The Loop

by Ben Oliver

  I stand there, in the darkness, beneath the glowing moon, staring out at the city in which I used to live. Witnessing a war.

  Even from this far away—probably three miles from the city—I can hear the rumble and roar of the flames, see clouds of smoke curling up into the sky, and watch as a tall office block collapses in on itself. The impact as it falls shakes the ground so violently I can feel it from here.

  The rumors were true, I think, unable to tear my eyes away from the destroyed city. There is a war, and whoever has attacked Region 86 is winning.

  No time to think about the ruined city, the loss of life, the war. I need to keep moving; I have to save Wren.

  I run toward the village, and as I get closer, I can tell that this is one of those second-home retreats for the Alts. These types of places began to pop up as the radiation began to recede from the Red Zones—the real estate was immediately worth millions of Coin because the homes offered relief from the massively overcrowded city. Most Alts own a home outside the city for weekends and getaways—the highest-earning Alts own at least three—while us Regulars cram into rented apartments on the top floors of cheaply built towers in the crime boroughs.

  Do these Alts know how close they’re living to a prison? I think as I move quickly toward the dark streets.

  I hammer on the door of the first house I come to but don’t wait long for a response before moving to the next door and slamming my fist against it over and over. I wait for one of them to answer, but no one comes. I cross the road, tripping over something metallic on the ground, but it’s too dark to see what it is. I try ringing the doorbells, but even those aren’t working, so I knock until my knuckles ache, but still no one comes to help.

  When I get to house number seven or eight and hit my bruised hands against the wood of the door, it swings inward, unlocked and unlatched. I take a step inside.

  “Hello?” I call out, trying to alert any inhabitants to my presence. I’m all too aware that if a young man in prison clothing, covered in blood, is found creeping through an expensive home like this, or any home for that matter, he will be considered a threat, and my guess is that any Alt with a vacation home this size will have an immobilization modification installed. They’d be well within their rights to activate it now, so I yell out again, letting anyone inside know that I’m not here to rob them.

  I take another step inside and expect the automatic lights to come on or the family’s Secure Guard system to ask me my business in this home, but nothing happens.

  I’m standing in a vast open-floor plan, a room that is the kitchen, living room, and dining room combined into one free-flowing area. The home is clean and bare—sterile.

  They don’t have a television, not even a 360-degree projector that enables images to be viewed from all sides. Instead, they have an Immersive7 system that allows the viewer to walk around the scene of a movie, look for clues if it’s a murder mystery or find hidden bonus features in comedies. This system works in tandem with a Lens and is built into the far wall of the living room, but it too appears to be out of power.

  I notice a SoCom unit on the kitchen countertop and make my way over to it—from here I can contact the emergency services in eight different ways. I wave my hand over the domed screen, but nothing happens. I try again; still nothing.

  I scream at the stupid hunk of glass and metal—not because it isn’t working but because I’ve known for a while now that the power outage isn’t confined to the Loop. It’s at least city-wide, maybe Region-wide, maybe even worldwide. I had hoped that the rich, with their backup generators and solar storage units, might still have some form of electricity, but I think, deep down, that as soon as I stood on the platform and looked to the burning city, I knew it was hopeless.

  I can’t save Wren. I doubt even doctors could save her without the proper technology, and with no power there is no technology.

  I take a deep, angry breath and exhale hard.

  There has to be a way. There has to be something you can do! And then, from nowhere, two words come into my head. Drone poison.

  At first I don’t make the connection, but then a painful memory leaps into my head: my mother on her bed, dying eyes wandering aimlessly around the room, the fingers of her left hand rubbing together in agitation, a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead and her thin, translucent skin clinging to her frame. Her hands would come together, and she would sign words, phrases that mostly made no sense. My mom was deaf, so my whole family spoke sign language—a language that had become extinct among the Alts, as they were all born with perfect hearing. She signed my name, words like love and I’m sorry. She was dying of something, one of the new flus probably, the ones that the government assured us did not come out of the Red Zones. A diagnosis would cost us more than we had. Dad spent every Coin on an appointment, and a medic drone was sent to our house; blood and saliva were taken and the drone analyzed the samples in front of us. The diagnosis was complete, and we were asked if we wanted the information. We said yes, and the drone informed us that it would cost fifty Coin, and that treatment was another two hundred. Of course the injection of Quarantine, to ensure the virus wasn’t spread, was not only free but also mandatory.

  It was my mom who convinced my dad that we didn’t need to know what was wrong with her as long as she got the treatment. I could see in my dad’s face that he wanted to ask, What if it’s something big? What if it’s untreatable? What if whatever the drone gives you just delays the inevitable? But he just smiled and agreed.

  Thirteen days later she was dead.

  She only lasted those thirteen days because of the final drug offered by the medic drone. I don’t know the medical name, but in the Verticals it’s known as Crawl. Alts who are hooked on Ebb often mix the two to make the experience last longer. Crawl slows down the user’s heart rate and respiratory system to slow-motion pace, and it also slows the perceptions of the user down, essentially slowing down time. Crawl put my mother into suspended animation, slowing down everything, even the disease that was killing her.

  My mother died on the same day I was sent to the Loop. I was still standing in her bedroom, watching the coffin drone carry her away in a black plastic sheet, when the Marshals kicked down the door to our tiny home and dragged me away as Molly screamed and tried to tell them I had done nothing wrong.

  I swallow the pain of the memory and bring myself back to the present.

  If I could get ahold of some Crawl, I’d stand a chance of saving Wren’s life. The slower her APM system pumps blood around her body, the less she can lose from the severed arm; that’ll give me more time to find someone to help. But with the city on fire and the power out, there’s no way I can make it three miles, find a hospital, figure out which drug is Crawl, and get all the way back to the Loop before Wren dies from blood loss.

  There’s only one other option, I tell myself. Drone poison.

  The same stuff they fired into Rook Ford when he refused to reenter his cell after exercise—it contains Crawl. The downside is it also contains those powerful hallucinogens. The slowed heart and respiratory system makes the whole nightmare experience feel as though it’s lasting a thousand lifetimes. I don’t want to put Wren through the horror that Rook went through, but if it’s a choice between that and certain death … I have to do it.

  “I have to go back,” I say aloud, and cry out in frustration and anger that all of this has been for nothing.

  And then I hear the slightest creak behind me. I’m being watched.

  My senses crackle and come alive. I don’t know how I know, but someone is crouched on the stairs behind me, studying my every move.

  I turn around and look into the blinking eyes of a young boy of about twelve. He’s smiling, but it’s that same maniac smile that Wren had, except his mouth is covered in dried blood. He’s hunched forward, balancing on the balls of his bare feet, arms hanging loosely between his pajama-clad legs. How long has he been there? Has he been watching me this whole time? I say nothing
, do nothing; the silence is a fuse and we both know that when it ends …

  “I’m leaving,” I say, holding both hands up in the air to show that I’m not a threat. “I’m going, okay?”

  I face the boy on the stairs the whole time, his electric-blue eyes on me, intense and determined, blinking furiously as I sidestep toward the front door, slowly, slowly.

  I reach out behind me with my left hand, grasping for the round handle of the door. I find it and wrap my fingers around it, and that’s when the boy springs into life, rushing down the stairs on all fours like a rabid dog, eerily silent and coming straight for me.

  I scramble to get the door open, slip out into the garden, and slam the door shut behind me. I hear the boy’s body crashing into the thick wood. The handle turns, and the door begins to open. I grab it, pulling it toward me with all my strength, jerking it back into its frame. The boy tries again, desperate to get to me—and he’s way stronger than he looked.

  He’s the same as Wren, I think, the muscles in my arms tensing as I fight. I lean back against the impossible power of the little boy in the pale blue pajamas. He’s the same as Wren, and Harvey, and all the Group As.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that it can’t be. The Group As went crazy because of the Delay, but Wren didn’t take the Delay, and neither did this boy.

  The door rattles as the boy strains silently. Do I wait him out, fight against him until he gives up, or run? My mind is made up for me as I hear footsteps pounding on the pavement and turn to see a woman of about seventy sprinting toward me at an inhuman pace.

  There’s enough time to register her smile and rapidly blinking eyes—and the glint of the moonlight on the large knife in her hand—and then she is within arm’s length of me, swiping at my throat with the blade. I lean back fast, losing my balance, and I feel the air from the slicing knife as it comes within a millimeter of opening up my neck.

  I hit the ground, and my hand knocks into another metallic object, releasing the stink of rotting food. I don’t have time to figure out what it is; the door to the vacation home swings open, the boy leaps out, and his wild eyes survey the scene.

  I don’t remember getting to my feet, don’t remember running, but here I am—sprinting as fast as my wounded legs will carry me, which isn’t fast enough. I can hear the footsteps of the old lady and the little boy right behind me and getting closer and closer until I can almost feel their breath on the back of my neck.

  Just when I’m sure they’re going to grab me, I hear both of them tumble to the ground. I feel a moment of euphoria and I sprint on, past five, ten houses before I stop and turn around.

  What I see turns my blood cold: The old lady is on top of the boy and she’s bringing the knife down into his chest over and over again. The scene is a silhouette in the darkness, a shadow stabbing another shadow to death, black droplets spilling into the air, and the boy dies in almost complete silence.

  I can’t move, can’t look away from the horror in front of me. I can’t run, can’t yell for help, can’t do anything.

  When the boy lies motionless, the lady turns her head toward me. It’s enough to break the spell, and I’m running again.

  I’m turning left, then right, leaping over fences and through gardens until I spot a tree house at the foot of one particularly lavish mansion.

  I jump, grab a low-hanging branch, and haul myself up, swinging my legs onto the next branch. I’m high enough now to reach the entrance, and I pull myself into the little hut just as I hear the murderous lady stumble into the garden and wade through the pond below me.

  I try to keep my breathing silent, wishing that I was born an Alt so that I could have had an MOR system installed where my burning lungs are. I keep my gasps short and shallow, sweat rolling from my forehead as I wait and hope that she will just go away.

  Time passes, what feels like hours. Finally, I hear my attacker stomp off and into the adjacent garden, searching for her next kill.

  I peek out of the little wooden tree house and see the lady—shoulders raised high, head twitching from side to side as she marches away, the moonlight no longer glinting off the blade in her hand—the light is absorbed by the young boy’s blood.

  They were the same as Wren, I think, watching the lady as she begins to run again. What’s happening to them?

  The sky is beginning to brighten, and from this higher vantage point I notice, dotted all over the village, drones lying motionless on the ground. These are the metallic shapes I’ve been stumbling over since I got here. Some still have their cargo clutched in their metallic grips—packages, fast food, alcohol, groceries, prescriptions—some are companion drones, some are surveillance drones. All of them must have fallen from the sky when the power went out.

  I climb out of the tree house, shaking from the adrenaline, the cold, the exhaustion, and blood loss.

  You have to get back to the Loop; you have to get that drone poison. It’s the only way to save Wren’s life. After that, you have to figure out how to cure her of whatever the hell is happening to her.

  I stop and face the city. Somewhere in there, if they’re not dead amid the chaos and the killing, my father and my sister are fighting for their lives.

  Either that or they’re infected too, I think, like Wren and the boy and the old woman.

  I’m torn between the city and the Loop, my family and Wren, and for a moment I choose the city. I take a few steps toward the burning metropolis, and then I stop, my mind filling with memories of Wren—the old Wren, before she became … what she became. Her kindness, her compassion, the way she could make all those hundreds of days that should have been unbearable bearable. I know I can bring her back; I know I can help her the way she helped me. I know I have to go back through the rat tunnel; Wren will die without my help. I have to believe that my family is still alive, safe and hidden somewhere. I can’t consider the alternative.

  “Got to be prepared this time,” I whisper, remembering the swarming rats and how they cowered from the light.

  I walk through the garden and carefully slide open the glass door at the back of the big house. Creeping slowly and quietly inside, my senses are on high alert as I anticipate attacks from all angles. Nothing comes.

  This house is even bigger than the last. My cheap Loop-issue shoes, wet from the dew on the grass, slip on the tiled floor of the room. It’s some kind of conservatory—it has a glass roof, glass walls, and furniture made of bamboo.

  I find a set of drawers in the corner of the room and begin rifling through them, looking for a flashlight.

  It won’t work, I remind myself. Nothing works.

  I almost slam the drawer shut in anger but catch myself and close it quietly.

  I need to make fire.

  I look around the room and spot the bamboo furniture.

  Perfect, I think, turning a chair on its side and bringing my foot down hard on the frame.

  The crack is deafeningly loud, and I freeze, waiting for the sound of footsteps rushing toward me from the darkness within. I’m poised, ready to run for the door if anyone comes, but there’s no sound. I pick up three of the shattered tubes of thick, hollow wood, each one about a foot in length.

  Next, I need some kind of material, some rags to wrap around the tops of the canes so that they will burn bright in the tunnel. I head upstairs to where I think the bedrooms will be, still moving slowly, silently. Every shadowy corner could be hiding one of those smiling killers.

  I open the first door and see, in the moonlight, a large office with a big wooden desk and some framed certificates on the walls. The next door is some kind of studio, filled with green screens, cameras, and costumes. I come to a bedroom; it’s too dark to make anything out other than the shape of a large bed, the sliding mirrored doors of a walk-in wardrobe, and the two LucidVision headsets above the headboard.

  I move to the window and open the blackout blinds to let some moonlight into the room. When I turn back, I see the pale body of a middle-aged man
lying under the covers of the bed. The blankets on his side are a thick, shiny red from the blood that has drained out of the slit in his neck, his eyes are wide and stare endlessly up at nothing, and his mouth is stretched into that horribly familiar smile.

  Skirting around the bed, I make my way to the big wardrobe, never taking my eyes off the dead man lying motionless under the covers.

  Pretend he’s not there, I tell myself. Just keep moving.

  I force myself to look away and grab an armful of shirts from the hangers. I back toward the door, once again staring at the corpse, with an irrational fear that he might sit up and tell me to put his clothes back where I found them.

  I leave the bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind me before running back downstairs, where I try to ignore the creepy feeling inside me while I wrap and knot the shirts around the bamboo canes.

  I need two more things before I can leave: some kind of fuel so that my torches will burn longer and something to light them with.

  I find a first aid kit in a drawer in the kitchen—there’s some hand sanitizer with a high alcohol content. I shove it into my pocket. Next to the large artificial fire in the center of the living room, I find a wind-resistant lighter.

  It’s hard to run with the torches under one arm, the lighter and hand sanitizer in my pockets, and the bite wounds aching all over my body, but I move as quickly as I can back to the Dark Train platform and jump down onto the tracks.

  I look into the pitch-blackness of the tunnel, and my skin tightens at the thought of facing the rats again. I try to ignore the fear, try to think only of saving Wren, so that I can get back to the city and find my family.

  I douse the material of the first torch in the flammable gel and light it. The flame encircles the shirt and glows a pale blue at first before bright yellow fire emerges.

  Are you sure you want to go back there? I ask myself.

  I swallow hard and think about Wren, about the others locked in their cells, about Kina.