“What do you guys do here?” I asked. I have never been good at making conversation.
“I’m the Strategic Defense Coordinator,” Kerry spoke first. “Basically, I keep tabs on who goes in and out, and I make sure the Shell is safe from any outside threat.” She seemed highly competent but not nearly as intense as Ellis. “Come to think of it, it’s funny that I haven’t met you sooner.” She seemed puzzled.
Then the smaller boy piped up, “I work with those guys,” He sighed. “In the Shell Expansion project.” His frustration was palpable.
“Are they as bad as they seem?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.” He laughed bitterly. “They’re jerks, but it’s mostly just dumb jokes.” I saw Ellis nod sympathetically.
“You’re a good kid, Max. Don’t worry about them. They’re not even half as cool as you.” It would’ve sounded condescending coming from anyone else, but Ellis so rarely gave out compliments that it rang with sincerity.
“Thanks, I guess.” He didn’t make eye contact, but I could tell the compliment lifted his spirits.
Mason’s friends had to carry him out of the fitness center through a door on the opposite side of the room, and I could hear the faraway sounds of vomiting as we left. “You’re a beast Ellis,” Max said, staring at her. We were all thinking it.
“Yeah, well I’m going to pay for it later if you know what I mean.” She elbowed Max, and they both doubled over laughing. I guess nobody could truly escape the gastric revenge that Soyka brought down on its unfortunate victims, especially in such large quantities. The smell of it was enough to make me recoil.
“Kerry, why don’t guys head to dinner?” Ellis rubbed her stomach in an exaggerated motion, “I think I’m going to sit this one out.”
“Yeah, I think the rest of us could use a hot meal.” She winked at Ellis, and I almost felt like I was intruding on something.
That would probably fix Mason and his group of followers for a while. We didn’t see any sign of them in the dining hall that night. After the spectacle I had just witnessed, The chicken casserole that was served seemed more appetizing than usual. I scanned the room for Adam, as Kerry and Max found seats for us.
We weren’t the only ones who had had an eventful afternoon. The room was thrumming with excitement, probably at the prospect of a day off. The other soldiers must have enjoyed themselves based on the laughter and shouts that were echoing around the room. It reminded me of my time at the Academy and I felt vaguely homesick. Kerry and Max were arguing about the merits of the badge system while I studied the room. My attempt to join the conversation was half-hearted, but I didn’t want to seem unfriendly.
Kerry must have sensed that something was off with me because she tried harder to bring me into to conversation.
“Lane?” Kerry waved her hand in front of my face to grab my attention. “I mentioned earlier that it was strange that I hadn’t seen you yet.”
“That’s a little weird, I guess. We just hadn’t crossed paths until today.” I was trying to fix my eyes on her, but I kept being drawn around the room looking for Adam.
“Well yeah, but I am the Defense Coordinator,” She made it sound obvious, but in my distraction looking for Adam, the connection wasn’t clear to me at first. She added, “The wrist tattoos. I’m in charge of the system that identifies everyone in the Shell. It seems like I should have seen your name at least because I’m the one that would’ve had to register you to get a tattoo.”
After she explained, I felt stupid. Of course, that’s what she meant.
“Well...Maybe it’s because I’m a civilian?” I suggested.
“Not that I don’t trust you, but that would be even more of a reason for me to have checked you out first. Civilians don’t have an IPA record to check.” Her tone was casual, but her expression was serious.
“Oh, hmm.” That was kind of weird. “Adam-” I was about to tell her that Adam had gotten my badge for me, but then I realized that maybe he had something to do with the strange circumstances of my badge.
“What was that?” Kerry asked after I cut off my sentence.
“Oh, I just thought I saw Adam over there.” I hurried to fix my error. Kerry raised her eyebrows at me.
“He’s the other civilian, right?”
“Yeah, he’s a medic.” My smile looked natural, right?
“Did you guys come to Sector 4 together? You make a very cute couple. ”
“Oh, we’re not…” My cheeks reddened at her misunderstanding. “Adam has just been helping me, you know, with my work, collecting samples and data…” I trailed off. She actually began laughing at me.
“It’s a shame,” Her smile was contagious, and I shrugged off my awkwardness. “He’s pretty good looking.”
The choking sound that came out of my mouth surprised both of us, and Max looked ready to pick up and leave.
“I guess so,” I admitted halfheartedly, not wanting my real opinion to be on the record. “He’s kind of a mystery to me though. It’s frustrating.” I was so ready to not have the spotlight on me anymore.
Dinner went on longer than I wanted it to, as Kerry interrogated me about my feelings. I was never comfortable talking about my feelings, least of all with girls like Kerry, but in a weird way, it was kind of nice.
The exhaustion that I always felt was tempered somewhat. For the first time in a long time, I had made some friends. My mother had always wanted to me to hang out with more people my own age, but when the Threshold Crisis hit, I had to be an adult. It was nice to feel like a teenager again.
When I got back to my room, I tried to avoid looking at Adam. He was sitting right in his room with the door open. It wasn’t as if he knew we had talked about him, but my cheeks burned all the same.
I fell asleep that night wondering what we were going to do. I dreamed about Adam, Shapes floating in and out of my vision as we sat together in the dark jungle of Sector 4.
Chapter 14
Every morning I awoke with a renewed confidence that things would soon become clear. Despite the many events of the previous evening, this morning was no different.
There were several layers of data that BioGraph had organized for me into a stunning map of Sector 4. Soil samples and cultures, taken from the vines, had contributed much of the data. I could isolate pH, bacterial cultures, organic matter, or any number of other variables. Every species of plant and animal leaves a unique biological trail and all of that information was right at my fingers. Adam walked out of his room, his hair still wet from a shower. I hadn’t even noticed he was awake, because I was so focused when I saw my data had finished processing. He handed me a large white envelope.
“This was sitting on my desk.” His voice was tense with worry. The envelope had a stamp on the top right corner that read “The Office for Alliance Communications”. It had to be Officer Ridley.
Inside was a single sheet of paper which read:
Ms. Everly,
Please report to the Office for Alliance Communications at 9:00 am for a routine interview with an Alliance Representative regarding your project guidelines. Prepare for the interview to last between 30 minutes and an hour.
Yours,
Officer Ridley
I felt my blood turn cold. Something about Ridley made me so uneasy. Was it his arrogance, or the way he had threatened me about the communication logs?
“Ridley wants to interview me,” I stated flatly.
“He wants to interview you?” Adams dark tone made me nervous.
“Is that supposed to be bad?” My anxiety continued to grow. Did they think I had done something wrong?
“Well, it’s not good. It means that the Alliance has reason to suspect you are inefficient in your duties… or worse.” He all but groaned.
I didn’t ask him what the “or worse” might be. I looked at the clock on my computer. 8:50 am. My heart sank into my stomach.
“I have to go. I’m going to be late.” I yelled quickly as I dashed out of the
lab. “Wait-- where’s the Office for Alliance Communications?” I shouted back into the lab. Adam put down his stack of papers and led me out of the lab.
“I’ll show you. It will be faster that way.” He motioned me out the door. “It’s down on the lower level.” That far away? He had to be kidding. Ridley must have wanted me to be late.
We took the main stairway down until it ended on the level with the fitness center. We ran quickly to a smaller stairwell behind a door that seemed to stretch the whole length of the shell.
“Come on, it’s only ten floors down.” We descended faster down each flight of stairs before Adam stopped abruptly in front of a huge black door. The door read “Office for Alliance Communications” just as the letter had. Ridley had tacked an extra handwritten sign underneath, which listed his name and rank.
My heart was racing. I wasn’t even sure what the interview was about, let alone what I could say about my work to Ridley. My time here had mainly consisted of strange data that didn’t add up and keeping secrets about illegal indigenous groups. Surely none of that would make me any more trustworthy to the Alliance.
“Come after me, if I’m not back in a few hours.” I laughed nervously, but I was only half joking. Ridley may not be the most competent person here, but he clearly had power over me and my future on this project. Adam quickly grabbed my hand and squeezed it reassuringly. His eyes held worry for me, but I would be okay. I had to be. Fear rolled over me in waves, but this time I remained in control. I felt it grow icy and piercing in my chest, but it made me stronger. I walked into the office, holding myself with more calm and reserve than I ever thought possible.
There was a long hallway beyond the door. There were several rooms that appeared to be unoccupied. Ridley’s office was the only one in use, at the far end of the hallway.
I knocked on the door. It opened immediately after I dropped my hand as if he had been waiting for me.
“You’re cutting it close, Lane.” He smirked with self-satisfaction. Hearing him utter my name so casually made me cringe. Behind me, the door to the hallway opened again. I turned expecting Adam to be behind me, but it was the Commander. He stepped forward into Ridley’s office.
“It seems like I’m right on time,” I muttered as I stepped aside to let the Commander through into the small room. Ridley rose from his seat and shock crossed his face, but only momentarily.
“It must have slipped your mind to inform me that we have an interview this morning, Ridley.” The Commander spoke cheerfully as Ridley balked. He must have been planning to hold this meeting so that it would go unnoticed and he would have free reign.
“I-- well yes, I was sure I sent the memo…” He clearly had not intended for the Commander to know we were meeting. I felt fear turn to anger, burning inside me.
The Commander picked up the stack of papers from Ridley’s desk and said, “I see you are planning to take a formal statement from Ms. Everly, is that right?”
“Only as a routine matter, of course, Commander.” By now, Ridley had regained his composure.
“Well then, shall we proceed?” He nodded to the Officer whose face had become pinched with irritation. It was hard to keep a smile from my face.
“Certainly.”
The interview was brief. Ridley merely asked me about the course of my work. I explained the precise nature of the forest’s health as I had come to understand it while leaving out all the details that might incriminate Adam or myself. I chose to explain the rumors of voices and other strange things as hallucinations caused by possible unspecified environmental toxins. The presence of the Commander had stymied whatever interrogation that the Alliance Communication Officer had planned for me. I was lucky this time, but it may not always be so.
After I walked out of the small office, the Commander followed behind me.
“I need to speak with you about something. Would you meet with me tomorrow to discuss it?” He asked quietly.
“Of course,” I hesitated before asking, “Did I do something to offend Officer Ridley? I honestly didn’t mean to cause trouble.” Ridley had clearly developed some sort of grudge against me.
“I’m sure you didn’t do anything,” He said, “If you’ll just come to my office around noon we can talk more about it.”
Chapter 15
When I came back up to the lab, Adam was waiting for me.
Something in my expression must have looked surprised, because he said, “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay with your interview.”
“Yeah, it was fine.” I was stunned by how he was looking at me, the full force of his grey eyes on me. “The Commander showed up actually.”
“Oh really?” He seemed surprised.
“Nothing happened,” I explained as he studied me. “Ridley just asked me some questions about my progress.” I felt drawn in by him. It sometimes almost seemed like he had feelings for me. I looked away. That probably wasn’t it. There was just so much else going on.
“Enough about that. What are you doing today?” I tried to change the subject.
“First on the list is vaccination updates for all soldiers, It seems there’s been an outbreak of Malaria just outside the Sector.” He recounted the details of his plans, and I noticed the hair behind his ear fell into his eyes. I suppressed the desire to reach out and touch his face.
“ After that, I was going to ask you if you wanted to eat lunch with me.” He leaned in closer to me.
I wasn’t expecting that. I guess we were friends now. It didn’t immediately register that Adam would actually want to hang out with me if he didn’t have to. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure that I was going to keep his secrets.
“Sure, that would be great,” I answered. “Do you want to meet in the Cafeteria at noon?”
“Actually, I had something else in mind if you’re up for it,” He said mysteriously raising his eyebrows.
“Well, in that case, bring it on,” I laughed. He departed to finish up his work for the morning and I turned on my computer. I didn’t make much progress since I was still reeling from the events of this morning. When noon rolled around I went upstairs looking for Adam. He was standing near the main door to Sector 4.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked.
“Go where? We’re still on lockdown.” I motioned toward the locked door.
“You’ll see,” He said, walking toward the stairs. “Just follow me.”
The temperature was even cooler in the atrium than usual. My skin was covered in goosebumps and I was glad for the heavy material of my clothes. Commander Marshall was heading out the main door as we passed by, trailed by Officer Ridley.
“Oh no, hurry up,” I whispered fiercely. “Ridley, up ahead.”
Adam grasped my hand and yanked me, full body across the Atrium. The skin of his hand was smooth and warm, causing my heart to beat a little faster. What was that about?
I retracted my hand, not wanting to analyze the uncanny sense of heat where our two hands touched. The hallway was tight, more like a utility closet than anything else. Debris littered the ground and my footfall caused a pile of nails to clatter through a grate in the floor. It was some type of ventilation system.
“This way,” He motioned.
“You first.”
The narrow passage ended in a huge metal wall. No door in sight. Was he actually just insane? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind before, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“Climb in,” A giant grate swung open on the ground, and Adam pointed inside. It was impossible to register anything through the darkness. Did it have a long drop, a gentle slope? No idea.
“I’m not doing this because I trust you, only because I’m curious,” I told him sarcastically.
“Of course, I wouldn’t expect any less from you.” The momentary flash in his eyes confused me, but it didn’t keep me from leaping into the open grate. There wasn’t even a drop, really. The gate gave way to a small ventilation tunnel. I crouched down to crawl through the
tight passage, with Adam following close behind. Eventually, the tunnel began a gentle downward slope. My knees began scraping against a rough layer of dark stone, causing me to fumble slightly.
“The exit is just ahead. You’ll have to manually open the door.” It was right where he said it would be. I nearly smacked my head on it.
“Right,” How many more secret dark passageways were behind this door?
A heavy metal bar was attached to the utility door at the end of the passage. To open, it appeared the bar had to be wrenched at a 90-degree angle and pried open. When I managed to get the door open, my gasp audibly expressed my shock. In front of us, the jungle opened up. The door hung open, suspended nearly 8 feet above the ground. There was a thin metal ladder attached to the exterior wall. My attempt to step down was awkward but manageable. Adam crawled out after me, shutting the door behind him.
Emergence: Threshold Series Book I Page 11