“Sissy, don’t—”
“I can’t desert him, I can’t betray his trust.” Her next words, they sting. “Loyalty is the proof of love.” I know she didn’t say it viciously. But her words hurt all the more for that.
She starts untethering a horse from its collars and traces. Not once does she look at me or say anything. I only know she’s working quickly, will be saddled up and galloping away within a minute.
“Sissy. Come on. Let’s think this through.”
She doesn’t stop, doesn’t even lift her head to me. Her fingers work the straps, unwinding the leather with loud snaps. The horse is almost completely untethered when she stops. But not with indecision. With surprise, with confusion. Her head tilts to the side.
And that’s when I hear it, too.
Hm-m-m-m. Hm-m-m-m.
Coming from just behind me.
Hm-m-m-m. Hm-m-m-m.
On the ground, still sitting in a splash of sunlight where I’d placed it.
The TextTrans. It’s buzzing, shaking the blades of grass around it.
36
FOR A FEW seconds, all we can do is stare.
Then I’m jumping on the TextTrans, picking it up. It vibrates along the digits of my fingers, along my bones, jolting my whole body. But on the screen are only scrambled characters.
“Is it Epap?” Sissy says, running to me.
“I can’t tell.” I shake the TextTrans as if that might help. “The screen’s all messed up.”
“Try to send something back,” Sissy says.
With shaking fingers, I type EPAP, but it comes out as:
There’s nothing I can do about the garbled letters. I hit SEND. And as if I’ve just hit the OFF button, the TextTrans dies on me. It stops vibrating. The screen powers off.
“No!” Sissy shouts. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! I just hit SEND.”
“What happened?”
I smack the back of the TextTrans. “It was probably just a glitch. Inside circuits dried up in the sunlight, then sent a phantom message in error.”
“Or it could’ve been Epap.”
Before I can reply, the TextTrans comes alive again in my hand, vibrating hard and furious. I almost drop it.
“Gene!”
“I know, I know.” Faces pressed together, we read the screen. And again, I almost drop the TextTrans.
Guys? Is that you, Sissy? Gene?
Sissy and I stare at each other. With thumbs that suddenly seem too big and cumbersome and slow, I type out a reply.
Who is this?
We wait for what seems like an eternity. Then:
Sissy and I glance at each other, eyes hopeful. I type: Resend.
The TextTrans hums, and this time when we read the screen Sissy lets out a cry.
Epap.
I start typing furiously.
Where are you?
Not su. In buiing
You okay?
No. Broke leg.
RU in Convention Center?
No. Tall buding. Tallest one arnd.
Large atrium inside?
Y. ts of glass. And sun.
Good. Coming now.
K. hury.
“He’s in the Domain Building,” I say to Sissy. “Makes sense. Lots of sun inside. A good place to hide.”
Sissy taps her mouth with a curled knuckle, forehead furrowed. She glances at the TextTrans. “How can we be sure it’s Epap?” she says. “What if it’s someone pretending to be him?”
I stare down at the TextTrans, my body chilling over despite the sunshine beating down on me. Sissy’s right. On the other end might be someone who has just finished devouring Epap, and has now lucked upon a way of luring two more unsuspecting hepers.
“The Domain Building’s sun-proofed,” I say. “No dusker would hide in there to lure us. Not in the daytime. It’s got to be Epap.”
But Sissy’s not satisfied. “Daytime will be nighttime in a few short hours.” She rubs the back of her neck. “If we’re going back into the metropolis with night fast approaching, we need to be sure it’s him.” She grabs the TextTrans out of my hands.
I’m coming, Epap. And on your birthday, too.
She stares intently at the screen. “His birthday’s eight months away.”
The TextTrans buzzes. We read the characters before the TextTrans blanks out completely. It will be the last characters to ever appear on the TextTrans finally gone kaput.
37
I HEAD OVER to the carriage. I’m reattaching her horse to the traces when Sissy catches up with me. She stands on the other side of the horse.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“What we are doing.” I pull the leather strap through the latches, hard enough to cause the horse to snort with complaint. “We’re going back for Epap. Together.”
“You don’t—” she begins to say.
“It’s already late afternoon. We don’t have much time. We certainly don’t have time to argue. I’m coming with you. We’re both doing this.”
She stares at me silently. She starts shaking her head. “Gene—”
“By the time we get to the Domain Building, dusk will be almost upon us. We need to slip in and out quickly. Find Epap, then get the hell out.” I reattach the horse collar, fastening it securely. “There’s going to be no room for error. No room to get your bearings, to find your way. I know the Domain Building. You need me.”
Sissy doesn’t say anything, but I feel her eyes scrutinizing my every move. I slide between the two horses, double-check the axle. The carriage is ready. Sissy is still staring at me. I walk to the nearest tree. “Getting fruit for Epap,” I tell Sissy over my shoulder. I pluck a few of the larger dangling fruit, cradle them in the nook of my arm.
I throw the fruit through the window into the carriage. As I walk around to the front, I see no sign of Sissy. She’s not inside the carriage, nor is she standing by the horses. I scan the trees.
“Up here,” she says from the driver’s seat. She’s sitting on one side of the bench, leaving room for me to sit next to her. Our eyes meet and she holds my gaze. I hop on, sit beside her.
I grab the reins, slap them down. The carriage takes off, slowly, then faster as the horses break into a gallop. The ground blurs beneath us, green to brown. With every bounce, Sissy and I bump against each other. She slides closer to me, leaning against me. I press back slightly. Wind blows hard against our faces. We don’t speak as we push toward the distant skyscrapers. Back into the hornet’s nest. But Sissy is next to me, Sissy is with me, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
38
IN THE HEART of the metropolis once again. The horses trot nervously along, hoofs stamping loudly on the hard concrete, their ears flicking. Everything feels too close: the shuttered store fronts, cafés, delicatessens, the towering skyscrapers flanking us like enclosing fingers. Absent is the sense of emptiness and desolation that had always attended my daytime visits. Now there is only the sense of millions hanging behind paper-thin walls of the steeled skyscrapers.
By the time I pull the horses over and tether them to a pole in front of the Domain Building, the sun has dropped more than halfway to the horizon. Shadows creep across the street as if clawing us. There is less than an hour of sunlight remaining. We walk to the front entrance, a set of wide revolving doors. Unlocked, like everything else in the daytime.
“That’s a lot of floors to cover,” Sissy says, her head tilting back as she looks upward.
“Sixty-four to be exact. But Epap said he was hiding in sunlight. We’ll only need to search the atrium and the top floor—those are the only two areas where sunlight can penetrate.”
“What else is in that building?”
“A bunch of government bureaus. Laboratories and conference rooms and lecture halls. We avoid them, okay? Our approach is simple: search the atrium, then, if we have to, get in the glass elevator, head up to the top floor. We’ll be covered in sunlight the whole way up. And back down,
of course, when we leave.”
“With Epap, right?”
“With Epap.”
Sissy nods. She takes out the TextTrans one last time. Nothing. She puts it back into her pocket, biting her lip. “You can leave now if you want, Gene. I can find my way around on my own.” She places her hand on my forearm. “There’s no telling what’ll happen once it’s dark. This might be your last chance to get out of the metropolis alive.”
“That’s not an option.” I take out the two guns from the backpack, hand her one, tuck the other into my waist. “We both live or we both die, but we do it together. Understand?”
She holds my gaze for a moment. Then nods. We push through the revolving doors, and then we’re inside.
* * *
It is exactly as I remember it. The only slight difference is the lighting. Because it is later in the day than when my father and I usually ventured into the Domain Building, the sunlight is more diffused. Instead of the sharp noon light that would gush down the sixty-four-story atrium and set the lobby afire with spinning flares of light, an orange haze burnishes the inside.
Sissy stands amazed, briefly forgetful of the circumstances that brought us here.
“They designed this building to be the securest in the whole metropolis,” I tell her, gazing upward. “That’s why this glass atrium is so huge. And the top floor is all glass—all the top-secret documents are kept there. With so much sunlight, there’s no way a dusker can break in during the day hours.”
“Well, day hours are about to end. Let’s get a move on.”
I nod. But as she turns around, I grab her arm. “Wait.”
“What is it?”
Something in the air. My head tilts down with concentration. Something off-kilter. My sixth sense, almost as reliable as any of my other senses, is ringing with alarm.
“Gene?”
Instead, I shake it off. “Stay in the sunlight,” I say.
“What is it?”
“Don’t know. Just stay in the sunlight at all times. Don’t be tempted into the dark for even a second. And let’s be quiet. Don’t call out for him too loudly.”
Her face tenses. “Okay.”
We start out on the north side in front of small delis and kiosks. In the corner, a shoe-polishing stand. Next to that, a newspaper stand. Nothing moves. Everything is devoid of movement, of life.
“Epap,” I hiss as loud as I dare. “Epap!”
Silence.
“The security desk,” Sissy says. “We didn’t check behind the counter.”
“He’s not there.”
“Did you check?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll just take a quick look.” And she walks away, her strides short and nervous.
I peer into a small café. Chrome tables and chairs stare blankly back at me. Cautiously, I check behind the counter. Nothing. No one.
Sissy’s at the security desk, her head disappearing below the countertop. She’s being thorough, no nook left unsearched.
Ping.
That’s the sound I hear. A small electronic beep, barely audible.
Ping.
I turn around. It takes me a second to notice it.
The glass elevator. It’s open now. Was it open before? I can’t be sure.
“Hey, Sissy, come here.” I move toward the elevator, glancing from side to side. She mumbles something in reply. I’ve taken this elevator many times in the past. It’s the only way to reach the top floor. It travels along duo traction rails that rise all the way to the top floor. I used to love riding it as a child, the sensation of flying as the floor of the lobby dropped away and you sailed up the atrium like a bird. I’d stare out, face pressed against the glass, sometimes gazing at the floor of the lobby, everything down there diminishing, fading away.
I stand straddling the precipice of the elevator car. “Sissy, over here,” I say again. I hear her shoes click against the marble floor and echo up and down the atrium. And that’s when I see something odd. Inside the elevator car. A security key is inserted at the top of the operating panel. It’s where my father used to insert his top-security key to gain access to the top floor. I step into the elevator to take a closer look.
“Gene!”
I turn around at the sound of her voice. She is walking toward me. No, she is running, alarm rippling across her face.
And, too late, I see why.
The doors are closing. With wicked speed.
“Gene!”
Too late, I lunge forward. The doors clap together, and before I can reach the panel and start mashing buttons in panic, or kick at the doors, the elevator ascends. With sudden force, as if I’m being catapulted into the air. Sissy falls away until she is only a dot, her cries (“Gene! Gene! Gene!”) fading, diminishing.
39
THE ELEVATOR ZIPS past every floor. Only as it nears the top, my ears popping, does it slow down. The glass doors open. The sun, hovering over the lower skyscrapers, shines directly into my eyes, burning a rust-red tint into my eyelids.
The elevator lobby on this floor is empty. On the far side, a reception desk and a small glass sculpture of the Ruler that’s been there for years. Otherwise, nothing. The glass wall across the reception area is angled, and I see ghostly reflections of the floor beyond, faint outlines of desks and chairs. Nothing moves.
I stay pressed against the back wall of the elevator. Reaching out, I start pushing the L button on the panel. Nothing happens. Push the CLOSE button. Nothing.
I look down through the glass floor. I see Sissy below, tiny as a nit, standing by the security desk.
“Push the CALL button by the elevator!” I yell down. She doesn’t move. “Sissy, push the CALL button!” I shout again, cupping my mouth. I see her move toward the wall. But nothing happens. The doors stay open.
I punch a few buttons in frustration. Nothing.
“Epap!” I shout out to the empty floor lobby. “It’s Gene. Epap! Are you there?”
Silence.
I study the panel, wondering if there might be some way I can pry it off, trip the wires behind. That’s when I see the intercom. I push the orange button. “Sissy, can you hear me? Go to the security desk! I’m using the intercom. Go to the security desk!”
Below, the tiny dot that is Sissy races toward the security desk. A few seconds later, her voice crackles through, static distorting it.
“Gene!”
“Sissy, the elevator’s stuck on this floor! See if you can find some external controls at the desk.”
“—kay—” A crash of more static, obliterating her voice.
“Sissy, can you hear—”
“Help me.”
Those words. Not from the intercom panel. Not Sissy’s voice. But spoken with clarity and within close proximity. From somewhere on this floor.
“Help me!” Louder now, the fear in the voice obvious. The owner of the voice now obvious, too.
“Epap!” I shout. “It’s Gene! Come here, Epap, to the elevator!”
But he keeps on shouting, yelling as if not hearing me. “Help me! Help me!” His distress crescendoing into raw panic.
Sissy’s voice breaks out of the intercom. “Epap?! Oh crap, that’s his voice, that’s Epap—” She is shouting until she’s cut off again by static.
And still Epap keeps shouting. I peer out the elevator doors, trying to see him. But the angle is all wrong. I can’t see the rest of the floor unless I step out.
“Epap!” I shout. “Come here!”
But he only keeps shouting, his words overlapping with mine. “Help … don’t, please don’t, no!!!” he screams.
And then I’m sprinting out of the elevator, out onto the glass floor.
And as soon as I’m out, the elevator doors, as if waiting this whole time, snap shut behind me like a steel trap.
40
BUT THERE’S NO stopping me. I race forward, past the elevator lobby, hopelessly lulled deeper into the floor by Epap’s pleading voice. I can see right throu
gh to the far side of the floor because everything is made out of glass. I sprint past the eight office suites, all identically decorated, and sparsely so: a desk, a chair, a deskscreen, and little else. No sign of Epap in any of them. Splintered flares of dusk light refract off the walls, the color of rust and blood.
I reach the far end of the floor. No Epap, just his voice drawing me in. I fly into the conference room. Still no sign of him. Only his voice sounding from the flickering TV monitor mounted on the wall. But no sooner do I raise my eyes than it suddenly turns off. And Epap’s screams as well, cut off mid-shout. His voice was coming from a video recording this whole time.
I spin around in the large conference room, certain that I’m about to get jumped. But there’s no one in here but me. With Epap’s voice now gone, an eerie silence—the silence of watchful eyes, held breaths—clamps down on me.
Something is on this floor with me. I know it. I can sense it. Eyes watching me, gauging my every move and expression.
All the chairs are pulled under the conference table in perfect symmetry. Everything in order. Nothing under the table, the floor clearly visible through the glass top. But something is lying on top of the table. A large hypodermic needle. I walk over, touch it tentatively with my fingertips. A yellow fluid in it.
I scan the room left to right again. I’m missing something. My eyes glide along the glass walls, the floor-to-ceiling windows, past the Panic Room, outside to the adjacent skyscraper—
The Panic Room. It sits, on this top floor of the Domain Building, like a tiny black cataract in the sky. Everything else on this floor is bathed in sunlight, but tucked away in the northeast corner is this small closet-like chamber. Tinted black as death.
The Panic Room was built after the DBS (Death By Sunlight) on this floor of a high-ranking official. He had indulged in a little too much wine throughout the night and fallen asleep in his office. Dawn had caught him by surprise. Afterward, sleepholds were removed from all offices. And the Panic Room was constructed, designed to be an emergency last-resort option for anyone accidentally left behind. A button in the Panic Room’s interior dropped the occupant down a shaft ten stories deep, into the dark safety of the shuttered floors below.
The Trap (The Hunt Trilogy) Page 17