Omega City

by Diana Peterfreund

  “I don’t know how to use a gun!”

  “I do,” Nate replied. “Howard does.”

  “That doesn’t comfort me,” Savannah said.

  “If I had a gun,” he said, “I could protect us.”

  “If you had a gun,” I replied, “you could hurt someone.”

  “I’m a really good shot!”

  “In the dark?” Eric asked. “In a hallway?” My brother had a point. I’d seen the movies. Bullets bounced off rock walls. We’d all end up shot.

  Nate was breathing hard. I could hear him panting. I pointed my flashlight down at his hands, which were clenched into fists. He saw the beam of my light and quickly crossed his arms over his chest. I lowered my flashlight as all that astronaut ice cream turned into a leaden lump in my stomach. He wasn’t supposed to be scared, too.

  Then again, we’d left all our “supposed tos” up on the surface. Down here, there were entirely different rules. Nate had helped us escape Fiona. He’d saved Savannah’s life. If he was being a little grumpy right now, there was a good reason.

  But that didn’t mean we should arm ourselves.

  “No guns,” I said to Nate. “You’re not the only one who gets to make rules.”

  “You gonna tell that Clint guy to follow your rules?”

  “No. Guns,” I repeated. “All in favor?”

  Eric and Howard raised their hands. Savannah sighed and followed suit. I turned my flashlight back on Nate.

  He rolled his eyes. “This is not a democracy.”

  “Why not?” Howard asked. “Dr. Underberg didn’t die and make you King of Omega City.”

  Nate turned toward his brother. “Did you just make a joke?”

  Howard looked at his feet and mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out.

  Something changed in Nate’s face, and when he spoke after another minute, his tone was completely different. “Okay. You guys win . . . no guns.”

  I was going to say something, but he kept going.

  “Now let’s get to that communications room before we wish we needed them.”

  I could live with that.

  We started off again, though this time, the mood was a little lighter. The rooms off this hallway were way larger, and the doors were, too. Through one, I saw giant glass-walled refrigerators and wire shelves that made me wonder if it was another grocery store, or maybe a medical storage facility. I’d pause outside every doorway for long enough for Nate to growl something about “staying close” or “keeping together.” If only we had a chance to explore. Inside one of these rooms could be the prototype for the battery. I couldn’t imagine what Dad would say if I brought it home to him.

  But we didn’t pass anything that looked like someplace a world-changing battery prototype might be stored. In another room we saw barbells, rings hanging from the ceiling, even a pommel horse. It was eerie to look at the benches and weights in these dark rooms: neatly stacked, totally unused, and covered with a layer of dust and grime.

  “Weird,” Eric said as his flashlight bounced off the wall. “No treadmills or stair machines.”

  “Dr. Underberg must have been old school when it came to training,” Nate suggested.

  “Dr. Underberg built this thing decades ago,” I said. Or at least someone did.

  The beam of Eric’s flashlight traveled over rows of free weights and moldering wrestling mats, then bounced off the figure of a man.

  I gasped. Savannah clapped a hand over her mouth. Eric dropped his flashlight, which promptly turned off. I heard him gulp and scramble for it.

  “It’s just a wall poster,” Howard said. “Look.” He aimed his light. Half of the man’s body was translucent, showing muscles and joints and bones. The paper was yellowed with age, and its edges were torn.

  Nate clapped Savannah on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I keep waiting for a dead body to show up, too.”

  “Waiting?” She shuddered.

  “Okay. Dreading.”

  “Can we please stop talking about dead bodies and guns and underground monsters?” Eric said. He was swinging his flashlight at every shadow in the room. “Just in general?”

  “So it’s fine for a video game but not real life?” Savannah asked.

  “Yes!” Eric shook his head at her, incredulous. “In real life you don’t get to press reset.”

  At last we arrived at the door to the fan-shaped M.T. room. The door to our left was shut and marked with the word Balcony.

  Nate paused. “Can we at least check out what’s inside?” I wasn’t going to argue after we’d explored all the other rooms. Nate opened the door and we all stepped into the darkness.

  It wasn’t a gun range.

  A slightly sloped floor covered by row after row of plush red seats overlooked a wrought-iron balcony. Beyond it, I caught a glimpse of a high, arched opening and long red curtains. We all knew instantly what we were looking at, because we were used to seeing this in the dark.

  “M.T.,” I said softly. “Movie Theater.”

  We went down the aisle to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the auditorium. It was a giant black lake, its surface as still as glass. If there were seats on the lower level of the theater, they had to be underwater.

  “Cool,” Eric said. He dropped something over the side and ripples spread out over the space, as the plop echoed from drowned velvet curtain to drowned velvet curtain.

  “It’s just a movie theater,” said Howard. “We have those on the surface, too.”

  “How would you feel about a movie theater in a spaceship?” Savannah asked.

  “Don’t be silly!” he scoffed. “That’s not remotely practical.”

  Neither was this. I gripped the elaborate wrought-iron curlicues of the balcony. Luxurious red velvet seats in the end-of-the-world-shelter movie theater? And here I’d been dreading a gun range. I thought back to those military barracks I’d seen in the C-block. How small they were compared to the classrooms and the gyms and this enormous theater. I thought back to that recording we’d heard in the elevator. Firearms not permitted.

  This wasn’t a place for an army. This was a place for people. For people to eat and sleep and work and learn and, yeah—even watch movies. For people to live, even if the world above had died.

  “Thanks, Dr. Underberg,” I whispered softly, so no one else could hear me. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  But someone had let him down, that much was obvious. Omega City lay in ruins, and Dr. Underberg had disappeared. Why did no one know about this place? Why wasn’t anyone taking care of it? I wished Dad were here. He’d be able to fill in the blanks and explain to us what all this meant. If it even was Dr. Underberg’s. Maybe we were passing by all kinds of important clues without even knowing it.

  The next room was the one marked A.T.R., and after the wonder of the movie theater, we couldn’t help but drop in. Unlike the other rooms in this building, A.T.R. smelled of bleach. The floors and walls were tiled, and a long line of enormous lockers stood against the far wall. We started walking in when Nate stopped short. “Careful!” he shouted. “There’s a drop-off.” He aimed his flashlight down.

  Sure enough, in the center of the room was an enormous tiled pit, with a large drain at the very bottom.

  “What is it?” Savannah asked.

  “Looks like a swimming pool,” Nate said. He pointed his flashlight to a ladder attached to one of the walls.

  Eric laughed. “The driest place in this city is a swimming pool?”

  “I guess we’re above the flood level here.”

  “How does A.T.R. mean swimming pool?” Savannah asked.

  I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t imagine what else a room like this might be used for. Nate was right, it looked just like when they drained the pools at my old school for cleaning. And the smell—that wasn’t bleach. It was the remnants of chlorine. There were large, rusty metal hooks on the wall. Maybe they’d once been used for pool cleaning equipment.

  All in a
ll, this wasn’t half as interesting as the movie theater. At least, that’s what I thought until Howard opened one of the lockers and a person fell out.

  16

  UNDER PRESSURE

  AS THE MAN FELL TO THE FLOOR WE ALL JUMPED BACK, OUR SHOUTS OF surprise echoing around the darkened room.

  I’ll give Eric credit—he held on to his flashlight this time. “Wait a second.” He stepped toward the slumped figure. He shined his beam over the figure. “It’s a space suit,” he announced.

  No one moved.

  “An empty one,” he clarified.

  We crowded around and examined the suit. Big puffy arms and boots and gloves and helmet and all. I’d seen them in cases at the Air and Space Museum, but I’d never touched one before. It was heavy and bulky, which I guess made sense, given that people would mostly be wearing them in zero-gravity conditions, but the actual material was thinner than I would have thought. Imagine having only a quarter inch of material between you and the vacuum of space.

  Considering I had a good mile of rock between myself and the surface of the world at present, it seemed really minuscule.

  Howard started examining all the pieces, comparing them to Z-series or constellations or I’m not entirely sure what else. However, it was clear he was much more excited about this suit than he’d been about anything since . . . well, since the last suits we’d found.

  Finally, he said, “Wow! I think this is a Galaxy series! I thought they canceled this prototype because of heat transfer problems?”

  “Maybe they canceled it because it was connected to Dr. Underberg, same as everything else?” I suggested.

  “Maybe they canceled it and Dr. Underberg got it on the cheap,” Eric replied.

  “Maybe none of us are astronauts and so looking at a space suit isn’t nearly as important as getting out of here?” asked Nate.

  But no one was listening. It was a space suit! And if there were space-suit prototypes in here, then that meant the battery prototype might be here, too. I opened up the other lockers, but there was nothing more than some random tubes, hoses, and air tanks.

  “Hey, Howard,” I asked, “don’t astronauts train in swimming pools?”

  “Yes. They simulate antigravity conditions—”

  I tapped the map. “A.T.R.: Astronaut Training Room.” Only, why would they need astronauts in Omega City? If you were worried about survival, the space program would probably be the last thing on your mind. NASA wasn’t even focusing on manned space travel these days, that’s how low a priority it was for them.

  Then again, those always had been Dr. Underberg’s two great loves: space and survival. I looked around the room. If Omega City was really his, it would make sense he’d want to train astronauts. Even if we descended into the Earth, he wouldn’t want us to give up on the stars.

  “Astronaut Training. Brilliant deduction,” said Nate, steering me around by the shoulders. “Now let’s go.”

  But I wasn’t the problem. The rest of us headed out into the hallway, but Howard didn’t budge. He just sat there on the tile, the space suit pooled in his lap, examining every inch.

  “Howard.” Nate waved at him.

  He unscrewed the helmet.

  “Howard!”

  He paused, helmet poised over his head. “Come on,” he said. “Please? I’ve never actually touched one before.”

  “Right, he has time to play dress-up but I can’t braid my hair?” Savannah asked.

  Nate sighed and rubbed his temples. “She’s right, buddy. Let’s go.”

  Howard looked longingly at the suit as his brother led him out to us. Savannah gave an annoyed grunt, but I totally understood how he felt. Howard getting to touch an actual space suit was like me visiting Area 51.

  Or like now, I guess. Like visiting Omega City. I couldn’t stop running my fingers over the lines on the map. Had Underberg really designed this place? Every detail felt like him, but if he’d made it, how come Dad never knew? How come no one did?

  The map indicated we needed to go down a set of stairs and then up again into another rock chamber to reach the Comm room, so we headed in that direction. But when we got to the spot where the staircase was supposed to be, we found nothing left but a long, dark shaft. Nate and Eric aimed their beams down the shaft, where I could just make out water far beneath us.

  Nate was teaching us all kinds of new swear words today.

  “Now what?” Savannah asked when he’d finished.

  Eric stood, looking down at the water, then abruptly swung his flashlight around to Howard. “How do the astronauts breathe when they’re in training?”

  “What does that matter?” I asked.

  “Do they use the suits, are there tanks, what?”

  “They use the suit apparatus,” Howard said. “But they’re usually assisted in the water by scuba divers—”

  “Oh, no,” I said, holding up my hands in a T symbol. “Time out, no way. Don’t think what you are thinking.”

  “You think there’s scuba equipment in those lockers by the pool?”

  “Eric,” I insisted. “No.”

  “There is,” said Howard. “I saw it. So what?”

  “Gills, let me see the map.”

  I shook my head but he snatched it out of my hands and pointed out the fan shape of the movie theater. “Look, there’s a hashed line down here by the stage in the movie theater. That’s got to be another exit.” He traced his finger through that hashed line, through several more rooms and over to the stairwell. “All these rooms are connected and I bet they’re underwater. Still, we can get to the Comm room by scuba diving.”

  “I don’t know how to scuba dive,” said Savannah. “Don’t you need to take classes or something?”

  “We have—Gills and me.”

  Getting certified had been Eric’s tenth birthday wish. He’d made us take all the specialty courses: night diving, cave diving, even rescue diving. But neither of us had been since before the divorce. And we’d never done it without a grown-up before.

  “That doesn’t really help the rest of us,” said Nate.

  “If we can get to the Comm room, we can maybe call for help,” Eric argued.

  Nate looked doubtful. “You want me to let the two of you strap on God-knows-how-old scuba equipment, dive off the balcony of an underwater movie theater, and go someplace I can’t follow you? I don’t think I can allow that.”

  I nodded eagerly. “Yes! I agree with Nate!”

  “I don’t like the idea of us separating,” Savannah said. She was holding her flashlight like a prayer candle, and it cast her cheekbones in ghostly planes. “What if something happens to you two?”

  “Something’s going to happen to all of us if we don’t get out of here,” said Howard. He was looking at the map. “I don’t see another way through to the exit.”

  Eric folded his arms. “I’ll listen if anyone has a better idea.”

  Nate was silent for several seconds, and much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t think of an alternative, either. We couldn’t get to the next exit from here, and we had no idea how close Fiona and her friends were.

  “Are you sure, Eric?” I asked. “It’s going to be really dark down there.”

  He gave me a disgusted glare. “Are you seriously trying to psych me out of saving all our lives?”

  “No—I just . . .”

  “I’ll have you with me,” he said. My throat grew tight. “I won’t be scared. We can do this, Gills. Together. Like we used to.”

  We used to have Dad . . . and Mom. We used to use brand-new equipment. We used to not be trapped in an abandoned underground city.

  But not diving wasn’t going to fix any of that. “Okay,” I found myself saying.

  Nate shook his head. “I can’t take care of you if I’m not with you.”

  “You can’t take care of us, period,” said Howard. His brother looked at him, stricken. “I’m sorry, Nate, but you can’t. You know you can’t. This isn’t like at home.”
/>   Nate said nothing.

  “Should we take another vote?” Eric asked.

  “I vote no,” said Savannah. She grabbed my hand. “Don’t do it, Gillian. It’s dangerous. You could drown.” Her eyes were wide and fearful in the dim light. I remembered what she looked like, caught in that elevator as it went underwater, and my stomach turned over on itself.

  I knew how the vote would go. Eric and Howard wanted us to dive. Nate and Savannah didn’t. I’d be the deciding vote. And I had to get us all out of here. Somehow.

  “It’s dangerous here, too,” I said. “We have to try.”

  We returned to the astronaut training room and found the best two sets of scuba equipment we could—inflatable vests, masks, head lamps, breathing equipment, and air and depth monitors. They didn’t seem quite as modern as the ones Eric and I had learned on, but it was the best we could do. The air pressure in the tanks seemed okay and we tested all the valves and tubes thoroughly. There were no wet suits but Howard showed us how to set our silver jumpsuits on “warming.”

  “Won’t these short out when we get in the water?” Eric asked.

  “It says they’re waterproof.” Howard shrugged.

  We lugged everything back down the hall to the movie theater balcony and put it on. As Eric helped me assemble the pieces, we rehearsed all the diving details I hadn’t bothered thinking about in a while: stuff like descent and ascent times, clearing our ears, signals to our partner, and how to make sure we were taking big enough steps off the side of the boat—um, or balcony, in this case—so as not to catch on the tanks we were wearing on our backs. We put on flippers and stuck our sneakers in the pockets of our suits. We went over the map again and again until it was burned indelibly in our brains. We needed to go down through the door of the theater, through one hallway to a large chamber marked P, into the stairwell and out through a lower level, through another hall, and up another set of stairs to the Comm room. Reluctantly, I handed my precious diagram to Savannah.

  “Please don’t die,” Nate said, once we were ready.