“Okay, I'll go and you push me." He moved around and tentatively put his weight onto it as I watched him anxiously. The ropes groaned and creaked for a few moments but they seemed to hold so Taylor carefully lifted his feet off of the ground. More creaking ensued but the ropes still held.
“I'm ready. Push," he commanded.
I walked behind him, placed my hands on his back and shoved. Not much happened.
“Stop pushing like a girl," he teased.
This time I took a few steps back and ran into it, putting my weight behind the shove. He flew forward and swung his legs out to propel him further. Taylor was whooping and laughing as he swung up towards the sky, held still for a fraction of a second, then hurtled back towards me.
I watched him swinging straight at my face and a scream of fright escaped me as I stumbled back too late. The seat and Taylor hit me hard in the chest and pain exploded through my body from the impact. I was knocked off of my feet and flew backwards through the air before crashing down onto the dusty soil. I smacked my head on something hard which thunked on the outside of my helmet and made the whole thing vibrate. My breath whooshed out and I coughed, clutching at my chest as I wheezed on the ground.
Taylor leapt off of the swinging seat and raced around to help me, dropping down at my side, his grey eyes swimming with concern.
“Are you okay?" he asked as I sat up, taking a deep breath and waiting for my head to stop spinning.
“Yeah, I think the helmet took the hit for me. It's not broken is it?" I reached up and ran my hands along the back of it but I couldn't feel anything wrong with it.
Taylor twisted my head to get a look and shrugged. "I think it's okay,"
“You think? Don't think. Is it okay or not?" My heart started to race as I considered what might happen to me if the air lock on my suit had been damaged.
“Yeah, it's fine. There's a bit of a crack on the ventilator but you can still breathe can't you?"
“If I couldn't breathe then we wouldn't be having this conversation," I growled, my fear making me lash out at him,
“That was amazing." A huge grin split Taylor's face in half and suddenly he was the little boy I had known forever.
“Which bit? The part where you flew or the part where I fell on my ass?" I grumbled through a half smile.
“My bit." He tried, without much effect, to rearrange his features to look more concerned but he was practically bursting with excitement. "You should try it." He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.
“Are you sure my suit is alright?" I ran a hand over the ventilator nervously while Taylor rolled his eyes.
"I told you, it's fine. So?" He gestured towards the swinging chair while I hesitated.
I considered the seat and Taylor started making chicken noises under his breath, chasing away any last feelings of doubt I had. I strode over and sat down, gingerly putting my weight onto the old plank of wood.
“Ready?" Taylor was behind me with his hands on my back before I even felt confident enough to lift my feet off of the ground..
“Yes."
“Pick your feet up."
I did as instructed and held tight to the ropes on either side of me. Taylor's hands left my back for a moment, only to return with force, knocking me and the seat forward up into the air. I screamed in surprise, fear, exhilaration…I didn’t even know which emotion was winning out.
I’d never felt anything like it. My stomach dropped out from under me and blood pulsed in my veins. My palms were sweaty and I was utterly terrified. But I didn't want it to stop. As I swung backwards, Taylor rushed in to push me again. I swung higher this time and I tipped my head back to look up at the blue sky stretching endlessly above us.
Again and again Taylor pushed me and my stomach swooped and I squealed in delight, kicking my feet in front of me.
Eventually, the seat slowed and finally stopped still and I stood up, feeling wobbly.
“That was the best fun I have had. Ever," I said, grinning at him so hard that my face may have been in danger of splitting in half.
Taylor grinned back and was about to have another go himself when the GPS started beeping at us.
“It's time to go," he moaned. "You hogged all the fun."
“Well I'm also going to have one hell of a bruise on my ass," I said, rubbing the ache on my backside where I'd landed in the dirt.
"Does my ventilator still look okay?" I asked and Taylor tipped my head back to get a better look.
“I think so." He knocked his knuckles against it and I heard a faint pop.
“What was that?" I grabbed at the circular tube and shook it as my heart leapt in panic. "Can you hear hissing?"
“No." Taylor eyes widened in alarm as he shifted closer to me.
“Is that 'no' a real no, or is it a 'I don't want you to panic' no?" My breathing came rapidly and the hissing seemed even louder.
“No, I really can't hear it." Taylor stepped closer to me and tried to tilt his head close to my ventilator to listen.
"Call your dad," I begged and the effort of speaking sent a ringing to my ears. There wasn't enough oxygen getting into my suit. My heart was slamming against my chest so hard that it hurt and I was trying really damn hard not to freak out but it wasn’t working.
Taylor stared at me for a second before realising I meant the radio. He dropped the pack to the ground and started shoving things aside as he hunted for it.
A sample bottle tumbled over the lip of the bag and started to roll away down the road and Taylor jumped up to chase it just as I started to feel light headed.
I tried to call him back but I couldn't draw in a breath and I coughed as the stale air in my lungs tried to force its way out. My limbs felt like they were too far from my body and my pulse was echoing in my ears.
I put a hand out to the tree to steady myself but it was further away than I'd thought and I staggered, only just managing to stay on my feet.
Taylor caught the bottle and turned back, looking at me with a concern lining his features as he realised something was really wrong.
I clutched the ventilator, willing it to start working again. My lungs were burning, there was no oxygen left in my mask. I looked up at Taylor as fear gripped my heart and I stumbled onto one knee.
Taylor was already running towards me, yelling my name and he caught my arm before I could face plant into the ground.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously, peering into my eyes
"I...can't-" I wheezed, but barely a whisper left my lips. My vision was going black around the edges and I coughed again, trying desperately to get some oxygen. The air didn't feel right in my lungs. "Breathe," I managed before everything went black.
***
The first thing I was aware of was a breeze on my cheek. Then the hard, cold ground beneath my back and a hand squeezing mine tightly. My eyes were closed but I couldn't summon the energy to open them just yet.
“Can you hear me?" Taylor begged.
"You're practically shouting down my earhole," I managed, but I felt weird and had to pause to pull in a big lungful of air.
“Thank god." He let out a shaky breath. "I didn't know if I should… But you weren't breathing and I couldn't carry you and no one came when I was shouting and then your lips went blue and-" I raised a hand in the direction of his voice and pushed it towards his mouth to stop the babbling, my hand bumping against his helmet and conveying my point.
My eyes felt heavy but I slowly opened them, squinting at the uninterrupted blue above me. I took another shuddering breath and raised my hand to my face. I pushed my long hair out of my eyes and felt it catch in the neck of the suit as I did so. My gaze slowly rested on Taylor in his full biohazard suit and I nearly stopped breathing again.
“Where's my helmet?" I gasped.
"I'm sorry, but - you were suffocating. I didn't know what else to do!”
“Did you radio back? Did they tell you it was okay?" I asked. My heart started beating so quickly that it was al
most painful.
Taylor's mouth fell open "I - I'm sorry I just didn't - you looked so - I forgot about the radio." His eyes locked with mine and I could see the terror there. I took another breath. My hands were shaking, I didn't know if it was fear or something else.
"Am I green?" I asked.
“What?"
"Am I green or purple or do I have tentacles where my hair used to be?"
"N-no," he replied, smiling faintly.
"Well I feel fine. I think. Chances are this place is fine, it's right by The Wall and they're looking at expanding out here so I'm probably going to be just fine," I said, reassuring myself as much as Taylor and ignoring the amount of times I'd said the word 'fine'.
"Great, so what should we do now?" he asked.
"Radio your dad. Tell him what's happened and why we're late. We can walk while you talk." I stood up and brushed myself off as Taylor rummaged about for the radio again. I glared at my hands until the shaking stopped and I tried to force my mind away from all of the terrifying possibilities that this could present.
Before The Wall went up, anyone who was exposed to the contamination became…monstrous. They lost all sense of the person they’d been before and turned into crazed, violent creatures who craved nothing other than death and destruction.
But that wasn’t happening to me. I refused to believe it could. I still felt exactly the same. And I was going to cling to that sense of self with both hands. Because all the time that I was sure of who I was, I could convince myself that everything was going to be okay. Even if a little voice in the back of my head was insisting that it wasn’t.
Artie was waiting for us when we got back to The Wall where the cable cars were moving smoothly around and around on their track. He had a grim look on his face and was alone.
His eyes flickered to me before darting away again quickly. A muscle tensed in his neck.
“I sent everyone else up. Come on, we need to get back," he said, steering us into a cable car. It turned around slowly and headed back up towards the city.
I stood at the glass wall, staring down at everything we were leaving behind. After several minutes, I realised the silence had grown tense and I looked back to see Artie frowning.
“What's wrong?" I asked. My mouth felt dry.
"I hope nothing," he began and my pulse rose. "They may need to quarantine you for a few days to be sure that you don't pose a threat to the population. Also…there might be disciplinary action against the two of you for breaking protocol." He wouldn't hold my eye and I knew he was trying to downplay what he thought would happen.
"But she was dying!" Taylor burst out.
"I know." The look on Artie's face showed how much that worried him. "But there's a reason friends shouldn't be paired together on these sorts of expeditions. It's easier to think clearly with someone you have no personal connection to outside of the job. I shouldn’t have allowed the two of you to work together. This is on me, too.”
“I don't think I would have let anyone die," Taylor said incredulously.
"No. But you may have remembered to radio back before acting so rashly," Artie snapped and I almost recoiled. Artie never lost his temper. "We have the whole population to think of and we can't risk any contamination getting inside The Wall." He glanced at me and I could see the fear in his eyes.
“I feel fine," I said, trying to reassure him and myself. "And I thought we were extending The Wall to cover that area soon, so it shouldn't be contaminated should it?" I asked, staring desperately between Taylor and Artie.
“Well, no. But we were doing those tests, taking those samples today and until they come back clear we have to follow contamination protocol. I'm sorry, but I think this is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better." He bit his lip and drummed his fingers against the glass in agitation.
The cable car glided to a halt and I staggered to regain my balance, bracing myself on Taylor's arm. As I let go, I glanced at my hands and realised they were shaking again. I took a deep breath as the doors slid open to try and calm myself.
Six armed Wardens and Professor Delo were waiting for us inside the air locked space as we stepped inside. They were all dressed in their own biohazard suits and were looking at me like they were afraid I might spontaneously combust at any moment. Delo's usual look of distracted indifference was replaced with a stern frown.
As we joined them, I was very aware of the broken helmet still grasped in my hand and the fact that everyone else had theirs on.
“We ask you not to communicate any further until we are able to interview you. For the protection of yourselves and the population, you will have to be detained and checked for contaminates before we can consider you for re-introduction to the population." Professor Delo spoke in clipped tones and the Wardens moved forward to surround us.
"You will need to put on a new helmet for the journey," he said to me, handing one over with a look of disappointment on his face.
I obediently fastened the new helmet into place and surrendered my broken one to a grizzly looking Warden.
"I'm the only one who had my helmet off," I said, looking uncomfortably at the way Taylor and Artie had been surrounded by the Wardens too.
“We ask you not to communicate any further until we are able to interview you," Professor Delo repeated, his eyes hard. I nodded and he turned away to press some buttons on the control panel by the sealed door which led back into the city.
"Lift your arms please," he commanded and we all did as instructed.
A dark grey mist descended from vents in the ceiling. It crept down in twisting tendrils that snaked together. It kept coming, falling all around us and getting thicker and thicker until I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
The temperature dropped and it felt like the mist had found its way deep inside my bones, making me shiver. Then the temperature started to rise again until it became unbearably hot and the mist began to ascend, condensing as it went, and disappearing back through the vents.
The heat continued to soar and I could feel myself perspiring, though the air filtering through my helmet stayed cool and fresh. It felt like my skin was on fire and I twitched, trying to stop myself from screaming out.
As quickly as it had heated up, the temperature dropped back to normal.
“Decontamination complete," a smooth female voice announced over the speaker system.
“What the hell?” Taylor muttered.
“We ask you not to communicate any further until we are able to interview you." The ice in Professor Delo's voice was unmasked.
"Sorry," Taylor mumbled. The Warden standing behind him gave Taylor a harsh shove forwards as the door opened and we made our way out into the city.
Traversing the walkways when accompanied by a small platoon of Wardens was a very different experience. Instead of the shoving and jostling that I was used to, we were in our own lane with plenty of space between us and everyone else.
Of course we were subject to curious glances and some outright hostile glares but I tried my best to ignore those. When we needed to cross over and take the exit into the Warden Central Building, we were given a wide birth by the other travellers and made the transition easily.
We paused at the building entrance to get scanned in and I saw my name flash up next to the word detainee on the screen.
We approached the elevators at the end of a pristine corridor and the Warden to my left, a stumpy little man with a large, hooked nose, stepped forward to hit the call button. The doors slid open after a short pause and several people stared at us with an annoying amount of interest. They were all clutching tablets and wearing ID badges naming them as 'Warden Administration Clerks'.
“Official business. Out," snapped the biggest Warden at the front of our group. He was tall enough to dwarf everyone around him and had an enormous unibrow dominating his face.
I moved aside quickly as everyone within the elevator scurried to comply. A woman who lived in an apartment down the hal
l from mine, peered at me beadily and clucked her tongue as I was escorted past.
Unibrow tapped on the wall of the elevator twice and a screen appeared. He leaned forward to let the retinal scanner do its thing.
“Warden one-five-six-eight-seven, where would you like to go?" the smooth voice asked over the speakers.
"Interrogation," he replied in a gruff tone and the elevator plummeted down, and down, and down.
I didn't think I’d ever been as deep within the buildings as we were heading. I glanced at Taylor and he offered me his hand. I reached for him but a Warden placed his palm between ours before we could reach each other.
“No touching," she instructed firmly and I swallowed a lump in my throat.
The doors finally opened to reveal an undecorated, white hallway that stretched off into the distance. It was lit with harsh lighting that stung my eyes. There were white doors all along either side of it, numbered with odds on the left and evens on the right.
We were herded along the corridor by the Wardens until I thought I'd never see any colour but white again. Eventually, we came to a halt by a door numbered two hundred and six.
"In," hook nose ordered, putting a restraining hand on Taylor's shoulder to stop him from following me through the door.
I did as instructed and stepped into the room, turning just in time to see Professor Delo give me one last, scrutinising look. The door closed in my face, making a sucking noise as the seal fitted into place followed by four loud clunks as it locked.
At first, it was pitch black inside but at the sound of locks falling into position, a dazzling light filled the room. I stood and surveyed my cell while my breaths came quickly and I fought against the urge to crumple up into a ball and start rocking.
This can’t be happening!
Everything was white. There was a small bed to one side of the space with something blue folded on top of it and a single, hard chair sat beside it. That was it. A small opening to my right held a washroom with a shower, sink and toilet.
I could see the gleam of cameras and speakers bolted from the ceiling and I chewed on my bottom lip as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do now.
Rebel Rising: A Dystopian Romance (Cage of Lies Book 1) Page 5