The bodies are strung up inside semitranslucent pods that appear to be made of metal and plastic, stretching into infinity. Only the people’s heads are visible through small portholes. The pods are filled with fluid, circulated by plastic tubing that flows back into the beams that support them. Catwalks and metal stairways run beneath each row of bodies, like internal scaffolding.
I know these frozen bodies are alive, but they have the gray pallor of corpses. It’s like a nightmare cemetery, one in which the bodies are denied any respect or grace.
These are the “specimens.”
They’re just kids from the wheel. Kids like us. Exiles.
And given what the voice said about it being the number one processing facility, there must be other places like it on the wheel.
“How—” I begin. “How did this happen?”
“I’m sorry. I do not understand.”
I want to kill the repetitive blandly innocuous voice. Want to find whatever computer controls it and smash it into a million pieces.
But we need answers, and right now this voice is the only hope we have of getting some. “How did these kids”—I can’t bring myself to say “specimens”—“end up here?”
“All specimens run free-range on this island. Each one has been individually acquired by our automatic UNA-51 High Altitude Selection Units, with minimal tissue damage. All selection units are equipped with flight capabilities, and the capacity to acquire and disable uncooperative subjects with minor energy expenditure.”
“Selection units. That’s what the feelers are,” I mutter to Gadya tiredly.
We are just test subjects. Specimens. But why?
“Our selection units have an eighty-four percent success rate in accurately acquiring their target samples,” the voice regales us proudly. It doesn’t understand or care that it’s talking about human beings. “Our staff can brief you on the latest data.”
“You have no staff,” I finally say, my voice echoing in my ears. “The staff you keep talking about? They’re gone. No one’s here but you, and all these frozen bodies.”
It picks up on the word “you.” “Yes, I am Clara, your automated guide—”
“Your staff has left you here, but you don’t care,” I continue. “And you never will. Because you’re not human. You’re a machine. The UNA has automated mass murder.”
The voice doesn’t have an answer for that one. Maybe I’ve finally confounded it.
I stare out the window, looking at all those bodies again. I imagine being frozen is like being in a coma, but worse.
I struggle to keep control over my sanity. More questions occur to me, creeping into my mind like dark tendrils of thought.
“Where do you think all the people running things went?” I whisper to Gadya. “I mean, the scientists or doctors, or police. Or whoever built this place?”
“They left.” She can barely speak.
“Maybe there was an accident,” I whisper back. “Everything’s automated, but it’s in shambles, and it’s so cold in this zone. That can’t be normal. Maybe there’s a crack in the cooling mechanism.” I pause. “It just seems like things are still running, but no one’s around to check on them anymore.”
“Maybe no one’s around because they don’t need to be. Everything’s probably functioning fine.” She laughs bitterly. “It’s just us specimens here. And selection units—whipping us off to get dissected. This place isn’t running by mistake.”
“But why? Why are we worth testing?”
The lights on the other side of the window begin to dim again, as the horseshoe lights around us are raised. In a way I’m relieved, because we won’t have to keep staring at the awful sight of ten thousand frozen bodies.
Then I’m suddenly thinking about something else. Liam.
My dad’s message carved on the rock meant “Never give up.” He’d want me to find the meaning when there seems to be none.
Although it seems unlikely, if these bodies are being held alive, maybe there’s some way of unfreezing and resuscitating them before they get shipped off the wheel.
“Hello?” I call out to the voice, eager to communicate with it again. “Is there a way to find out who—” I break off, trying to reformulate my question. “Is there a way to track individual specimens being held in the archive? Can you do that?”
“Tracking test subjects is possible through our data link.” A touch-screen panel lights up nearby. I step over to it, followed by a limping Gadya. “Enter the UNA identity number of your required specimen.”
“We don’t know their identity numbers!” Gadya calls out angrily. “They have names! Not numbers! Liam, Markus, Rika, David!”
“What about dates of capture?” I ask suddenly. “I mean the date the specimens were ‘harvested.’ Can you search by date?”
“Affirmative,” the voice replies blithely. “Please use two digits for the day, two for the month, and four digits for the year.”
Before the voice has finished talking, I’m already punching in numbers for yesterday’s date. 10-20-2032. The day Liam was taken.
It takes me only a second to input the digits.
“Processing . . . ,” the voice says. Then it asks, “Male or female?”
“Male.”
“Height and weight?”
Gadya and I guess as best we can, blurting out words, talking over each other.
“Five eleven—”
“Wait, six feet—”
“One hundred fifty pounds—”
“No, one forty—”
Then the voice declares, “Possible subject located.” A nearby computer screen flares to life. On it is a blurred photograph of Liam’s face, with a stream of data running up the right-hand side in a dizzying column.
“That’s him!” I yell. I run to the window, Gadya at my side. “Where is he? Tell us!” I’m sick with excitement. “Is he still in the archive? Is he still alive?”
It picks up on my final word. “All specimens are alive, and suitable for shipping.”
“Where is he, then!” I yell, feeling like my chest is about to burst. If I know where he is, I can try to get to him.
“Specimen number 112-782-B is currently being held on level twenty, which is viewable from this gallery window. That specimen has not been shipped for processing yet.” The voice pauses. “However, his pod is scheduled to depart this station in fifty-six minutes, on Airbus Gamma.”
I barely hear what the voice is saying.
Liam is still here.
Alive.
There is hope.
Gadya and I clutch each other.
“We have to save him!” I yell.
“I know.”
Then, as we look out the window, I see a light begin to glow in the distance. It’s very faint, way out there in the rows of bodies, hanging in endless darkness. The light is about two hundred feet down, and slightly off to our left.
“I have illuminated your requested specimen,” the voice tell us, sounding pleased with itself. For once I don’t mind.
“Liam,” I murmur, staring out the window at the distant light far below us. “They haven’t dissected him yet. But we’ve only got fifty-six minutes.”
“I can’t believe it.” Gadya looks like she’s going to cry.
“We have to get to him,” I say, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “Then try to rescue the others, too.”
Gadya and I start rapidly punching in dates, giving information and physical descriptions as fast as we can. Rika. Markus. David. Even James. Everyone we can think of.
Scattered dots light up in the vast dark space, as images of their faces flit past on the computer screen. None of them have time restrictions like Liam does. He’s the only one whose pod is scheduled to leave the wheel today.
But one of the four is completely absent.
David.
“How can he not be here?” I ask. Neither the computer nor Gadya knows. It’s like there’s no trace of him. “Has he already been taken
to another facility?” I wonder out loud, scared for him.
We try everything, but the computer refuses to recognize anything we say. There is no match for David whatsoever. It’s another mystery. Where else could the feeler have taken him but here?
“How long do we have until Liam—I mean, the first specimen—departs?” I ask, desperate to keep track of the time, trying to focus on what’s most important to me now.
“Forty-nine minutes and thirty-five seconds,” the voice replies. I stare out at Liam’s faint light, shining like a star in the darkness.
“We need to thaw him out and bring him back,” Gadya tells the voice. “How do we do that?”
There’s a brief silence.
Then the words crash in. “Thawing is only possible using the manual controls on each pod.”
“Then we need to get down there.”
“Your request cannot be granted.”
“Why not?” I challenge.
“Guests cannot enter the specimen archive without authorized supervision,” the voice replies. “The subzero temperature necessitates the use of an LS-8 zone suit inside, which can only be operated by a qualified staff member.”
“Like we told you, there aren’t any staff members,” I say. “There’s just you and there’s us. It’s an emergency!”
“I’m sorry,” the voice begins again, but I’m already looking around. A zone suit, I’m thinking. What is that, and where can I find one?
Gadya and I quickly answer that question once we start exploring. There are a number of white doors farther around the curve of the horseshoe. One of them is marked LS-8’S/SERVICE ELEVATOR FIVE. I rush over to it and put my hands on its wheel handle, trying to turn it. But just as I reach it, I hear clicking noises and realize that it has just been locked. By Clara.
“Open this door right now!” I yell.
“I’m sorry,” the voice says sharply. “You are attempting to enter a restricted area.”
I begin yanking harder on the wheel. Gadya hobbles over and joins me.
“Cease your actions immediately,” the voice admonishes us. “If you do not, I will be forced to request security personnel.”
“Good luck with that,” I mutter as we keep trying to open the door. But it remains locked.
“You are breaking Silver Shore protocol. I will enact security measures if you do not desist.”
Gadya grabs my arm. I turn to her, and she puts a finger to her lips. I don’t understand at first. Then she points at a red switch a few feet away, encased in a glass-paneled box on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before, because there are so many switches and buttons everywhere. “What?”
“Look closer,” she mouths silently.
I stop trying to crank the wheel. I slowly walk over and stare at the switch for a second, reading the words printed next to it:
MANUAL OVERRIDE: FOR LS-8’S
AND SERVICE ELEVATOR FIVE
EMERGENCY USE ONLY
In smaller type below is written the words:
WARNING! WILL DISABLE C.L.A.R.A.
OPERATING SYSTEM.
I raise my hand and curl my fingers into a fist as Gadya watches, nodding her approval. It’s time to put the voice to sleep and get to work saving our friends.
“Do not touch that box!” Clara’s voice begins, rising into an angry whine. “Please! Stop. Do not—”
Without thinking about it, I pull back my arm, smash the glass with my fist, and then yank the switch down as hard and fast as I can.
THE ARCHIVE
THE SWITCH MAKES A loud snap, and my knuckles start oozing blood from the broken glass, through my gloves. I clutch my hand, trying to staunch the bleeding.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe lights to start flashing, or for a siren to go off. Or maybe for the observation deck to flood with nerve gas, as punishment for our transgressions. But nothing happens.
“I think we killed it,” Gadya finally says.
I pause, waiting to see if the voice will pipe up. There’s only silence. “Hey!” I call up at the ceiling, just to make sure. “You still there, Clara? You still gonna stop us?”
No response.
I walk back over to the door. “Think it’ll open now?” I start pulling on the wheel again with Gadya. This time it begins to turn.
It takes both our strength to get the door open, but we manage it. Our frostbitten fingers are barely able to move. The wounds on my knuckles are deep, but because of the cold, I feel barely any pain. I guess that’s good, for now.
We stare into the room beyond the door. It’s large. Well lit. There’s a row of what look like space suits hanging against one wall on hooks—four thin silver one-piece outfits that resemble empty sleeping bags.
These must be the LS-8 zone suits.
Next to them are huge bulbous helmets. On the other side of the room is the metal scaffolding of a freight elevator—no doubt one that descends into the abyss of the specimen archive.
“We have to put the suits on and go down there,” I say. “And walk until we find Liam. Then figure out how to unthaw him. We’re gonna have to bring an extra zone suit to put him in, or he won’t make it back up here alive.” I know I’m probably deluded in my optimism, but the fact that Liam is still alive—at least for the next forty minutes or so—makes anything seem possible again.
“Alenna?” I hear Gadya ask. I glance over at her, and see that there’s blood seeping out of her boot now. A piece of bone must have finally poked through the skin of her broken ankle. I don’t know how she has the strength to ignore that kind of pain. “Must be a compound fracture. I’ve been trying to walk around on it, making it worse. . . .” She’s swaying, unable to put any weight on it.
I help her sit down, worried. She’s injured far worse than I thought. The cold is preventing us from feeling the true extent of our wounds.
“You don’t have to come with me,” I tell her, although the thought of being alone down there terrifies me. “You can stay here. Cover me from the window and make sure everything’s okay.”
“I want to go.” Gadya looks at me, eyes burning with pain and frustration. “I just don’t want my ankle to collapse down there and jeopardize it for everyone.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
She nods grimly, leaning back against the wall. “I’ll keep a good lookout.”
I want to stay and help her, but there’s no time. I need to get to Liam.
I walk over to the nearest LS-8 suit and grab it off the wall. It’s surprisingly thin and loose; the material feels silky, even though it looks like aluminum foil. The suit’s sleeves end in large gloves. I glance at the helmets, which are the opposite of the suit—heavy and cumbersome, like diving helmets.
I start stepping into one of the suits as Gadya watches me. “You’re not gonna win any beauty contests in that thing,” she cracks weakly.
I hoist a helmet up. It’s painfully heavy. I take a deep breath and shut my eyes. Then I duck down, putting my head inside the claustrophobic dome.
A second later, I’m staring at Gadya from behind the helmet’s glass visor, taking shallow breaths. The helmet is musty and dank, like it hasn’t been used in a long time, maybe years. I smell the tang of ancient sweat. I start zipping the suit up and around the base of the helmet, where it makes a seal.
“How’s it feel?” Gadya asks, her voice muffled.
“Warmer.” The helmet starts to fog up for a moment, but then it clears. I want to sit down and rest, but I have to keep moving. By now we probably only have half an hour left until Liam’s pod departs the Silver Shore for good.
I rapidly take down a suit for Gadya, so she can put it on and try to warm up too.
“I’ll be back soon,” I tell her as I help get the suit over her clothes and injured ankle. The swelling is obvious, even through her boot, although at least the bleeding seems to have stopped now that she’s not standing up. “Hopefully with Liam.”
Gadya nods weakly. “Do the best you can. For b
oth of us.”
“I will.”
I clamber over to the elevator. The whole structure is made of metal wire, like a chicken coop—walls, floor, and ceiling. Walking in the suit is difficult because of the helmet, which adds at least twenty pounds. In my right hand, I’m holding the spare suit for Liam, and in my left, a spare helmet. If I can figure out how to save Liam first, then we can ferry our other friends back one by one.
I glance behind me and see Gadya watching. I never thought it would be me right at the end like this. I would have guessed anyone else: Liam, Gadya, Markus, Sinxen, David, or even Rika. I can’t let them down.
I pull back the metal grating that serves as the elevator’s door, and peer at the touch-screen display hanging on one of the walls. The buttons on the screen are large, designed to accommodate the clunky gloves of the zone suit. I raise my arm and push the button marked LEVEL 20. A second later, the elevator begins to move.
I expected the ride to be smooth. Instead, I hear a grinding squeal as the elevator lurches downward a few feet and then just hangs there.
I stumble sideways, banging my helmet on the metal grating, trying to keep my balance in the rickety cage. I drop the extra suit and helmet. In my haste, it hadn’t occurred to me that the elevator wouldn’t work.
It’s probably falling apart, like everything else in this abandoned city, I think. My mind flashes with terrible images. What if I get stuck? Or what if the cable snaps, and I plummet straight to the bottom?
Then the elevator lurches again, heading downward. I clutch at the railings, but it’s too hard to grasp them with the gloves on. I press myself against the intersection of two walls. The elevator moves faster, metal still screeching.
Gadya is now many levels above me. I can’t see her anymore when I look up through the grating, because the angle is too severe. So I peer down at my destination—the sprawling blackness that lies beyond me in every direction except for the few dots of light.
I glance at the elevator panel. Judging from the buttons, there are sixty-six levels. It’s like descending into some frozen version of hell. I focus on those twinkling lights in the distance. I don’t know how much time I have left before Liam’s pod is taken. I’m guessing it’s not long.
The Forsaken (Forsaken - Trilogy) Page 28