by Harrison, S.
After a few minutes of follow-the-leader, I see her slide out of an opening up ahead. I reach the edge of the opening and poke my head out into a small, rectangular room of some kind. I crawl out from the hole, and even though the back of my head bumps the ceiling, I’m thankful that I’m able to stand. Actually, calling this a “room” would be an overstatement; it’s hardly more than a large metal box, and everyone has somehow managed to squeeze themselves in. Blondie is disheveled, Ryan is still rubbing at his arm, and Brent and Brody both look sullen. “You’re bleeding!” Otto says, staring at my face close-up, which I suddenly realize must be smeared all over from the cut I had on my forehead.
“No, I’m not,” I reply.
“Then where did all that blood come from?”
I look toward Brody. He’s ripped the sleeves from his school shirt and wrapped one of them tightly around his right hand. I give him a nod of thanks, and he smiles back.
“Oh yeah,” Otto says, looking down at his makeshift bandage. “Brody mentioned that you accidentally bit him.”
“I thought he was a Drone,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. I figure it’s a whole lot easier to let Otto jump to the wrong conclusion than to try and explain how I healed a bleeding gash in my head with nothing but a focused thought.
Everyone is squashed into the meager spaces between the vent openings and the multiple circular devices attached to the floors, walls, and ceiling. I look around and count five of them in all. They’re cake shaped, a little wider than dinner plates, and have rolls of brushes protruding from their undersides.
“Is this what you wanted me to see, Otto? A box full of pissed-off kids and some deactivated cleaning robots?”
“No. You need to see this,” she says, pointing at the opening in the low ceiling. There are ladder indents going all the way up one of the inside walls of the vertical shaft. “I found this junction space and this ladder purely by chance,” she says as she ducks into the opening and jumps, grabbing the rungs and pulling herself up. “C’mon,” she says over her shoulder. I duck into the opening and pull myself in, too, following hand over hand right behind her. Not only does she scurry like a hamster, but the skinny little computer geek climbs like a damn monkey. It isn’t long before she’s way ahead of me.
“Where does it lead?” I call ahead. “Is it a way out?”
“Not exactly,” she calls back.
We’re climbing for a minute or so when the metal sides of the duct abruptly end. The shaft continues upward, but now the ladder rungs are carved into what feels like stone. Light shining from somewhere above moves over the walls between the edges of Otto’s shadow, and I see that it is stone, a dark, charcoal-gray-colored stone. After another minute, Otto climbs out up ahead, and I’m hit in the eyes with bright sunshine as my ears are met with the sound of rushing water. It is a way out!
I climb up through the square hole at the top of the ladder and prop myself on the edge of the vent, my feet dangling inside, suddenly confused by what I’m seeing. We’re on what seems to be a flat-topped stone tower of some kind. The top surface is about the size of half a basketball court, and there are two rows of palm trees growing on either side of it. Water is pouring over the edge of the tower from two stone aqueducts carved out beside each row of trees, and down on the ground at least fifty meters below, blanketing the surrounding area all around the tower, is a mass of thick green jungle.
“Where the hell are we?” I ask.
“We’re inside Dome One,” Otto says dejectedly.
“This is inside the main dome?” I ask.
Otto nods.
“But I can see the sky. If we can just make it down to the ground somehow and walk through the jungle, your classmates are free to go.”
“Don’t be fooled, Infinity,” says Otto. “This jungle and that sky are part of the dome. None of it is what it appears to be. Look at the clouds,” she says, motioning upward. “Look at them closely.”
I look up at the sunny blue above us and pick out a cloud that I think looks a little bit like a dragon. It’s white and fluffy, moving slowly across the sky, and apart from its shape there’s nothing unusual about it . . . until suddenly the cloud flickers and pixelates at the edges, then jitters and vanishes altogether before reappearing in a different part of the sky, looking identical to how it did half a second ago.
“So it’s a projection on the curve of the dome?” I ask, and Otto nods. “Fancy tech,” I add.
“Yeah. Fancy tech that’s glitching,” says Otto. “Even if we could make it to the ground from here, we’d still be trapped in this dome. And if that weren’t bad enough, we’d also be trapped in here with them.” Otto points down to the ground. I crawl over to her and follow the line of her finger. There, standing among the vines and leaf litter, is a group of four Crimson-Class Combat Drones.
I scan around, and through the gaps of tangled foliage far to the left, I spot the silver sheen of at least four more Drones, standing completely still on what looks like a white-tile path. On the right, another bunch of six are standing in a clearing, all of them Crimsons and all of them, much to my envious dismay, carrying long black Sentry 88 fully automatic ballistic assault rifles.
“This place is crawling with Drones, and some of them have guns,” I whisper. “If you knew we couldn’t get out this way, then why did you bring me up here?”
“I wanted you to see it for yourself,” whispers Otto. “You need to get an idea of how dangerous this place is. That jungle down there is made of a substance that can change its shape into anything the computer wants it to become. The computer is malfunctioning and unpredictable, which makes everything even more dangerous, and if there are armed Drones looking for us in here, then they’re probably going to be everywhere. When we go into Dome Two, we had better be prepared.”
“We could avoid Dome Two altogether, y’know.”
Otto gives me the icy glare that I expected she would. “That’s not the deal,” she says.
“OK, then,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “You can’t blame me for trying. What’s the plan?”
“First, we have to make it to the Security Station. If I can get my computer slate back, I might be able to access the Blackstone computer and shut down some of its security protocols. I might even be able to shut down the Drones.”
“You can do that?”
“I don’t know. But if we’re gonna try, we’d better do it fast. Back in the crystal tunnels, the computer said its cameras were off-line. Those Drones down there haven’t focused any attention on us up here, so I’m assuming the cameras are still down. We need to make it as far as we can while we can’t be seen.”
“But the computer identified us with motion sensors. Why haven’t we triggered the motion sensors in here?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” says Otto. “It must take a lot of processing power to maintain that jungle, and we know the computer isn’t functioning at full capacity. My best guess is that the computer is either distracted or the sensors are only active on the lower levels. Whatever the reason, it probably won’t stay that way.”
“So outside the domes, we stick to the vents for as long as we can, and move fast out in the open?”
Otto nods in agreement.
“Well, then, we’d better stop burning time.” I get to my feet and walk to the vent. I’ve been through quite a few air vents and heating ducts on various missions over the years, and this is a little trick that I’ve always enjoyed. I turn to Otto and smirk. “See you at the bottom.” Then, without touching the sides of the opening . . . I jump in. I plunge down the vertical duct like a missile, holding my flurrying skirt down so I can see the way as I free fall, whooshing right past where the rock wall becomes metal.
I see the end of the duct coming, so, using the edges of the soles of my shoes as brakes, I press them against the sides of the duct. I push my back against it to slow my
descent even more. It’s only a few seconds’ journey from the top of the tower to the small, metal room, and I gently drop from the vent to the floor with a quiet, ringing thrum.
Ryan looks up at me from his spot against the wall. “Bit told us what’s up there. I’m sure you agree that it’s suicide to try and get out that way.”
“Pretty much,” I reply.
“So, what do we do now?” asks Blondie.
“We stick to Otto’s plan and use the ducts to head for the Security Station. It’s not a great plan, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”
“Where is Bit?” asks Brody.
I’m about to say that she’ll be a few minutes, but my thought is cut off from my lips by Otto’s voice bellowing from the square hole beside my head. “Look out belooooow!” I quickly move out of the way as the long, sustained squeaking sound of rubber against metal is suddenly followed by Otto dropping out of the shaft and pounding the floor of the tiny room with a reverberating metallic thud. She crouches on one knee, panting at the air, a mass of frizzy brown hair thrown over her face.
“Bit! Are you OK?” shouts Brody.
Otto flicks her hair back. Her freckled cheeks are flushed bright red and plastered with a grin from ear to ear. “Oh yeah,” she says, her words trailing off into a breathy giggle. “That was fun.”
I can’t help smiling to myself. Bettina Otto is turning out to be much more interesting than I thought she was when we first met that fateful night four weeks ago.
With the rush blush still pinking her face, she adjusts her glasses, sheds her school blazer, and, casting it into a rumpled heap on the floor, strides over to one of the openings on the wall. “I’m pretty sure we go this way,” she says, and without so much as a backward glance, she crawls in and scurries ahead.
“You heard her,” I say. “Move your useless carcasses, or get left behind.”
Blondie is the first to jump up; she hurries to the opening and crawls in. Brent pushes to his feet and squeezes past me, his narrow-eyed stare resembling an amusing attempt to burn my eyes out with imaginary lasers. Brody is next, and I pat him on the shoulder as he passes. Ryan follows close behind, but stops and looks me square in the eyes. “I don’t know who you are, or understand why you even exist,” he says. “But if you hurt Finn in any way—”
“You’ll what?” I say, cutting him off.
He doesn’t say another word, but the look he gives me speaks volumes as his eyes delve deeply into mine, flicking from one to the other as if he’s somehow trying to reach beyond who I am, searching to find a glimmer of someone who isn’t there. Ryan’s concern becomes disappointment. He turns away and crawls into the opening of the vent as an uneasy pang ripples through me. No one has ever looked at me like that before. If I didn’t know any better, I might be inclined to think that what I’m feeling is . . . flattered?
I shudder, disturbed merely by the thought of it.
I take a deep breath and immediately quash the intensely unpleasant sensation. That look of concern on Ryan’s face was not for me. It was for her, and it only serves to strengthen my hate for everything she is. As I crawl into the vent, I decide to purge the bitter dregs of useless emotions that Finn has obviously infected me with and leave them to wither and die in this metal coffin of a room. Soon, with Otto’s help, I’ll have the chance to erase her from existence. There’s no space in this body for anyone but me, and the more I learn about the life that Finn has been allowed to live, the more I want to burn it all to the ground . . . and spit on the ashes.
With freshly tempered hatred warming my heart, I carry on through the duct, following behind Ryan as Otto’s directions echo from up ahead. After quite a few minutes of being unwillingly subjected to the sight of Ryan’s butt, I hear Otto’s voice ring out from somewhere in the distance.
“Dammit.”
“What is it?” calls Brent.
“The end of the line,” replies Otto.
I keep following Ryan, and before long, we’ve caught up with the rest of the group. Everyone is lying in a row in a long, straight section of duct. Shafts of light are streaming in from horizontal ventilation grills in the left-hand wall, and I can see that beside Otto, at the far end of the section, is a flat, metal dead end. Everyone is peering out of the grills. I wriggle into a semicomfortable position and do the same. The vent grills are level with the pavement of what appears to be a large courtyard just outside, but it’s difficult to get a clear idea of the layout from this rodent’s-eye point of view. All I can really see is the base of what looks like some stone-bench seating nearby, some decorative plants overhanging them to the left, and part of a curvy sculpture in the distance. I can see a little bit of the blue sky. I angle my eyes and focus on a tuft of white cloud. It doesn’t glitch or disappear, and I feel confident that we’ve made it out from under Dome One, but just to confirm, I ask anyway.
“Are we in the right place?” I whisper.
“We’re heading in the right direction,” replies Otto. “I would have liked to have gotten closer to the Security Station without leaving the vents, but they only get smaller from here. This is our only option.”
“I can’t see any movement out there,” says Ryan. “Hopefully there aren’t any Drone patrols.”
“Let’s just assume that there are,” I say. “Where’s the Security Station?”
“It isn’t visible from here,” whispers Otto. “. . . but I remember that statue out there from the 3-D model I memorized. If I take the relative approximate size of that statue and scale it up from the model, I estimate the Security Station is about a hundred and fifty meters or so directly northwest of the statue . . . If, using the statue as a central marker, we consider the direction of Dome One to be south.”
“You are such a neeeerd,” whispers Brent.
“That nerd is your only chance of getting out of here in one piece,” I say, and Brent sneers without turning to acknowledge me. “What does the station look like?”
“Judging from the model, I estimate that it’s about eight to twelve floors high and triangular,” says Otto. “It’s surrounded by a few similar-looking administration buildings, so we’ll have to skirt around them. I’m not sure what color the station is—the 3-D model was rendered all in white—but there’s a big tree out in front of it that’s kinda shaped like the letter U. You’ll know it when you see it.”
“We?” whispers Blondie. “You said ‘we’ will have to skirt around them. I’m not going out there.”
“You can stay here if you like,” I reply. “But if there are Drones out there, I’m gonna be too busy running to bother coming back for you.”
“Why can’t we just run for help?” whispers Blondie. “We’ll be outside, so we can just keep running until we make it to the main road.”
“It was at least a ten-minute bus ride to the dome from the main road,” whispers Brent. “That’s a long way to run when you’re being chased by robots that don’t get tired.”
“Not to mention the gate we came through with the razor wire fence and the big warning signs with lightning bolts on them?” Ryan chips in.
“Oh yeah. I forgot about those,” mumbles Brody.
“I think you should go for it, Blondie,” I whisper with a smile. “You can lead all the Drones away from the rest of us.”
“Screw you,” she snipes. “And my name is not ‘Blondie.’ It’s Margaux.”
“Well, Margaux . . . the choice is yours. You can either hide in an air duct with nowhere else to go; you can run off and get electrocuted, ripped to pieces, or shot; or you can take your chances running for shelter beside three boys that are bigger and slower targets than you are.”
“Hey,” protests Brody.
“Sorry, Brody, but the choice is pretty obvious. Our best bet is to find a solid structure to hole up in and hope like hell that Otto can access the computer and shut the Drones down.”
“And if she can’t?” asks Ryan.
“I guess we’ll have to cross that burning bridge if we come to it,” I whisper. “So we head for the Security Station?”
Margaux pouts and sighs with reluctant acceptance. The absence of any protest from the others confirms their answers.
I take one final intensive glare through the slots, staring in the direction we need to run, and then shuffle and twist around so my back is against the wall of the duct. I bring my knees up, press my shoes against the grating, and push hard. It takes a little more effort than I expected, but before long my short section of the grating begins to bend outward. I ease back onto my knees, and with a little more levering with my elbow, I manage to make the opening big enough to crawl through.
“Is everyone ready?”
Margaux stares intently though the thin slots in the grating, snorting quiet, adrenalized breaths as Otto’s and the boys’ narrow-eyed, stony expressions are mirrored by mine. Everyone nods solemnly.
“Good luck,” I whisper as I crawl headfirst through the open section of the grate and worm my way onto the cool gray paving stones outside.
“Dr. Pierce! Dr. Pierce, wake up!”
“Ahhh! What . . . who . . . what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s Finn; her vital signs are stabilizing.”
“Let me see . . . Oh, thank heavens. The bruising and abrasions have all gone. Infinity must be back in control. Bring me that ultrasound slate over there. Yes, that one . . . thank you. Now, let’s have a look. Hmmm. Her internal injuries have improved greatly. Her ribs are fused back together, and her legs look to be nearly eighty percent healed. She’s going to live.”
“Dr. Pierce . . . I was wondering . . .”
“Yes? What is it, girlie? Spit it out.”
“Well, I was wondering if you could tell me . . . what exactly is she?”