Hadley was first. She advanced on the moving floor, stopping at the machine. Declan fixed his eyes on his sister while the articulating arm swung around, welcoming her with a whirring whisper. It extended a finger and touched her temple—and as he’d seen happen with the others, all the remaining color in her body drained away, until finally she collapsed, lifeless. Declan cried, hating the sound of his helpless whimper. His crying turned to sobbing when it was his mother’s turn. Again, he forced himself to watch, owing it to her, owing it to the both of them, for having failed to save them. Only when his mother’s body fell from the conveyor did he finally shut his eyes. He wasn’t blind to this, not the deeper insides of the VAC Machine.
When he finally brought himself to face the nightmare he’d witnessed, he saw for the first time how many bodies there were. There wasn’t just the single corridor from the lobby: every floor had a similar corridor feeding the cavern, just as their room’s corridor fed the great lobby. It was a labyrinth of moving conveyors twenty or more levels deep, each separated by hundreds of hands. Rolling onto his back, he closed his eyes and felt an errant tear race down the side of his face. He stayed there for a while, listening to the mechanical arms swinging back and forth, delivering their deadly touch. He listened to the crumbling of fallen arms and legs, and then to the sickening sound of flesh sliding off the conveyor belts toward the black depths. In his mind, he saw a tangle of bodies piling up at the bottom of the cavern, like a fleshy hillside of blank faces and empty eyes jutting out in every direction. He hoped to hear a scream, just once, but he never did.
The dead don’t scream, he thought, and felt hysteria rising in him.
He pushed the madness down when, somewhere in the distance, he heard another mechanical sound. It was a churning, and a thump thump thump: a machine-driven grind that repeated without pause. As he focused, listening to the new sound, it became louder and clearer, overpowering the whooshing and whirring of the death-touch arms. The sound began in the blackness, where the bodies had fallen to, crept up the muggy walls, and reverberated over the moving conveyers. Declan swallowed hard, beginning to understand what the cavern was, what it was for; what it did.
The VAC Machine was eating.
11
Isla had to stop and rest. Panting, she sat back onto her heels and leaned against a panel of sheet metal. She pressed her cheek to the cool steel as beads of sweat fell into her eyes, stinging them. She was already exhausted; her heart pounded and she gulped at the air, wishing she’d brought some water with her. She’d never been an active person—her days were filled with simple lab work—and crawling on her hands and knees through an air duct definitely wasn’t lab work.
Have I gone far enough? As she rested, her arms and legs stayed eerily busy: trembling, as if repulsed by what she was doing.
She wanted to laugh at the crazy idea that she’d come up with. But of course, it wasn’t crazy—not at first, anyway. For months, she’d worked in her lab, synthesizing rare earth compounds, listening to the mechanical churn going on behind the mysterious steel door. From time to time, she’d hitch up onto her toes, looking inside to see the mechanized orchestra of swinging arms and dancing blood vials. Not once had she seen a drop or slip: only order and perfection.
But then one day, while watching, she’d seen something new for the first time. It was small, and tucked away in the shadows of the blood vault’s corner. Isla widened her eyes, stretching high onto the tips of her toes. She’d found a clue. And that clue had led to an idea: a crazy idea.
At once she recognized what was in the corner: a vent cover. And where there was one vent cover, there were more. Isla studied the walls and the ceiling, imagining ductwork passages hidden behind them. Ventilation systems had been a favorite for her and Nolan. They’d explored most of the aging ductwork in their Commune’s building. Pitted white from the salty air, the vent covers appeared seemingly out of nowhere—once they knew to look for them, that is. But when word had gotten out, the ductwork had become a playground for other kids, too: a dangerous playground. Soon, deafening thunder rumbled through their building, brought on by untethered hands and knees racing through the tunnels, like rats in a maze.
Isla wondered if the same were true here: did ductwork connect the blood vault to her lab? She’d set her eyes through the small portal window, following from the rear corner, across the far wall, and into her lab. Within minutes, she’d found another vent cover under a lab table. The cover was outfitted with simple spring clips, and had easily popped off the wall. At one point she’d ducked out from under the table, glancing up at the lights: the glass bulbs stayed dark and empty, uninterested. She’d peered into the vent shaft: the hope was that she could make her way across her lab, through the wall, and into the blood vault. What she’d do once inside, she wasn’t sure about. Maybe she’d read what was written on the vials? Or maybe she’d take one, and analyze it?
An explosion echoed inside the vent, startling Isla from her resting spot in the warren of ductwork. She must have started to fall asleep, because the sheet metal was humid from her breath. Isla looked at the condensation and used her finger to draw a circle, poking two dots for eyes. She finished the artwork with an upturned curve for a smile. She grinned back at the face, but soon the moisture dripped a crooked path, cutting through the smile. And as she moved to wipe the face away, another explosion echoed. When she realized the source of these “explosions,” she began to laugh, and had to cup her hand over her mouth. She was the source: she was buckling the sheet of metal beneath her whenever she shifted her weight.
“I guess that means I’d better get a move on,” she told the smiley face. Isla waited for a reply, then gave the face a quick swipe with her palm. Turning, she spied the soft light at the end of the ventilation shaft. Long yellow fingers stretched through the room’s vent cover, casting light from the blood vault into the ductwork. She crawled toward it, following the familiar hum of the mechanical arms. As she listened to them singing, she could imagine the jointed tubular limbs racing across the room, picking up and putting down the blood vials. When her hand broke the first beam of light, Isla stopped. She waited: for an alarm to sound, for an objection to be voiced. When she heard nothing, and a mechanical arm swung across the face of the cover, all hesitation went away, and curiosity won her over.
Isla could see farther into the blood vault than she ever had through the small window—and now she could smell it, too. It was sterile: utterly absent of all traces of… anything. Her heart beat hard, and she rushed to remove the vent cover, only to find that it was stuck. She gave the cover a firm shove, pushing on the backside of the louvers. They bowed, groaning against her hand. An anxious feeling came to her and she began to wonder if her travels through the ventilation had been for naught. What if the vent cover doesn’t come loose?
Isla balled her fist, frustrated. She punched at one of the corners. Nothing. She punched the cover again and heard a spring clip popping free. Relieved, a smile crept onto her cheeks. With one corner loose, she wedged her fingers in, and wriggled them along the edge. The cover jarred open, but its metal edge had a sharp lip which assaulted her for her impropriety. At once, she reeled back, staring at the cut on her hand. Had she grown so tolerant of sharp things that she hadn’t even noticed?
“How careless.” She let out a laugh that sounded tinny in the ventilation shaft.
She studied the wounds: four slits spread across the meaty part of her fingers. One of the cuts was a deep gash, and had begun to bleed over, spattering onto the vent, a dull tick echoing with each drop. A sudden wave of nausea caught her breath, and she had to turn away. She huffed out the air in her lungs and began looking around, finding nothing to wrap her hand with. Shaking her head, she tore a piece of her coveralls, quickly tying off a tattered knot around the cut. Isla was quiet then, breathing more steadily. A cool sweat beaded above her lip, and across the back of her neck.
Turning her attention back to the blood vault, she freed the vent co
ver and worked to bring it into the airshaft. Her makeshift bandage had become sopping wet, causing the cover to slip from her hand. It tumbled onto its corner, then landed with a heavy metal-on-metal clang. She cringed as the sound reverberated in the airshaft for anyone to hear. Isla froze in place, gripping the cover, feeling the vibration ride up into her hands.
She listened, waiting to hear the approach of footsteps. She waited for an alarm to scream out, or maybe the holler of voices. But there was only silence, and the subtle push of air coming through the vent. The gentle flow washed over her, cooling the nervous sweat. Closing her eyes, she listened to the hum and whir of motors driving the mechanical arms. When she was ready, Isla stretched her arms through the opening, and then carefully pulled her middle and legs through.
Blood oozed around the makeshift bandage, and her thoughts went to the first-aid box hanging on the wall in her lab. She turned toward the blood vault door, seeing it for the first time from the inside. The bleeding continued, but had slowed some.
The cut’s not going to stay closed, she conceded. She was disappointed. Her trip to the blood vault was going to have to be cut short.
Another whoosh of air circled around her as a suspended mechanical arm rode by on a narrow track in the ceiling. The arm turned on its knobby elbows, picked up a vial and then placed it back down. Isla tilted her head, impressed. She turned again, growing curious, and approached the shelves that she’d been staring at for months.
These are filled with blood, she told herself as she nudged one of the vials. The crimson liquid in the vial shimmered from her touch, and then settled.
But there was more: each vial was marked. She thought of the green and black terminal next to her desk, and the phosphor glyphs displaying the lab’s inventory. Everything—every material she’d ever used in the lab—was listed. Could she use the terminal to decipher the numbers on the vial?
Isla turned the vial and found a name. It was just the first initial, though, followed by a last name. But it was a clue. This vial belonged to M. Stephens. Below the name, she found a staggered set of lines, stretching across the label. She shook her head, unable to understand the bottom part of the label. Nothing in her lab resembled these symbols—she knew just numbers and names, like sodium and peroxide and sulfates.
Isla picked up the vial, wanting to see more. She needed to study it—to learn. The glass was colder than she’d expected. The blood was dark and seemed less alive somehow, looking nothing like the fresh blood seeping through her bandage.
“It’s the base,” she mumbled, and then looked to the vial’s rack. “The base of the rack keeps the blood cold, preserving it.” A rush of air lifted her hair, startling her, and, without even needing to turn, Isla knew that one of the mechanical arms had come to her side. Another rush of air came from behind her, along with a mechanical whistle of motors that grew loud, and then quieted to a purr, waiting.
Isla didn’t know what to do. Her heart was racing again, and her skin grew clammy. The mechanical arms were waiting for her. But waiting for what? She turned towards the ventilation shaft, only to be blocked by one of the arms. If they wanted her to leave, then why wouldn’t they let her go? She let out a small gasp when seeing that the walls and ceiling were bare. No lights to watch her.
A true silence, she thought and wondered if there were more rooms like this one.
The mechanical arms continued to surround her, swinging from her side, to her front, and then back again. They moved close enough for her to smell their greasy lubricants and hear chunky metal gears spinning. Isla jumped again, letting out a shallow yelp, when one of the arms swung in front of her face. It extended its rubber tips, and then snapped its jaws closed. The jaw opened, and she could see a long syringe that was used to extract the blood from the vials.
“Don’t you stab me with that!” she yelled. And as if it had heard her, the hand collapsed shut, slapping its rubber tips together—but then opened them again. Isla felt warm tears filling her eyes. She shook her head, trying to hold them back. A tear fell, dropping to her cheek, and she pleaded to be let go. The arms swung around her again, opening and snapping shut their rubber fingertips. She became certain that the last thing she’d see was the long needle piercing her eye.
Then all at once, the mechanical hands began clapping, swaying up and down in a nightmarish dance. She shut her eyes, squeezing until her face hurt, afraid of what was coming.
When something nudged her hand, she peered down. What she saw surprised her. The arm closest to her had moved to the vial that she was holding. When the fingers nudged her hand again, she understood. Images of the farming floor came to her mind then. Nolan loved eggs, and nothing was better than the freshest browns the farming floor had to offer. “Fresh from the hen’s bottom,” he’d say; but, on occasion, the hens didn’t agree. Reaching beneath their feathered hold, he’d pulled out one or two eggs, kissing them with a hungry smile. She’d always thought that kissing them was a bit gross. Most times, the hens didn’t care, but on occasion, there were the one or two that would fret and peck at Nolan’s hand, even jumping up to take chase.
“You want the vial back,” Isla said, her voice solemn and quiet. The mechanical hand gently took the vial from her fingers. She felt embarrassed, and maybe even a little ashamed for not realizing what she’d done.
“I’m sorry… I should never have picked it up,” she said, and then felt silly for saying anything at all. Air rushed around her again, as all the mechanical arms went back to their usual routine of lifting and moving, rotating and placing.
As Isla crawled back to her lab, she kept her torn hand up close to her chest. Blood was already running down her arm, having soaked through the bandage. Over and over, she repeated the numbers and the name that she’d found on the vial of blood. It was possible that her terminal would offer more than just a list of what was in her lab.
Isla stopped moving when she heard something other than herself. Her vision narrowed, focused on the opening ahead. When a shadow broke the stretch of yellow light, Isla sucked in a breath and held it. Someone was in her lab. She swallowed hard, and waited to see if they’d leave. Her heart tightened in her chest, paining her when a man’s head jutted into the ventilation shaft. The figure ahead of her was black, silhouetted, but she could see it was a man as his head turned away from her.
Maybe he won’t see me. Maybe I’m too far from the opening.
Isla dug her teeth into her lower lip as the man turned back. She tried to hold still, begging to stay motionless. She waited for the sheet metal to invade her skin as she embraced the ductwork, absorbing it, while trying to become a part of it. Hidden. The blood drained from her face in an instant when the man’s head pitched forward, bounced up and down on his slender neck, and motioned toward her. The man called out to her then, not by her name, but to ask what she was doing in there.
12
Something was wrong; Sammi could feel it. Deep down inside the middle of her, she felt different. While she tried to dismiss it, she could sense something strange inside her. The lights on the wall sang a flashy sequence of colors, but the message wasn’t for her. Sammi feared that she was aging like Declan’s mother and sister—although a quick glance at her hands told her otherwise. Her skin was still young and free of whatever had afflicted them. While there was something wrong, it wasn’t the same thing.
A twinge had come first, and then a flutter. It was a sense of something new that hadn’t been there before. For a moment, Sammi thought warmly of her momma, and could hear her sweet voice talking about feeling butterflies. But when another flutter came to her, Sammi laid a hand on her belly, dashing all of her thoughts. Not since she’d woken in this place had she felt so afraid of the unknown. Even the changes in Declan’s mother and sister seemed distant now. This time, the changes were coming from inside of her. The VAC Machine was home: her sanctuary, her miracle. She was alive, and she was with Declan.
Sammi could only recall having felt this worried once
before. She and Declan’s mother and sister had been summoned by the lights to go to the black sand beaches. There they’d found Declan, nearly dead. She remembered how odd the moist sands had felt beneath her feet when she walked to him at first, and then ran to be at his side. She experienced terrifying fear that day: dread that she’d lost her chosen forever. In that moment, she understood what Declan must have felt when she’d lain dying on the old theater floor. His body had been just a haggard memory of who he really was—gray, cold, wet from the ocean surf—and she had been certain that he’d die in her arms, just as she had in his.
I did die in the theatre. Harold pushed me, I fell, and then I died… Didn’t I? She cast a quick glance around the room, but nobody seemed to notice that she’d stopped working. A passing look to the lights on the wall, and Sammi realized that maybe she could think whatever she wanted. The lights were talking, but not to her; not now, anyway.
Images of the theater came to her mind. She saw the opening in the roof, the blue sky beyond the gray fog. She saw Declan’s face, silhouetted by the sun… but then, there was nothing. Sammi pulled her arms around her front, fearful of the blankness that had happened to her next. She searched her mind, looking into the emptiness for any forgotten memory, but found nothing.
Maybe I didn’t die. Maybe I was unconscious, and was brought here, where they fixed me. The lights suddenly streamed a myriad of messages. Brighter than usual, louder, screaming. Her eyes watered, and searing pain pushed from behind them while she tried to piece together her last moments.
“There was a cat, too!” she yelled, and then grabbed her mouth, stifling the sudden outburst. Again, she looked around for an upturned face or two, someone questioning her and her lack of work. Yet as before, the room remained uninterested.
“One of the feral cats stayed with me,” she continued, her voice now a whisper. A flutter waved inside her, listening.
Blinded By Sight (Gray Series Book 3) Page 10