Eventually, we’ll have to walk in, bear with the smells and sights inside. But not now. We walk away, the stink of sewage following us down this empty corridor. Farther away, where the smell fades (it never entirely dissipates), we gather around one of the recessed enclaves.
“This is bad,” David says. “What are we going to do, Sissy?”
Sissy doesn’t answer. She examines the top edge of the enclave, pokes her finger into a thin groove. “I feel glass. This is where the glass door comes down.” After a second, she climbs into the enclave itself, starts banging on the back wall. A hollow echo sounds back. She bites her lower lip, deep in thought.
“What is it?” Epap asks.
“It’s empty space behind this wall. Remember what Matthew told us? There’s a whole transportation grid back there. Probably a network of tracks or rails to shuttle these enclaves back and forth.” She climbs back out with a look of disgust. “Feels like a coffin in there.”
We slump against the walls, preferring to sit on the floor rather than inside the enclaves. Although we’ve been in the catacombs for only about an hour, I already feel the fingers of claustrophobia entombing me. The bright light unrelenting, the smells unbearable, the air morose and bleak. We will, eventually, have to eat the slop from the trough, use the bathroom. Fall into a routine like everyone else here. And eventually, the alarm will sound and we will join the mad rush to find an empty enclave. This same dreary existence, repeated in indistinguishable cycles until, inevitably, one day, enclosed within an enclave, we will be shuttled away. Into their kitchen, into the Ruler’s Suite, into his mouth, passing in half-digested chunks through his organs.
An unwanted thought flits through my head, one that catches me by surprise: life in the Mission, governed by Krugman and his predecessors, now seems in comparison not so unconscionable. I shudder at the thought.
A determination sets in my bones. I look at Sissy and David and Epap. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“How?” David asks.
“I don’t know. But one thing I do know: we’ll escape or die trying. Because I’m not going to . . . simply waste away in this horrid place.” I put my hand on David’s, pat it hard. “I promise you, David. We’re not going to become like these people here. Because their existence . . . it’s not living. It’s not even surviving. It’s . . .” I shake my head. “It’s not for me. It’s not for us. I think I speak for all of us: I’d rather be dead tomorrow than alive for a year in here.”
Sissy’s eyes, withdrawn for the past hour, spark. I place my other hand over hers, and she grips it back tightly.
“Matthew told us the siren went off yesterday. That gives us six days to find a way out of here. Six days. That’s plenty of time. And we’ll spend every minute of that time examining every nook and cranny of this place. We use all our wiles and cunning and smarts. We’ll find a way out.”
“But Matthew said—” David starts to say.
“Matthew isn’t us. Matthew hasn’t survived a mass Heper Hunt, hasn’t escaped a horde of thousands. We have. Matthew hasn’t survived a journey down the Nede River, a plummet down a waterfall. We have. Matthew hasn’t survived swarms of duskers in the mountains. Matthew didn’t just survive mass carnage in the station below.” I grip Sissy’s hand tighter, grab David’s arm tightly now. “But we have. We are awesome together. We are formidable. I really believe that. There’s something about the four of us together. The duskers—thousands of them, armies of them, armadas of them—have never defeated us. At the dome, on the riverbanks, in the mountains. Not once. We’ve stared them down each and every time.”
Next to me, Epap is nodding. “Gene’s right. We’ll leave nothing unturned in this place. And we stay together over the next six days. Let’s not separate at all.”
The smallest smile breaks across David’s face. “Okay.”
“Then let’s do this,” I say. “Let’s start exploring and studying the structure, talk to people. Because I have a feeling that six days is going to fly by—”
And that’s when I’m cut off.
By the sound of a siren.
Seven
FOR A FEW seconds, we’re frozen in place. We’re not the only ones; everyone around us is stunned. Then mayhem ensues. Bodies running, jostling. Bumping, knocking against one another. David is elbowed to the ground.
I grab a young boy flying past me. “What’s going on?” I yell, my voice barely audible over the blaring siren.
He pulls his arm away. “What do you think?” he shouts.
“The siren went off yesterday! We’ve got six more days!”
But he doesn’t reply, only sprints down the corridor, head frantically swiveling from side to side, looking for a vacant enclave.
I climb into the nearest one. Crouched in the back is a terrified boy. He suddenly delivers a violent kick to my head.
“What the hell!”
“Get out!” he yells.
“There’s plenty of room for two, even three of us!”
“Only one to an enclave. Otherwise the enclave is automatically taken! Now get out!”
I feel a hand on my back, tugging me out. It’s Epap. “C’mon, if he’s right, we’ve got to move. We’ve got to find an empty enclave for each of us.” He stares down at Cassie, at her lotus feet. “You take this enclave!” he shouts, directing her to an empty enclave on the bottom row. “Don’t let anyone pull you out,” he says as she dives in. “Kick and punch if you have to!”
She nods frantically, pressing against the back wall.
And then we’re sprinting down the corridor, the four of us. Bodies are flying everywhere, in opposite directions, colliding, bumping, cursing. It’s obvious that the siren has caught everyone by surprise and out of position.
Screams, shouts. Boys aggressively fighting over empty enclaves. Blood spilling, the cracks of noses fracturing, eyes blackening. We run past these scuffles, knowing better than to waste time. Here and there, we sprint past a girl staggering on her lotus feet, tears streaming down, lips quivering in terror.
Seconds pass, ten, twenty, thirty. Fewer and fewer people are running along the corridors. Mostly smaller boys, those pushed out or pulled out by older, stronger boys, their eyes darting from side to side in growing distress. Ahead of us, a burly boy pulls out a skinny girl from an enclave, subduing her with a vicious kick to the rib cage. She doesn’t even try to regain the enclave but takes off down the corridor in search of an unoccupied space, as fast as her plodding lotus feet carry her, anyway. She leaps into an enclave, and seconds later a skinny, tiny boy is kicked out. He sprints off, doubled over with pain, fighting back tears.
We turn a bend, race down another stretch. There. An empty enclave on the top row. We grab David, order him in there. When he protests—and he does so vehemently—Epap grabs him by the scruff of his neck, barks something at him, then roughly shoves him farther inside. And then we’re sprinting again, trying to find another unoccupied spot. I glance back, see David’s face pop out from the opening, his expression full of fear.
By now, the corridor is empty of stragglers. It’s just the three of us. Whenever I glance into a passing enclave, a scowling, terrified face stares back, arms and legs ready to ward off any attempt to supplant.
The lights start to blink quickly. On, off, on, off; then faster, on-off-on-off. We stop, panic stalling us. The lights strobe manically, in rhythm with our frantically beating hearts.
“They’re all occupied!” Epap shouts, sweat pouring down his face. “There’s nowhere to go!”
We need to go where there’s less people! are the words in my mind, but before I verbalize them I’m grabbing Sissy and Epap, pulling them roughly. Back the way we came. Back toward the smell of raw sewage.
They don’t question me, only match me stride for stride. We break into a panic-fueled, mad sprint. We turn around a bend, gun down yet another corridor, force our legs to pound faster. The smell of sewage grows more pungent.
“You look left!” I shout at Sissy and Epap without breaking stride. “I’ll look right!”
And almost immediately I see an empty enclave. Epap is closest to me and I grab him by the shoulders and, before he has a chance to react, throw him roughly into it. He shouts in protest, then crashes against the metal sides of the enclave.
I don’t stop, only continue to sprint faster, Sissy next to me, neither of us bothering to even glance back. We’re too far away now—Epap has no choice but to stay where he is.
And then, just as we reach the end of one corridor and start bounding down another, the siren stops screeching. It’s quiet. I hear only blood rushing in my ears and the rapid thumping of my heart.
A loud series of electronic beeps suddenly sounds from every enclave. From the top edge of each unit, a glass window starts to descend. The enclaves are about to be sealed off.
“C’mon!” Sissy shouts, pulling me by the arms.
The glass windows continue to fall, teasingly slow.
Then Sissy is grabbing me by the neck and thrusting me into an enclave on the bottom row. It’s empty. But I catch myself before I tumble in. Spinning and dropping to the ground on my back, I hurl her over me. She goes flying into the enclave with a shout of surprise. Her hand shoots out, grabs me by the wrist.
“Get in!” she shouts.
“No!” I yell, trying to pull away from her. But her grip is tight as a steel trap. “Only one per enclave!”
“Never mind! Get in!”
I kick at her forearm with enough strength to break her wrist. I hear a cry of pain; then her grip loosens just enough. I fall backward with the unexpected release, and tumble across the corridor. My back smacks against glass on the adjacent wall. I feel it grate against my back as it descends.
I spin around. With barely a second to spare, I throw my body under the falling glass. I’m only just able to slide my body through the narrowing gap before it completely seals me in. I roll around, expecting to feel a kick or punch. But wonder of wonders, the enclave is empty. Trapped inside now, my chest heaves up and down with exhaustion, my breath condensing on the glass. As if with a will of their own, my arms and legs flap against the sides and back of the enclave, banging hollowly on metal, adrenaline still racing through my system. The ceiling looms right above my head, like the lid of a coffin. Too close, too near, too suffocating.
