by E S Richards
Riley had yet to see anyone from outside her specific building, though she had learned from Alex and Olivia that there were different buildings housing kids of all different ages. There was one for the children under the age of nine, boys and girls below that age kept together rather than separated. Riley was in the next category up, ages nine to fifteen where boys and girls were separated though still allowed to live what Olivia had called a “normal life”—basically meaning they weren’t put into the program yet. Any older than sixteen and you were a part of it, something which Riley hadn’t been able to discover any information about, despite how many people she’d asked.
It worried Riley that Chase was old enough to be a part of it, especially after what the Authority had told her. She didn’t really understand exactly what would happen to him while in the program. She was scared for him nonetheless. Being away from Chase got harder and harder every day and Riley was beginning to waver in her escape plans. She knew there had to be a way out of the pit; the fact that she hadn’t found anything after six days was getting extremely disheartening.
“Early again, Riley?” Imogen piped up as she saw the young girl loitering by the doorway, her worrying stopping her in her tracks. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, hey,” Riley tried to wipe her expression clean as Imogen noticed her. The cook was the nicest member of the Authority that Riley had met while inside the pit, but she was still a member of the Authority. She and Chase had agreed they couldn’t trust any of them and Riley was determined to stay true to her word. “I just can’t sleep here. Can I help you set up again?”
“Sure,” Imogen smiled. “Are you having nightmares? Quite a few of the girls complain about them.”
“No,” Riley tried to steer clear of the conversation about why she was up through the night, reluctant to share any detailed information with Imogen. “Just an uncomfortable bed, I guess.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t the Ritz here,” Imogen laughed. “If it was, I’m pretty sure I’d be serving up something better than oatmeal.”
Riley pulled a face. She wasn’t even sure if they could qualify the slop that was served for breakfast as oatmeal, both the texture and flavor unlike any oatmeal she’d ever had before. She knew Imogen wasn’t responsible for the food though so she didn’t complain, knowing she had to be grateful the woman let her wait in the cafeteria rather than sending her back to her room.
“Any idea what the schedule is for today?” Riley asked hopefully, desperate for Imogen to shed some light on the day ahead. Sometimes the cook knew what was in store for the girls’ afternoon, sometimes she didn’t. For some reason, Riley always preferred to know what was coming—ever since she’d been a young child, she’d hated surprises, and surprises in the pit were never good.
“I think there’s some building work that needs doing in another one of the theaters,” Imogen replied thoughtfully, the fact the children were being kept in the theater district of the city no longer a secret from any of them. “I’m not too sure whether you’ll be called up to help, though.”
Riley instantly perked up. If there was something that needed doing in another theater, that increased her chances of finding her brother. She’d only left her building once so far and that was just to collect a food delivery from a parked van outside—Riley was desperate to see where the other children were being kept.
“I’m good with my hands,” she remarked as other girls started filing into the cafeteria and Imogen started to walk away from Riley. “I’d be good at building work.”
Imogen looked back over her shoulder and laughed. “I’m sure you would, Riley. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
With a newfound energy inside her, Riley walked over to one side of the room where the girls were lining up to be served and joined the back of the queue. She searched for Hazel briefly but couldn’t find her friend; anxious to tell her the news she’d just learned. Finally it felt like Riley was on to something. Even if the building work didn’t take her to Chase, it would take her out of the prison she’d been living in for the past six days. That in itself was a piece of good news and Riley couldn’t wait to stretch her legs and see a bit more of where she was being kept. It even made her oatmeal taste better that morning and she wolfed it down, ready for the day ahead. If there was one thing Riley was certain about, it was that she wasn’t going to spend another six days inside the pit.
Chapter 2
Digging through the files in Professor Jacob Turner’s office—the man Mia and Jadon had discovered used to work there—the two of them uncovered more than they could’ve imagined about the fracking site. It didn’t take long for them to discover that the site had been active up until the day before Yellowstone erupted and what was more, it almost certainly caused the volcano to erupt.
Jadon had been the one to find the piece of paper; the results from the latest drill. As he had with all pages that looked interesting, he handed it over to Mia, the young man not understanding most of what was written down. It only took one quick glance from Mia for her to know it was what they had been searching for. She dropped the other papers in her hands, focusing all her attention on the one page in front of her.
“What is it?” Jadon asked, noticing the change in Mia’s disposition as she inspected the page. “What does it mean?”
“I can’t believe it,” Mia breathed, her eyes skimming over the words on the page for a second time to make sure she was certain she’d just read what she thought she had. “This is…” Mia trailed off. There weren’t any words that she could think of to do what she’d just read justice. Without a shadow of a doubt, the fracking site she stood on was responsible for the eruption. And one man—Professor Jacob Turner—could’ve warned everyone.
“What?” Jadon repeated, anxious to know what Mia had discovered. “What does it say, Mia?”
“They knew this was going to happen,” Mia whispered, her hands starting to shake as she gripped the page, her knuckles starting to blanch from the pressure. “They could’ve warned us. They could’ve saved millions of lives.”
“What do you mean? How did they know?”
“These are the results from their most recent drill,” Mia explained slowly, still finding the words difficult to believe even as she said them out loud. “The figures speak for themselves. They caused a tectonic plate shift. These numbers are only recorded when one thing is about to happen: an earthquake. They knew they had caused a quake and I’ll bet that everyone that worked here knew that would then affect Yellowstone. There’s no way anyone could understand these results and not see that coming. There’s no way…”
“You’re kidding me,” Jadon exhaled, finally coming to terms with what Mia was saying. “They can’t have—”
“They did,” Mia interrupted, the color that had drained from her cheeks slowly returning as she pushed herself to her feet. “They knew what they had done, and my bet is they dropped everything and ran. This man…Jacob Turner. He could’ve saved so many lives. He could’ve saved the world.”
“Is there any other explanation?” Jadon questioned, desperately trying to find any other reason why the site had been abandoned. He couldn’t deal with knowing that they could’ve all been warned about what was about to happen, nor that there was someone who made the decision not to try and save the millions of lives which had been lost.
Mia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jadon,” she whispered. “This is the only explanation.”
The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, neither comfortable with the information they had just learned. Mia reviewed the words and figures on the page again, checking for the third time that they were correct. They had to be. The explanation on the page in front of her might not be the one that she had wanted; yet it made perfect sense.
On the Tuesday before the eruption, the illegal fracking site had conducted a routine drill, breaking into the earth’s surface in search of sustainable fuel. Why the site was still in operation was still a mystery to M
ia, although it was an answer she found herself caring about less now. Why they had drilled down didn’t matter—the important factor was that they had drilled down. They’d drilled on Tuesday and then Yellowstone had erupted on Wednesday. Less than twenty-four hours occurred between the two events. A correlation—though not necessarily a causation—printed in black and white on the page in Mia’s hand.
She knew it was likely that the drilling had caused a chain reaction of some sort that ended with Yellowstone erupting. She could see it on the page: the measurements of the fractures growing larger and larger until they just stopped recording them. Evidence that the people working on the site had finally realized something had gone wrong. The data didn’t lie and that looked like it had sparked the chain of events that led to the eruption. As a volcanologist and someone who had seen the effects of the eruption firsthand, that was more than enough information for Mia.
“What do we do now?” Jadon asked, looking to Mia for both support and guidance. She might not have all the answers, but she knew a great deal more than he did and, in that moment, Jadon felt like he just needed someone to tell him what to do—someone to take charge and lead him away from all the madness.
“I—I don’t know,” Mia replied, feeling a sudden emptiness inside her. She hadn’t known what she’d expected to find when she entered the fracking site, but now that she’d found out the truth, she had no idea what to do with the information. Technically, they had someone to blame. Technically, they had a cause for everything that had happened. And there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it. She was just one person and clearly Jacob Turner—whoever and wherever he was —had much more power over what was happening than she did.
“Is there any information here we can use?” Jadon continued to ask questions, the young man quickly coming to the same harrowing conclusion that Mia had. He hated it. He didn’t want to accept that even though they now knew what had caused everything, they were completely powerless to do anything about it. It was a sickening feeling and Jadon desperately wanted Mia to come up with an answer that made the feeling go away. “There must be something we can do.”
“I really don’t know, Jadon,” Mia sighed, leaning back in the cushioned desk chair where she now sat. “We have no idea where this guy is and even if we did, how could we bring him to justice?”
“We don’t need to bring him to justice per se,” Jadon replied, thinking on his feet. “Surely we can just whistle-blow? Tell the truth and let everyone else make the decision for themselves.”
“Who would we tell? And why would anyone believe us? It’s still too early in the disaster,” Mia shook her head. “A discovery like this shouldn’t have happened for several weeks.”
“Well, it has,” Jadon pushed himself off of the wall where he leaned and stood over Mia, his large frame towering over her in a slightly intimidating manner. “We have to do something, Mia,” he pleaded with her. “What was the point in even coming in here if we’re just going to complain about what we’ve found and not do anything?”
Mia looked up at Jadon, challenging him with her gaze for a moment. The young man held strong though, resilient in his mindset. Deep down, Mia knew he was right. He’d said it perfectly: why had they bothered to set foot on the fracking site if they were just going to ignore everything they had found there? Whether it seemed to make an immediate difference or not, they had to at least try and do something. Jacob Turner hadn’t, and now the world was dying—if even one good act could come out of his office, Mia was certain she would be doing something new.
“Okay,” she nodded, standing so she could look Jadon in the eye. “You’re right. I’m still not sure exactly what we can do with this information, but you are right. We have to at least try and make a difference.”
“Really?” Jadon asked, his surprise not hidden by his tone or expression.
“Yeah,” Mia answered. “I still want to try and get home to Houston—I’m not forgetting my family because of this—but there’s no reason why we can’t spread the word along the way. I don’t think anything will come from it until we’re a few more weeks down the line, still there’s no harm in trying to start early.”
Jadon grinned, pleased he had been able to get through to Mia and happy that she had come to the same conclusion as he had. After everything he had experienced with her, Jadon had the utmost faith in Mia’s abilities and knew with her on his side, they would be able to achieve things he previously wouldn’t have even bothered trying.
“We should go and find the others, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Mia had almost completely forgotten about Jorge, Jesse, and Marcus, the three of them also hidden away somewhere on the fracking site in their search for answers. “How long have we been down here?”
“I have no idea,” Jadon shrugged. “A couple of hours, maybe?”
Mia could only guess whether Jadon was right, knowing she had a tendency to lose track of time when she got lost in the data. It used to happen to her all the time when she was working, often missing meals or forgetting to do things because she was so wrapped up in her task. By the time she and Jadon made it back to the previously agreed meeting point, she found that it had happened again.
“Mia!” Jorge finally stopped pacing the hallway and lurched toward his friend, thankful to see her safe again. It had irritated him to no end that both Marcus and Jesse had agreed it was better to stay put rather than go and search for Mia and Jadon, the vast size of the fracking site deterring the both of them. Jorge wasn’t having the best day, so just the sight of his friend made him feel more relaxed again. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”
“Ah man,” Mia rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. “I guess we’ve been gone for more than a couple of hours, right?”
Jesse laughed, “I’d try closer to five if I were you.”
“Five hours?”
“Give or take,” Jorge confirmed with a smile. “None of us really know what time it is anymore.”
“Wow, I’m sorry,” Mia replied, embarrassed that she had lost track of time by so much. She didn’t think she and Jadon had been in the professor’s office for that long, but from the expressions on everyone else’s faces, they clearly had.
“De nada,” Jorge replied. “I take it you found something if you were down there for that long. We’ve got some news as well.”
Mia looked at Jorge and could tell that her friend was bursting to tell what he had discovered, though there was something uncomfortable about his expression too, like he wasn’t happy with what he was about to share. She wasn’t surprised. Mia would much rather not have made her discovery as well. It was always a burden to be the one to reveal bad news.
“Yeah,” Jesse spoke up before Mia could ask what Jorge had found. “Marcus and I found out why this place was still in operation.”
“What?” Mia spun to her left and looked at Jesse, surprised by what the young man had just said. Now she understood it. Jorge wasn’t disappointed by the news that had been uncovered; he was annoyed that he hadn’t been the one to find it. Out of all of them, he was the most interested in following up the leads around the fracking site. Mia could tell from his expression that his own search had been fruitless and that was what irritated the Spaniard the most.
“Yep,” Marcus joined in, the two young men both clearly proud of their findings. “It’s government funded. We found some paper trails that seem to be coming from pretty high up.”
“Government funded?” Jadon repeated, confused by what his friend had just said. “But…that doesn’t make any sense. If it was the government, why wouldn’t they tell?”
“Tell? Tell what?”
Four pairs of eyes turned and looked at Mia simultaneously, the four men all waiting for her to explain what she and Jadon had found downstairs. Mia was still getting her head around it herself. Nevertheless she couldn’t keep the information from them. Especially not Jorge. Speaking as slowly as possible, she began to recount it all. The figure
s they found. The data that explained it all. The story of Professor Jacob Turner and how he could have saved the world.
Jorge, Marcus, Jesse, and even Jadon all listened silently, their faces morphing into expressions of shock and horror as Mia explained what the data she read had told her. She revealed the figures related to the growing fractures and explained in simple terms to the three college boys exactly how that could trigger a chain reaction that would lead to the eruption. She did her best to paint a picture of how she believed it had happened, her emotions flooding out of her as she pictured Jacob Turner finding out about what was about to happen and simply packing up his laptop and going home. She wondered where he was now. What he was doing. He would have undoubtedly found a way to survive the disaster—a fact that made Mia angrier than she cared to admit.
By the time she had finished her story, she could tell that same anger was seething in Jorge as well. Jesse and Marcus both stood with their mouths open, struggling to wrap their heads around the information, but Jorge had already processed it all. He understood the facts and figures just like Mia did and he couldn’t comprehend how someone had allowed all of this to happen.
“Is that it?” Jorge asked in a low voice, pointing to the printed page that Mia still held in her hand.
Nodding, Mia held it out to her friend, passing on the information and allowing Jorge to see it with his own eyes. Everyone knew now. The information was out there and somehow, that made everything seem more real. There was no going back from this. They had found the cause of the eruption and Mia knew they couldn’t ignore it. Looking at Jorge, she knew he shared the same feeling. They weren’t going to let this go. Someone had to pay for what had happened.
Chapter 3
“We have to do more than that!” Jorge was determined to make everyone else see things his way. He refused to let it go, Mia and Jadon’s suggestions of whistle-blowing just irritating him.