Modified- The Complete Manipulated Series

by Harper North

  “That’s one leg of the journey,” he says, holding a beacon above the water. He presses it to the ceiling and it clicks, casting a blue glow two feet above our heads.

  I tread water and take a few more breaths. Elias’s face floats inches from mine, his breath blowing against me.

  “At least the water’s clear. And I still have the line.” Eyeing the yellow cord in my hands, I follow it with my gaze as far as I can, which is only a few feet. Hopefully seeing the light will calm the fears of the others.

  Without another word, I dive again, lungs full of air, and continue along the channel. Elias follows me with his flashlight as I leave the soothing blue glow behind. I count the seconds again to keep down the panic.

  Ahead of us the river forks. A right tunnel snakes off, wide and downhill. The one on the left narrows and stays level.

  Elias pulls up beside me and we look at each other.

  The decision we make here is final. Swimming back against the current will wear us out and make us burn through our oxygen too fast to survive. If we fail, the others will have to risk their lives.

  My mind whirls with information. I’d build a settlement near the larger river.

  The right it is.

  Elias kicks after me. He grunts as if trying to tell me something, and as I enter the mouth of the right fork, I realize this tunnel's steeper than I thought.

  There might not be air pockets.

  Line in hand, I calculate our best chance is to ride the current down and not use too much oxygen. I’ve managed almost two minutes while kicking. If I stay still, I might make it to three.

  The current turns from a lazy flow to a rush, and my stomach rises as I curl myself into a ball and ride it down. I don’t dare release the line. Holding it to my chest, I count again, trying to calm my racing heart. The tunnel rises for a second, and then dips so fast I’d scream if I could. Instead, I release precious bubbles, which vanish in the dancing light. Elias slams into me, pushed by the water. We’re in this together.

  The burning in my lungs increases with the current. A rushing sound fills my ears. I must be about to pass out.

  But instead of terror, a strange calm fills me.

  This must be how it feels to die.

  I tried. I really did.

  Please forgive me Sky.

  With a jolt, my body drops. I’m falling.

  I open my eyes to a vast cavern and huge stalactites. Elias’s muffled shouts fill the air—air?—as I kick and gasp for precious breath. I’m falling off a waterfall. Light zips around the water with me, illuminating drops that sail to the angry river below.

  In an instant, I bring my legs together, pointing my toes down to cut through the water. I hit, and pain ripples over my skin as water rushes up my nose and I sink. The world blurs as I kick. I cough, choking up the river as a flashlight floats past me. I catch it and whirl to find Elias kicking beside me.

  We surface, and Elias points his light in my direction. “That was close,” I gasp, squinting.

  “Yeah,” he agrees, shouting over the forty-foot-high waterfall behind him.

  I glance up. Here, we have plenty of air. The ceiling hangs well above us. Pebbles line the shore, along with a small sea of bottle caps and smooth glass, worn into spheres from years of water. They shine in the light like treasure. I spot a faded logo for an old drink brand.

  “Civilization. And shore,” I say.

  I wade to the edge, leaving the waterfall behind. A huge slab of metal grating lies on the shore nearby, rusted around the edges. It’s big enough to cover the top of the waterfall. Then I realize with horror it must have once done just that.

  Elias plods out of the water. “We were lucky. If we’d hit that—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” I wring the water from my top and walk down the shore. “If the waterfall used to have that grating at the mouth of it, that means we’re close to the settlement.” I eye the metal cage again. It's big enough to have covered the mouth of the waterfall, but not big enough to have washed through the narrower parts of the river tunnel.

  “Don’t put the line down yet. We have to make sure,” Elias says. “This stuff could have washed down here pre-Flip.”

  “Not the grating.”

  He says nothing. I’m hoping that we come into a settlement not taken by Cho and his people. He said there’s a whole network.

  I walk along the shore, the quickly depleting line rolling out behind me. We can’t take too long or the others will think we’re dead. And then they might backtrack.

  “Not much left,” I say.

  “Then mount it.

  I take the hook and press it against the wall. The metal contracts on its own, boring the hook into the wall. Then the yellow line pulls taut as it senses the signal from the hook. Sky will feel this.

  The shore continues for what feels like forever, until at last another wall appears from the gloom. The beam from Elias’s flashlight lands on a structure with a grating at the river, a fine one meant to pick up grains of sand. A pair of metal towers rise from the grating and touch the ceiling. Metal service ladders run up both.

  “Is this a water-driven power plant?” Elias asks.

  “If it is, then there’s a settlement nearby.”

  “It looks intact.”

  Far behind, Lacy screams and then crashes into the water. Though her voice echoes, I’d recognize it anywhere.

  Talen yells a curse.

  Splash after splash sounds.

  “We need to get back there,” Elias tells me. “Some of the others might have trouble.”

  I curse under my breath. It was stupid of us to explore without them. Crunching over gravel, we race back to the bottom of the waterfall. Sky and Cia crawl out of the water in each other’s arms, coughing and spitting. An EHC op bursts from the top of the waterfall, flailing at first, and then lining himself up as he falls and vanishes into the raging foam. People climb out of the water one by one. There’s a woman with a bloody gash on her forehead, but she seems otherwise okay.

  Sky’s mom pops out of the water, dazed but not harmed. Cia rushes to her.

  Lacy and Talen plod out of the river, but Lacy pulls on Talen's sleeve and points into the water. The two dive back in.

  And then I see it. A body floating face-down.

  One with long, black hair.

  Emma.

  “Get her out!” I shout at Elias, even though I dive into the water and swim toward her. Seizing her shoulders, I flip her over and wait for a response, but there’s nothing. Digging my bare heels into the ground, I pull as Elias joins me.

  But it’s not Elias. It’s Sky. We drag Emma back to the shore

  She must have gulped down water trying to breathe. I check for her pulse on her neck—nothing.

  “She needs mouth to mouth,” Sky says, kneeling beside me.

  “You think I don’t know that?” I push him away and lay Emma on her back, plug her nose, and take a deep breath. Tilting her chin back, I blow a lungful of air into her. Her chest rises, and breath escapes as Sky grips her wrist.

  “Nothing,” he says.

  I blow again.

  This time, Emma coughs water in my face. I back up as she gags again. Her eyes flutter open.

  “Emma!” I wrap my arms around her as she gasps for air.

  She coughs again. “Fin?”

  I release her and let relief fill my chest. Lacy and Talen are here. I didn’t have to see anyone I care about die today.

  Sky stands and walks off before I can thank him. As I watch him vanish, a tall figure walks in front of me and stops to stare.

  Reinhart.

  “Get out of here,” I say. He reminds me of the truth.

  Dripping and in silence, he steps onto the shore beside the waterfall to watch the last of our group fall through.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE POWER STATION is more complex than I expected. Once we climb the ladders, we find locked doors that lead inside the towers. One of the padlocks has r
ust all over it from a hundred years of exposure, and I’m able to pull it open with a snap. Talen gives me a thumbs-up as Lacy busts the lock on the second tower.

  “Careful,” Elias says behind me.

  “Let us know if it’s safe to climb,” Emma calls from below. She and the rest—including Sky—wait down on the riverbank.

  Darkness waits for us inside the tower. When I raise my flashlight, I find spiral stairs leading downward. The main power station must wait below.

  “It will be a miracle if this place can still run,” I say.

  “Well, our flashlights won’t last forever.”

  Elias and I climb down in silence. The metal stairs, made of grating, look intact. No rust or decay has crept in here. It’s a good sign.

  The stairs seem to spiral down forever. Soon, the sound of the river hums overhead as I aim the flashlight on a walkway far below.

  “Hey, Fin!” Lacy shouts from below. “We beat you!”

  I’m glad to hear her voice. She waves as she holds one hand in front of her face to block the flashlight beam.

  “Is it clear?” Elias asks.

  “All clear. You should see everything down here. There are even caves below this one with transport tracks. You’ll see.”

  We reach the bottom and Lacy’s right. The round space is filled with a ton of control panels, computer displays, buttons, and levers. My mind already works, trying to figure out what does what. This is the control room for sure, but I don’t want to act until we stake out the area. Opposite me, metal doors lead to other parts of the facility.

  I shine my flashlight through the grating floor. I take a second to look at the shiny, wide tracks, large enough for two subway cars to move side by side. Cobwebs hang off the brick walls, illuminated in the flashlight beam. A white sign with red print has an arrow pointing to the left and the words Elysian Beach.

  “There’s more here than I thought,” Elias says.

  Lacy steps forward. “There must be a way down there.”

  “Employees must have needed to get into this station,” Talen adds. He walks over to the controls, aiming his own light at them. “Maybe they never used this. The EHC could have shut this place down before it could start.”

  What if the builders became the first Dwellers? If the EHC captured them and set them to work? I guess we’ll never know.

  “Explains the padlocks,” I say. “Let’s see if we can turn this on. I bet it’s more than just turning a few dials.” My mind bounces from idea to idea. Pumps will need priming. Pressure needs to build to supply power—there’s got to be a dial for that. We’ll get rid of any air pockets going through the pipes.

  “Turn the lights off!” Elias hisses, interrupting my thoughts.

  I click off my flashlight. Talen does the same. Complete darkness falls around us.

  And then I hear the footsteps. Coordinated and deadly, they approach the station from below.

  Ice fills my body. It can’t be the others. They’re waiting at the riverbank. That means it must be—

  “Cho,” Lacy whispers under her breath.

  Even without seeing her, I know she’s smiling. This is our chance to end him.

  I press myself to the grating and look down. Faint light hits the rails. The footsteps echo off the brick walls as they march closer. Are they here to do the same thing we are?

  The light grows until some shadowy figures, all with their green jackets tied around their waists, walk into view from down the tunnel. Cho leads them with his arms behind his back while the former SNA ops follow like zombies in two lines. They’ve grown in number. Maybe two dozen march behind him now.

  “Stop,” he orders.

  Lacy breathes beside me, also getting on her stomach.

  “Kill him,” I whisper.

  But Cho shouts, “Don’t touch the power station. We can’t make it easy for our enemies down here. Activate the temporary generators!”

  An op runs out of sight. A metallic tapping sound fills the corridor below and a blinding light fills the tunnel. Humming fills the air as we wait in the darkness. The generators only power the station below.

  Next to me, Lacy seethes.

  Cho remains standing as the humming increases. My hair stands on end as a huge shape, a single magenta subway car with the words Sun Gardens on the side, sweeps into view and stops in front of Cho. It doesn’t screech along the tracks or make any scraping sounds. It’s almost as if it’s floating above them.

  “It’s magnetic,” Lacy whispers with a groan. “The rails are magnetic.”

  “They’re maglev trains,” Elias says.

  With a sinking heart, I realize what that means.

  Lacy can’t get through the magnetic fields to kill Cho or anyone else down there.

  “Board it now,” Cho orders as the doors to the car rise. “We have little time. The train should gain enough momentum from this station to get us to the Gardens. My brother’s men might arrive here soon.”

  “What if they’re at the Gardens?” an op asks.

  Cho stands on the tracks. “The Gardens are unmapped. I’ve shipped stockpiles of weapons there,” he announces in a reassuring tone. “Once there, we arm ourselves. Then we take the fight to the SNA and my brother. We are the ones who evolved to survive in this new world—without chips or genetic modifications. We will exterminate the Impures and secure a future for pure humanity. We’ll hunt them all once the rest of the Naturals join us. They won’t destroy our new order. We’ll be safe.”

  Murmurs of agreement rise from the assembled soldiers. They're ignoring the fact that Cho used chips to survive on the surface.

  “I would like to thank those of you who rallied your fellow Naturals when my chip prevented me,” Cho says. “You have made this possible. The others will meet us at Sun Gardens.”

  We did this. We allowed Cho to give the signal to the population of Naturals who already existed, waiting for their chance to topple the SNA.

  Soldiers board the magenta pill and vanish inside. Cho’s the last in before the door closes and the pill’s hum increases. The car glides down the tracks in the opposite direction of the Elysian Beach arrow and into the dark.

  As the hum fades, the lights in the tunnel below go down, leaving us in the dark all over again.

  * * * * *

  Reinhart and Emma both agree we should wait to activate the power station. Cho needs to be as far away as possible before we do that and alert him to our presence. The rest of our group moves into the control room. Some people raid supplies from locker rooms, and one of the former Dwellers secures ration packs from a supply closet. The veggies aren’t fresh, but after not eating for a while, they taste amazing.

  The power station has battery-powered lanterns we lay out. No one speaks when Emma finds a paper map of the power station’s reach. She paces around, studying it.

  “They built these settlements around rivers and power stations, and this isn’t the only one,” she explains. “The Sun Gardens are out of this station’s reach. Only five communities get power from here. The one furthest from the Sun Gardens is the Elysian Beach.”

  “Then we take that.” I’ve never seen a real beach, not that I expect to see a real one down here.

  “It would be a good idea.” Reinhart peeks over Emma’s shoulder. “That will put a hundred miles between us and Cho.”

  I feel better about that. Lacy sits beside me, hanging her head about letting Cho get away.

  “What could you do?” I ask.

  “Easy for you to say,” she mutters.

  I understand. Cho bested us all, and now he’ll come back for us.

  Elias rests his hands on his waist. “Cho should be far away now.”

  We’ve waited two hours. I can’t imagine frictionless maglev trains moving slowly. He should have already reached the Sun Gardens.

  Emma's found that the emergency generator in the tram station has run out of fuel. Despite the small risk, we work on turning on the power station instead. Even with
my mental enhancements, it takes Elias and I over thirty minutes figuring out the sequence. At last, I prime the pump, Elias activates the pressure gauges, and the power station bursts to life. Lights flip on above, though one of them flickers, and below the tunnel brightens with the clicking of track lighting.

  A cheer goes up from everyone. Elias holds up his hand and gives me a high-five. Talen picks up Lacy and spins her around, making her laugh.

  Reinhart clears his throat once the cheering dies down. “I wish we had time for a second meal or some celebratory drinks,” he says in his usual condescending tone. “But if Cho fears his brother could send troops here, we had better move. Stairs through this door lead to the station.”

  As much as I hate him, Reinhart has a point. Everyone files through the door, down a narrow hallway, and past a lounge where employees would have taken breaks. Stairs lead down to a platform and a row of waiting pill cars. Posters of lush plant life beyond anything I’ve ever seen hang on the walls, and the air’s clear and easy to breathe. The place gives off a sense of hope that lifts my mood. With food in the power station, there’s no doubt the settlements will have it, too.

  “Wow,” Sky says, eyeing the row of colorful subway cars. Yellow, pink, orange, and light blue cars sit row to row in a wide part of the tunnel on four different tracks that merge into two. A fifth track, now empty, must have held the Sun Gardens one. With that car gone, we couldn’t follow Cho even if we wanted to. Each car’s big enough to hold two dozen people. The yellow car on the end has a name in fancy script on the side: Elysian Beach.

  “There’s our ride,” I say as Elias approaches. I point to a booth on the platform with controls inside. “I bet each car’s already programmed to go to a certain place.”

  Elias and I figure out how to summon each car when we get into the booth, which is unlocked. There’s a color-coded call button for each one. On pressing the yellow button, the Beach car comes to life and slides to the platform, doors opening to await its passengers.