Z 2134

by Platt, Sean

  Tommy’s hand fell on Adam’s back. “Come on,” he said. “You don’t want us to do this without you. Trust me, it might even make you forget about what’s happening to your sister on the outside.”

  After another two minutes of pressure, and the creeping fear that he might lose his only friends in the world, Adam finally agreed, then stood and followed Tommy, Morgan, and Daniel out of the TV hall, then down the long hallway toward the mess hall, which they reached in less than a minute — but walked right by as if they were never aiming for it at all.

  “I thought we were going to the mess hall,” Adam said.

  Daniel said, “Nah, we’re going somewhere cooler.”

  Morgan grinned. “Patience,” he said. “We’ll get there.”

  Adam swallowed, suddenly nervous and wishing he were somewhere else. They walked for another minute until they reached a section of the hallway, far farther then Adam had ever been. The area was roped off for repairs, with a black plastic curtain hanging behind the rope, running from ceiling to floor. A sheet of parchment was stapled to the black plastic with the single word “repair” written in all caps.

  “Where are we?” Adam wondered out loud.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Morgan said, parting the plastic, then ducking behind it. Tommy followed, then Daniel, with Adam taking tentative steps at the rear.

  “We’re not supposed to be here,” Adam said, shaking his head as he stepped past the curtain and then through an open doorway.

  Morgan was first to laugh, but Tommy and Daniel were both only one breath behind. “Don’t be such a bitty baby bitch,” he said through a cackle of laughter.

  “Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “Live a little. You can’t obey all the rules all the time.”

  Adam kept quiet as they crept through a darkened room, filled with a ton of heavy-looking furniture, all of it draped in filthy, dust-covered sheets. Adam wasn’t sure whose room it had been, but it seemed as if it had been there forever, and it had been just as long since anyone had occupied it. Adam wasn’t even aware that there were living areas on the same floor as the TV hall.

  They crossed the shadow-filled obstacle course and found a quiet stairwell on the farthest side. Adam hedged, falling a step back where the dark shadows grew darker.

  Morgan laughed, louder than before, then said, “Peas or grapefruits?”

  “What?” Adam twisted his grin, trying to figure out what Morgan was trying to say without looking scared.

  “Peas or grapefruits?”

  Adam said, “What?” again, as he slowly realized what he thought they were saying. He took a second to chew the probability in his head, since being wrong meant laughing, and always at his expense.

  What if they’re not talking about my testicles?

  “Grapefruits,” Adam said.

  Morgan grinned, said, “All right then, let’s go,” and waved his arm forward, stepping into the dark stairwell. Daniel and Tommy followed, with Adam another three steps behind.

  A new surprise waited one floor below — another room just like the one above.

  Jayla was sitting on the middle cushion of an old couch, with her legs crossed, and wearing the cutest smile Adam had ever seen.

  Jayla was the prettiest girl in Chimney Rock. With olive skin, dark-chestnut hair, and golden eyes, she had a look that was both exotic and intoxicating, so much so that whenever she crossed Adam’s path, he was unable to not look at her.

  Adam noticed Jayla for the first time on his second day at the orphanage. She smiled at him while waiting for her spoonful of lunchtime slop in the mess hall. Judging by the width of her smile, she’d been living at Chimney long enough to maybe not realize how sour the food tasted.

  Jayla smiled at the four boys. As she opened her mouth to maybe say hello, a trio of giggles surfaced, followed by three girls, who emerged from an adjoining room, maybe a bathroom.

  “Hey Tommy,” one of the girls said. Adam recognized all three girls as being friends of Jayla's, though he didn’t know any of their names.

  Adam smelled the smoke before he saw the cigarette, curling into his nostrils and reminding him of the Dark Quarters — the only place kids were said to smoke, not that Adam had ever been in the Dark Quarters.

  The middle girl blew a plume of smoke from her mouth, then held the cigarette out in front of her. Tommy reached to take it, but she quickly drew it back, shaking her head. “It’s for him,” she said, nodding to Adam.

  Adam shook his head. “No thanks,” he said.

  Adam’s friends all laughed. The three girls joined them. While he was used to boys laughing at him, the laughter of the girls cut even deeper and made him feel even dumber.

  Jayla, to her credit, was silent.

  The middle girl shrugged, then handed the cigarette to Tommy and turned to Adam. “Pretty cool, your sister being in The Games. Did you get to watch the opening?”

  The girl’s question was innocent enough, but a current of rage raced through Adam anyway. Before he could stop he yelled: “You wouldn’t think it was a fucking game if it was your sister running from zombies!”

  The middle girl shrank back, her eyes wide and startled. Tommy laughed and Daniel said, “Whoa, did you hear Bilbo? He said fucking.”

  The guys laughed, though it seemed to be a more genuine laughter, instead of one that mocked him.

  Adam, who often talked of The Hobbit, had never said the F Word anywhere outside of his own head. He swallowed, shocked by how good it felt, first on his tongue, and then as it left his lips.

  “Chill,” Morgan set his hand on Adam’s still-shaking shoulder. “It’s OK. Melissa didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Jayla said, “She’s just trying to make conversation,” making Adam feel like he’d been reprimanded by the one person whose opinion he cared about.

  “I know,” Adam said, then stuttered, knowing he couldn’t take it back, but having nothing else to say.

  “It’s my fault,” Jayla said. “I asked Morgan and the boys to bring you down here.”

  Adam was stunned into silence. “What?” he repeated, still stuck for words. “Wh...why?”

  Morgan and Tommy each finished their turn with the cigarette. Daniel drew a final drag, then passed it back to the girl standing to Melissa’s right.

  Jayla smiled. “Because it can’t be easy to have your parents both gone, then wind up in here, only to have your sister sent outside The Wall. We all have our stories, but yours seems worse than most.” She shrugged. “I thought it might cheer you up.”

  Adam was trying to decide what he should say. He was surprised that Jayla had even thought about him, let alone consider how hard everything had been on him.

  The girl who had taken the cigarette from Daniel dropped the butt on the ground, put it out with her heel like a scurrying roach, then bent to the floor, scooped up the evidence, dropped it into her pocket, and turned to Jayla. “Let’s show him.”

  “Yeah,” Morgan agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Adam swallowed, terrified, wondering what it was they wanted to show him.

  “OK,” Jayla said, swinging her feet to the floor, then standing. She held her hand out, and the girl to Melissa’s left filled it with one of the pillowcases in her hand.

  “Let’s fly.” Morgan slapped Adam on the back again, then stepped in front to take the lead. Tommy and Daniel both edged their way by, following the four girls into the shadows as Adam silently followed, trying not to appear as scared as he was.

  They left the room and walked a long hallway without a single light, so dark it may as well have been outside The Wall on a moonless midnight, their footsteps echoing back to them. Adam found it odd that none of the hallway seemed familiar. If it was the floor beneath the TV hall, it should have been one of the teaching levels, not some dusty living quarters.

  Then he realized that the walls, unlike the other floors he’d been on, weren’t black, but rather a faded stone-brown color. It was as if they were in an entirely differ
ent building — kind of like a secret wing in an ancient mansion or castle he’d read about in his books.

  “What is this?” Adam whispered. “These aren’t the classrooms.”

  “It’s one of the secret floors,” Jayla whispered back. There’s a few of them between the other floors, places the elevators don’t get off.”

  “Wow!” Adam said. “How did you know this was here?”

  “When you grow up in The Rock, you hear things,” Jayla said, smiling.

  Somewhere, behind one of the many doors in the hallway, something made a loud groaning sound.

  Adam jumped, startled, and everyone laughed, way too loud for his comfort. He was certain someone would hear them and they’d get in trouble, but he didn’t dare whine — not in front of Jayla.

  “Relax,” Tommy said, slapping Adam’s back playfully. “It’s just the pipes. Haven’t you ever heard the pipes before?”

  Adam laughed, feeling foolish, and smiled. Jayla caught his eyes and smiled.

  They reached the end of the hall and ran into a second set of stairs leading one direction — up. They climbed the narrow stairwell, then opened a black wooden door with faded peeling paint that led to a gleaming, white kitchen.

  “I told you we were going to the mess hall,” Morgan laughed.

  Adam gasped as he stepped into the light. He had never seen the world on the other side of the cafeteria line, but everything in the kitchen seemed shockingly clean and surprisingly new. Everything else in Chimney Rock was ancient and dingy, but the white tile and gleaming aluminum inside the kitchen reminded Adam of the high ceilings and wide-open rooms of his father’s office at CityWatch.

  He swallowed his hesitation and stepped into his bravest voice. “Why are we here?”

  “Because,” Jayla chirped, “they’re about to show the Top 10 Opening Games Moments, and everyone goes out to the hall to watch. Starla noticed it about seven Games back.”

  The girl who must’ve been Starla — the blonde one who had said nothing so far, the one who had been standing to Melissa’s left — smiled and gave Adam a tiny wave. Daniel, Tommy, and Morgan were already in the kitchen’s middle, kneeling beside a giant alloy cabinet and digging through the second-to-bottom drawer.

  “Let’s load up,” Jayla said, shaking her pillowcase.

  Adam joined the huddle and stared down into the drawer, packed high with various-sized white boxes marked “City 6 Rations” over a listing of each box’s contents: cereal, crackers, jam, cookies, dried fruits, nuts, beans, soups, and dried meats.

  “Oh my God. There’s so much food,” Adam whispered.

  Adam salivated, then fell to his knees and started scooping rations into a pillowcase that had fallen into his hand without his even realizing it.

  “Not too many,” Jayla warned. “We have to be careful. If they notice, we can never come back. Let’s move to that one.” She pointed to a second alloy stall on the far side of the kitchen.

  “Good idea,” Morgan said, pulling a pillowcase from Starla’s hand and crossing the kitchen. Halfway there a loud clang rang from behind them.

  Adam’s heart froze.

  “Hey!” a woman shouted into the silence. “Who’s in here?”

  Without any words, the bottom drawer slammed shut and they ran back the way they’d come. Adam’s heart pounded in his chest as he followed, certain that at any second they’d run into an adult.

  “Hello?” the woman shouted from behind, but she seemed to be far enough away that they’d escaped her sight.

  They reached the door to the stairwell and ran down the stairs, back down the hall, and then into the room where they’d been smoking the cigarette.

  Adam was the last through the door and was surprised to find Jayla waiting at the door for him, a huge smile on her face, her eyes wide and alive. Once Adam was inside, she pulled the door closed and locked it.

  “Oh my God!” Starla said, “That was soooo close!”

  Adam collapsed on the couch, his lungs on fire, adrenaline coursing through him, mixing with fear, exhilaration, and then, to his surprise, laughter, which erupted out of his mouth like a bark at first.

  Everyone turned, looking at him, as shocked as he was by his laughter, and then they joined him.

  Jayla joined him on the couch, and their eyes met. She smiled and said, “You’re pretty cool, Adam.”

  “Balls like grapefruits!” Morgan shouted, ripping into a box of cookies, and chowing on them.

  Adam was too excited and nervous to eat, though.

  “Shouldn’t we get back to the TV hall?” Adam asked.

  “No, we’re gonna wait until right before the show is over and they go back to live footage,” Tommy said.

  “Relax,” Jayla said, putting a hand on Adam’s hand.

  Her skin was soft, and so much darker than his pale skin. And his hand was shaking.

  “Everything’s gonna be OK,” she said, smiling the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

  And as Adam sat there with his new friends, next to the prettiest girl in the world, he felt happier than he could remember being in a long time. He wished his father could see him.

  And with that thought came a flash of guilt as he wondered what his father would think of his theft.

  CHAPTER 12 — Jonah Lovecraft

  Jonah woke with a splitting headache hammering between his ears hard enough to make him wonder whether he’d been out all night or half-dead for a month. His throat was dry, and his mind filled with a fog thick enough to cut through.

  His arms and legs were bound to a chair.

  He pulled at the bindings, but they wouldn’t give, and pulling hurt his arms too much.

  Jonah blinked several times, trying to move his mind into motion as he cast his eyes across the dim room, which was lit by a single old tube light in the ceiling. Still waiting for his blurred vision to clear, Jonah sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose at the musty scent.

  He wondered how long he’d been out, and more so, where the hell the kids had brought him. The last thing he remembered was them walking toward a tunnel.

  He couldn’t remember anything after that.

  They must’ve drugged me with a coma dart or something.

  The wavy lines in front of his eyes finally straightened, and Jonah found himself blinking at an ancient-looking poster, still trying to focus. The poster, announcing some sort of high-speed train, showed a drawing of a giant train racing through a tunnel and out onto a track high above a city. Giant bold type announced,

  “The Bullit: The Maglev Across America! Tomorrow’s Train TODAY! Debuting in the Winter of 2030.”

  He was underground, in the old Maglev station, which had been turned into an underground habitat for many banished from City 6. He’d never been to the station and had only heard of it from Duncan, though most people didn’t know of its location. While the Cities didn’t care much about anyone beyond The Wall, there were no doubt people living in The Barrens that City Watch would love to get its hands on — to question, torture, and exact some ounce of flesh for offenses, real and perceived.

  Had the people who’d taken him known that he was Underground and that he’d helped get so many people to this very place, he’d be a hero, not a prisoner. But neither the City nor the network had exposed him as an Underground operative. They didn’t want to make him a martyr — so instead, they made him a crazed wife killer.

  All Jonah was to these people was a former Watcher, someone they’d hold responsible for their treatment within The Walls of City 6.

  Jonah was an enemy without a state.

  He twisted his head to the right, gasping in a surprise when his gaze fell onto a man whose shoulders were broad enough to be dangerous, though he was short enough to be considered a dwarf.

  “Nice to see you awake,” the dwarf said.

  Jonah tried to hide his shock of seeing a dwarf, as it was so rare to see one alive. Dwarves were among those forced to live in the Dark Quarters, lives consigned to freak show
or sex trade. That was assuming they weren’t murdered at birth as most were. The Cities allowed only one child per couple unless you could afford a ticket for a second. Parents rarely wanted to “waste” their child credit on anything less than a perfect clone of themselves.

  The dwarf seemed to be around 35 or so, with long brown hair and a matching scruffy beard. His eyes were ice blue, though weary from all that he’d likely seen and experienced.

  “You’re probably wondering how long you’ve been out,” the dwarf said, his voice smooth and eloquent, not at all Dark Quarters brusque.

  “How long?” Jonah asked.

  “A few days. You must’ve really needed your rest,” the dwarf smiled. He seemed almost friendly. Though Jonah couldn’t allow himself to trust his captors just yet.

  After a long stretch of silence, Jonah asked, “What is it you want from me?”

  Jonah had been on the other side of interrogations more times than he could count. He recognized an interrogator when he saw one.

  “Only answers,” the dwarf said. “Nothing more. You are safe here, and that’s how you’ll stay, so long as you cooperate. If you don’t,” he shrugged, still smiling, “well, you can imagine.”

  The dwarf laughed, but Jonah had no idea whether his laughter was pleasant or cruel. “Ask away,” Jonah said. “I’ve nothing to hide.”

  There was something disarming about the interrogator not hovering above Jonah, being at eye level, despite the fact that the dwarf was standing and Jonah was seated. As the man paced back and forth in front of Jonah, seemingly in thought, Jonah felt a chill run through him.

  “Very well, then,” the dwarf said. “My name is Father Truth, but you can call me Father.”

  “Father Truth?” Jonah repeated. “Your parents give you that name?”

  With no expression in his eyes, Father said, “My parents gave me nothing, including my name.” He cleared his throat. “So Watcher, why were you banished?”

  Though every other word sounded perfectly pleasant, Watcher may as well have been Satan.

  “If you know I’m a Watcher,” Jonah said, “and that I was banished, then you obviously saw me on The Games. So what is it you’re really asking?”