Omega City

by Diana Peterfreund

  “More like fifty-eight minutes,” Howard said. “But yeah.”

  I raised my head, looking at them in amazement.

  Savannah grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She was wearing her suit’s silver traction gloves. “You’ve plotted the way, right?”

  I pulled out my directions. Then I heard it—the sound of thumps and grunts and echoing, metallic curses. Fiona’s men.

  “Now or never, Gills,” Eric said.

  Okay, then. I clutched Underberg’s treasures through the silver material of my pockets. “Now.”

  WE RACED DOWN corridors and up flights of stairs. Thirty seconds after we’d left the Comm room, we heard the clatter of metal.

  “They kicked down the grate,” Nate panted as we ran up another set of stairs. “Run!”

  So we ran, as quickly and quietly as we could. With any luck, the men wouldn’t guess what way we’d gone.

  One more hallway filled with intriguing doors I didn’t have time to explore and we burst into another stairwell. Right on the other side of this landing, according to the map, was the elevator for the third exit. Nate and Eric sprinted over to the doors, but they were jammed.

  “Up another level!” Nate shouted, and we all took to the stairs.

  Thankfully, the next level was clear and we came pouring out of the stairwell. The elevator stood there, the up arrow lit in the friendliest shade of white I’d ever seen. We were going to make it.

  “At last!” Savannah cried as she jammed her palm against the call button on the elevator.

  Nothing happened.

  “No!” Nate pounded the metal double doors. “Open, you dumb thing!”

  “Nate,” said Howard, placing his hand on his brother’s arm. “Listen.”

  I held my breath. I could hear it, the sound of machine parts whirring. The elevator was coming down, floor after floor through the darkness. But I heard something else, too—the sounds of boots on the staircase we’d just left.

  “They’re coming,” I said, in a tone somewhere between a whisper and a cry.

  Instantly Nate and Howard threw their weight against the stairwell door, while Eric, Savannah, and I looked for something to block it. The rooms on this hall seemed to be living quarters of some kind. There was a sofa in one of the rooms, but it was too heavy for us to lift. Savannah was dragging out a metal bed frame when the Nolands yelped and the door seemed to jump off its hinges.

  “Open up!” yelled Clint, or maybe it was the other guy.

  “Or I’ll shoot!” No, that one was definitely Clint.

  “Step away from the door, Howard,” Nate said calmly, even as he flattened himself against it. “And get your thing ready.”

  What thing?

  “Is that elevator coming anytime soon?” The door jumped again, and Nate braced his feet against the floor.

  Just then, Nate went flying across the room and the door burst open. We all screamed and jumped back. The two men stood there, wearing heavy-duty black suits and holsters with all kinds of tools and implements hanging from them: grappling hooks, compasses, walkie-talkies, utility knives, and yes—guns. Their head lamps speared our eyes. Nate pushed himself to his feet and stood in front of us, which was when I realized that we’d all kind of huddled there, across the hall from the elevator. Nate spread out his hands, as if gathering us behind him, and yeah, he was big, compared to us. But he wasn’t that big.

  “Travis,” said Clint. “Contact Fiona. We’ve got them.”

  The other guy—Travis—pulled out his walkie-talkie. Just then, the elevator door dinged open.

  The two men looked behind them at the sound. For a second, I saw it—lit from within with the same orange-red emergency lights as the rest of this level. There it was, just on the other side of those men. Our ticket out of here.

  And then everything went blinding white.

  “Run!” Howard shouted. I blinked but only saw a flock of gummy pink flashes that were probably my corneas exploding or something. Still, I turned away from Clint and Travis and started stumbling. Someone grabbed my hand—maybe Savannah?—and pulled me along.

  “What was that?” Eric cried. I could barely make out the outline of his body as we careened down the hall.

  “Keep running!” said Nate—if the giant silver blob attached to the end of Eric’s arm was actually Nate. I blinked furiously and ran to keep up with the giant silver blob I thought was Savannah.

  “Stairs,” she warned me. Not that it mattered. I could hardly feel them under my feet as we went down one, two . . . three at a time. My eyes started to clear as we passed out of the stairwell and back into the giant main chamber of Omega City. The floodlights still angled against the roof of the cavern, bathing the boxy trailer buildings and the floodwaters in a soft blue twilight. It seemed like ages since we were here last. I rubbed my aching eyes and looked again. We were now on the opposite side of the city from where we’d entered near the turbine.

  “Come on,” said Nate. “The flare won’t keep them for long.” We started down the nearest metal walkway.

  “Howard had a flare from one of the survival kit things we found in the mess hall,” Savannah explained. “We made some plans to defend ourselves while we were waiting for you and Eric in the movie theater.”

  “Apparently!” I gasped.

  As soon as we were off the walkway, Nate and Howard started yanking at levers near the handrails, and with a groan, the whole thing separated from the building and went crashing to the wet stone floor below.

  And then we were off again. We were crossing our third walkway when we heard shouts in the cavern and knew Clint and Travis were catching up again.

  “I can’t run much more,” gasped Savannah.

  “You eat too much pizza,” Nate replied, and kept running.

  “Yeah,” Eric said, out of breath. “And whose fault is that?”

  Next, we went down a flight of stairs. Howard, coming last, pulled a bottle of something out of his pocket and poured it on the steps behind him.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Machine oil,” he said. “Found it in the gym by the weights. Maybe they’ll slip.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked as we took off again.

  “Are you complaining?” Nate replied. “Save your breath and sprint.”

  But despite the Nolands’ best efforts at booby traps, Clint and Travis were gaining on us. We couldn’t keep quiet as we pounded over the metal walkways, and neither could they. Their clanging and banging echoed through the cavern, ever louder and ever closer.

  “Not to ruin the fun,” Eric said, “but we do know where we’re going, right?”

  “Exit four.” Nate’s face was grim, his eyes intent on the path in front of him. I imagined he’d spent quite a lot of time studying the map while Eric and I had been underwater. His hair and face were drenched with sweat, but he showed no sign of slowing down. The rest of us didn’t dare fall behind now.

  I couldn’t get the image of that elevator out of my head. Right there, open, and fully operational. We could have rushed inside. We could have pressed the button. What if I’d surrendered to Clint and Travis on the condition that they let my friends go? They could all have been on the surface already.

  “There they are!”

  A cracking sound echoed loudly off the rock walls.

  They’d found us.

  21

  THE GLASS GARDEN

  NATE SHOUTED A BAD WORD AND CROUCHED ON THE WALKWAY. “DUCK!” he said. “They’re shooting! Run!”

  How could we do both? We tried the best we could, awkwardly hurrying with our heads down. I could hardly breathe, thinking about that sound. We were being shot at. Clint was shooting at us. And it hadn’t even been an hour.

  Then again, we did shove a flare in his face.

  As we rounded the walkway around the next building, instead of getting on the metal, elevated path between buildings, Nate jumped down to the rock floor about five feet below. We followed. Down here the grou
nd was slightly uneven, slick with moisture and pockmarked by puddles. Here and there we saw the silhouettes of stalagmites: giant cone-shaped stone crystals that seemed to grow right out of the earth. Some were nearly as tall as me, and I even risked a few peeks toward the roof to see if there were any matching stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

  There may have been. It’s hard to look up when you’re running for your life.

  “Under here,” he whispered when we reached the next building. He ducked underneath the platform and we hurried after him. Savannah and I barely had to bend our heads, and Howard and Eric fit just fine.

  I’d thought these freestanding buildings were elevated with concrete blocks, like trailers, but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, each stood on four columns made up of giant rings of painted steel. As I got closer, I could see that where the rings touched, chips of paint had flaked off, showing scratches on the metal as if the rings had rubbed against each other.

  I touched the rings, feeling the deep grooves and the scratches in the paint. “What are these things?”

  “They’re springs,” Howard whispered. “They help protect the structure by absorbing vibrations from earthquakes or nuclear strikes.”

  I nodded. That must be what had caused so much damage in other parts of the city. The buildings set into the rocks didn’t have that kind of protection. Then again, springs didn’t protect the buildings from the floods.

  “Guys,” Nate hissed at us. “Turn off your lights.”

  We flipped off the flashlights and head lamps and huddled behind one of the large central springs. It was easily the size of a minivan. The ground was cold and wet and water dripped somewhere close by.

  We heard footsteps echoing from somewhere, and then the clang of booted feet on the walkway near our building. I almost expected the springs to bounce like the underside of a couch or a bed, but even though the pounding of Clint’s and Travis’s combat boots seemed to shudder through my entire body, the springs remained solid. Omega City was built to withstand a nuclear attack. It could handle two bullies with guns.

  The question was, could we?

  “Check inside.” Clint. He must be the leader. A flashlight’s beam cast over the chamber floor beyond the edge of the building. We all squeezed tighter together as it occurred to me that silver jumpsuits did not make for decent camouflage. Dr. Underberg should have thought of that. He hadn’t properly prepared for the moment the citizens of Omega City may have had to run for their lives from—

  Boots stomped right over my head. We wrapped our arms around one another and held our collective breath. Any minute now, Travis would realize we weren’t in the building.

  Nate began making gestures in the darkness for us to head out in the other direction. I could still see Clint waving his light around on the opposite side of the structure. I shook my head vehemently. We had no plan, we had no escape, and we were wearing shiny silver suits.

  And Clint was shooting at us.

  Then again, what were our options? Sit around here until they found us?

  Again the image of that elevator filled my brain. We’d been so close.

  “Now,” Nate breathed, and shoved against my back. I ran, and the others ran too, dodging and weaving around the springs until we reached the open air. We were fifty feet from the building when I heard Clint’s shout of discovery. I was afraid he’d shoot again—and even if his aim was lousy in the dark, I didn’t want to take that chance.

  “Don’t look back!” Nate called. With his long legs, he could outpace the rest of us easily, but he was sticking close. We followed him over to the right, near the far side of the chamber. Ahead of us was a dark dome tiled in a black honeycomb pattern. There was a metal door in the side, which Nate held open as we all sprinted inside.

  He slammed the door, and everything stopped. Light, sound, everything. The air around us felt almost soft, the blackness fluffy, like a pillow, in comparison to the vast, echoing emptiness of the cavern.

  One by one, we flipped our flashlights back on, revealing dusty floors strewn with tables and what looked like broken bits of pottery and tile. Nate dragged one of the tables in front of the door, wedging it up under the knob so it wouldn’t turn. Howard helped him, collecting shards of broken tile or something on the ground and helping block the table legs from sliding across the floor.

  “Where are we?” Eric asked, once we were properly barricaded in.

  “It’s marked AG on the map,” said Howard.

  “I don’t care. I care about making it to exit four before those guys do. Come on.” Nate started marching off into the darkness. I caught flashes of light all around us, quick as shooting stars. What was this place? Our voices were muffled, as if the sound stopped a foot or so from our mouths.

  Eric’s head lamp beam was tracing the wall, which seemed to be made of a soft, almost fuzzy brown fluff. He found a control panel and turned the lights on.

  Instantly the space was filled with an intense yellow light and I squinted, though this wasn’t nearly as bad as the flare had been. A steady, humming buzz ran everywhere, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see why. Giant warming grow lights shined down on row after row of tables, each covered with trays of withered brown vines and herbs. Enormous mirrors all over the walls, floors, and ceilings reflected and refracted the light in a thousand different directions. Massive glass bubbles spaced evenly along the outside walls housed gnarled dead trees and tangles of some other dead plant I couldn’t recognize. And the interior surface of the dome? Dead moss.

  “It’s a greenhouse,” I said, staring around in wonder.

  It made perfect sense. If people were to live in Omega City, they had to get their food from somewhere. Astronaut ice cream and Meals, Ready to Eat were okay for emergencies, but you wouldn’t want to live off them long term. I’d bet those were fruit trees in the bubbles, and probably vegetables and herbs all along the tables under the grow lights.

  There had to be more, though. This couldn’t feed my school, let alone a small city’s worth of people. Somewhere there had to be fields of underground grain or—I glanced at the tables of withered plants—pens filled with dead livestock.

  I really hoped Dr. Underberg hadn’t put animals down here before whatever happened to this place happened.

  “The map says there’s an exit right here,” Nate was saying. He was standing about halfway down the center row, looking puzzled and turning the map around and around in his hands.

  We joined him there. He was staring at the ceiling of the dome. “I don’t know where it could be.”

  I looked down. We were standing on another massive mirror, its surface reflecting the bottom of our shoes. It seemed to be the only mirror set into the floor of the greenhouse, and there were no tables around it. I glanced up, half expecting to see plants hanging from the ceiling. Why was there a mirror on the floor?

  Over near the far edge of the mirror sat a small gray control box with a red button in the center.

  “What if this mirror moves?” I asked. “What if all the mirrors swivel around, to help direct the lights?” I pointed at the button. “Howard, want to see what that does?”

  He brightened as we all stepped off the mirror and onto the concrete.

  As soon as he pressed the button, the mirrors in the ceiling and on the wall started to shift, making the light dance and leap across the inside of the greenhouse. The mirror of the floor folded down the center and tilted up into a tent shape, angling light sideways at the growing platforms. All of it was amazingly cool, but Nate and the others only had eyes for the darkness under the mirror, where a metal ramp led down into nothingness. We aimed our flashlights into the hole but could see no farther than a few feet. For the first time since entering the greenhouse, I could hear the drip of water and catch the smell of rot.

  I didn’t like it one little bit.

  “Where does it go?” Savannah asked.

  Nate shoved the map under her nose. “Look, we go down through here and through
this stairwell and come out over there and go to exit four.”

  “And what happens if that doesn’t work?” I asked. Why hadn’t I planned out alternate routes while I’d been waiting for the others back in the Comm room? I don’t think I even looked at the AG room—whatever that meant, since this was clearly some sort of garden—when I’d had the chance. I had no idea if it led to operational or offline places on the map. I had no idea if we’d hit more flooding.

  “Gills, what’s our option?” Eric asked. “This is the only way out.”

  I heard a pounding on the dome door. “Let us in!” yelled Travis.

  “Come on out!” yelled Clint.

  And then a rhythmic sound, like they were throwing their weight against the door to try to break it down.

  There was another crack of gunfire and then the sound of shattering glass. Giant knife-sharp icicles of mirror and terrarium started raining on us.

  What choice did we have? Savannah sprinted down the ramp, with the rest of us hot on her heels. A few yards down was another red button and when Howard pressed it, the door folded shut again. Up close, the underside of the door seemed to be made of metal.

  “Look, there’s a lock.” Howard shoved at a lever but he couldn’t make it stick until his brother helped him push it into place.

  And just in time, too, as seconds later, we heard boots up top and the sound of the gears grinding again, as if Clint and Travis had pressed the button.

  “Open up!” Another shot, but nothing happened.

  “You broke it, you idiot.” Travis’s muffled voice filtered down.

  “Nicely done, Howard!” said Savannah. She held out her hand for a high five, and he flinched like she was going to hit him, then lightly tapped his palm to hers.

  I shined my lamp around the space. Blackness spread out in every direction, and the narrow, ghostly white ramp continued to descend into the abyss. After a quick consult with the map, we started walking, but if there was another end to the ramp, I couldn’t see it. It seemed to be suspended from the ceiling by massive metal poles and we went deeper and deeper into the Earth.