Perilous

by Janet Edwards

  There’d be fresh air in the park! I’d thought the Hive parks were places for children to play, adults to relax, and people to hold parties. I hadn’t realized they were also a vital part of the Hive emergency system.

  My friends and I just needed to reach our local park and we’d be safe. There’d be emergency wardens on Level 27, making sure my parents and Gregas made it to safety as well. I felt dizzy with relief, but then I remembered the person who wouldn’t be able to make it to a park, and tensed again.

  “If Oasis will only supply air to the parks, then I need to tell you about Forge. He’s not in a medical facility, but ...” I broke off and frowned. “I think I can hear someone shouting. Is that Reece’s voice?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Atticus groaned and started running. I chased after him. As we turned the corner into our corridor, I could see a group of lanterns standing on the floor. Silhouetted against their light, several figures were shouting at each other, while more were huddled together on the far side of the lanterns. When they saw us coming, they all instantly stopped shouting at each other, and started shouting at Atticus instead.

  “Finally!”

  “You’ve been ages.”

  “You said you’d be away a few minutes, not hours.”

  “Did you really think this was a good time for you two to go off and cuddle each other?”

  The shouts all came at once, so I wasn’t sure who’d said what, except that I was pretty sure that the remark about cuddling had come from Reece.

  “Quiet!” yelled Atticus.

  There was a grudging silence.

  “We needed to get full information on what was happening and decide the best way to handle the situation,” said Atticus. “I thought that if the fourteen-year-olds could wait patiently for their corridor wardens to do that, then seventeen-year-olds could be trusted to do the same, but I was obviously wrong.”

  “It was Reece’s fault,” said Margot bitterly. “First he laughed at us for being afraid of the dark, and then he started telling Halloween stories.”

  “He said that now there were no lights, the hunter of souls could bring his demon pack in here to hunt us.” Linnette’s voice was shaking.

  “That can’t be true.” Casper gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We’re safe inside the Hive.”

  “Of course we’re safe inside the Hive,” I said. “Reece was telling lies to frighten you.”

  “That’s not nice,” said Casper.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Shanna forcefully. “Reece isn’t nice. In fact, Reece is a useless piece of slime.”

  “For once, I totally agree with you, Shanna,” said Atticus. “If Reece causes any more trouble, I’ll tie him up and gag him.”

  “You’ve got no right to threaten me,” said Reece.

  “Actually, I do,” said Atticus. “In an emergency, wardens have the right to take any and all measures necessary to stop someone inciting panic.”

  “Forget Reece,” said Shanna. “When is the power going to come back on?”

  “You should all be getting an information update on your dataviews soon,” said Atticus, “but the basic situation is that something big went wrong in the power system. Repair work has started, but it will take some time to fix it.”

  “How long is some time?” asked Preeja. “It’s creepy only having lanterns for light.”

  “I’m getting hungry too,” said Casper. “My kitchen unit isn’t working, and I don’t want to go to our community centre to buy food when everywhere is so dark.”

  “I doubt that the community centre will be selling food now anyway, Casper,” said Atticus, “but we have a stock of emergency ration bars. I’ll get those out in a minute, but I want you all to pack a bag first. At some point in the next hour or two, we’ll be getting instructions to move, so we need to be packed and ready to go.”

  “Move? Why would we be told to move somewhere else?” asked Shanna. “It’s bad enough standing here in the dark. We don’t want to be groping our way along strange corridors with nothing but a few lanterns.”

  “We’ll be told to move because the lights aren’t working here,” said Casper happily. “If it’s going to take a long time to mend them, then the Hive will send us somewhere that the lights do work.”

  “That’s exactly right, Casper,” said Atticus. “We’ll be moving to somewhere with working lights. Now everyone should pack one bag with the bare essentials for a couple of days. Ideally that bag should be a backpack, because we’ll need to carry the bottles of water, the lanterns, and all the other emergency supplies as well.”

  “Days?” Shanna said, in outraged tones. “This can’t drag on for days. What about our area Carnival celebrations? I’m on the entertainment committee, and we’ve been working on the preparations for weeks!”

  “I’m sure that Power Services will be doing their best to fix the problem before Carnival.”

  Atticus sounded as if he was on the edge of losing his temper. I couldn’t blame him for that. We had far more important things to worry about than Carnival parties. Jason had said the air would start going bad at the four hour point. I kept trying to calculate how much time we had left, and fretting about Forge being trapped in the vent system.

  In fairness, Shanna didn’t know about the air issue, and we couldn’t explain it to her. Ruby had been quite right that any mention of air problems could trigger mass panic.

  “Everyone go and pack your bag now,” said Atticus. “Be back here in fifteen minutes.”

  The others hurried off with their lanterns. Atticus watched them go, then gave a low groan and sagged against the wall.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “No, I’m not all right.” Atticus groaned again. “We had training sessions in dark corridors during our warden training, but I knew they’d only last for twenty minutes. It’s so much harder coping with the darkness when you know it could last for days.”

  He paused. “I’m supposed to stay calm and set a good example to the others, but the truth is that I feel like the walls are closing in on me. There’s the shadow issue too. Have you noticed the way the light from the lanterns casts weird shadows that seem to move for no reason?”

  “Not really, but I’m not scared of the dark.”

  Atticus ran his fingers through his hair. “I should never have let Forge talk me into being his deputy warden, but it seemed so unlikely that we’d ever have a genuine emergency. Even if we did, I assumed Forge would be here to take charge. It was obvious in training that he was much better than me at coping with the darkness.”

  “About Forge,” I said. “I’m afraid he lied to Shanna when he said he was at a medical facility.”

  “You mean that Forge went off to some multi-day swimming event? I expect he realized Shanna would be angry about him vanishing for days just before Carnival, so he lied to avoid an argument.”

  “No,” I said miserably. “Forge lied because he’d gone exploring in the air vent system.”

  “What?” shrieked Atticus. “Waste that!”

  I made desperate hand gestures to indicate that Atticus shouldn’t shout that loud. “I told Forge it was a bad idea, but he insisted. He said it would be exciting.”

  “I’ll have a few exciting words to say to him when he gets back,” said Atticus grimly. “I’m Forge’s best friend, and he didn’t tell me about this. Shanna is his girlfriend, and he didn’t tell her about it either. Why did you get dragged into it?”

  “Because the only vent system inspection hatch in our corridor was in my room.”

  “You should have refused to let Forge tamper with it.”

  “I would have refused if he’d bothered to ask my permission, but he didn’t. He sneaked into my room while I was at the medical facility on Level 93. The first I knew about it was when I opened my door. Forge appeared out of the hole in my wall, dressed in black, and wearing a headband with lights attached to it. I was scared to death.”

  “So that’s why you
changed the door code for your room,” muttered Atticus.

  “Yes. Forge insisted on going back into the vent system when I went to visit my parents yesterday, and as far as I know he’s still in there.”

  “He must have come out by now. Even Forge wouldn’t want to stay in the vent system for over twenty-four hours.”

  “He didn’t want to stay in there that long, but Reece glued the hatch cover shut in my room.”

  “You mean Reece trapped Forge in the vent system? Why didn’t Forge call Emergency Services to rescue him?” Atticus shook his head. “No, don’t bother answering that. I can guess the reason. Forge was too proud to ask for help.”

  “He thought he could find another inspection hatch and call me to help him get out.”

  “Finding another inspection hatch must have turned out to be harder than Forge expected.”

  “I think the problem may not have been finding an inspection hatch, but working out its location. Apparently the vent system is very confusing, and you can’t see anything through the grilles of the inspection hatch covers.”

  Atticus sighed. “Whatever the problem was, Forge must be getting hungry and thirsty by now.”

  “He got me to go into his room and put some food and drink inside the little air vent there.” I waved a hand in dismissal. “The food and drink doesn’t matter. It’s Forge’s air supply that’s critical. We can get to the park, but he can’t.”

  “Forge’s air supply shouldn’t be an issue,” said Atticus. “Once all the thousands of teens in our area are in the park, there’ll be plenty of air left for the remaining few emergency workers, the people trapped in lifts, and the occasional fool like Forge.”

  I thought that through and calmed down a little. “That’s true, but I still think we should call Emergency Services to come and rescue him.”

  “There’s no point in calling Emergency Services,” said Atticus. “They won’t come and help.”

  “Of course they will. It’s their job.”

  “There are one hundred million people in our Hive, Amber. Ten million of them in Blue Zone. How many people do you think are trapped in lifts right now? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? More?”

  “Maybe,” I said uneasily.

  “Now imagine you’re an Emergency Services coordinator overloaded with calls for help. Are you going to send one of your teams to search for a boy who’d chosen to take the risk of exploring the vent system, or to free a dozen travellers stuck in a lift through no fault of their own?”

  I didn’t like what Atticus was saying, but I could see his point.

  “We don’t even know where Forge is,” added Atticus. “As soon as we’ve packed our bags, we’ll call him and see if he’s got any idea of his location.”

  “I’d rather call him now.”

  “It’s my responsibility to get our corridor group ready to move to the park, and that includes the two of us,” said Atticus firmly. “We pack our bags, and then we call Forge.”

  I hurried to my room, tipped my swimming gear out of its backpack, and threw in some clothing and a few other oddments. When I went out into the corridor again, almost all of our group were there. Most of them had followed instructions and brought one backpack. A few had bigger shoulder bags or hand luggage.

  “We seem to be missing Shanna,” said Atticus. “Can you go and help her pack, Amber? If humanly possible, can you please limit her to one bag that isn’t ...”

  He broke off. Shanna had finally arrived. She was carrying one shoulder bag, which was large, but not ludicrously so. There was a flurry of chimes from dataviews. We finally had another message from Emergency Services.

  Margot read it aloud. “Power Services are still working to restore power to your area. You will soon be asked to implement second response protocols. Your emergency wardens will instruct you in how to prepare for this. Please remain patient and obey their instructions promptly.”

  “We might as well eat while we’re waiting,” said Atticus.

  He did some grovelling in the back of the emergency store room, brought out what looked like packets of crunch cakes, and handed them round. I ripped one open, bit into it, and frowned. Casper put my thoughts into words.

  “This isn’t a very good crunch cake.”

  “I’m afraid that emergency ration bars don’t taste very nice, but they’re all we’ve got,” said Atticus. “Amber and I have another job to do now. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “How long is the few minutes going to be this time?” asked Reece.

  “Hopefully a lot shorter than last time.”

  Atticus and I walked off down the corridor with our lanterns. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw Casper was munching his ration bar philosophically, while everyone else stood around watching him. I wasn’t sure if they were checking to see if he survived without being poisoned, or just delaying the evil moment of having to eat their own ration bars.

  “Casper’s coping with this far better than I’d have expected,” I said.

  “Casper trusts the Hive to take care of him,” said Atticus. “In the current situation, that effectively means he’s trusting me to take care of him. I just hope that I don’t let him down.”

  We stopped at the end of the corridor. I took out my dataview, set it to speaker mode so Atticus could join in the conversation as well, and called Forge.

  “Hello, Amber,” he said.

  “Forge, where are you?” I asked. “Do you realize the power is off?”

  “Oddly enough, I realized the power had gone off when the lights went out,” said Forge. “If Emergency Services are sending out instructions to implement second response protocols, then Power Services are obviously going to take several hours to fix things, but there’s no need to worry about me. I’ve got food and water, and the lights on my headband will keep working for at least another ten hours, so I can wait where I am until the power is back on.”

  Atticus leaned over to speak into my dataview. “Excellent plan, Forge. Just one slight problem with it. The power is out across the whole of Blue Zone, and it will take days rather than hours to do the repair work.”

  There was a pause before Forge answered in a tense voice. “That’s a bit ... awkward. What about Oasis?”

  “Oasis is operating,” said Atticus.

  “Then there isn’t really a problem,” said Forge. “It won’t be pleasant when the lights in my headband stop working, but I’ll cope somehow.”

  “Of course there’s a problem,” I said. “We have to get you out of the vent system right now. Whereabouts are you?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Atticus leaned across to join in the conversation again. “Are you saying you don’t know because you’re too proud to admit you need help, or because you’ve genuinely no idea where you are?”

  “I’ve genuinely no idea where I am. When the power cut out, I was exploring an area of the vent system that had motion-triggered lighting. I was halfway down a ladder when everything went totally black.”

  “Halfway down a ladder!” I echoed his words in horror.

  “Yes, and I couldn’t use my headband lights because I’d put them in my backpack,” said Forge. “I groped around in the dark, and eventually managed to get off the ladder and into a horizontal crawl way. I thought I’d better move a bit further away from the sheer drop before I started messing about with my backpack, but I hit a sudden steep slope. I slid down quite a long way to somewhere flat. I’ve no idea where I am now, and I don’t think I can get back up that slope again.”

  “You haven’t hurt yourself, have you?” I asked anxiously.

  “Only a bit.”

  Atticus made an exasperated noise. “What does ‘only a bit’ mean?”

  “I cut my leg on something sharp when I slid down the slope. It’s quite funny actually. I lied to Shanna about cutting my leg, and now I really have cut my leg.”

  “Yes, it’s hysterically funny that the whole of Blue Zone is without power, and you’re trapped in
the vent system with your leg cut open,” said Atticus bitterly.

  “I told you I’m not seriously hurt,” said Forge. “It’s quite a long gash in my leg, but it seems quite shallow, and it’s already stopped bleeding.”

  Atticus sighed. “It’s a pity you didn’t land on your head. There isn’t much inside your skull that could be damaged.”

  There was an odd sound, like a metallic bing. For some reason, I looked up at the ceiling.

  Atticus took his communicator from his pocket, gave the handle an extra few winds, and peered at the screen. “We’ve got instructions to move to the park.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m not going to the park and leaving Forge behind,” I said.

  “You are going to the park, Amber,” chorused Atticus and Forge in unison.

  “You can’t help Forge by hanging round our corridor, Amber,” continued Atticus solo.

  “I could search the area, and keep shouting into air vents until I find him.”

  “You can’t go wandering off alone in total darkness,” said Atticus. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t find Forge. He’s not just an unknown distance away from us horizontally, but he climbed down a ladder, so he’s on Level 51 now.”

  “I slid down a long slope as well,” said Forge. “I think I’m on Level 53, but I could even be a level or two below that. You have to forget about me, Amber, and help Atticus get the rest of our corridor group to the park.”

  I groaned. “All right. We’ll call you again when we get to the park, Forge, and discuss how to help you. Good luck.”

  I ended my call, and we hurried back to where the rest of our corridor group was complaining about the taste of the ration bars and handing round a bottle of water to drink.

  “We’re going to move to our local park now,” said Atticus.

  “Why the park?” asked Shanna.

  “Because that’s our area evacuation centre, and it has an emergency power supply.” Atticus started pulling bags out of the store room.

  “Does that mean the park lights will be on?” asked Linnette hopefully.