This tunnel is one of a group that radiate out from the Governors’ City in four identical clusters, one for each quadrant and another that leads aimlessly out into the Mass. Exploring that fourth section led us only to locked doors and dead ends, a boring impasse that was quickly abandoned in favor of more fruitful expeditionary endeavors. The only benefit that came of our efforts was the discovery of a tiny gap in one of the tunnel walls, barely wide enough to pass through, that opened on the other side into a wide space, occupied only by a small group of people who rarely, if ever, venture into the city. The Neither colony.
Before the Last Chance, I used to visit the Neithers two or three times a week, sitting for hours in their crudely assembled maze of underground shacks, sipping a strange cup of warm, flavored water and basking in the sound of the soothing lullabies of mothers enticing their children to sleep. They accepted me as their own when, as a six-year-old in infantile pursuit of a midnight snack, I stumbled into their miniature city. But that first route was a risky one, except at night, so my visits were little more than a rare treat to break up the monotony of Optic training. Though Henrick never formed the bond with them that I did, some of my fondest memories are of the time we spent down there together, pretending we weren’t orphans for a few hours a day.
Henrick puts a single hand in the air, signaling for me to pause behind him. He edges a thin door open just enough for a sliver of the atrium to appear, refreshingly deserted compared to the crowds earlier. There’s no one here to see us, but there’s no one here to blend in with either. We’ll have to move fast.
Like water down a drain, Henrick slips lithely through the gap and begins to sidle along the smooth wall. Soundless steps, borne of years of experience, bring us within a few meters of the door. It seems futile to sneak about like this when we’re standing on the edge of such openness, but our white smocks blend us into the background so that only our motions and their corresponding sounds could possibly give us away. We’ll be okay as long as we don’t panic.
“The guy wouldn’t even look me in the eye by the time I was finished with him. Or maybe his eyes were just swollen shut. Tried to say he didn’t know that Optics couldn’t be out past nine. And I was like, are you kidding me, old man?”
A roar of gruff laughter follows the sordid relation and a trio of guards stroll down the way. I feel Henrick freeze beside me as I do the same, praying they don’t even turn in our direction. But I should have known better. The guards have a sixth sense when it comes to easy prey.
One of the guards, a tall young man with close-cut dark hair and tanned skin, likely not much older than we are, gestures in our direction and his two companions, both a good deal older, turn to us in response.
“Well,” one of them mutters contentedly. “This’ll make a dull afternoon a little brighter.”
As they approach, the man who had been telling the story takes the lead. He stands much shorter than his companions, a trait only accentuated by his extensive, rather greasy gray hair.
“What is this? Optics sneaking around for an extra ration?”
I exchange a glance with Henrick. Maybe they don’t realize we’re missing yet?
The first two men seem unaware of the significance of their catch, apparently more concerned with our entertainment value than our actual conduct. But the third man, stocky and bald, narrows his eyes in studious scrutiny. I swallow and meet his gaze, certain that averting mine will do more to raise suspicion than to quell it. But after a few seconds of locked eyes, he begins to slowly nod as a confident smile reveals a set of uneven teeth beneath.
“I know this one.” He wags a finger knowingly. “Little Io, you have grown up, but you don’t seem to have learned a thing.”
He suddenly reaches a hand up to his ear, focusing momentarily on whatever voice I’ve always assumed must feed the guards instructions through the wire that hangs down their necks. His smile grows wider as he studies us with the gaze of someone who has serendipitously stumbled upon a magnificent treasure.
I don’t give him a chance to finish his newest thought.
The guards lunge for us when we take off along the atrium wall, but they were caught unaware and we’re much nimbler on our feet. Henrick takes the lead as we approach the opening to the quadrant, but it’s no use going straight through. Even if we would be safe in Ruth and James’ house, we’d never make it past the guards in the interim, certainly warned by now of our location.
He follows my lead as I angle towards another door tucked subtly against the wall. It’ll be a widely detoured path, far off from our original plan, but it’s our only option and probably better for its unpredictability. It’s doubtful the guards know these passages as well as we do.
I slam into the door at full speed, failing to break through until Henrick inadvertently crushes me against it and shatters the second latch of the day. Without even a moments’ recovery, we slide as a pair down the banister of a flight of stairs, as much caught up in the thrill of the chase as we are terrified of the guards. With its unique ability to effortlessly curtail fear, adrenaline must be a miracle of the human body.
Still, our stubby little legs are no match for the guards’ substantial strides and even our most complex navigation will never allow us to lose them in this labyrinth. Without consulting Henrick, I veer off down a narrow offshoot, barely tall enough for us to stand upright. The guards, however, are no more hindered here than we are, and Henrick curses violently behind me as we collide with the tunnel’s end.
His desperate eyes plead with mine for a solution, but even as I fight to catch my breath, I simply shake my head confidently. A command not to worry. Without explanation, I flatten myself along the back wall and slide to the side, disappearing into the space beyond. Henrick laughs aloud, seeing right through my plan, and swiftly joins me just as the guards reach the end.
They each take a turn wedging themselves in, the second almost getting stuck for his massive girth, and only the youngest man manages to come near us. His fingertips brush Henrick’s arm as we pull farther away from them. Even I’m not entirely sure where this crack leads so I’m sure they aren’t. Sometimes the poor construction of the city proves to be our greatest salvation; someone, apparently, decided it wasn’t necessary to finish this wall.
The guards’ voices fade as they decide our capture isn’t worth the embarrassment. As long as no one knows they tried and failed, there will be no repercussions for letting us go, a fortunately common result of our outsmarting them in some way or another. If we meet them again anytime soon, they’ll certainly seek vengeance, but I have no plans of breaking any more rules today.
The narrow space opens up a few meters ahead into a massive, cavernous room, lit only sparingly by cracks in the ceiling that allow some trickle of light through from above. A series of columns built up against the walls, supporting beams that in turn sustain the ceiling, repeat in perfect formation off into the distance until their path curves and they disappear around the corner. A rumble from above shakes loose dust long settled in the rafters, which drifts lazily through the rays of light to settle once again on the floor below. It seems that this process has been building up for years, because the ground is soft and grainy beneath my feet as though I’m standing in a layer meters thick of the stuff. Cool moisture presses against my soles and when I lift my feet, the bottoms of my shoes have been stained as black as the ground. Henrick’s grin flares up in the darkness; it’s been a long time since we’ve found anywhere this new.
“Io,” he whispers, in either wonderment or caution, and points up at the ceiling. “I think we’re under the monorail.”
I remember the dull rumble from a few seconds ago and realize he’s right. I don’t understand why this place is here, nor why the government would have tunneled an open area like this under the weight of such massive trains, but it may also very well be the most useful discovery of our lives as Optics. How have we never been here?
“There’s a ladder!” Henrick abruptl
y exclaims, plodding through the thick, wet dust toward a thin structure almost camouflaged with the darkness behind it. “It’ll take us right into the quadrant, I think.”
And I hope that he’s right. Driven from my mind by our encounter with the guards and this impromptu finding, my panic about Daniel is returning now with full force. The image of Mary’s likely reaction upon discovering him in the closet has inscribed itself in my mind, circling back again and again like some sort of mental torture.
Henrick hesitates, but I charge forward past him, no longer savoring that incredible rush of triumph that I once experienced almost weekly in my childhood. The whole structure shudders under my weight but holds tight as I scurry toward the top and arrive at a panel outlined by a phosphorescent line of white. It takes only a gentle touch of my fingertips to displace it and I quickly pop my head out only to retreat immediately. A rush of wind pursues me back through the hole.
“What’s wrong?” Henrick whispers.
“Monorail,” I reply, hesitating a few seconds to let it pass before pulling myself warily out into the well of the tracks. As Henrick follows behind and replaces the panel, which turns invisible immediately without its glowing outline from above, I search the doors around us to get my bearings.
The nearest one reads 019, nowhere near the 315 I’m looking for, but at the risk of this being the only access point from the space below, we’ll have to stay in the track.
We don’t encounter a single guard among the two hundred doors we pass along the way, so by the time we do near the 300’s, I’m standing fully upright with Henrick only slightly crouching beside me, to avoid his added stature making him completely visible. Our confidence is nearly our downfall, though, and our arrival at 315 explains why there weren’t any guards along the way.
They’re all here.
Henrick’s hand claps over my mouth to stifle a gasp I didn’t even see coming. The guards could just be posted here as a preventative measure after our escape. I wouldn’t put it past Mack to realize we would end up here, given that I basically told him. But it could also be an awful sign of a discovery already made, a crime already reported and a punishment about to come. I think back on how long it’s been since we escaped the medical building and cringe. Maybe we’re already too late.
We crouch in waiting and I hope by some miracle that the guards will be called away, but when I turn to Henrick he’s gesturing frantically, working up some plan. I shake my head uncomprehendingly and he rolls his eyes in exasperation and mouths, “Stay here.”
I nod and he takes off. A moment later I realize what he’s doing. Sacrificing himself.
Sort of.
“Io!” The cry echoes down the hall and before I remember his command I almost stand by instinct in response. Thankfully, I’m not the only one.
Above me, a quick exchange of muttering is followed by heavy footsteps, more than a pair by the sound of it. When I cautiously raise my head over the edge, all four of the guards have left, and I hear Henrick explaining around the corner, “I saw her come up from the tracks ahead, but when I called to her she ran toward the atrium. I’m sorry. I couldn’t catch up to her in time.”
I’m afraid they won’t believe him, or that they’ll split into two, sending half their number back my way, but it seems he has them convinced. He is, after all, a Governor now. Without waiting for Henrick, I climb out of the tracks, scan my thumb at the door, and fall through it as it opens. I’ll have to thank him later.
It’s only after I’ve caught my breath that I realize that my bangs are matted to my forehead with sweat, the corner of my shirt is torn from our passage through the gap, my first few steps have left grimy footprints on the beige carpet, and a petite blonde-haired girl with vaguely familiar features is staring at me in shock.
“I-Io. What are you doing here? They said you were really ill, that you’d be in the medical building all day,” Mary begins, left unsteady by my abrupt appearance.
I manage to smile through my discomposure and clear my throat enough to stammer out in return, “They…let me go early. They said that they…had been wrong earlier, and that I was okay to go back to work.”
“Oh!” Her face brightens. She’s clearly not all that interested in questioning me. I’ve always been a strange one to the other Optics, I guess, so my appearance right now probably doesn’t surprise her as much as I think it should. “Well, then, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I took care of lunch and dinner and set the laundry out to dry, but Ruth told me you had already put out new linens today. Is that right?”
It isn’t at all, but I fight back a laugh of relief, giddy at the twist of fate that has graced my day with this fortunate misunderstanding. Mary takes my massive smile as affirmation and reflects it back to me in return.
“Then I guess I’ll get going, unless you need any more help?”
I shake my head a little too readily, not trusting myself to talk, and stare awkwardly as she makes for the door. She opens it casually and takes a half-step outside before retreating and slamming it shut again. My heart nearly stops. Pale-faced, she turns to me and nervously asks, “Io, why are there four guards outside your door?”
I shrug with a nervous laugh that comes out so much like a squeal that I inadvertently put a hand over my mouth in shock.
“Right, well…I’m just – I’m just gonna go.”
She slips out the door, this time more guardedly, and I hear a faint, “Yes, she’s in there,” followed by a discourteous rap on the door. Unless I want to incriminate Mary, I have to answer it, so, wiping the sweat off my forehead and twisting my shirt to hide the tear, I creep over and open it just a crack. Four shocked faces stare back at me.
“How did you…?” The question doesn’t need finishing, but I shake my head blankly, wondering how long feigned ignorance will save my butt.
“You’re supposed to be in the medical building,” a more confident guard declares, almost as a command.
“But I’m not there, am I?” I respond, bolder now that I’m with my Plenties. The guards’ reluctance to come any closer makes me feel invincible, and the unintentional sass in my voice proves it. “I’m here doing my job. Unless you’d rather I not?”
“Don’t answer that question,” one of the younger guys blurts out, clearly fresh out of training, earning himself the reproving glares of his companions.
“She’s already at 1st South 315,” another mutters, but it’s not to me, nor to anyone around us. His hardened glare relaxes upon receipt of some command, and he begins to leave, waving the others along with him.
Determined to get the last word, one of the guards leans forward, glowering, and mutters, “Get back to work.”
“Only if you do,” I respond and push the door closed in his face.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dying?” a blunt voice asks across the room almost immediately. I glance up to see James standing in the hallway, looking like life itself is a bore.
Before I have time to think up some witty retort, Ruth comes up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head, making perfect contact on the first try. The woman has earned every bit of the respect I have for her.
“Io,” she says sternly, bustling over and taking hold of my arm to drag me to the couch. “I know you’ve never been one to laze around all day, but you’ve clearly been working yourself too hard. I won’t have you getting ill at our expense.”
“I’m really okay, Ruth. I rested in the medical building,” I try to tell her, but she won’t hear anything of it.
“That may be so, but the fact that you ended up there at all means that you need more rest. I don’t want you to get up from this couch until tomorrow morning. Am I clear? James and I will take care of ourselves this evening, won’t we James?” she addresses him expectantly.
“Sure, whatever,” he concedes and turns to return to his room.
As much as I don’t want to cross Ruth, I’m also desperate to check on Daniel. So I fight her grip and take to my feet, pr
ecluding her protest with a half-formed excuse that I’m sure she can see right through.
“I just want to rinse my face really fast, to clear my head.”
She sighs heavily, but nods in concession, looking worn herself. “All right. Then I’m going to head off to bed as well. Can I trust you not to do any more work tonight?”
“Yes, Ruth,” I answer, before pulling her into a hug goodnight. I may technically be an orphan, but I’m almost certain I’ve got a mother.
As soon as Ruth is safely in her room, I head straight for the closet, logically certain that everything is okay, but plagued by residual urgency from my early forebodings. It doesn’t help to alleviate my concern when I find the door hanging open a few inches, and I just about stop breathing when I notice what has changed in the room. The linens are still there, some spread out of place as though they were flung off the shelves, but Daniel is gone. In a flurry of theories, I immediately decide that the government must have taken him, that by now he’ll have been tortured, suffering endlessly at their merciless hands, or else that he’s dead. Ruth and James haven’t mentioned anything about it, which seems unlikely considering the inevitable trauma of having your home invaded by guards, but still, I have to close the door to hide my panic. When a pile of towels shifts behind me, I nearly scream aloud; Daniel, apparently fully conscious, has hidden himself behind the door.
“Thank God it’s you,” he whispers in a strained voice, breathing hard.
“Thank who?”
“Never mind.” He shakes his head and grimaces at the strain his crouched position has put on his damaged body.
“You’re awake.” I sound about as excited as James.
He nods and slowly extracts himself from the corner, sighing in relief as he lets the pressure off of his arms.
“How long?”
Be Thou My Vision (The Population Series) Page 11