver container with a tiny pointed piece of metal. She adjusted the thin strip until it stuck straight up.
“Hold this,” she ordered, handing the strange device to me. “It’ll scramble anything up to fifty feet away.”
“Scramble?” I asked, completely confused.
“The signal.” She slipped back up front and pressed a button that caused the door next to me to slide shut, before elaborating, “Of what ever it is they’ll be using to track you.” She shook her head. “Really, guys, you’re lucky we found you. I don’t know what you’d have done with out us.”
“We?” Altus asked, raising his voice over the roar that literally shook the car as Kat started the engine.
“Me, an
d a good old friend I like to call the internet.” With a wink, she patted a screen on her dashboard that was changing information so rapidly it looked like a blur of colors that belonged at a rave. “It’s all over the emergency frequency that a patient is loose in the dome.”
“And you assumed it would be me.”
“Naturally.” Kat smiled. A series of beeps sounded beside her, and her face immediately became serious. “Correction,” she said, looking at the screen, which had slowed to a readable pace, “It was all over the emergency frequency that a patient was loose in the dome—they now know you’re outside.”
“Well it’s a good thing you came to rescue us then.” Altus folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “Shall we proceed with the rescue?”
Kat’s smile returned as she gave a small nod. She pulled a lever and the vehicle lurched forward, throwing me back against the seat so unexpectedly that my shoulder exploded in pain and I almost dropped the silver box.
With a look of apology, David reached across and handed me a strip of fabric that locked into a metal plate, which kept me from bouncing to the ceiling as we hit another ground-shaking bump.
“Hang on tight,” Kat called a little too late, glancing back at me in an oval mirror above her head, “this oughta be a fun ride.”
I felt my stomach lurch as the scenery began to blur. Through the dark glass, the ashen pavement was fading into the distance. I thought about Scia, and how angry she must be now that Luci was surely telling her of my betrayal. Would she call my mother? The idea of Mom falling devastated on the kitchen floor, crying for me to come home was too much for me to handle, so I focused on the images bouncing before my eyes.
Both the land and the sky grew darker, the buildings and trees more scarce, the farther we traveled. If there were ever a path to the end of the world, it would have been this. It wasn’t long before we curved around so that the outline of Novagene Design Core—the structure containing my home and everything and everyone I’d ever known—was engulfed in shadow, fading slowly into the distance.
Prying my eyes from the sight, I recalled an image of the escaped balloon. Though it had only been hours ago, it seemed like days. This must be how it would feel, I decided, to be a balloon, rising higher than anyone, utterly alone, to a place you cannot possibly imagine or prepare for, without any options of turning back.
But I wasn’t alone, I reminded myself. Surrounded by the only three companions I had in this new world, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, wondering where they would take me, and if it would be worth giving up everything I knew to see.
###
About the Author:
Morgan Feldman currently resides in North Carolina where she is earning her BFA in Creative Writing and her BA in Psychology. She considers surviving high school her greatest accomplishment, which must have contributed to her passion for writing teen fiction. Seeking anything that engages her imagination, she spends time reading character centric books, making student films, and psychologically analyzing fictional characters with her sister.
For More information, visit Morgan Feldman's Blog
The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp: Novice Page 13