by T E Olivant
As I sat on the bed and stared at my pale face in the mirror, I realised that I had two options. I could fall apart, lie on my bed and cry until there were no tears left, or I could do something about it. The first plan was attractive. But as I lay back on my bed and stared up at the blank white ceiling, no tears came.
Was I in denial? It was just too incredible to imagine that he was gone. I felt sick that the last time I had spoken to him we had argued. It seemed so silly now. And I realised that I believed him. I believed everything he had told me, because why else would he have left?
That decided it. I would not give up. I would carry on Sam’s mission, I would find out what was going on with the supplies and what it meant for the city. I would find out why he Walked. Once my decision was made, I closed my eyes and slept.
When I awoke a few hours later the house was quiet and my parents were asleep. I dressed silently and crept out, feeling strangely unreal. Before I realised where my feet were taking me I was in front of Sam’s apartment. I raised my hand to knock before I realised how pointless that would be. I tried the door and to my surprise it was unlocked. I walked in, feeling like a thief.
I put my hand to my mouth so that I didn’t let out a gasp of despair. The apartment was a mess. There were clothes strewn all over and furniture overturned. I paused in the doorway, unsure. Sam was careful, methodical, he would never have left such a mess. Then I realised what I had known in my heart all along. Sam had not gone willingly out into the White: he had been forced out and what I saw in this room was evidence of a fight. I felt ice touch my heart but I forced myself to walk forward into the room.
The next thing I noticed was that Sam had a home terminal. Not many people did. Even my mother with her exalted position didn’t keep a computer in our apartment, although I had wondered if that was so that she had to leave to do her work. The computer had been pulled onto its side with the hard drive removed. My heart sank. Any hope I’d had of finding anything in Sam’s private files was dashed.
I felt tears start to gather behind my eyes. How was I to find anything in all this mess? Whoever had removed Sam had probably taken anything important with them. I stared around the room and felt my eyes drawn to the only intact item that remained, the map on the wall.
I walked over to look more closely. There weren’t many maps of the City. After all, by the time we were at school each child had memorized every corridor themselves. Our home was not large. So, a map of his own? What had Sam been thinking? It was incongruous somehow: there was nothing else in the sparse room that suggested anything beyond mere usefulness. Perhaps it would give me some clue to what had been going on in Sam’s head.
I stared for a few seconds. The perfection of the City, shaped like the Vitruvian himself with outer circles bridged by corridors that led off from a central point. For the first time I noticed it looked like a spider in a web. I shuddered. The stark lines of circles and squares made up a small central body with about a dozen limbs reaching off across the picture. Each limb had other thin lines coming of it, like hairs. I pressed my face more closely and noticed that Sam had made handwritten notes on each of the sections.
I stared at the map, and traced the corridors with my finger, wondering if Sam had done the same. I knew he wouldn’t have something like this on his wall unless it was important. I felt like I was willing his spirit to appear next to me, to show me what I was missing.
It only took a moment to notice something strange. Under my index finger one of the corridors went through a room that I was sure I had passed through myself. It was abandoned, and I had never seen a door leading out of it. So why did there seem to be a connecting corridor. Sam had placed a small asterisk next to it, so it must be important.
I looked again at the maze of corridors. When had I been in this room? There was definitely something familiar about it. I cast my mind back, then realised with a jolt that it was the room that Sam and I had had the argument in. The last place I had seen him alive. Had Sam known that the secret had been right under our noses the whole time? Of course he had, and if I hadn’t been such so awful to him that afternoon he would have shown me. I sat back in the chair and smiled, just as I heard voices in the corridor.
I stood up. The voices were definitely getting louder, and I had nowhere to go. I looked around Sam’s apartment in desperation. There was nowhere to hide, other than the wardrobe which would be the first place anyone would look. I ran over and threw myself in anyway, closing the doors as quietly as I could. I had no choice, and I closed my eyes against the inevitable. Someone must have seen me enter Sam’s apartment and called security. I shut my eyes and waited.
The footsteps faded away as quickly as they had arrived and I shivered with relief. They were just ordinary people, walking through the city, probably without a care in the world. Just like I used to be. I stood still in the dark wardrobe and my heart began to slow back to normality. Why was I doing this? Why was I was putting myself in danger for someone who was probably already dead? I had to decide whether I wanted to give up everything for a ghost.
I stepped out of the wardrobe into the ruined apartment that used to belong to my only friend. And I knew what I had to do.
I stood outside the room where I had last seen Angel Sam and leaned forward until my forehead rested on the cool metal. I shut my eyes and pushed open the door. As I walked inside I felt a wave of nausea – how different things might have been if we hadn’t argued, if I’d only listened to him… I took a deep breath. If I kept going over the past I would tear myself apart. I had to move forwards, even though the sight of a crumpled juice pot nearly broke my heart all over again.
I moved quickly over to the far wall. The diagram in Sam’s room had suggested that this was where the entrance to the other corridor might be, but all I could see was a bare wall. Except for the broken monitor. It only took seconds to pull the screen from its mount and expose something familiar behind it.
It was a keypad. I had seen them before but never in such an out of the way place. Normally they were on high risk areas, such as chemical stores to keep children out. Or important places like the Archive where only the elite could go. What was so important to protect in this abandoned area?
I ran my hand gently over the keys, not enough to press the buttons but enough to feel the plastic under my fingers. Some numbers felt rougher than others: like everything else in the city they had been worn down by centuries of use. I looked closer. It was the three, seven and nine keys that looked duller. Why did that ring a bell?
I slapped a hand to my forehead as I remembered Sam’s message. The one he had found on his terminal. 3797. I was sure that had been part of the code. My hand hovered over the buttons. What if I was wrong and there was some kind of alarm if you entered the wrong number? I had no excuse for being here if someone found me.
I twisted a strand of hair around my finger. Technically though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. There were no signs anywhere saying this area was forbidden. There was just the lock and the blank wall.
Almost without realising what I was doing my hand reached out and quickly pressed the buttons. Nothing happened. I let out a quiet sigh. At least I had tried, I could go back home and forget all about my plan. Then I noticed a green button marked ‘enter’. I pressed it and heard a gentle pop as old locks clicked into place. The blank wall in front of me shuddered forward, revealing a dimly lit corridor that opened into a strange room.
The smell of stale air hit me. The space was much larger than I had expected. Only the dim green emergency lights lit the room from floor level so that I had no way of telling how high the ceiling was. As I moved forward I felt exposed in the centre of the room and drifted over to the right-hand wall. I knew that no one else was there, but I still walked as silently as possible. Each footstep echoed and rang around the room.
It was some kind of storeroom. On my right-hand side were stacks of plastic wrapped boxes. I peered at one and read the label that explained it was protein
enzymes. I didn’t know much about food production, but I knew that the labs that created our food and drink must use something to supplement the weird algae that they grew to make our meals. I walked past more rows of boxes. Drinks, proteins and food flavourings were piled in endless rows. I felt a sense of futility as I looked up and down at the walls of food. Was this enough for a month, a year, a decade? I had no idea. I walked on, hoping to find something that I could make sense of.
The room had several offshoots that seemed full of the same plastic wrapped boxes, so I continued straight ahead. There was another smaller room beyond the piles of food that had some boxes that didn’t look familiar. Unlike the food they had no pictures of their contents. I pulled the plastic shroud off a palette of boxes that came up to my waist. The label read ‘medical supplies’. I ran my hand over the box. It was only secured by plastic tape. I gently pushed my nail under the tape and peeled it away in a long strip, careful to save it to replace it later. Then I opened the box and looked inside.
It was some kind of medical monitor, oval shaped and smooth with three buttons on the top. Each nestled in a foam depression to keep it safe. I had never seen one before, but then I was not a doctor. My face hot, I pulled the tape back over and shut the box. I hurried back to the door. This was what I had risked everything for? What a waste of time. If I hurried home now my parents wouldn’t even know I was gone.
I pulled open the door and stepped forward. Directly into the man that was standing on the other side.
Cold dry hands grabbed me, and I looked into unfamiliar faces that were etched with anger. I expected them to ask me what I was doing here in this forbidden room, but the two men simply marched me along the corridor in silence.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, my voice too high and too loud.
“Quiet,” the man to my right grunted. I let my head drop so that all I could see was our feet as we marched through the city. I couldn’t bear to look up and see a face that I knew, but I couldn’t avoid hearing the gasps of surprise. Before I knew it, we were deep in the heart of the city and I knew we could only be heading for one place.
The leader’s palace was a collection of rooms that formed a circular design in the centre of the city. I was led into a small room off a narrow corridor and the door closed firmly behind me. It had been only minutes since my capture, but how the world had changed in that instant. To avoid thinking I looked around the tiny room. No window, one door (locked) and a white plastic shelf that could be used as a bed. A cell, my memory supplied me with the word. I was in a cell.
I hadn’t even known such rooms existed in the city, but as I sat down on the cold hard bed I realised once again how naïve I was. How much did I really know about my world? I had been like a child, happy to accept everything I was told. And like a naughty child I had rebelled, had broken the rules. I curled up on the bed, tucked my head under my arm and I wondered what my punishment might be.
I slept for minutes or hours, there was no way of knowing which. When I woke up I felt dirty from sleeping in my clothes. I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling out the knots viciously. I missed Angel Sam, he would have known what to do. I shouldn’t have wanted him here to protect me, and I felt annoyed about it, but the truth was I was frightened without him.
A noise intruded in the silence of the tiny room and I realised it was light footsteps walking along the corridor beyond my cell. The door opened, and I saw the last person that I wanted to see.
“Lisanne,” my mother said softly, her voice unreadable. She took a step forward and I could see her face. Her eyes were red from crying and her lips were pressed together so tightly they were colourless.
“Mother,” I said and moved towards her. In that instant I only wanted to touch her, for her to hold me for comfort, and it felt like a knife to the stomach when she edged backwards.
“I have been sent to talk to you. There may still be a chance for you to save yourself.” I sat back down on the hard bed. I wanted her to tell me she loved me, not to reason with me. It was all so unreal. My mother paused but I had nothing to say.
“The Leader has proof that you and the low grader Angel Sam have conspired together to cause rebellion in the city.”
I shook my head. Rebellion? I wasn’t even sure I knew what that meant. “It wasn’t like that at all. Sam had this theory about the city running out of supplies. We were just trying to find out the truth.”
“Did I raise you to be this foolish? Don’t you see that in a world like ours the truth is not something that everyone needs to know! The truth is dangerous, and so are those that seek it.”
I dropped my head into my hands. My temples throbbed with stress, and I wished that my mother would leave – even the isolation of the cell was better than this. Then I made myself think about what she was saying.
“Hang on – you didn’t say anything about the supplies. It’s not a surprise to you is it? You knew about the supplies running out!”
My mother shrugged. “Certain knowledge is reserved for those in power. I happen to be one of those people.
“What other lies do you tell us? What about the Histories?”
“Yes?”
“Are they true?”
Sometimes silence can be so loud it pains your ears. This was how it sounded in the room in those seconds while my mother stared at me, her face a stricken mask of fury and disbelief.
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” She said finally, her voice lowered in case anyone might be listening. “There are things that you were never meant to know. Believe me, if you knew half of this truth that you’re looking for you would be horrified.”
“So, you are trying to protect us?”
“Exactly.”
I opened my arms to indicate the cell. “You’ve done a fine job.”
My mother moved towards me, her face hollowed and eerie in the green light.
“You have no idea how serious this is Lisanne. If you don’t let me help you then there is only one outcome. Exile.”
My heart nearly stopped at the word. Exile to the White. A slow death, a forced Walk where you would be given a snow suit and sent out with no protection from the elements. How could this be happening?
“I’m surprised you even care that I’ll be exiled,” I said, my voice wavering, “you’ve made it perfectly clear that you can’t stand to be around me.”
“Do you really think I don’t care? Can’t you see that I’m grieving?”
“Grieving! I’m not dead, mother!”
“You may as well be.”
I sat in silence then, trying not to imagine the ice cold of the outside. Then I thought of something else.
“Was Sam exiled?”
I knew the answer before my mother’s curt nod. Of course he had not Walked willingly. He had been sent to his death for his curiosity. And it seemed that I would follow him.
“He refused to listen but you still have a chance, Lisanne.”
“Wait a minute – he refused to listen? Was it,” I could barely get the words out now, “was it you that sent him out? Did you exile Angel Sam?”
“I had no choice!” My mother’s face was twisted and desperate. “I had to Lisanne, he was turning you against us.”
I threw myself on the bed and wept. I felt a hand on my back but instead of comfort I could feel only fury.
“Get out mother.” I screamed. “I never want to see you again. I choose exile. I choose the White.”
The city can work quickly and efficiently when it needs to. It was only a few hours after my mother left that two men arrived with a carefully folded package. None of them said a word as I unfolded the suit, and I was not in the mood for small talk.
The material for the suit was pale grey like our everyday clothes, but it felt light as a cobweb, and certainly didn’t seem enough to keep out the freeze. I knew that it would however; it would keep me warm just long enough to starve to death. What a strange kindness. Along with the suit were long gloves that
folded into place over the arms. In theory I could take them off, although my fingers would begin to freeze in minutes. The same was true of the mask. It zipped into a flap in the neck of the suit and hung loosely around my head. The front of the mask was transparent and clung tightly to my features. I was glad that at least I would get a good view of the White before I died.
“Time to go.”
I saw no one except my guards on my journey up the ramps to the top level of the City and they refused to meet my eyes. I didn’t know if people had been told not to watch, or if they had decided to stay away themselves. I couldn’t blame them if they had. I only wished that I had had the chance to see my father again.
I stumbled a little at the thought of his face and one of the guards had to steady me. All of a sudden I felt my bravery desert me. I didn’t want to die, outside in the White and all alone. I could barely see where to walk as tears blocked my vision. Embarrassed, I tried to focus on Angel Sam. He would not have been so cowardly. He would have been brave right to the end. I could never be as good or as clever as him, but maybe I could try to be as brave.
Finally we reached the end of the corridor and came to a halt in front of a huge door. A grim-faced man entered a code in the keypad and we moved into a large room. It was empty, and the only thing of note was the airlock on the far wall. I heard the door open behind me and three more men entered. The middle one was familiar, but it took me a second to recognise him
“Hello Leader,” I said weakly. He was much paler than on the view screens, and I wondered if they made him darker on purpose. If Angel Sam had been here he would have laughed at me for even doubting it. On screen he looked perfect, close to a ninety. In the flesh, he was small, large eyed and so white he was practically translucent. He was probably a seventy at best.
Anger bubbled up inside me. I had wanted to meet him so many times, but now that I did it felt so pointless. Should I tell him how evil this place was? How he was condemning his people to a slow death beneath the ice? I shook my head. What would be the point in a dramatic last stand? It would make no different anyway.