Omega City

by Diana Peterfreund

  “Nonsense. Rest assured, there are plenty of berths aboard Knowledge. And plenty of supplies, too. Now, go strap yourselves in.”

  Howard was jumping up and down with excitement. “Yes, sir!”

  “No, sir,” Nate said, putting his hands on his brother’s shoulders until Howard stopped leaping. “I’m declining for you. There’s no way Mom and Dad would sign the permission slip for this.”

  I had to agree. Plus, the rest of Omega City was broken. What made Dr. Underberg think his rocket wouldn’t just explode right here on the launch pad?

  Now, there was a scary thought.

  “If you could just direct us to the exit, that would be great,” I said. “And maybe, really, think about coming along? A man your age in space? That can’t be good for your . . . heart.” Or anything else. Besides, what was he going to do up there? Rockets had to go someplace, right? Space stations, or the moon, or into orbit for a few days, then back down. You didn’t just get to go into space in a rocket ship and live there. If Omega City was ruined, where was Dr. Underberg going to go once his little space flight was over? “This is really dangerous. Think about the future—”

  “Young lady,” he growled, giving me the side eye, “all I do is think about the future. My whole life. I think about my future, which is almost over, and I think about your future, which is yet before you. The planet is doomed. Humankind is bent on its destruction, both inadvertently and very much on purpose. If you choose to remain here, I cannot guarantee that another rocket will be available to you when it comes time for you to flee.”

  “Flee . . . Earth?” Savannah shook her head in disbelief.

  He sighed. “I know. I thought I’d never have to do so either, but clearly, in my heart, I knew what lay in store. I have loved this planet, but maybe the Shepherds are right—it’s time to let go.”

  “No,” Nate stated. “No, it’s not. No one here is letting go of anything. Open the door, sir, and tell us how to get out.” He whirled on me. “Not a word from you, Gillian.”

  I raised my hands in defeat. “I’m with you this time.” I didn’t want to go into space on a crazy old man’s rocket ship. And sure, Dad would be disappointed that we didn’t convince Dr. Underberg to come with us, but how much more disappointed would he be if we left the planet?

  Which was when we all noticed that Howard had buckled himself into the other command chair.

  “Get up,” Nate said.

  Howard crossed his arms.

  “I said, get up.”

  “I don’t fit here, Nate,” he replied, and there was a note of pleading in his voice. “You know that. I want to go to space. NASA shut down manned missions. This is my only chance.”

  “There are still private missions,” Eric suggested.

  “Shepherds,” Dr. Underberg muttered, almost to himself. “All Shepherds.”

  Howard looked defiantly at his brother. “I’m going.”

  “If you don’t get up, I’m telling Dad,” said Nate.

  “See if I care.”

  Nate worried his bottom lip as Dr. Underberg kept turning knobs and pressing buttons and flipping switches.

  “I do recommend you all either exit or find a safe place to sit soon,” he announced.

  Nate swallowed. “Howard,” he said, in a very different tone than the one he’d just used. A tone that sounded less like bossing, and more like begging. “If you don’t come with us, I won’t be able to see you anymore. I’m not going to lose my brother.”

  Howard turned toward him.

  “Please?” Nate added.

  After what seemed like an endless moment, Howard reached down and started undoing the fastenings on his harness.

  I turned back to Dr. Underberg. “Please, sir. Don’t shoot into space. We need you here. Your inventions, your stories, the truths you can bring to light. . . .”

  “I told you I’ve been watching you.” He patted me on the knee pocket of my suit, the one stuffed with flashlights and ice cream and videotapes. “I think you have many of these things already. You don’t need me. And I need the stars.”

  “But, Dr. Under—”

  “Please, Gillian,” he said. “Call me Aloysius. We’re good friends now. We almost went exploring the solar system together.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure Dad would condone that.”

  He laughed. “You give your father my best.” He turned another dial and his voice—his other one, the big, booming recorded one—said:

  Lift-off minus fifteen minutes.

  “The easiest way to leave,” he explained, as if we’d asked directions to the nearest park, “is to go up the set of emergency stairs on the inside of the silo to the launch control center. There you can access the minimum safe distance tunnel.”

  “What’s the minimum safe distance?” Nate asked.

  “Oh . . . I’d say three miles.” Dr. Underberg turned back to the control panel.

  “Three miles?” Savannah exclaimed. “You gave us fifteen minutes!”

  “True.” Underberg tapped his chin. “Better skip the stairs. I think I keep a couple of grappling guns in one of the cabinets below. For space walks.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Nate vanished down the hole.

  “You should be fine,” Dr. Underberg said. “Provided the tram is in place.”

  “We’re going to die,” Savannah moaned. “This time, we’re really going to die.”

  “We could always just go to space with him,” Howard suggested.

  “No, Howard,” said Dr. Underberg. All this time, he hadn’t stopped moving—checking levels, readouts, going down checklists, pressing buttons, and typing commands. The spacey, senile old man seemed gone completely. “Your friends are right. You still have work to do here. Don’t worry, I have no doubt you’ll make it to space. And to a hundred and twenty. But you’ll definitely need to wear your hood.”

  “Hood?”

  Underberg gestured to Howard’s neck. “In the suit, boy. In the suit.”

  Howard pulled on the zipper at the collar of his suit. Just as with the gloves hidden in the wrists of the suits, a silver hood came tumbling out. The hoods attached at the back of the suits and came down in front of our faces, where we could see out through clear visors.

  “It’s not airtight, but it’ll do,” Underberg said. “Alas, I was never able to complete my final prototype of the utility suits.”

  “So these are yours?” I looked at the gloves on my hands. “But the packaging said Arkadia Group.”

  “I know.” Underberg shook his head sadly. “It is the biggest regret of my life that I ever called myself a Shepherd.”

  Nate poked his head through the porthole. “Got ’em. Time to go, guys.” He looked at us. “You look like Daft Punk.”

  I turned toward Dr. Underberg one last time. “Please, sir. Please shut this down and come with us.”

  But he didn’t even look in my direction. Maybe I should have called him Aloysius. Maybe he would have looked then.

  Eric grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go!”

  That was the last I saw of the scientist, bent over the controls of his rocket ship, one hundred percent focused on reaching the stars.

  We came out through the air-lock door onto the rickety metal platform behind us. As the whirring sounds of the locking mechanism started up, I looked down over the chasm and saw the golden glare of fire, thirty stories below.

  “Look, the engines are already heating.”

  L minus nine minutes.

  Nate had pulled out a bunch of harnesses and clipped them onto the grappling guns. “These things are rated for two hundred and fifty pounds, and I could only find two. So we’re going to have to do our best here. What do you weigh, Gillian?”

  “Ninety-two.”

  “Savvy?”

  “Ninety-eight.” She turned to me. “Really, Gillian?”

  I shrugged. She had at least an inch on me, and other stuff, too. The orange glow from the base of the rocket was growing brighter
by the second. I decided to turn the warming function off on my suit. The boys didn’t know their exact weight but Howard said the last time he’d had a checkup, he’d been ninety-three pounds. I knew Eric was lighter than me. He always had been, so maybe ninety at the most?

  Nate rubbed his forehead. “Okay, I’m a hundred and sixty-five, so that means . . .”

  “We’re not all going to fit,” Sav said. “Even with the best way to divide us, the one with the three light ones is going to be around two hundred and seventy-five pounds, and the one with you and me will be two sixty-three.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. “That’s the best way to divide us? And you did that in your head?”

  “Um . . .” I couldn’t see her well through the visor, but I could tell what she was thinking. Busted!

  L minus eight minutes.

  “And wifout all the stuff we’re carrying,” Eric added. We all froze for a second as we realized what it meant.

  I clutched at my pockets. “No!” I cried. “I need these videotapes for proof to show my dad.”

  “Don’t you think your dad cares about you more than the videotapes?” Nate asked. He was emptying flashlights and MREs out of his pockets. “Come on, guys.”

  Eric and Savannah dropped their heavy head lamps. I watched them tumble off the side of the platform and plummet into the depths. Howard jettisoned a few more flares and the rest of the motor oil, then weighed a couple of packages of astronaut ice cream in his hands.

  “These are really light,” he argued.

  “So are the videotapes,” I added, desperate. I couldn’t come so far for nothing.

  “Gills,” Eric pleaded. “We gotta go.”

  I swallowed thickly. But I needed these videotapes. Omega City was about to be totally flooded. Dad would never be able to come back here and see for himself. The tapes were the only proof I had that any of it was real.

  Nate was attaching Savannah to his harness, while Howard and Eric were hooking up to the other. I looked at the tapes in my hands. One would be okay, right? One tape wouldn’t make a difference. I shoved the Founder’s Message back in my pocket and threw the others over the side. Howard hooked me onto his harness.

  Nate took aim with the grappling gun at some distant point in the ceiling. “Bet you’re glad I know how to shoot a gun now, right, Gills?”

  I didn’t even mind that he’d called me that when I saw the rope tug tight. He shot our gun next, then hooked the contraption back onto Howard’s portion of the harness.

  “Count to three, then press the retract button,” he said. He put his arm around Savannah. Once upon a time, she might have been in heaven at the idea, but what little I could see of her face through the visor was terrified, not thrilled.

  He pressed a button and they flew up into the sky.

  “Wait,” said Eric. “I don’t know . . .”

  Howard grabbed the cable. “One, two—”

  “I said waaaaaaaaaait—” Eric’s words were lost to screams as Howard pressed the button and we were jerked off our feet.

  You know those rides where they strap you into little seats that face outward around a pole, then catapult you up really fast? That’s what this felt like, except the grappling gun pulled us up by the waist. It cut into our bodies and swung us sideways so Eric and I shrieked and clutched each other for dear life. I imagined we looked kind of ridiculous, flying up sideways in our hooded silver suits. Like someone’s lame idea for a superhero movie. But then we reached a platform just below the smooth walls and wide windows of launch control.

  Or at least, there used to be windows. Something, sometime, must have broken them. No wonder Dr. Underberg had spoken to us about minimum safe distances.

  Eric peered over the ledge at the tip of the rocket. “I can’t believe vat worked.”

  “I can’t believe you still have a voice left to scream with,” Savannah said. “Did you know you’re literally louder than a rocket engine?”

  I stared down into the abyss. We’d come up with no problem. We probably could have kept those videos.

  L minus six minutes.

  Then again, if we didn’t get out of here, soon, we’d never see Dad again.

  There was no mistaking the heat in the silo now. The air shimmered before my eyes. Nate was pulling up his hood and detaching the grappling hooks from the wall.

  “I should keep these, right?” Nate said.

  “Sure,” I replied, my attention on the rising red glow from below. “It’s not like they’ll survive the blastoff if you leave them here.”

  “Score.”

  I glowered at him. Sure, Nate. Keep whatever you want. As soon as he had the guns secured, we all climbed up the last set of stairs and into the launch control center.

  Like everything else in Omega City, launch control was a ruin. Wires hung from the wall and there seemed to be birds’ nests in what should have been the window seats. At least none of them were there now, or they might have been roasted alive. Still, the thought of birds made me feel good. We were getting closer and closer to the surface. If they could make their way down here, we could make our way out.

  As if to drive this point home, there was a giant rumbling from above, and dirt and debris started falling down around the rocket. The silo was opening up. I leaned over to look out of the launch control windows and try to catch a glimpse of the sky, but Eric and Savannah pulled me back.

  “Gills, not a way out.”

  Savannah nodded vigorously. “Come on. I didn’t make it this far just to get liquefied by rocket fuel.”

  “I don’t think you’d be liquefied,” said Howard.

  “Tram!” Nate called, pointing at a sign. “This way!”

  L minus five minutes.

  We sprinted out the door of launch control, down a short hallway and out onto what looked like some kind of underground parking garage. The paved floor was painted with yellow stripes and there was an odd-looking tram car backed up against the far wall. I stared down the dark tunnel ahead of us. Three miles. Five minutes. Yeah, that was possible. Barely. If the tram worked.

  “How does it go?” Nate asked. “Is there a key?”

  I pointed at the round metal rings where the tram met the wall. “I think these are springs, just like on the buildings underground.”

  “So it’s spring-loaded?” Eric asked.

  L minus four minutes.

  “No time to waste,” said Nate, all bossy again. “Everyone in.” We piled into the cab, which was when we saw it again. A big red button, just like the one inside the boulder. We all looked at Howard.

  “Hold on tight,” he said. He pressed it and we were all instantly thrown back against the seat.

  “Steer!” Nate screamed as the walls of the tunnel rushed past us at enormous speed. Howard panicked and grabbed the wheel, steering us up an unsteady path in the gently sloping tunnel.

  L minus three minutes.

  “Hurry!” Savannah said. “Hurry!”

  But if anything, the tram was slowing down.

  L minus two minutes.

  “Let’s take a vote,” Eric said, to break the silence that had descended in the cab as it sped forward. No one was talking or even moving, just sitting there, feeling the tram getting slightly but steadily slower, staring at the blackness ahead of us as if we could beam ourselves away by will alone. “Who prefers burning over drowning?”

  No one laughed. Or voted, for that matter.

  L minus one minute.

  Fifty-nine.

  Fifty-eight.

  Fifty-seven.

  Fifty-six.

  “That voice needs to shut up,” said Savannah. “It needs to shut up right now.”

  But it didn’t. Recordings didn’t stop because Savannah Fairchild ordered them to, just like spring-loaded tram cars traveling on an upward slant didn’t speed up on their own.

  Thirty-five.

  Thirty-four.

  Thirty-three.

  Thirty-two.

  Thirty-one.
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  “I see it!” Howard cried. “The exit.”

  Nate leaned forward. “Really? All I see are rocks.”

  Seconds later, those rocks went flying as we burst through the pile marking the end of the tunnel and the tram car bumped along for a moment, then came to a stop in the sweet, fresh, outdoor air.

  Fifteen.

  Fourteen.

  Thirteen.

  Twelve.

  Eleven.

  Ten.

  “We made it.” Savannah slumped in her seat. I turned around to face her, and caught sight of the fireball erupting in the tunnel behind us. We weren’t out of the danger zone yet.

  “Run!”

  We scrambled out of the tram and started sprinting. I don’t think I’d ever moved so fast in my life. We were in a field of some kind, covered with tall yellow grasses, each and every one of them a firestarter. Everything was ablaze as far as I could see. If the rocket was lifting off, I couldn’t tell through the blinding light.

  “Don’t look!” Eric shouted over the roar of the flames and the jets. “Just run!”

  Columns of fire erupted all over the place, and everyone was running as fast as they could, but through the visor of my helmet I could see the blades of grass all around us turning black and singeing from the heat before a single flame touched them. My feet felt hot, like the rubber was melting on my soles, but I kept running.

  Behind me, I heard a massive groan, as the very earth opened up and a wall of flame shot skyward. The rocket was lifting off.

  A split second later, something blew me off my feet and across the boiling grass. For a moment there was nothing but the roar of flames, and then I felt a hand clutch mine. I don’t know whose it was, but I held on for dear life as a tsunami of fire drowned the world.

  26

  THE FORGOTTEN FORTRESS

  IT ENDED WITH A FIRE. A BLAZING HOT FIRE THAT DEVOURED EVERYTHING it touched, and left five kids in silver suits lying in an empty black field. A bright, gleaming fire that turned into a comet and arced through the night sky, containing all the dreams and secrets of a man the world thought it had lost long ago. A shining, beautiful fire that brought cops, paramedics, and firemen down the lonely dirt road where so many hours earlier, Nate had parked his truck.