by Paul Stewart
She smiles. ‘It seems I misjudged you after all,’ she says quietly. ‘You did well, York.’ She turns to Travis. ‘Make sure that everyone understands York’s change of status.’
‘I will, Petra,’ says Travis. He takes me by the arm. ‘Now how about a celebratory drink at the bev-counter?’
The two of us turn and head back towards the elevator.
‘Oh, and Travis,’ Petra calls after us. ‘You can cancel that order for a new birth.’
The celebrations continue late into the night. The arc-lights go out, the dome lights come on, and still the bev-counter is buzzing. Everyone has seen the surveillance droid’s transmission and wants to know what it felt like killing the very last mutant.
They talk excitedly of plans to sterilize the zones outside the Sanctuary, unopposed by the Outsiders. Controlled detonations. Forest incinerations. Vacuum-draining the ocean zone and ejecting the water vapour through vent ducts up into the Outer Hull. I sip my satzcoa, nod and smile, as the Sanctuary-dwellers describe an idealized Mid Deck, scrubbed clean of all contamination.
Nobody mentions Zone 8.
‘Come on, then,’ says Travis at last. ‘Let’s get you back to your sleep-quarters. You’re one of the three thousand now. And after a good night’s sleep, it’ll be as though you never left.’
I wait for a little while after he’s gone. Around me, the lights dim and the Sanctuary-dwellers close the lids of their sleep-pods. Up near the top of the dome, Petra Crockett swivels in her chair.
I take an elevator.
‘Level one, twelve, twenty-four, twenty-six,’ I say, relieved that I can still remember the number.
We come to the armoury. I step out, cross the floor and enter the room next to it.
The droid store.
It’s eerie inside. Droids, hundreds of them, lined up in rows, fill the cavernous space. Lens-heads, spindle-legs, new shiny-black detonation droids. I shudder as I see their black-helmeted heads, armoured shoulder panels, ribbed torsos . . .
It’s such a waste, I realize. Dextra was right. The rich resources of the Sanctuary stored here should be used for conservation, not sabotage and destruction.
I walk past row after row of lens-heads. Some look new. Others are waiting for maintenance repairs to be done before they’re sent out again into the zones.
I recognize my droid at once from the deep, triangular dent that Belle’s kick left in the middle of its tubular body. I slide my hand round to the back of its head and flick a switch. The visiglass lens pops up and, fingers shaking, I remove a small, glowing data-chip.
Tiny, insignificant. Overlooked.
I slip it into the pocket of my crisp, white Sanctuary tunic, then take the elevator up to Petra Crockett’s chamber. As I step inside, I hear her voice from the far end of the chamber.
‘Can’t sleep, York?’
I look round, and glimpse her through a half-open door. I hadn’t noticed it before. It leads into some kind of cabinet, concealed and private. Of all the people in the Sanctuary, Petra Crockett is the only one who has a place to hide away.
‘I’ll be right with you,’ she says, and the door is pushed to.
But not before I’ve noticed the rows of jars and wire baskets stored on the shelves. Each of them has something inside it. Pickled mutant critters. Weird body parts . . . I remember what Petra Crockett once told me about the importance of knowing the enemy, and I shudder.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late,’ I call out. ‘But I just wanted to thank you again, Petra, for taking me back.’
I edge towards the chair in the centre of the chamber.
‘York. York. York.’ Petra Crockett’s voice is soft and lilting. ‘Please, no more apologies. All you need is a good night’s sleep.’
There is no sleep-pod in Petra Crockett’s chamber that I can see. Only this chair with its info-cables and holo-screens. I run a finger over an armrest, then reach into the pocket of my tunic . . .
I hear the clunk of a heavy jar being returned to a shelf. Then the door to the cabinet opens, and Petra emerges. Her eyes are shining.
‘My chair,’ she says, and smiles as I step away from it.
I smile back. My tunic pocket is empty. The glowing data-chip is pulsing in the cable hub on the underside of the smooth, sleek armrest.
‘I have perfected it over the years,’ she says. ‘So that I can watch over you all, protect the Sanctuary at all times.’
She sweeps past me and sits down. The chair swivels as Petra leans back in it.
‘Every system, every droid and sleep-pod, every elevator and airlock . . . everything runs through here. And I see and hear it all.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘You were in the droid store.’
I nod. ‘You were right,’ I tell her. ‘I couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind. The droids down there, they make me feel safe. I know this sounds foolish, Petra, but I was thanking the surveillance droid that saved my life. If it hadn’t recorded what really happened back in the ocean zone . . .’
‘So that’s what you were doing!’ Petra Crockett gives a soft laugh, and her smile broadens. ‘Get to bed, York,’ she purrs, that voice of hers so silky smooth. ‘And sweet dreams.’
I open my eyes. The sleep-pod opens and I climb out.
Everything has changed.
The Sanctuary is alive with activity. Every elevator is crowded, speeding one after the other, down towards the atrium entrance hall. All three thousand Sanctuary-dwellers are spilling out across the floor, flocking to the outer visiglass panels and staring outside.
Or rather, two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight of them, to be precise. Only me and Petra Crockett are not caught up in the excitement.
I see her looking down at me. She knows something isn’t right in this perfect little world of hers. She climbs into an elevator. I wait as it comes to a stop on my level. The door swishes open. I step inside and join her.
‘What’s going on, York?’ she demands furiously. ‘What have you done?’
The door closes and we descend to the entrance hall.
‘Come and see,’ I tell her.
Petra Crockett strides out into the crowd of Sanctuary-dwellers, but no one seems to notice her. They are all too intent on staring through the wall of visiglass at the scene outside the dome.
Standing in a vast crowd are the Outsiders. They have come from all the zones of the Mid Deck. Gill-people; fur-people; scale-people; winged men, women and children. They are staring back at the Sanctuary-dwellers.
None of them move. None of them speak.
Then one of the Outsiders steps forward. A tall man with feathered wings. He has a youngster in his arms, a girl, her own wings folded back on her shoulders. They stop beside the visiglass wall and look inside.
The Sanctuary-dwellers watch them.
Slowly, deliberately, the wing-man raises a hand and presses his palm flat against the visiglass. He smiles. The girl in his arms waves uncertainly.
I hold my breath.
At first, nothing happens. But then one of the Sanctuary-dwellers steps forward. He looks like Klute, but older. He raises his own hand and presses it to the hand of the wing-man, fingers splayed, and only the pane of visiglass between them.
‘Greetwell,’ he says.
Suddenly a cry goes up. Everyone’s moving at once. Sanctuary-dwellers and Outsiders, they’re coming together. Mothers and fathers, small children and babes in arms. Curious at first. Then happy to greet one another, the sound of joyful voices filling the air.
The sleep-pods have done their work.
The Sanctuary-dwellers have been de-programmed and told the truth. Their minds are free, their thoughts are clear.
All of them are human. All of them are one.
Petra Crockett stamps her foot. ‘Enough!’ she cries. ‘They are mutants, and mutants must be destroyed!’
But nobody is listening.
‘I don’t want to live like this,’ a young woman cries, and pounds a fist against the visiglass wall, ‘im
prisoned in this sterile bubble.’
‘Let us out!’ someone else shouts, and a murmur of agreement ripples through the crowd.
‘Droids! Droids!’ Petra Crockett is shrieking. ‘Destroy the mutants!’
‘I’ve de-activated your command protocols,’ I tell her as I walk across to the entrance.
‘The sleep-pods. The droids.’ I smile. ‘The airlocks . . .’
I turn and place a hand on the sensor-pad. The airlock doors open. All of them.
‘No! No! The contamination!’ Petra Crockett screeches. She turns and flees back to the elevator.
Dextra and the Outsiders walk through the open doors and pour into the dome. And the Sanctuary-dwellers surge forward to meet them. There’s laughter. And there are tears. Children are hugged and Sanctuary-dweller and Outsider alike comfort and congratulate each other.
Belle, Dextra and Cronos come through the swirling crowd towards me, and the four of us embrace. Travis joins us. He is wide-eyed and ecstatic.
‘I woke up this morning, York, and I knew all this had to end,’ he tells me. ‘I had such dreams . . .’ He looks at Dextra, then at Cronos. ‘I dreamed I had a brother. He was just like me, but with wings. We flew together, over the forests and grasslands, skimming the ocean waves. And I was overwhelmed by this feeling of oneness, of freedom . . .’ Travis frowns. ‘Of purpose.’
Dextra nods. ‘There is so much that we can achieve,’ she says, ‘so long as we work together.’
Travis pulls back. He nods towards the top of the dome.
‘Petra,’ he says.
When we reach her chamber, Petra Crockett is sitting slumped in her chair. Above her, the holo-screens are showing images of the celebrations we left behind.
Winged figures are swooping past the visiglass walls, with waving Sanctuary-dwellers held in their arms. Others – both Outsiders and Insiders – mingle on the stone steps and set off along the moving walkways in clusters. People point and marvel at the zones around them.
Droids are assembling. Lens-heads hover beside spindle-legs awaiting orders.
Petra Crockett looks up at Dextra, Belle and me.
‘I have lost control,’ she says desperately. ‘You!’ She glares at me. ‘You have overridden my systems.’
‘I have,’ I say simply. The data-chip that I smuggled into the Sanctuary has worked perfectly.
Petra’s top lip curls with disgust as she looks at Dextra.
‘You have destroyed my Sanctuary,’ she says, her voice rasping now. ‘Everything I’ve worked for.’
‘It’s not too late, Petra,’ says Dextra, taking a step towards her. ‘Don’t you see? If we work together, we can bring accelerated evolution back under control. And with the resources of the Sanctuary, we can repair the zones and restore the Mid Deck. For everyone.’
Dextra reaches out a hand and takes one of Petra’s. Petra Crockett flinches at her touch. Her face drains of all colour and her expression twists into a grimace of disgust as she tears her hand away.
‘You . . .’ she whispers. ‘You . . . have . . . contaminated me . . .’
I see her hand reach out. A trembling finger hovers over a black sensor-pad, then presses firmly down.
There is a click.
‘Termination sequence activated,’ says a voice.
A circular visiglass screen rises up from the base of the chair and seals Petra inside it. She stares back at us, before a burst of red laser light blots out her horrified face. When it fades, the screen lowers to reveal a pile of ash.
‘Termination sequence complete.’
Dextra turns to me. There are tears in her eyes. ‘She must have been an incredible bio-engineer,’ she tells me, her voice catching in her throat. ‘To maintain all this. She could have done so much to help us. Instead, she kept us apart.’ She wipes away a tear. ‘But now she is gone.’
I feel a hand on my shoulder and look round. It’s Belle.
‘You did well, York,’ she says. ‘But there is more to be done on our mission. We must continue.’
The place is dark. Banks of data-drives, info-decks and tech-stacks surround us, and the air is filled with a low humming sound. We are in an underground life lab, deep at the heart of Zone 8.
Outside, the droid army has stopped the spread of accelerated evolution, and the grassland has been contained. Finally the chaos zone is being tended the way it always should have been.
‘We will never manage to recreate the well-ordered bio-zones of the Launch Times,’ Dextra explains. ‘Not without access to the control systems of the Inner Core. But the evolved life can be managed and conserved.’
The Inner Core.
Our next destination. Now that the Mid Deck is functioning once more, it is time for me and Belle to continue our journey to the next level of the Biosphere.
‘Are you sure about this, York?’ Dextra asks – not for the first time.
She is standing beside me, Caliph crouched down on her shoulder between her wings, chittering uncertainly. It’s as though he knows that something’s going to change.
‘I’m sure,’ I tell her. ‘I’m glad we could help you here in the Mid Deck, Dextra. But there is still a war raging in the Outer Hull between humans and zoids. The answer to the robot rebellion lies at the Core,’ I tell her. ‘And I made a promise to my people that I wouldn’t stop till I found it.’
‘Even if that means leaving all this behind?’ she says.
I look back at her. At Caliph.
I nod.
Dextra reaches out and takes hold of my hand. She squeezes it warmly.
‘And this is the only way?’ she says, and I hear the concern in her voice.
‘The breach in the Inner Core has made it too dangerous a place for humans to go,’ says Belle.
She is lying in the black pod next to mine. The two of us have already discussed what we have to do.
‘No one could survive the radiation,’ Belle goes on. ‘But we are all data. A series of digital impulses. Our consciousness will travel to the Inner Core, but our bodies will remain here. We shall return to them when we have completed our task. If we can,’ she adds.
‘We’ll keep them safe for you,’ says Dextra.
She’s smiling, but her eyes look moist. She closes the lid of Belle’s pod, then mine, and my world goes black.
Whatever awaits us at the Inner Core, there is no going back now.
Look out for the next book in the thrilling
series . . .
Coming soon!
Paul Stewart is a highly regarded and award-winning author of books for young readers – everything from picture books to football stories, fantasy, sci-fi and horror. His first book was published in 1988 and he has since had over fifty titles published.
Chris Riddell is an accomplished artist and political cartoonist for the Observer. His books have won many awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize and the Red House Children’s Book Award. Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse won the Costa Children’s Book Award in 2013.
Paul and Chris first met at their sons’ nursery school and decided to work together (they can’t remember why!). Since then their books have included the Blobheads series, The Edge Chronicles, the Muddle Earth books and the Far-Flung Adventures, which include Fergus Crane, Gold Smarties Prize Winner, Corby Flood and Hugo Pepper, both Silver Nestlé Prize Winners.
Also by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
MUDDLE EARTH
MUDDLE EARTH TOO
THE EDGE CHRONICLES
THE FAR-FLUNG ADVENTURES
BARNABY GRIMES SERIES
BUMPER BLOBHEADS
And by Chris Riddell
The Goth Girl series
GOTH GIRL AND THE GHOST OF A MOUSE
GOTH GIRL AND THE FETE WORSE THAN DEATH
GOTH GIRL AND THE WUTHERING FRIGHT
The Ottoline series
OTTOLINE AND THE YELLOW CAT
OTTOLINE GOES TO SCHOOL
OTTOLINE AT
SEA
MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS
First published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-3444-9
Text and illustrations copyright © Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell 2015
The right of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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