Kamber screamed. The voices of rough men sounded as a light flickered into existence.
“Calm it nice and smooth there kids,” a man said as he faced the pair. He was dirty, covered in coal soot. His gaunt figure led Samuel to think he was a scavenger. They didn’t eat much, except what they stole. The thin light came from a lantern one of four men carried. Two of them held Kamber and Samuel’s arms behind them. The other two stood in front, trailing their eyes on the young travelers. “We won’t hurt ya as long as you behave.”
“Let us go,” Samuel demanded, wrestling in his captor’s grip. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
The man who spoke, whom Samuel guessed was the leader, smiled grimly. “Boy, I know exactly what I’m doin’. Surviving. Which is more than what I can say for most in these parts. You must not be from ‘round here. No one stupid enough ever stops here except foreigners or Hub Rats. So which are you?”
Neither responded.
“Well, since you don’t want to talk,” said the leader, “we’ll just get down to business. Like I said, we won’t hurt ya. Just goin’ to take a few things.”
The two who weren’t holding Samuel and Kamber took to emptying their pockets and packs. “No!” Kamber yelled as they removed her bundle she had strapped to her back. “You can’t!”
“Can’t I, little miss?” said the scavenger. “These are hard times, and the rule is whatever you have can just as easily be what I have.”
Kamber wrestled some more as the scavenger rummaged through her bag. “What is this, m’lady?” The scavenger produced the digital screen and held it aloft in the dim light. “All digital devices have been outlawed for over four hundred years. All those except what’s used by the S.S. and SusCom. And they don’t let children access that kind of tech.” He took the lamp from his comrade and brought it close to her face. “Where did you get this?”
Kamber was shaking, trying not to look the man in the eye.
“We stole it,” Samuel said.
“As I can suspect,” the scavenger laughed, “but from who?”
“The head of SusCom,” Samuel responded.
“Did ya now?” the man said, looking serious. “Who are you kids?”
Samuel was trying to wrack his brain to find a solution to this, but none was forthcoming. He decided to gamble and tell the truth. Scavengers hated the government. Perhaps they would jump at a chance to overthrow them.
“My name is Samuel Aldare. That device holds a secret the government has been hiding from us. One that could overthrow them and bring all the people of the underground back to the surface if we confront them, but in order for us to do this you must let us go.”
The scavenger appeared dumbstruck, like he’d been smashed in the head. “Aldare. Your father, was his name Porter?” he asked.
Samuel scrunched his eyebrows together. “Yes,” he replied. “You knew him?”
The scavenger laughed sadly. “I used to work for Porter Aldare. Guys,” he addressed his men, “let ‘em go.”
They were released. Kamber rubbed her arms while Samuel stood apprehensive, ready for a trap.
The scavenger approached Samuel. “Your dad was a great man. He gave us all work when we had no other hope. After his death, the company fell apart. We had no choice but to return to what we did best. Not much opportunity for men like us.”
“There can be,” Kamber spoke up. “My father has control of Congress, but with this,” she pointed to the screen, “we can expose them. We can all have the lives we were meant to have.”
“Your father. You’re the missing daughter of SusCom. And Samuel, the kid who escaped his high security cell. You weren’t lying.” The scavenger pondered for a moment, shifting his weight. Reluctantly, he handed the device back. “Show me,” he said.
Kamber brought the contraption to life. Images displayed on the screen for everyone to see.
“Impossible,” the scavenger said.
“No, it isn’t,” Samuel said. “I’ve been there. I lived there.”
He looked Samuel up and down. “Your skin.”
“It’s not from UV lamps.”
The scavenger exhaled. “Your father used to talk about drilling to the surface one day. We thought he was crazy, just mining banter. But you…” He turned away with his hand on his head. When he looked back, it was with a light in his eye. “What do you need?”
Samuel grinned. “We need to get through the Hub unseen.”
The scavenger smiled. “I can help with that.”
♦
It was almost nine hours later when a rickety metal cart made its way into the Outer Hub. Hidden within the draped cargo hold, Samuel peeked out at the passing scene.
“I always hated this place,” Samuel said to Kamber.
Upon entering the city, they became bombarded by incongruous noises and smells which had nowhere to go but to be regurgitated back into the air over and over again. The streets were lined with businesses selling subsistence equipment and supplies along with endless food stands where you could trade ration cards for a meal.
The streets were carved from dull gray stone. There were no motorcars at all. All were pedestrians with the exception of the few cargo carts and bicycles. The street ceilings were low, about thirty feet, but that changed once you entered the Outer Capital.
Passing an archway, the earth opened up and into it spilled a metropolis of stone. The city’s entire outer workings were comprised with fifty rings of low, box-like homes and businesses made of tan, brown, and black rock.
Rising up on a steady incline was the Capital Center, fabricated from the finest white and obsidian marble, fortified by veins of polished metal. Ornate balconies adorned the outer buildings overlooking the parapets and turrets of the Capital Wall, supposedly built to repress invaders of the government. No tower was less than ten stories tall.
Passage to the Capital was filtered. Once outside the wall, Samuel and Kamber had to part company with their smugglers.
“This is where you make it on your own, kids,” the scavenger said through a grated window looking into the cargo area. “Here. A little somethin’ to help ya out.” He stuck his hand through the grating and passed Samuel a taser, the most lethal form of protection any civilian was allowed to own. The scavenger grinned. “Give ‘em hell.”
Samuel accepted the weapon awkwardly, and they disembarked the cart, slipping quickly into an alley. The main passageway was off limits, but Kamber soon found one of the few secret accesses into the Capital she had once traversed as a child. It was under an access panel for a building’s water supply. Water was controlled by the government, so no one would likely ever find the hidden door. A combination lock was recessed into the solid metal hatch. It took Kamber a few tries until the right numbers came back to her.
A ladder descended into darkness. Peering into the black hole gave Samuel the creeps, but Kamber dropped onto the metal rungs like a kid remembering her old playground.
“Come on,” Kamber said.
Samuel did not like it, but he reluctantly followed and closed the latch behind him, cutting off the light completely. Kamber reached the bottom and searched for the power lever. By the time Samuel reached the last step, a snapping sound echoed through the tunnel and white lights washed out the passageway.
The air smelled stale, but was surprisingly dry. The corridor was carved from rock, reinforced with steel and concrete. It ascended on a steady incline toward the city center.
“This way,” Kamber said.
Samuel was lucky he had her, because after a hundred feet, the passage branched off in four different directions. It branched off three more times before they finally reached their destination.
After two hours wandering the cold white maze, the faint sound of conversation resonated ahead of them.
“Do you hear that?” Samuel asked.
Kamber nodded. “It’s the Parliament Building. We’re here. U
p ahead is where the tunnel opens to the back hallway. We’ll come out on the SusCom side. There should be an entrance to the Congressional floor where the head of S.S. and my father will be. We’ll have to be quick. If anyone stops us before we get out there, we’re done.”
Knots tied up in Samuel’s stomach as the voices on the other side of the door became more audible. He placed his hands on his knees, feeling lightheaded.
“Are you ready?” Kamber asked.
“No,” Samuel responded shakily, “but let’s go.”
Kamber cranked the locking turn-wheel, and the door opened with an uncomfortably noisy squeal. Wincing, they hurried out into the back hallway and closed the door behind them. Luckily, no one was around. Just beyond the next wall, a man was speaking through a microphone, his voice amplified to fill up the Parliament Building. Kamber led the way, bringing them closer to the source of the speech.
There were no guards until they arrived at the entrance to the Congressional Floor. Two men dressed in black suits stood watch over the door.
“I’ll take care of these two,” Kamber whispered. “Give me the taser.”
“What’re you talking about?” Samuel said deliriously. “You can’t be serious. Those guys are huge. What are you going to do?”
“Just give me the taser. We don’t have time for this. They’re already in session.”
When Samuel was not forthcoming, Kamber reached into Samuel’s shirt and grabbed the taser. “Be ready.”
“No, Kamber…” Samuel said, but it was too late.
Kamber walked out into the entrance and stopped just as she turned the corner. “Help me,” she said exhaustedly. “You need to warn my father.” Kamber slumped against the wall, feigning injury. The guards rushed to her side.
“Miss Lansing,” said the first guard. “Are you okay?”
“Please, you have to help me,” she said, almost crying. “Samuel Aldare is just down the hall! He’s trying to attack my father!”
Samuel stood there in shock, his heart in his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Kamber was going to turn him over. She tricked him!
The two guards drew their weapons and turned the corner. Samuel backed away. All the color drained from his face. He stared at the two men, not knowing what to do. Should he run? No! He would be shot. But if he surrendered, his life as he knew it was over. There were only two options, execution or imprisonment in a lightless cell forever.
He was shaking. Samuel imagined his lifeless body being taken to the incinerators to be burned up along with the secrets he had unearthed. Death was a horrible thought, but Samuel couldn’t be captured, not after seeing what life could be like. Samuel readied himself to flee. Just as he was about to run, one of the guards dropped to the ground convulsing. Before the second guard could realize what happened, Kamber tased him in the chest. He fell to the ground, flopping like a fish. Kamber reached down and withdrew their weapons. One of them tried to reach for his comms, but Kamber pistol whipped him in the side of the head. She repeated the action on the other, knocking them unconscious.
Samuel was heaving, still shaken. “You kicked their ass. I thought you had betrayed me.”
“Seriously?” Kamber said. “Why would I have helped you escape in the first place?”
Samuel eyed her suspiciously. “Still, you freaked me out.”
“Sorry. Come on before a patrol passes by.”
Kamber stepped back and let Samuel take the lead. He reached the door and took a steadying breath. This was it. Everything was about to change. He pushed open the double doors and entered the Parliamentary Hall.
As they took the floor, all eyes turned to them. The Sustainability Committee and the Sub-Surface Congress were meeting for their quarterly State of the Union review. Government officials occupied one side of the room while an invited viewing party consisting of a hundred people sat on the other. In the middle was a holographic projector displaying images of the underground system. Kamber’s father stood at a podium on the opposite end of the floor. Cameras broadcasted the proceedings from both sides of the room.
The two teenagers stopped beside the hologram projector.
Samuel held up his hands. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen! May I have your attention!” There was confusion as everyone tried to figure out what was going on. “My name is Samuel Aldare, and I’m here today to inform you that this government is deceiving you.”
Kamber’s father pointed. “It’s that boy,” he exclaimed. “Arrest him!”
Kamber jumped in front of Samuel. “No, Father! If you arrest him you will have to arrest me too.”
The SusCom leader appeared flustered. “Kamber, what are you doing with this boy? What is this all about?”
Samuel stepped forward. “This is about lies. Lies we have all been fed for almost a hundred years.” Samuel turned and addressed the audience. “The surface is no longer desolate and lifeless. It has been flourishing for nearly a century. The heat and dust caused by our planet’s impact with the meteors of the twenty-sixth century have returned to normal. I know, because I have seen it. In our absence, the Earth’s ozone has regenerated. I have been living on the surface for over two years now, and I can tell you firsthand. The world above is ready for us again. And this government has been hiding the truth from us all!”
There was an uproar from both sides. Kamber’s father yelled above the ruckus. “Arrest him! Take my daughter away!”
Men with guns closed in. They grabbed Kamber’s arm and started dragging her away. Just before Samuel was trapped, he grabbed the digital screen from his pocket and placed it on the hologram projector, changing the display.
Everything went quiet.
“This shows a city,” Samuel continued, pointing at the slowly revolving image, “which the government has already built on the surface. My father, a miner, discovered this when an earthquake opened a tunnel to the surface. He came to the Parliamentary Hall to report his discovery, only to be executed in return.”
Horrified intakes of breath resonated from the citizens’ side of the room, while the Congress and SusCom members stood like stone in deathly quiet.
“These people would have you believe a lie…forever!” Samuel yelled, a tear running down his face. “But I believe it’s time we all stepped out into the sun once more and gazed up into the sky. It’s time we reclaimed our rightful place on the land and by the shores of the seas.”
“Enough of this nonsense,” the SusCom leader said. “The boy is an escaped criminal, charged with breaking into the Chamber of Records, stealing classified data, threatening to give it to enemies of the state, and the theft of a digital conveyor.”
“No,” Kamber interrupted. “I was the one who stole the conveyor. It was the only way to find proof of what Samuel discovered. And I found it.” She addressed the whole room. “What Samuel says is true. I saw a live video stream of human activity on the surface straight from my father’s office. There is life up there. I daresay half this room has already made the trip.”
People looked to each other in confused dismay. Some of the S. S. and SusCom members eyed the exits nervously as they avoided any eye contact.
“There is a passage the government was unaware of,” Samuel explained. “It leads to a cavern. That cavern opens on a mountainside.” He laughed softly. “There are plains filled with grass, rivers of clear water, and trees taller than buildings. I know. I’ve seen it. To those of you who wish to remain slave to an underworld that was never our own, I beg you to stay where you are and continue your lives as if you never heard the truth. But to those who wish to see the stars at night and look across that great horizon at the rising morning sun…I ask you to follow me.”
Samuel walked to Kamber’s side. She was no longer restrained. The men holding her had backed away, looking just as stunned as the rest of the citizens. He took her hand and together, turned to the exit.
Behind them, Kamber’s father yelled across the room. “Don’t let them leave! Someone stop them!”
The duo paused, expecting to be hit by a swarm of bodies any moment. But nothing happened.
“GRAB THEM!” the leader screamed. The room rang with an echo before it died to silence. No one moved.
Samuel and Kamber hesitated, but as they resumed walking, the crowd parted before them. The few stretches of hallway were an eternity. Before they reached the streets, the SusCom leader could be heard ranting and shouting commands in the distance.
Thinking of his father, Samuel shook from head to toe, trying to keep his cool as they strolled into the city. Kamber gripped his hand tight. Samuel exhaled steadily. They walked on into what suddenly seemed like a dead city. The normal bustle of the Capital had vanished. The streets had been emptied. Samuel knew he would probably be killed any moment, a bullet to the head most likely, clean and quick, just like his father.
But something else occurred.
It didn’t happen immediately, but after several minutes of walking alone, people began filing in next to the young pair. First ten. Then twenty. Next fifty. A hundred. The scavengers who smuggled them in joined the mass at the wall. Thanks to the system-wide broadcast, word spread swiftly of the government’s deception. It wasn’t long before a crowd of people stretched across the entire breadth of the Capital, filing out of their homes and businesses, leaving their lives behind in hope of something new.
As they left the Central Hub it suddenly felt like a ghost town, a shadow of the past which should have died long ago.
It was a five day hike to the passageway. No one tried to stop them, because almost everyone had come. Families walked along with what animals and belongings they possessed. Supplies from the UV farms and hydro fields sustained the multitude of humanity on the trek. Once at the passage, it took three days for the crowd to file through in a line no wider than two people across. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured.
In the afternoon of the ninth day, the first rays of sunlight filtered through the rocky tunnel. On the morning of the tenth day, Samuel and Kamber awoke in an endless green meadow with the sun on their face and the warm breeze in their hair.
Kamber gazed into Samuel’s eyes. “We did it,” she said.
Samuel sat up and smiled.
All around him as far as the eye could see was an ocean of people wandering around like marveling children, discovering the world for the first time. Everyone was new. Everything was exciting. With one hundred thousand strong, mankind looked up to the sky with hope as it once again took its rightful place on the surface.
THE END
About the Author
Michael Corso is the author of The Fear Within, a soon to be trilogy. He has also written four short stories and a children’s novel, The Adventures of James Squirrel. He was born in California, but raised in Kentucky and
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