City Under Ice

by TE Olivant

I froze to the spot. It was my mother’s voice. We were still minutes away from Tech and I grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him down the corridor. A door appeared to my right and I yanked it open, ducking into a storage cupboard.

  “Who was that?”

  Angel Sam had red spots on his cheeks and he was breathing hard. It was nice to see him a little dishevelled. He was normally so perfect, so serious. He could even be considered handsome if he would just relax sometimes.

  “My mother. She can’t have seen us.” I crossed my fingers and said a silent prayer.

  Footsteps followed us up the corridor. Sam looked at me and I saw the horror reflected in his face. Neither of us breathed.

  “You can rely on me, Historian,” a second voice said.

  “I would expect nothing less,” came my mother’s chilly reply.

  Gradually the sound of footsteps disappeared.

  “That was close,” Sam wiped his hand across his forehead.

  “Who was that with her?”

  He dared another peek round the corridor.

  “Damn it, it’s the Supervisor. Imogen. She was meant to be in meetings all day. She was coming from the Tech room, so she’ll know we skipped out early.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “Do you think she’ll tell my mother?”

  Sam shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t reflect well on her that two of her staff had gone home early. Most likely she’ll keep it to herself.”

  “Will they find out about the archives?”

  “No,” Sam frowned, and I could see him thinking through our actions. “They’ll just know that we left work. I’ll tell them I changed the time clocks because I had slept in or something.”

  “But why would you have changed mine too?”

  “I’ll say I wanted to deflect attention onto an over-privileged eighty. They’ll believe that.”

  I managed a wan smile.

  “Come on,” he continued. “If I take the blame it’s just another misbehaviour to be added to my file. Typical behaviour of a seventy, right?”

  “But...” I said weakly. In truth, I was so relieved I couldn’t even pretend to object. My mother wouldn’t have to know. My reputation would be intact.

  “I’m sorry, I should never have got you into this.” I looked down at my shoes.

  “Don’t worry, I owe you one anyway.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering the statue.

  It was a school trip to the Mechanical department and we were less than excited. Even at eight years old the City had few places left that we hadn’t visited.

  A tall man stood in front of us. He had put on a smile, but it looked strange on his face, like something that did not belong there.

  “I am the Foreman. The man in charge. Welcome to the Repair Room. This is the most vital part of your City, the heart of our world. Here is where we keep our most precious engines running. Without us there would be the deep freeze. Without this place we would all die.”

  He paused as if he expected us to be impressed. We just looked back at him, bored with the speech we heard all the time. With a grunt the Foreman took us down a small corridor to a room with his name on it.

  “Welcome to my office.” He opened the door like a man revealing a magic trick. But really all that was inside was a bigger-than-usual office space with a large desk that we all crowded into. It was strange, how proud this man was of his little room. I didn’t really understand why he was so desperate to show off to a bunch of kids.

  On his desk there was what looked like a collection of golden toys. We all moved closer to see.

  “These relics come with the job of Foreman, a little perk, if you will.” He was the sort of man that wanted you to smile at his jokes even when he hadn’t made any.

  “Here we have a beautiful model of the Vitruvian.”

  He pointed to the strangest of the objects. It was the Vitruvian, but as I’d never seen it before. The artist had tried to replicate the multiple views of the ideal man by adding extra limbs which came off at strange angles. From the front he looked perfect as ever. But turn your head even a little and he became a monster, trapped in the golden circles that surrounded him. I stepped back even as the other children pushed forward to see.

  “Even the copy is over a hundred years old. And look what happens if you turn the key.”

  It was clockwork. The little figure clicked into life. The circles arced around the man faster and faster, while he held perfectly still. His blank eyes seemed to stare straight at me. I felt sick, coughed into my hand and turned away. I didn’t let my friends see how scared I was, but as I turned I felt someone watching me. I looked back and saw Angel Sam, a runt of a child, barely a seventy, looking not at the figure but at me. He walked towards me and I was worried that he was going to make fun of me, but he just stood there, not quite touching me, but close enough to make me feel better.

  “Horrible, isn’t it,” he whispered with a shy smile. I nodded.

  “Lunch time!” the teacher called and led us out of the office to eat our protein bars. I had barely taken a bite when the door behind us slammed open and the foreman ran back in, his face red and angry. He pulled the teacher to one side and whispered furiously in his ear, casting us dirty looks the whole time.

  The teacher for his part turned pale, and I knew that we were in trouble.

  “Something terrible has happened. Somebody has taken the golden Vitruvian model. I cannot believe that any of my students would do such a thing, but the foreman is convinced that one of you must have. He will now search you. I hope that you will prove him wrong.”

  As soon as the teacher spoke I knew who had taken it, the certainty settling like a weight in my stomach. Angel Sam’s ears glowed red in front of me and his body trembled. Sure enough, the bag he wore across his back looked tellingly heavy with a bulge in the centre.

  I looked at the teacher and realised just how much trouble he was in. The teacher’s neck had gone pink with shame. He had been embarrassed in front of the Foreman, who was probably at least five percentage points lower. The punishment would be not only for stealing, but for the shame he had brought on the school.

  In a split second I reached forward and grabbed Sam’s bulging pack and switched it for my own. Sam twisted round as he felt the change in weight on his back but quickly whipped his head back as the teacher turned to face us.

  “Do you have something to say Sam?”

  The boy shook his head sullenly. The teacher sighed; this was a familiar scenario.

  “Nothing you want to own up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Stupid seventy,” A girl hissed next to me, and I only barely stopped myself from nodding agreement. His guilt was as unsurprising as it was humiliating. The teacher strode forward and stopped in front of the boy so that he towered over him.

  “Hand over your bag.”

  The teacher turned the bag upside down in a triumphant gesture that fell flat the moment he exposed the contents. A carb bar and some crumpled paper lay scattered on the floor, and no matter how the teacher stared, there was nothing else.

  “Ah, we appear to have made a mistake here. If no one owns up soon, I’ll have to...” The teacher tailed off. He had nothing to back up his threat.

  Idiots, I thought, they only had to look at Sam’s expression of utter amazement to see that he had been guilty all along. As if disconnected to my body, I felt myself raise my right hand.

  “What is it Lisanne, did you see who took it?”

  “No, sir. I took it.”

  The teacher just stared at me, as if his brain couldn’t accept what his ears had heard. The foreman jumped up and pushed his way through to me, grubby hand outstretched.

  Without saying a word, I reached into my pack – Sam’s pack – and pulled out the Vitruvian. I felt vaguely irritated by the gasps that came from the other children. I didn’t look at anyone, kept my eyes to floor, and I r
eally didn’t want to meet Angel Sam’s gaze, dark and questioning.

  “And what is to be her punishment?” The foreman asked with a gleeful tone.

  “Why did you do it Lisanne?” The teacher asked, ignoring his question. I just shrugged, not trusting myself to say anything.

  “I hope all your children are not so insolent, Teacher.” The foreman continued, his eyes narrowed, “We don’t want a new generation of sneaky little thieves...”

  “I will have to tell your parents,” the Teacher said, and I may have imagined it, but there was a hint of sympathy in his voice. “Now I suggest we move on with the tour.”

  “That’s it?” The Foreman cried, “What about her punishment? She stole the Vitruvian!”

  “Her mother is the Historian.” The teacher said quietly; it was enough. The Foreman paled, and I knew in that moment that I was going to be ok.

  “Ah, so, perhaps leniency in this case due to good character?” The foreman furiously backtracked. “It’s just a replica after all...”

  I wondered if Angel Sam was going to mention that day, but he just looked at the floor.

  “What do you think your mum was talking about?” Sam said finally.

  “I don’t know. She mentioned the Vitruvian.”

  “But it’s just a picture isn’t it? A model of a man that they can make stupid golden statues of in the Leader’s palace.”

  “It’s more than that,” I said, remembering my history. “The Vitruvian is the symbol of all our people. Our commitment to the perfect embodiment of humanity. A true, one hundred percent human being, the thing we all wish to attain.”

  “Right.” Angel Sam turned his head away and I bit my lip.

  “The statues are stupid, though,” I said quickly.

  “You better head home. I’ll go back to my rooms and tomorrow morning I’ll confess to the supervisor. Don’t worry about it.” He was right of course. Imogen would be angry of course, and Sam would suffer the usual punishments, but nothing worse.

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  “I said don’t worry about it.”

  Our shift patterns meant that I was not due in work with Angel Sam for ten days and I passed them anxiously, nervous and distracted. On the morning he was due back Sam wasn’t at his desk and for a few terrible minutes I thought that he’d been fired. Fifteen minutes after the start of shift he came out of Imogen’s office, looking chastened and walked to his desk, head down. I was dying to know what had happened, but it was Galen, not Sam, who told me.

  “Your little seventy friend got a disciplinary mark,” he said with no attempt at small talk. I stared up at him with what I hoped looked like surprise, not trusting myself to speak. As I had expected, Galen liked the sound of his own voice enough to go on.

  “Turns out he was fiddling the time clock. Not for a minute or two, but for hours! He was docked a day’s pay too. Lucky, if you ask me. I’d have reported him to the higher ups.” I turned away pointedly and began transcribing a message. Galen snorted, but moved off. Whether he got the reaction he was looking for or not, I couldn’t tell. I was both worried and relieved; I was relieved that Sam had suffered nothing more than a disciplinary for taking the blame, but I was worried about Galen’s comments about our friendship.

  I decided that day not to speak to Sam any more than I had to, so when he came over to my desk with his usual shy grin, I stared straight at the screen.

  “So, I guess you heard about my punishment,” he said, his voice deliberately casual.

  “Yes,” I grunted. He frowned when he realised I wouldn’t even look at him.

  “What’s wrong?” I looked up at his face and those dark, serious eyes.

  “It’s too difficult.” I whispered.

  “What is?”

  “You and me, being friends, if my parents found out...” I couldn’t finish the sentence; the idea was just too horrifying. Our disobedience yesterday had scared me – I wasn’t sure what I was capable of, and I definitely didn’t know how far Sam would go.

  “Lisanne,” he said softly, “I don’t want to cause any trouble for you, but I still want to be your friend.”

  “But the people here are already talking about us.” I hated how whiny I sounded, but I couldn’t forget Galen’s sneering face.

  “What if we took our lunch outside? So no one would see us together? We could leave separately and meet somewhere safe, no one would know.”

  I considered it for a few moments. Many people from the office went home for their lunch breaks: after all, nowhere in the City was ever far away.

  “All right,” I said, surprised at how I felt so much lighter, “you find the place.”

  “Cosy,” I said a few minutes later as I followed Sam into a dimly lit room, “where’s the light switch?”

  “Sorry, the lights don’t work.” He flicked on a torch and put it upright on a small table. “It’s like camping.”

  “What’s camping?” I asked as I pulled a chair over near the glow of torchlight. Somehow Angel Sam knew all the secret places in the City. He had found us this room in one of the abandoned corridors close enough to Tech that we could visit on our lunch break.

  “I think we read about it in Old Earth History. You slept outside.”

  “On the snow?” I shuddered.

  “Before the snow. You could see the stars.”

  Sam swung his legs back and forth as he talked. He was like that, I had noticed, never able to keep still, always on the move. Just like he had been as a child.

  “Do you want to meet me after work?”

  I nearly dropped my lunch down my front. That would have been embarrassing. I thought for a moment. I knew what he was asking. It was a date, nothing less. I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to go there. So far I had been enjoying seeing Sam at work, going for our secret lunch and maybe – I had to admit it to myself – flirting with him a little.

  Our visit to the archives had moved us beyond just colleagues. But if we met up outside work then that was admitting that there was more going on than casual acquaintance. Bad enough if people saw that we were friends, let alone anything else. If my parents found out... No, it was unthinkable.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  He looked upset, but shrugged.

  “Okay, I get it.”

  We didn’t speak for the rest of the break. When we got back to Tech Sam walked back to his desk and sat down, his back to me. I went back to my work. What else could I do?

  “Sam?” I called, a little too loudly and half a dozen heads whipped up from their screens in interest. He walked towards me and I pointed to the computer, as if asking him about a work message. When the others flicked their heads back to their work I whispered; “What you asked earlier, actually I’d love to.”

  He smiled and gave me a thumbs up, then went back to his work. God knows why I did it, but my heart felt lighter.

  “It’s just through here.” It was time for my dinner with Angel Sam and we were in another tiny abandoned corridor.

  “At least this one’s got power,” I said as the strip light flickered on. It was someone’s old office, small and dusty with a worn plastic desk and cables spilling out from a wall where a monitor hung crooked and blank. The City was full of old forgotten places like this. As kids we spent hours exploring them, and even now everyone had a place or two they knew nobody else used. We lived so close to one another that everyone understood the need to find some secret private place of our own. I felt touched that Sam had let me into his.

  “It’s not much, but it’s far away from everyone we know. We’re actually only a couple of turns away from medical, not that you’d know it.”

  There was a cupboard at the back of the room and Sam reached into it and brought out two strawberry cup-drinks that he held out triumphantly.

  “My favourite!” I grinned. It was a real treat, we only got given them once a month, so he had either saved them or got them through doing favours. I didn’t ask which.

  We sa
t on the desk side by side as there were no chairs. We were both quiet for a moment, sipping on our drinks. The sugary red liquid coated my teeth and fizzed on my tongue. It was so good.

  “So, you came.” Angel Sam said.

  “I came.”

  “Didn’t think you would.” Sam was the same as ever, no small talk, always asking the awkward questions. This time though I didn’t really mind.

  “I didn’t think I would either. But I’m glad I did.”

  “Really?” He turned to look right in my eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile, “this drink’s really good!”

  He laughed, and I laughed too. But once we stopped laughing I couldn’t think of anything else to say. It felt like whatever we said next would be important. Sam looked down at his feet.

  “You know how the code works, right?” That was not the question I had been expecting. I guessed he was nervous, and talking about work was the first thing that came into his head.

  “I know enough.” I said vaguely. To be honest, I had never really thought too much about the code that headed every message that went through Tech. I knew that it showed where messages came from and which archive they should be stored in. But apart from that? It had never interested me much. What on earth was Angel Sam so fascinated by?

  “Well the first part is the terminal number, right?”

  I nodded. This bit I knew of course. Each message started with the code for our own desk, so that the computer knew where to send it.

  “I’m terminal twenty-seven.”

  “And I’m fourteen,” I said, but Sam kept on talking.

  “So all the messages I receive start with a 27. Each code is built on layers of meaning. Even I haven’t worked them all out yet.”

  “Which ones don’t you know, maybe I could help?”

  “Ok, I’ll tell you about them later, but you’ve got to get the basics first.” I bristled. This conversation was not going anything like how I thought it would. Sam reached over to the wall in front of us and drew some numbers and letters in the dust.

  “You see how each character means something. Next we have a set of letters. They are always the same.

  “FTR”

  “So, what do you think that means?”