I recognised another boy from our class, Daniel Pollock. He turned his gaze from mine as I glanced in their direction like I might be diseased. I didn't know why they expected me to want their approval. They certainly didn't get mine.
"Ah, that's the cue for me to make a dashing and impressive entrance, kids," Artie said, brushing down his bio-suit and running his thumb and forefinger along his moustache before he strode over to them. They instantly swarmed around him with a little too much admiration and started competing for his attention.
Artie was in his element and we moved over to join the edges of the group, waiting for everyone to settle down.
“We're going to be divided into research pairs so that's you and me," Taylor said, taking my hand as Artie started splitting everyone else into pairs.
“Is that up to you?" I asked suspiciously.
"Didn't you see who our group leader is?" He gave me his most sincere look. "Dr Jackson at your service." He bowed his head in mock introduction.
“Junior. And you aren't a doctor, either." I nudged him with my elbow.
"Ah, the insignificant details that ruin my greatest plans," he sighed.
“And save the rest of us from near certain destruction." I reclaimed my hand and tried to ignore the irritation that flashed across his features.
"Maya Summers you're with Taylor Jackson." Artie's voice floated over to us and Taylor smiled broadly in triumph.
“Group twelve, Dr Jackson?" The frazzled woman was standing by the entrance to the cable car room, ushering us towards her.
The group surged forward and we moved through a large doorway into a holding area with a sealed door on the far side of the room. Benches lined the walls and everyone took a seat. Taylor and I entered last, so I got stuck sitting next to Daniel. He wrinkled his nose and leaned away from me and I called him a dipshit beneath my breath.
The woman handed out the boots and head gear which completed our suits.
The helmet was entirely closed in with a ventilator at the front to filter the contaminants out of the air. A visor cut my peripheral vision in half and directed my sight ahead. It all clipped securely to the suit and effectively blocked out the world which was kind of claustrophobic if I spent too much time thinking about it. But then I’d spent my entire life living inside one city which was pretty claustrophobic too.
Frazzle wasn't wearing a suit so I presumed she wouldn't be joining us outside. She moved back to the door we’d just entered through and closed the vacuum seal to lock us in. The air in the room constricted around us and my ears popped. My heart started to beat a little faster and my palms grew slick inside my suit.
"Do these helmets filter out Dweller stink?" Daniel whispered loudly enough for the whole room to hear as he shuffled away from me.
The girl sitting next to him giggled appreciatively.
“You wanna watch your mouth if you don't want to end up staying behind," Taylor growled without bothering to drop his voice.
"Thats not up to you." Daniel curled his lip.
"It is up to me though." Artie moved to stand in the centre of the room with his arms folded and Daniel dropped his gaze like a whipped little bitch.
"It was just a joke," he muttered apologetically.
"Daniel, you're eighteen next week right? That must be so exciting for you," I said sweetly.
"Why?" He narrowed his eyes at me.
"You'll finally be old enough to visit the Body Perfect building. I know they don't work miracles, but there must be something they can do for your face."
Daniel opened his mouth to reply but Artie chose that moment for a not-so-subtle throat clearance and he dropped it.
I stood and flashed Artie a smile which he attempted not to return. But I wasn’t going to complain about a little preferential treatment. Ever since my parents had died, luck had always been against me so I’d take what I could get.
I wandered over to stand by the outer door, readying myself for my first ever sight of the world beyond The Wall as I pushed Daniel and his snobby friends out of my mind. I’d be the one laughing when we graduated and I got a job that earned me an apartment on the upper levels while he stayed firmly on the middle levels for the rest of his life.
The door itself was a circular piece of steel that blocked a hole in the side of The Wall. It was around two meters wide, perfectly smooth and was operated by a keypad and retinal scanner.
I reached out and placed a hand on the smooth, sandy stone of The Wall.
It was cold, even through the material of my glove and a shiver danced along my spine as I ran my fingertips along its surface. I’d never been so close to The Wall before. It was hard to take in.
"So what are you peeing yourself with? Fear or excitement?" Taylor asked in a low voice as he joined me.
"Oh, I didn't actually think about a bathroom break, maybe that would have been a good idea," I said with a smirk.
“Great, now I need to go," he groaned.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Seriously?”
"I'll make it, don't worry," he said, raising his hands placatingly and I laughed. It would be just like him to have to piss himself in his suit because he hadn’t thought to empty his bladder.
A deep vibration started to radiate through The Wall as the vacuum seals around the outer door were released and adrenaline surged through my limbs.
This is it!
Thunk, the door shifted like a plug being pulled from a sink. The thick steel split in the middle and opened smoothly to reveal the cable car landing point beyond. A whoosh of pressure pulled at me as a balance was created between the outer atmosphere and the air within the room.
I could feel my pulse throbbing in my wrist as my heart pounded out of rhythm.
"Please make your way onto the cable car and brace yourselves for motion," the frazzled woman called as she ushered us through.
Taylor and I were nearest to the door and as we walked out onto the platform, I could hardly breathe. We were in a tunnel built of semi-transparent perspex. Above my head was the mechanism for the cable cars and I could see the wire moving along steadily.
At either end of the tunnel were open doorways and long plastic tassels blocked the view outside. But as I watched the entrance to our left, the cable car pushed its way through them. As it got closer, dark grey smoke was blasted over and around it from vents that lined the tunnel wall, momentarily concealing it in a cloud as it was decontaminated.
The smoke disappeared and the cable car pulled level with us on the platform. Droplets of water ran down its surface and the door slid open quietly. I stepped inside with the feeling that I’d just stepped onto another planet. This was without a doubt the most adventurous thing I’d done in my entire life and it felt like waking up. Like I’d been stuck in a dream that just repeated itself day after day and now I was finally about to break the cycle.
The cable car was a large, glass sphere with a silver handrail running all the way around the middle of it. There was nothing else to prove that there was a barrier between us and the outside world so the view was completely uninterrupted. Everyone piled in behind me as it glided along the platform and then we were moving through the tassels at the tunnel's exit.
I walked straight to the far end of the space and gazed out, straining my eyes to take everything in.
I reached out and placed my hand on the glass in front of me as if I could push my way through like I needed to reassure myself that this was real.
Beyond The Wall was a wasteland. A scorched desert of grey-brown dust extending endlessly to the north, west and south. The Wardens went out to burn anything that grew there and sewed salt in the soil to keep it barren. To the east of The Wall, the ocean stretched away beyond the horizon, providing all the water the city could ever need and more.
I’d never had a clear view of the sea before.
It was just so big. I couldn't comprehend it. My eyes darted back and forth as I watched the tips of the cresting waves moving in a constant dance
. The city was perched high above the shore on a row of cliffs and I couldn't even see the point at which water met land.
I turned back towards the west and the endless wasteland. For a second, I thought I saw a glimpse of green but when I looked again there was just more brown dust. My imagination was playing tricks on me. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. That the world outside The Wall could offer us so much more than contamination and fear.
As the ground loomed ever closer, I could see it was pockmarked with the odd interruption of rocks or other immovable pieces of the terrain which didn't hold any life. It was impossible to make out anything with any clarity but I wanted to see it all. I shuffled my feet and flexed my fingers, anxious to get moving and experience it up close for myself.
Directly below us, there were clusters of something which I guessed must be the old wood housing. They looked like little boxes from our vantage point and their roofs were a patchwork of different colours.
The scene didn't change much as we descended but the lumpy clusters of houses became more defined, their colours revealing themselves as everything from burnt red, to dark brown, to steely grey.
It wasn't a lot to look at and yet I was pretty certain that it was the most beautiful sight that I’d ever seen.
The ride down took about half an hour, during which time the details on the ground became clearer and all the more alluring.
Everything seemed so alien compared to the city.
Harbour City towered above us, dominating the view to the north. The sheer scope of the place I’d spent my entire life in was beyond comprehension. It blocked out the sun and overshadowed the landscape for miles around. The Wall itself was a smooth, sand coloured mass that stretched on endlessly, without interruption, reaching up so high that it was hard to make out the top.
The tips of the skyscrapers glinted and sparkled in the midday sun high above us, sending rainbows of light dancing out across the bright, blue sky. I tried to imagine what it must be like to live in an apartment with a real window and a view over The Wall with the sun shining in every day.
Sighing, I turned my attention back to the valley filled with structures from the old world. I felt slightly dizzy and I was pretty sure skipping breakfast had been a bad shout.
The cable car finally slowed and started to turn into a big, barren area of land that had been cleared for the landing zone. The door slid open and we all stumbled out, a little lost for words. Artie gathered us together and handed out GPS devices but it was hard to keep my attention fixed on him for long. The open sky spread out above us as far as I could see. We never really got to look at it in the city with so many buildings blocking the view and I kept glancing up as if it might disappear.
"Each of these is preprogrammed with your individual search zone highlighted. Follow the directions on screen to get to your zone then search that area thoroughly. We need soil samples from six locations within your area and swabs taken inside and outside of the houses. You're encouraged to explore and report anything that strikes you as out of place or strange.
Take a pack with your test equipment and we'll meet back here in two hours. Read through your instruction booklet. The pack also contains your radio so you can check in with us at any time. Make sure to check back if you encounter any trouble. Have fun, but remember that this is important work." Artie smiled at the collected group. "Any questions?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Great. Striving forward together," he said in dismissal.
“For the good of the population," everyone chanted back with extra enthusiasm.
I thumbed through the instructions quickly. There was a lot about protocol and what to do in case of an emergency. As far as I could gather, the message was to radio back if anything went wrong. Then there was a lengthy reminder about the risks of contamination and our duty to the safety of the population. Blah blah blah. I shut the booklet and Taylor collected our pack while I studied our route on the GPS.
“Seeing as you're so insanely strong and manly now, I'll let you carry that." I grinned at him and started heading south, trusting Taylor's long legs to help him catch up.
Within moments he fell into pace next to me just as we crested a hill and my mouth fell open.
The stark landscape suddenly gave way to a valley filled with the strange box-shaped buildings. They were all about three or four times as tall as me but no more than that.
“Is this where they lived?" Taylor asked.
"I guess so. How many people do you reckon each of them housed? They look big enough for fifteen," I said, studying the small buildings.
"Or more - maybe even twenty? Are they like little apartment blocks? How are they split? I only see one door," Taylor said.
"The GPS says we have another mile to walk before we reach our search area," I said, glancing at it.
"Okay. Let's get going then." Taylor grabbed my hand and led me down into the valley, nearly at a run. I laughed as a rush of adrenaline flooded my veins and hurried to catch up with his longer stride.
We didn't keep up the pace for long. There was too much to look at. The buildings continued in rows on either side of us, clearly built around the roads we were walking down.
It felt weird to walk on broken concrete instead of smooth glass and I kept stumbling on the rough terrain.
The structures were all different shapes and sizes and stood alone with big patches of empty, dust-filled space surrounding them. It was beautiful and strange and so open, I couldn't think of a place more different from the city I'd grown up in and just looking at it awakened an ache in me. Like I was seeing something I’d been missing even though I’d never known it before.
It was impossible to imagine the way people must have lived before. With the sky open above their heads and clean, fresh air flowing unfiltered around them. There were no rules about where you could go or when. They didn't have to worry about walking for twenty minutes just to find out a building had reached its capacity and you couldn't go in.
They didn't have to get permission to buy food for guests or to spend the night at a friend's house. They probably didn't have to be poked and prodded by doctors every month or injected with contraceptives even though you were adamant you didn't need them. I doubted they even had to get permission to have babies.
There was a plastic sign in front of one house that read 'for sale'. I frowned as I looked at it.
"What's for sale?" I asked.
Taylor glanced at it too. He kicked the ground beneath the post that held it in place then looked beyond it to the building.
"Maybe the house?" he asked doubtfully.
“You think they could pick where they lived?" I asked.
“Why not? There's plenty of options," Taylor shrugged.
I bit my lip as I considered it and Taylor lead me on again. My parents had been promoted twice while I was growing up. Both times we had been escorted to a new apartment on a higher floor. When I was sent to live on forty, I was escorted there too. They even moved our things for us. We never had a choice. I couldn't imagine having a choice.
In front of a lot of the houses were rusted metal vehicles with fraying seats inside them. They sat on wheels which had deflated and corroded. The rubber was the only thing that still held its colour. Everything else was faded and ruined but the tyres were pitch black.
"Cars," I said, pausing to look at one more closely.
"Huh?" Taylor tore his eyes away from one of the houses to follow my gaze.
“That's why the road is so big: for the cars." I pointed but Taylor still looked blank. He'd never taken as much interest in Old World classes as I did. "They used them to get around. Like the Warden buggies, but bigger."
They didn't look anything like the images I'd studied; shiny vehicles which zipped along at high speeds on big, rubber wheels. The decaying remains they left behind after nearly a hundred years were barely recognisable but I was sure that that was what I was looking at.
"What's this?" Taylor
asked, walking up to a large, brown column standing alone in front of one of the houses.
The base of it sprouted from the ground and the top split into countless smaller pieces which pointed in all different directions. I ran my hand over the surface of it. It felt rough and flakey through the sensitive pads on my glove. There was a carving in the shape of a heart with the initials K.L & L.W on one side of the thick column at eye level.
“I think this is, or was, a tree," I said slowly.
"I thought they were green?" Taylor asked, looking doubtful.
“The tops were green but the bottoms were brown. Besides, this one must have been dead for at least seventy years. The green goes away when they die."
"I don't see how something like this-" Taylor knocked his fist against the tree, "-could cause so much trouble."
“You know it was more complicated than that. And anyway, it looks like they dealt with this one pretty thoroughly," I said, as I rapped my knuckles against the hollow wood too.
"We're here, look." Taylor pointed at the GPS in my hand. A green line had appeared on the screen marking the start of our search area.
We turned to look at a standard, two story structure with a faded red front door and big windows smeared with dust. There was a little white fence ringing the patch of ground outside. It had fallen down in places and some of the slats had broken. A dust-covered path lead to the door, cutting a line through the barren ground.
We moved towards it and stopped in front of the door.
“So, how does it work?" I asked, looking about for a retinal scanner.
"Oh look, fingerprint scanner," Taylor said, putting his gloved finger onto a round button by the door.
Nothing happened, no surprise there.
The door had a wooden knob that protruded from its centre and I reached out to tug on it. It didn't move so I braced my feet and pulled harder.
"A little help?" I asked Taylor and he moved to take my place.
He grasped the handle and yanked on it. It still didn't budge so he did it again. A wrenching sound filled the air and the whole thing broke off in his hand. He tumbled backwards from the momentum and collided with me.
Rebel Rising: A Dystopian Romance (Cage of Lies Book 1) Page 3