The Tetradome Run

by Spencer Baum

  But it was that moment she thought of now.

  Standing on a concrete platform in some dark hideaway inside the walls of the Tetradome complex, Jenna cut off all the hair she had grown in the past four years. It was a clumsy mess of a haircut. Scissors in one hand, the other hand gripping at her hair in big handfuls, she snipped it off, then used the mirrors to check it. It was clever of Sunny to leave two mirrors, and Jenna found that she could aim the headlamp such that its light bounced between mirrors to illuminate the back of her head.

  She let it fall to the floor, then she brushed the loose strands off her shoulders. She pulled the maintenance worker jumpsuit over her clothes and zipped it up. She propped a makeup mirror atop the circuit box on the wall and got to work on her face.

  Sunny’s dictum to look different than they expect you to look guided her as she laid on thick swooshes of eyeliner. Heavy mascara, dark lipstick, add a pair of light-rimmed glasses, a maintenance hat, two black workboots, and she was a million miles removed from the Jenna Duvall the world knew. She looked in the mirror and laughed. She hardly recognized herself.

  Back to the letter.

  Look at your badge. Learn your name, in case something happens and you need to know it.

  The name on the badge was “Tara Lex.” Jenna had the sense that she’d heard that name before, that it had some significance to Sunny.

  Your last step is to turn on the cell phone I’ve left you and wait for a signal. Once you’re online I’ll send you a message.

  You’re almost there, Jenna. Good luck.

  *****

  Bart arrived at the guard station. Arnold and Chris were there. Foster was not.

  “I saw on an email that you were having trouble with Jenna’s TAC,” Bart said.

  “Yes, we did,” said Arnold. “The floor supervisor took care of it for us.”

  “You mean Foster?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she already came and went?”

  “That’s right.”

  Bart looked at the Status Grid. Twelve green lights amidst a sea of dark bulbs. How had Foster taken care of the problem? Could it be that the problem had nothing to do with Jenna’s missing implant?

  “So you’re all set then,” said Bart.

  Chris pointed at the Status Grid while Arnold spoke. “It just needed to be reset,” he said.

  “Oh. Okay,” said Bart. “That’s good. So everything’s fine.”

  “Everything’s fine,” said Arnold.

  It was only then, as it dissipated, that Bart realized a mild panic had been burbling in his belly ever since he read the email about Jenna’s TAC. Had he been too quick to remove her implant? In his anger about the lax security in his brother’s department, he had made a quick decision, one that was without precedent in the complex.

  Whatever. It’s done, a special-order replacement implant is on the way, and now the evening is mine to do as I please.

  He knew exactly what he wanted to do.

  “Can you guys help me get in touch with Foster?” he said.

  *****

  Jenna stood in the dark, waiting for the phone to power on, waiting for something to happen.

  Her ears throbbed in the silence.

  Then a text message appeared.

  Jenna?

  The message came from a contact already programmed into the phone. The contact was named, “Me.”

  Jenna wrote a response.

  Yes.

  Ten seconds of nothing. An eternity of nothing. Then another text.

  Hang tight, Jenna. Somebody keeps calling me and I think I’d better respond before we get you moving. I’ll text you again in a minute.

  Somebody was calling her? Jenna was halfway through an escape from prison and Sunny was taking a phone call?

  She closed her eyes and took a breath. Nothing to be done, she told herself. She was at Sunny’s mercy.

  It was just like old times.

  Sunny was always in a position of power. From the day they met, even before Jenna recognized it was happening, Sunny was always and forever positioning herself to be in control of their relationship.

  And now Jenna was thinking of the dark prison cell fantasies, three years of daydreams about killing Sunny, daydreams meant to exorcize the feeling of utter helplessness that came from being a pawn in one of Sunny’s games.

  Of having your whole life thrown away because it suited Sunny’s agenda.

  Your brother’s life too.

  Maybe she needed to bring her prison cell fantasies into reality. Maybe, after she got out of the complex, got to whatever safety Sunny arranged for her, maybe then…

  She forced the thought out of her mind.

  Focus on getting the hell out of here. Deal with the rest later.

  *****

  Foster didn’t answer her phone, so Bart went to the floor supervisor’s office. She wasn’t there.

  He went to the stockroom. She wasn’t there either.

  Anger over his little brother’s inept and wholly undisciplined department, a feeling he’d been indulging all week, a feeling that was making him lose interest in the idea of Foster...

  Then she called him.

  “Hello?”

  “You rang?” she said.

  The casual way she spoke threw him off. He was accustomed to employees speaking to him with an air of deference, even a bit of fear.

  He liked that Foster didn’t sound intimidated.

  “Yes, I umm…I saw you on an email chain about problems with Jenna’s TAC.”

  “That’s taken care of,” Foster said. “Her TAC is fine.”

  “That’s what the guys at the guard station told me, yes.”

  “So if you already knew, why are you calling?”

  “Why? Oh, I don’t…you know, I still wanted--”

  “You want to see me, don’t you?”

  If he was thrown off before, now he was downright baffled. The way she said the words—it was almost like she was calling him out.

  Was she calling him out?

  Before he could work through the thought, Foster said, “You were hoping to spend some time with me tonight, and find a way to get me into your secret office on the ninth floor, weren’t you?”

  Holy shit. How did she know about his office on nine? Did other people know?

  “I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Mr. Devlin,” she said. “I know what you do in that empty office. The one with the futon.”

  Bart felt his mouth going dry.

  “Foster, I--”

  “Relax. I’m not looking to cause you trouble. I’m looking to get on your futon.”

  A second to process the words, then, “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “I mean…it seems you’ve read my mind.”

  “How quickly can you get to that office?” Foster said.

  “Pretty quickly,” said Bart.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  *****

  The phone in Jenna’s hand buzzed with an incoming call.

  “Hello?” Jenna answered.

  “Hi Jenna,” came a voice she hadn’t heard in years. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

  *****

  The office was empty when he arrived.

  Closing the door behind him, but leaving it unlocked, Bart took off his shoes. He opened the cabinet in the back, pulled down a bottle of cabernet, a corkscrew, two glasses.

  I’m not looking to cause you trouble, she had said, I’m looking to get on your futon.

  How fun, how fun, how fun this would be!

  *****

  The phone to her ear, Jenna listened as Sunny instructed her to go down the stairs and stand in front of the door.

  “It will sense your badge and unlock for you,” she said.

  Jenna did it, and sure enough, as soon as she got in front of the door, a sensor turned green and the lock clicked.

  “Open it and go through,” Sunny said.

  Jenna stepped into a long, empty hallway.
<
br />   “You’ve now left the cellblocks,” Sunny said. “The hall in front of you leads to the ground-level concourse of the Tetradome.”

  “I’m going to the Tetradome?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a safe path for you to take, but, yes, you’ve got to get all the way to the other side of the arena to get near the highway you’ll be taking out of town.”

  “Alright,” said Jenna. “I’m walking through the hallway now.”

  *****

  At the guard station, Arnold Detwick, who had finished his crossword puzzle, had The Tammy Flanigan Show on a screen in the bottom corner of the monitor bank.

  Chris Cavacho continued watching the other side of the bank, the side that showed Jenna in the cellblock. The monitors showed Jenna seated at the table, eating. The camera view wasn’t good enough for Chris to be certain, but it looked like she was eating a salad with chicken, which was the same meal she’d eaten the night before.

  *****

  Jenna kept the phone to her ear as she walked, which was doubly useful. Not only was Sunny able to tell her where to go, but anyone who saw her in the halls, including any spying eyes on security cameras, saw a crew member who looked busy.

  A crew member with short hair, glasses, and a lot of makeup.

  Sunny guided Jenna to the concourse level of the Tetradome, where a crowd of people dressed in jump suits just like hers were at work on the arena floor. They were building the Finale course. Giant iron-bar domes draped in foliage, footpaths that wound from the floor to the ceiling and back—it was all Jenna could do not to gape at the enormity of the construction, and jump for joy at the thought that she wouldn’t have to run it.

  “Coming up on your left is a steel door marked Authorized Personnel Only,” Sunny said.

  “I see it,” said Jenna.

  “Your badge will open it.”

  Jenna opened the door and found a concrete stairwell on the other side.

  “Go down the stairs,” Sunny said.

  “It’s dark down there,” said Jenna. “I didn’t bring the headlamp.”

  “Put me on speaker, use the flashlight on the phone, and relax,” said Sunny. “Dark is good. It means you’ll be alone. I’m sending you into the catacombs at the bottom of the arena.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “You’ll be in a tunnel that runs the entire perimeter of the stadium,” said Sunny. “It’s how production staff moves around when the place is crammed with spectators. Tonight it will be empty.”

  The flashlight shining from the back of her phone, Jenna started down the stairs. “You sure do know a lot about how this place works,” she said.

  “I’ll explain everything once we’re on the road,” said Sunny. “And I mean everything. I know that your feelings about me right now are-”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” said Jenna.

  “Good plan. We stay focused.”

  “I’m coming up on a landing,” said Jenna.

  “Is there a sign on the wall?”

  “It says Lower Deck 2.”

  “That would take you into the stands,” said Sunny. “Keep going.”

  Lower Deck 1 was the next sign. Pass that one too, Sunny said.

  “Underdeck” came next.

  “That’s where you’re going.”

  The door unlocked for her badge. She stepped through.

  “It’s pitch black down here, Sunny.”

  “That’s good. That’s why I chose this route. Aim your flashlight straight ahead and tell me what you see.”

  “I see…concrete walls, wires…is that a door over there?”

  “Yes, the whole walkway is lined with doors,” said Sunny. “I need you to turn to your right and start walking.”

  “Okay, I’m walking. There’s a TV monitor on the wall.”

  “It’s for production staff.”

  “There’s a potted plant.”

  “There are more than two hundred potted plants in the Underdeck,” said Sunny. “They help oxygenate the air. Don’t look at them. Don’t let them distract you.”

  “Distract me from what?”

  “The door you need to take.”

  “Which door?”

  “You’re not there yet. It’s on the other side of the arena.”

  “But how will I know which one?”

  “I painted a big purple flower on the door you need to take.”

  “How far away is that door?”

  “A long way. The Underdeck is huge. Just keep going.”

  “Okay,” said Jenna, walking faster.

  And faster.

  She broke into a jog.

  Eventually she was running at full stride. Alone in the darkness, the glow of her flashlight giving her ten feet of visibility at most, she ran through a winding concrete tunnel inside the walls at the base of the Tetradome.

  *****

  Bart sent a text to Foster.

  Did you get lost?

  A minute passed before she responded.

  Got caught in my office. Trying to get out. Be there soon.

  Reading the text, Bart thought of a thousand similar messages he’d sent to his wife over the years.

  He grabbed a wine glass, sat on the futon, and waited.

  *****

  Jenna was trying not to panic.

  Had she missed the door? They were all the same. White, steel, unmarked…

  “Sunny, I haven’t seen it yet,” she said.

  “You’ll see it. I made it so big you can’t miss it. Stay calm. You’re doing fine.”

  She didn’t feel like she was fine. She felt like she was seeing four-petaled flowers everywhere. Televisions mounted on the wall—she saw purple flowers in the darkness of their screens. Shelves jutting out from the wall with ceramic flower pots on top—she saw purple flowers in the pots. Wires, everywhere wires—she saw four-petal flower shapes in the circuitry. She saw flowers in the shadows of movement along the periphery of her vision, in the ghosts of light hanging in her eyes as she ran.

  “Talk me through this, Sunny,” she begged. “I’m scared I missed the door.”

  “You haven’t missed it. You can’t miss it.”

  An image in Jenna’s mind: Sunny, shaking a can of spray paint.

  If Sunny expected forgiveness for what she had done…if Sunny thought this escape plan, wild as it was if it worked, was enough to undo the damage of the past three years…

  If Sunny wasn’t ready to take responsibility not only for Jenna’s life, but for Kyle’s…

  The Underdeck was a broad concrete tunnel. The ceiling, wherever it was, was lost in the darkness. The floor was divided into parts. The center, where Jenna ran, was concrete. The edges were perforated steel.

  Sometimes, the glow of the LED light on the back of the phone caught the perforated steel on the sides of the floor, and shone down to unseen levels below. Unseen levels with more wires on the walls, more televisions, more potted plants.

  How big was this place?

  And then she saw it. How glorious it was when she saw it! The flower that greeted her on every letter Sunny gave her in college, the flower that Sunny formed out of plastic tubing in her chemistry lab, out of wires and cables on her mad scientist creations, the flower she had tattooed on her lower back, was painted all over the next door.

  “I’m here!” Jenna said.

  “Your badge will unlock it,” said Sunny.

  A beep. A click. An LED light next to the lock that went from red to green. Jenna turned the handle and pulled open the door.

  *****

  “This is yesterday’s footage,” said Chris. “I knew it was yesterday’s footage!”

  Arnold looked at the video playing on Chris’s computer, a perfect match to the one on the monitor bank.

  “What is this?” said Arnold. “Why is it on both--”

  “I opened yesterday’s file and hit fast forward until it matched what’s playing for us now on the monitors. It’s the same. We’ve been watching yesterday’s f
ootage this whole time.”

  “Well this isn’t good.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’m going into the cellblock to check on her,” said Chris.

  “Okay, yeah,” said Arnold. “I suppose I should go with you.”

  *****

  Sunny’s instructions led Jenna out of the catacombs and into an underground hallway attached to the Tetradome.

  “You’re almost there, Jenna. I’m leading you to a parking garage. I have a van there waiting for you.”

  “A van?” said Jenna.

  “A company van with a microchip on the windshield that opens all the exit gates automatically. It’s in space forty-three. I’ve left the doors unlocked and the keys under the driver’s seat. When you get there, you’ll simply hop inside and drive away.”

  “Space forty-three,” said Jenna. “Okay.”

  She came to the end of the hall.

  “Into the stairwell and up one floor,” said Sunny.

  The stairwell door closed behind her, the sound of its latch echoing in the concrete chamber. Jenna was halfway up the stairs when a deafening alarm began to sound.

  “What’s that?” she yelled.

  “Security alert,” said Sunny. “They’re onto us. Start running!”

  Jenna ran to the top of the stairs and crashed into the door.

  “It’s locked!” she yelled. “My badge won’t open it!”

  “Someone’s activated Code Red. All the doors have locked.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Hang on, I’m working on it.”

  Jenna slammed the door with her shoulder. It didn’t budge. She slammed it again.

  “Almost there, Jenna.”

  “Where? Are you coming to get me?”

  “The door…try it now.”

  This time, when Jenna pushed on the door it opened. A covered walkway was on the other side. A glass encased bridge that stretched across the street below.

  “It’s time to haul ass, Jenna. You can still make it out if you hurry.”

  *****

  Bart was scrambling to tie his shoe. He had his phone propped between his ear and shoulder.

  “What do they mean she wasn’t there? Where did she go?”

  He was talking to Arnold Detwick, who had just called a Code Red.

  “It appears she escaped through a hole in the ceiling,” Arnold said. “In the utility room.”

  “Utility room?”

  “In the cellblock, Sir. It’s an out of bounds space. Her TAC should have told us she was there but it seems she was able to disarm it somehow.”