Ten Days

by Olivia Mayfield

  Beyus gave me a cruel smile. “All praise the Machine, Cally.” With that, he moved out of the room, the door closing behind him.

  As soon as it did, the cuffs unlocked from around my wrists, absorbing into the floor. I rubbed the sharp chafe, wishing I could make the panicked edge around my heart go away so easily.

  The Machine seemed to be getting better. Which meant my sentencing was going to go through, and I was going to be cast out.

  Or executed.

  Stars blinked in front of my eyes; I grew dizzy and lay back on the ground, pressing my palms to the cool floor. Tears slid down the sides of my face, into my ears, slicking my hair. How had my life gotten so out of control?

  So many things I’d never gotten to do. People I’d never gotten to say goodbye to. Where were Kuno and Marshal and Hanson? Were they okay? Did they miss me like I missed them? Sobs ripped from my chest, painful shudders, and I curled onto my side, letting the agony pour out of me.

  For just a moment, I could give in to this pain.

  For just a moment.

  * * *

  One Day

  I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed, except that I had two servings of meals waiting for me—must be last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast. Surprising myself, I’d fallen asleep after crying so hard. My mouth was dry and my eyes were swollen, but cleansing myself of all that agony was surprisingly cathartic.

  I was almost numb now. Almost, but not quite.

  The lights had continued their steady flicker. My day dragged on, measured in silent ticks. Water. Stretching. Studying the walls, the floors, for any way to escape. Counting seconds. Water. A bite of fruit. Stretching. Studying the door for any way to escape.

  Missing Marshal.

  The ache for him in my heart was widening, its edges fraying from worry and fear. Now that I’d found love, it had been so cruelly ripped away from me. I was reminded of something Kuno had once said to me when speaking of death. In the end, no one could go with you into that darkness. You took that final trip alone.

  Never had I been more alone than I was right now.

  But I would spend these moments remembering everything that had happened in my life. Those stolen memories that no one could ever shame out of my heart.

  I dipped my finger into the water and wrote I Love Marshal on the wall. It dripped down the smooth surface and dried in only a moment. But even though I couldn’t see it, somehow I knew it was still there.

  I lay awake on the floor for several hours, letting the few lines of Shakespeare I still remembered fill my mind, ease my soul. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” As I said the words out loud, I remembered the warm strength of Marshal’s hand in mine as we’d walked on the surface.

  Just the hot sun, the sweeping breezes and us.

  * * *

  The Event

  A great, metallic groan pulled me out of my sleep. It was loud, enormously so, shaking the walls and floor, like the earth itself convulses. The sound was all around me, beneath me, just behind the surface of the walls and floor.

  I stood on uneasy legs and moved to the center of the room, afraid to even move.

  The noise shivered its way into the soles of my feet. Lodged beneath my skin. Rattled my bones and joints.

  There was a massive explosion somewhere far away, another explosion, more groaning and grinding sounds that almost shuddered my teeth from my mouth. I clamped my hands over my ears, crying out from the strange, horrible pain stabbing my brain.

  The lights blinked then went out, plunging me into utter darkness.

  I gasped, body stiffening, and reached my hands out around me, tentatively feeling for the walls.

  Another large, grinding roar shrieked out, one that went on for what felt like decades.

  Then, silence.

  Echoing, painful silence.

  It nearly bled my ears, the way it had when I’d…gone to the surface. The way it had sounded when I’d been finally out of reach of the Machine.

  And that was when I knew.

  My stomach pitched violently, squeezing hard. If I’d had any food on it, I would have thrown it up.

  The Machine.

  It had finally stopped.

  Chapter 22

  “The most effective way to show your immense gratitude for the many abundant gifts of the Machine is to proclaim it proudly and often: All praise the Machine.” ~ The Book of the Machine

  It took me a full minute to move from my position, to unfreeze my limbs and head toward the door. I tried to unlock it. Nothing.

  With clenched fists I banged on the door, on the walls. “Let me out!” I said as loud as I could, again and again until my throat burned from the effort. Surely someone could hear me. Surely someone knew I was trapped in here.

  I wasn’t going to die in here. Not like this.

  Finally I stopped yelling, and that was when I heard it.

  Loud cries. Wails. I couldn’t tell where they were from, but they were everywhere. Screeches of fear and pain. Piercing squeaks, layer upon layer of voices tumbling over each other.

  I crumpled down in front of the large door and continued hammering my open palm against it, in spite of the seemingly futile effort. Surely someone would hear me. They had to, right?

  I didn’t really know how much time passed. Each cry of agony echoing down the tunnel just outside my door pierced my heart in a strange, painful way. The destruction of my culture, my people, my society was all around me. I didn’t belong, didn’t fit in.

  But I didn’t want them to die.

  Some stupid, secret part of me had thought we’d have more time, that it wouldn’t fall apart this fast…or maybe wouldn’t even happen at all. I’d hoped Kuno was wrong.

  Right now I couldn’t even let myself think about him. Marshal. Hanson. I had to just focus on—

  There was a strong grinding sound around the door and then it shoved in. I scrambled away just in time to avoid being hit by it swinging toward me. Gratitude, fresh and painfully strong in its beauty, swelled in me and then stopped in confusion.

  It was Hanna, holding a portable light in one hand, her other fingers wrapped around the door.

  Her eyes were wide, streaked with tears, red-lined and rimmed with fatigue and fear. Her hair stuck out in puffy blond patches on her head, unusually messy. She peered around the edge of the door and saw me then shuffled forward on unsteady legs. “Thank the—” She stopped, shocking me with a strange, eerie laugh. It sent a chill skittering across my skin. “I was going to thank the Machine that you’re safe. How ironic is that? Oh, how very ironic, indeed.”

  I’d never seen her this…unhinged.

  With careful steps I walked toward her, trying to shut out the cries outside the room that grew impossibly loud when the door opened. “Thank you for setting me free,” I managed to say. I wanted to reach over and touch her arm, let her know the depths of my gratitude, but I couldn’t.

  “For the last few days I sat in my pod. Thinking about you. About—” A piercing scream cut her off and she blinked, shook her head. “No time for that right now. Go. And take this with you—you won’t find one out there.” She handed me the light then held the door open wider, her arms shaking with the effort. Even these small movements tired her body, unused to anything but utter dependence on the Machine.

  “Help me!” someone wailed. An old, thin voice bounced down the hallway. The sobbing tremor rippled right into my heart. “Help—”

  There was a loud, crunching thud and then she went silent.

  My jaw dropped, and my heart stopped for a full second. “What is going on?”

  Hanna exhaled heavily, slid down to the floor as if all her energy had been sapped from her body. “It’s chaos. Please be careful.”

  “Come with me,” I said impulsively, reaching for her hand.

  Even in spite of our world ending, she still shuddered when I got too close.

  Old habits died hard. I pulled my hand back, giving her a sad
smile, swallowing back that fresh surge of anguish at her rejection. She’d saved my life, probably using all of her strength to come open this door for me. I had to remember that.

  “I need to…I need to rest for a minute,” Hanna finally said. “And then I need to find the Committee. They’ll know what to do.”

  They were probably just as powerless as she was. And yet she couldn’t let them go.

  “I have to go,” I whispered, fighting back the swell of tears. I was torn, wanting to stay and help but needing to find Marshal.

  She waved me off, leaning her back against the door and closing her eyes. “Be well, Cally. I’m going to sit here. Just to catch my breath.”

  I nodded and turned, giving her the space she needed. Then I turned back. “If you change your mind, I’ll be—”

  “Just go,” she said. “Now.”

  I nodded again, hot tears sliding down my face now, and proceeded down the tunnel. It was empty—not surprising, given I was in the holding pod. There was only one other door down the entire stretch, the entrance just shortly ahead.

  It took everything in me to keep my hand steady, to shine the light on the door where I was fairly certain Marshal was being housed.

  It was already open.

  I shone the light inside—the room was just like mine. And utterly empty.

  He wasn’t here.

  Was he alive? The tiniest flutter of hope lit in my chest. There was a chance he was, that he’d gotten out and away somehow. The only thing I could do right now was believe he was alive.

  And proceed with our plan.

  My breath came out in small pants; fear had squeezed my lungs to the size of my thumbnail. More cries of sadness and pain and fear ricocheted down the tunnel—the entrance to the main transportation tunnel was just in front of me. Each step made it louder, amplified my own fear.

  When I reached the T of the tunnel, I could scarcely believe what I saw. Many of the pod doors were flung open, with a few weak people clawing their way out of the rooms, trying desperately to make use out of useless limbs.

  “Hey, you!” one older man down the right branch shouted at me. “Give me that light! Give it here!” He slinked toward me with awkward-moving limbs, his eyes black orbs in the stark light cast by my handheld.

  I flinched, turning and running down the left side, away from him. Several hands grabbed at my ankles as I passed people lying on the sides of the tunnel, the action reminiscent of the Machine’s repair mechanism. Grasping for me.

  And yelling at me.

  “Carry me out of here, girl!”

  “Give me that light!”

  “Stop! Stop!”

  “It’s mine! I’ll take it!”

  Voices tumbled over each other. And then they argued with themselves.

  Stay calm, I order ed myself. My body was hyperaware of what was around me, senses flooded with every minute detail. Though I’d had no energy before, now I was ready to run until the ends of the earth to accomplish our plan.

  I was so glad we’d had the chance to organize before this.

  Then I stopped in my tracks. A body lying on its stomach was stretched across the length of the hall, chalky flab and skin nearly bursting out of the tunic. Thick brown hair cascaded like a river from the person’s head, the tips and underside stained by a red liquid flowing from the partially covered face.

  Blood.

  While most of the face was covered, I could see red streaming down from the woman’s ears. Her eyes were wide open, staring blindly at me.

  My stomach curdled, heaved for a long moment. I looked away from the body, fighting the rush of panic overtaking me.

  Focus. You have to stay alive and find Hanson.

  The plan.

  The plan.

  Yes. The plan. I had to stay on track. Even though I felt like pieces of my mind were fragmenting bit by bit.

  With a big inhalation of air, I mustered my courage and moved around the person’s feet. Then I saw what was on her other side. Her left arm was crooked around a Book.

  Step 1 of the plan: rescue loved ones. For me, that meant Hanson. Since he was so far away, I needed to use transportation to reach him. Transport not completely hinged on Machine technology.

  Like air-ships.

  I swallowed and before I could talk myself out of it, yanked the Book out from under her arm, which flopped back down into place with a rippling smack. Then I ducked into her pod and closed the door until it was open just barely a sliver, dimming the light to its lowest setting. People were still screaming outside; if they couldn’t see me, they wouldn’t find me.

  A small shudder goose-bumped my skin when I thought about the animalistic cries around me. We were all reduced to our most base, instinctive needs in crisis states. A part of me wanted to go back and help them, every one of them, but how could I? I couldn’t carry them all to safety.

  And the anger, the vitriol from those demanding I turn over my light, willing to take me down and steal it was an all-too-vivid reminder of Kuno’s words.

  He’d warned me that it might become like this at the end, people so chaotic and self-serving. I needed to stay on task right now and rescue the ones who mattered the most. Hanson was my goal, my priority.

  My fingers shook as I flipped to the air-ship schedule. According to Kuno’s explanation of how the air-ships worked, odds were, they’d still be going, and I could use one to travel to the public nurseries and get Hanson. And right now, it was the quickest way to reach him.

  There was a flight leaving soon. But I had to go.

  Now.

  I closed the book, keeping my light on dim, and darted out of the pod, running as fast as I could toward the nearest lift. While the lifts themselves wouldn’t be working, we were only a couple of floors below the air-ship platform level. My trip down the tunnel took far too long, time ticking away in silent increments in my head. I didn’t know how much time had actually passed but I couldn’t be late. Couldn’t—

  Someone slammed into me, knocking me into the wall. The air was pushed out of my lungs and I dropped the light, which clanked to the floor.

  A man, the one who’d attacked me earlier, shoved me away from him and scrambled on hands and knees for the light.

  “No!” I cried out, jumping on his back.

  He dropped to the ground, rolling over to pin me beneath his massive, broad back. I could see his thick, chunky fingers flailing for the light.

  His weight smothered me. I panted in tiny breaths, fighting the urge to vomit as I inhaled his scent. He smelled filthy, like he hadn’t cleansed in days. His hair was dirty and slimy.

  Then his head thrust back to hit my forehead.

  Stars blinked in my eyes as my head exploded from the impact.

  “Get…off…” I managed to say, reaching around his thick neck and clawing at his eyes, his mouth, anything to get him off me. My fingernails made purchase in his skin, drawing jagged lines across his meaty flesh.

  My nails dragged, and I dug harder.

  “Ah!” he cried out, rolling over to his side, grasping for his face.

  I scrambled to get up, head swirling still, and wobbled my way to the light. He kicked a leg out toward my calf, almost knocking me off my feet again.

  Anger, hot and thick and deadly, boiled in my stomach. “Stop!” I screamed, stomping down on his hand and grinding my heel against his fingers.

  He squealed, trying to tug his hand out from under my foot. The shadows played across his face, with strips of light illuminating the deep, bloody scratches I’d inflicted. “Give me that light!” he yelled. There was murder in his eyes. I knew right then that he would never stop until he got it.

  Fighting the sick swirl in my stomach, my head, I stomped on his hand again, then on his side. I kicked him in his abdomen. Again.

  Again.

  A gurgle erupted from his mouth and he stopped moving.

  I was too afraid to check if he was…

  I grabbed the light and ran.

&n
bsp; It took me far too much precious time to finally get to the lift. Every step, I repeated the same words in my head: I have to make it. I have to make it.

  I couldn’t get the man’s cruel eyes out of my head, the way he’d been willing to hurt—or kill—me just for a light. And my own stark anger that had made me fight back.

  The lift’s doors were closed, but I used the heel of the light to smash the glass of one pane, large enough for me to fit in. My skin and tunic snagged in a couple of spots when I ducked through, but I bit back my tears and ignored the pain.

  The ladder was here, as Kuno had said it would be.

  I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed before. But in a society where there was no need for body movements—no real need to travel at all, actually—I’d paid no attention to those small allowances for manual labor, those leftovers from construction of the colonies and the Machine.

  The rung was sweaty in my hand when I reached out and grabbed hold. Against my better judgment, I looked down.

  The lift’s tunnel dropped into darkness.

  My stomach lurched. I counted the number of rungs to the next level for a unit of measurement, tucked the light into the waistband of my pants and climbed my way up.

  Every step up brought me closer to Hanson.

  I fought the dizziness and stopped for just a moment, focusing my eyes on the rung in front of me so things would stop spinning. Sweat mingled with the small streams of blood on my skin, sliding down and dampening my clothing.

  The air was still. The lift tunnel was a quiet reprieve from the madness of the main tunnels.

  I moved up again. Only twelve more rungs to reach the air-ship platform level. I could do this. The natural light from the level illuminated the lift tunnel. I saw my destination right above me.

  Hanson’s bright eyes beckoned me in my mind. Would he make it on the surface? Had Kuno left the respirator, as he’d said he would?

  Five more rungs.

  Would Marshal be at the meeting spot?

  Two more rungs.

  I made it. Wrapping my arms around the rails for a moment, I caught my breath, smiling. I had done it.