by Ryan Casey
But then he knew damn well curiosity was always going to get the better of him, like it always had. Like it always would.
He looked over his shoulder. Back down the direction he’d come from.
Then he took a deep breath and pushed open the door to that room that the bleeping noises came from.
When he saw what he saw… he wasn’t sure how to even begin to comprehend it.
But then he heard the footsteps right behind him, and he knew he wasn’t alone.
Chapter Six
Kelsie looked around her new home and tried to convince herself that she was getting worried about this place for no reason.
It was a nice afternoon. Sunny. Bright. The extraction point didn’t seem as noisy anymore. But maybe that was just because she’d got used to this place since she got here three days ago, or more used to it than she had been, anyway.
But she still felt unsure about it.
She still felt like something was wrong.
It just didn’t seem like anyone else saw things in the same way.
She was standing on her own in a line of people. Mostly kids her age. The new school was opening today. She saw a few of the kids were chatting to each other. Like they’d already made friends. A few of them turned around, looked at her, whispered a few things at each other. It had always been that way with Kelsie. She didn’t look weird, at least she didn’t think so, anyway. She just had this weird way of making other kids dislike her. It’d always been the way back at school. Even in her family with her cousins, it was the same.
Mum told her it was because she was pretty. Because the other kids were jealous of her and the boys fancied her.
But Kelsie wasn’t sure that was true. She felt like it was something else. Something she didn’t really understand.
She took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder, back outside this weird tent she was inside. She’d been dreading enrolling into the school. She’d enjoyed just wandering around the place these last few days, getting to know how it was set up, getting to know some of the people here.
She knew Alison and Gina were out there somewhere. Arya, too. She was in kennels. Richard told her they couldn’t have dogs running around because some people were allergic, and some were just scared.
She felt like telling them that she’d leave then because she wanted Arya by her side at all times. She didn’t want to be apart from her. She loved her, and she didn’t want to be away from her ever again.
But she’d been forced to accept it. Just like she’d been forced to accept everything else.
She felt a nudge to her right.
When she turned around, she saw a boy looking at her.
He was big. Chubby. Bright ginger hair. Freckles all across his mean face. He was about twice the size of Kelsie, but he looked younger.
But it was that mean look on his face that made Kelsie feel uncertain, uncomfortable.
“Who’re you?”
Kelsie swallowed a lump in her throat. She didn’t want to make any enemies right away. But at the same time, she felt like standing up for herself, making it clear to this chubby kid that she was tougher than she looked, and she wasn’t going to be pushed around.
“What’s it matter to you?” she said.
The boy’s eyes narrowed. It was like he wasn’t used to hearing things like that; like he wasn’t used to being stood up to. “I’m just being nice,” he grunted. Then he turned around. “Never mind. Suit yourself.”
Kelsie felt torn, then. Maybe she’d acted too rashly. Maybe she’d judged this boy too quickly.
She reached over and tapped him on his thick, fleshy shoulder.
He turned around. Glared at her. “What do you want?”
“I… I’m sorry. It’s just… I’ve been travelling a long time. Walking a long time. I’m Kelsie. Who’re you?”
The boy just glared at her. And then his stare seemed to soften a little. He reached over, grabbed Kelsie’s hand. “I’m Tom,” he said. “You speak weird, Kelsie.”
Kelsie hadn’t really thought much about the way she spoke. She knew she was different to other kids. That wasn’t something new, either. She’d always been that way. Spoke a bit differently. Spoke bigger words, that kind of thing. Dad used to wonder if she was “on the spectrum,” whatever that meant, but she didn’t think she was on any kind of spectrum. She was just a bit different. Wasn’t everybody a bit different?
“Those women you’re with. They your two mums?”
Another girl turned around, short, thin, blonde. “Tom!”
“Didn’t ask you,” Tom said. “Asked New Fish here. They your two mums, then? Lesbo lovers?”
Kelsie shook her head. “No. They…”
“I told you about being an idiot, Tom,” the girl said. Then she looked at Kelsie, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Ignore him. Seriously. He’s just rude. I’m Siobhan.”
Kelsie shook Siobhan’s hand. And as she stood there in line to sign up for the school they supposedly had going here… she had to admit she quite liked this duo. They seemed nice. Tom was a bit of an idiot, but he wasn’t the bully she’d first feared.
And then the topic of actual parents came up, and Kelsie found herself struggling to speak.
“My mum used to be a fighter jet pilot,” Tom said. “Fought in the Third World War.”
Siobhan frowned. “The Third World War hasn’t even happened yet.”
“Really?” Tom asked. “How do you know that when we’re stuck here with no idea what’s going on outside? And what do girls know about war anyway?”
“But that’s not what—”
“Ssh. New Fish. Where are your real parents, anyway?”
Kelsie thought about her mum and dad. She thought about just how much she missed them. How much she wished they were still here, still around.
In the end all she could do was swallow the lump in her throat. “They’re gone now.”
Tom sighed. “That sucks. Really. Same with mine. Well, my mum’s out there somewhere, fighting the war. She’ll be back for me someday.”
But it was the way he looked at Kelsie that told her all she needed to know.
His mum wasn’t coming back.
They reached the front of the line. Kelsie didn’t say much to them. She just learned a few things. Learned about the school they had going here. About some of the things they were teaching them—survival, living in the outside world, also something weird called “mindfulness.” She learned about how frequently people were extracted out of here.
“Richard told me I’m next in line,” Siobhan said.
“Really?” Kelsie asked.
Siobhan smiled. Nodded. “Next in line for the new world.”
Kelsie wanted to be happy for Siobhan. She wanted to be pleased.
But as she stepped up to the signup desk, pen now in hand… she couldn’t deny that knotting in her stomach. That knotting that something was wrong.
But then she thought about Tom and Siobhan and how happy they seemed here, and she took a deep breath.
Then, she signed.
“Welcome to your new life,” a woman said, smile on her face.
Kelsie nodded.
Turned around.
In the distance, she saw the man with the gun who’d been staring at her on that very first day, watching her.
Closely.
Chapter Seven
Mike heard the footsteps behind him.
But he couldn’t take his eyes off the room ahead of him.
The room where the bleeping was coming from.
The room where he had seen what he was looking at right now…
There were people. People in beds. People wired up to machines.
The lights. The bleeps.
Working hospital equipment.
“I’m guessing you’ve figured out just how widespread our power is at this stage.”
Mike turned around. He saw a man standing there. A man he recognised.
The man in the white coat.
The first man he’d seen when he’d woken up.
Vincent.
He smiled at Mike. Always that smile to his face. A smile that Mike wondered about. That he wondered what it was covering up; what it was hiding.
“How?” Mike asked. It was all he could say. All he could manage. Because he’d seen small pockets of power, sure. But this… nothing like this. “Where am I?”
Vincent sighed. Then, he walked a little closer to Mike. “Like I said. You’re somewhere safe—”
“I don’t want to hear any more about how I’m somewhere safe,” Mike said. “I want to know where I am. I want to know where this place is. I—I want to know why there’s power here.”
Vincent was looking at Mike’s hand with some alarm. It was only then that Mike realised he was staring at the scissors within his grip.
“Mike,” Vincent said.
“No more games. I want to know where I am, and I want to know why this place has power. If you don’t tell me in the next five seconds, I’ll…”
He stopped. Because he saw something. Movement, over to his right.
And then he saw them.
More people emerging.
More people, giving Mike the sense that this place was even bigger than he’d first imagined.
“What’s happening?” Mike asked.
Vincent took a few steps closer, which initially made Mike raise the scissors higher. But he didn’t look like he was concerned about Mike. It didn’t look like he was too worried about what might follow.
Like somehow, he trusted Mike.
“You’re in the old Wright Green hospital just outside of Lancaster,” Vincent said. “Nice rural setting. Pretty out of the way. Not the biggest hospital in the world. But there’s supplies here. And there’s land here. And like I say. It’s pretty rural, which means this place is out of the way. But anyway. You’re probably not too concerned about technicalities right now.”
Mike frowned. He shook his head. “How did I… How did you get me here?”
“On foot, it’s a fair trek. Fortunately, we don’t always have to rely on foot.”
Mike still couldn’t make sense of any of this. “But…”
He stopped, then. Because it dawned on him. The things Vincent was saying. The sign of electricity in here. The signs of life.
“When did this place come back to life?” Mike asked.
Vincent smiled. “See, that’s the thing. It never actually stopped living.”
Mike shook his head. “Impossible.”
“That’s what I thought. The day the EMP struck, for me it was a day just like any other. I tried to drive home, though, and that’s when I realised my car was out of order. And everyone else’s were, too. But the hospital. It was still going. And that’s when we discovered the truth. Hydro-electricity. The hospital was using natural resources—water from the nearby river—in case of emergency. It was a part of a pioneering trial. An experiment. And sure, it’s affected some areas. Sure, functionality isn’t as smooth as it once was. But the fact is… we have the foundations to build something here. We have power here. And you’ll know as well as I do just how precious that is”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. Hydroelectricity. He couldn’t get his head around it. He couldn’t understand it.
But it made sense.
It made total sense.
It was just hard to believe that there really had been places like this surviving all along.
“So this place has power,” Mike said. “But that still doesn’t explain how you picked me up. How you got me here.”
Vincent smiled, then. He took another step towards Mike, who had the scissors lowered now. He put a hand on his shoulder, something that made Mike flinch because he still didn’t trust him, couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust anyone.
But he couldn’t see the flaws in Vincent’s story.
He couldn’t see any other explanation for why this place had power and others didn’t.
“Call that chance. We have a working car. We know it’s finite. We know fuel’s going to dwindle, eventually. But for now… we use it sparingly. Fortunately, we were out on a scouting run when we ran into you. Searching for some people of ours who went missing a while back. Didn’t find them. But you’re lucky to be alive, Mike. You’re lucky we found you. If it’d been any later… I don’t even like to think.”
Mike nodded. But all of this still seemed a bit surreal, a bit dreamlike. “So if there’s a place like this. If there’s a place running on hydroelectricity. Then perhaps there’s more out there that’re just the same?”
Vincent smiled. “Exactly.”
He pointed to the right of Mike, now. Pointed to the people standing there.
“The people at this hospital are working not just to treat people in need, but also to bring people on board for other purposes. Hunting. Farming. Gathering petrol and any supplies we can. Because what we have here is precious. It is sacred. But at the same time… it is under threat.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. “I thought you said this place was a secret?”
“It is,” Vincent said. His face had turned. That smile, that was so ever present, had dropped away completely. “For now, at least. But there are people out there. People who will want to take what we have. That’s just an inevitability.”
Mike swallowed a lump in his throat. “So what do you propose?”
“We grow. We keep on growing. That’s all we can do. And don’t get me wrong. What we have here is a marvellous opportunity that we have to keep on progressing. And we will. You’ll see that. You’ll see what we have here for yourself, and you’ll just know it’s worth every ounce of fight. But we make sure we stick to our principles of non-harming unless provoked. We stick to our principles of doing the best we can for this place—always. Because there are bad people out there. Like the people with the helicopters. We’ve seen them. And they show no mercy.”
A sickening tension in Mike’s gut. “Wait. The people with the helicopters?”
Vincent sighed. “It’s a long story. But—”
“No, I’ve seen them. They—they’re from an extraction point. A place that’s supposed to be taking people away.”
A look of disappointment on Vincent’s face. Not to mention the rest of his people. “Is that what they had you believe?” he asked.
Mike felt his throat going dry. He felt his body tightening. Because he feared what was coming. He feared what he was about to be told.
And also, he remembered.
In what should’ve been his dying moments, he remembered what Calvin said to him.
What he’d hinted about that extraction point.
How it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Because the rest of his people were out there.
And they would find that place.
They would find it, and they would fall into its trap.
“What’s the deal with the extraction point?” Mike asked.
Vincent took a deep breath.
And then he told him everything.
Chapter Eight
When Kelsie got back home—or rather, to her new home—she felt like she could sleep for days.
But she wasn’t going to sleep.
Because the events of the last few days kept on circling around her mind.
It was late. Dark. She couldn’t hear a thing outside, which was proving difficult to adapt to, in all truth. Strange to get used to. She’d been used to hearing the wind against the trees at night. She’d grown used to listening out for some kind of threat, some kind of source of danger.
She’d grown used to all the possibilities of things turning her life upside down, time and time again.
But this place was quiet.
In this place, she felt like she could be at ease. She felt like she could rest.
But at the same time, that’s what threw her even more. That’s what made her even more uncertain. Even more on edge.
“How’re you finding this p
lace?”
Kelsie looked to her left. She was sitting on the edge of her single bed in her new room. The decor was very general, but it was relaxing. Hard to believe you were only in a soundproof portacabin when you were inside it.
And again, it seemed nice. It seemed… hopeful.
But it still didn’t seem right.
Three days here, and it still didn’t seem right.
“It’s okay,” Kelsie said. “I guess.”
Alison tilted her head. “You guess? It looks like you’ve been making friends out there. Like you’ve been settling in.”
Kelsie thought about Tom and Siobhan. She had to admit, they seemed okay. She quite liked them, even if she wasn’t sure about them at first. “They’re alright,” Kelsie said.
“But something’s still getting to you, isn’t it?”
Kelsie didn’t want to tell Alison the truth. She didn’t want to upset her. Because at the end of the day, Alison seemed happy here. And for all she knew, Gina was happy too. They had clearly adjusted to this new pace of life far quicker than she had.
It felt like she was putting a dampener on their happiness if she told them the way she really felt. If she told them the truth about how she was feeling.
But she knew what Alison was like. She knew there was no hiding with her.
“I just feel like… like there’s something about this place. Something I just can’t trust.”
She said it. And she said it with more frankness and more honesty than she had been intending to. She realised she sounded really grown up when she said it, too. Like it was the sort of thing the adults should be saying, not her.
And she saw Alison’s face turn, a little smile curling at the corners. “I know how you feel.”
Kelsie frowned. “You do?”
“Let’s be real, Kelsie. It’d be a miracle if we could just settle in here without any problems, without any trouble. I’m not even sure that’d be possible. Especially after what Gina told us about what her mum told her.”
Kelsie thought about what Gina had said. The talk. The talk that the women here and the children weren’t being taken to some safe haven after all. They were being taken to some kind of place like the one Calvin used to run.