by Spencer Baum
How had Jenna learned about the bomb?
Sparrow. It had to be Sparrow. Their fearless leader, who once had been the pillar of strength that carried the weight of their whole mission, but of late had become unpredictable and weak. Sparrow was playing both sides now. She was being worse than careless. Whatever Sparrow was doing with Jenna, and Blake had no fucking idea what she was doing anymore, it was jeopardizing years of work.
Blake ducked through a door on the north end of the Underdeck. He descended the stairs on the other side, used his badge to open a gate at the bottom, and stepped into the generator room.
An underground chamber of giant machines, thick metal pipes hanging low under the ceiling, an array of circuit boxes on one wall, an enormous ventilation fan on another. Eight numbered generators, each one encased in powder-coated steel. Generators 1 - 7 provided supplemental power to the live show. Generator 8 was an emergency backup.
It was number 8 that he approached. Number 8 whose control panel he opened. Whose switch he flipped to the On position.
There was a bomb in the Tetradome—on that point, Jenna was correct. It was a bomb with a single detonator mechanism that would reach out and simultaneously ignite two-hundred explosive payloads, each one individually encased and hung next to a load-bearing wall.
The flower pots. Blake and Sparrow had pushed through a spending request to put two hundred ceramic flower pots full of flowers on a load-bearing wall of the structure. On the spending request they referenced studies about air quality and workplace aesthetics, they wrote that the Underdeck of the Tetradome needed greenery and flowers and attached a proposal outlining how, once the flowers were in place, facilities would take care of them.
And so it went that Devlin Enterprises not only paid for and installed the bombs that would destroy the Tetradome, but also assigned the designer of said bombs to take care of them.
Sparrow, working as Foster Smith, got paid her hourly wage to wire the whole assembly together. And now it was done. Done and ready for Blake to do the final step.
The detonator for the bomb was Generator Number 8. As that generator hummed to life, the sound of its motor blending in with seven others already running, Blake imagined electrons flowing through hundreds of secret circuits Sparrow had carefully hidden throughout the complex, electrons that would be activated later tonight.
After Blake was long gone.
The detonator up and running, now it was time to activate the switch.
Years ago, when they first hatched their plan to blow up the Tetradome, the charter members of the Mary Nolan College Blue Brigade agreed that a simple explosion wasn’t enough. This was The Tetradome Run, after all. This was the most watched television broadcast in the world.
This was an opportunity to speak directly to every human being on the planet, not just now, but centuries into the future.
It was within their power, if they did it right, to make everyone in the world talk about the ideas that could save them. It was within their power to speak to history, and when they did, they wanted to speak with the words that had changed their own lives.
The words, from an amazing book that brought Gordon, Sparrow, and Nathan together in unity of purpose, would awaken the rest of the world, of this they were sure. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right, Sparrow had said to them, years ago, when they were babies who were just becoming excited about the life-defining action ahead of them.
Blake pulled a wire from his pocket. A simple HDMI cable purchased at a Wal-Mart down the street. He pulled open an access panel on the front of Generator 8 and plugged the cable into an HDMI port. He stretched the cable a few feet across the room, allowing it to find its way to a panel of electronics that hung on the wall. This panel, unique to the generator room, was a critical piece of equipment for the broadcast of The Tetradome Run. The panel was covered in LED lights, some of them green, a few of them red; it had a label at the top, a simple strip of tape with words some Devlin staffer had made on a label-making machine long before Blake and Sparrow arrived at the company.
The words said, Live Course TAC Status Grid.
There was an HDMI port on the back of the panel, one that wasn’t part of its original design. Sparrow had wired the port into place for this moment. This action.
Blake plugged the cable into the port.
He stepped back, his hands trembling.
The generator was running. The switch was active. The bomb was armed.
It was time to go. He turned to leave…
…and then turned back.
He’d seen something. The periphery of his vision—it was enough to make him halt and turn back for a second look.
A small bit of graffiti on the far wall. Purple spray paint. A flower with four petals. Sparrow’s signature.
What is that girl doing now?
She was a genius, an undeniable genius—none of this would have happened without her. But she was also wildly eccentric. Sparrow’s insistence that the flowerpots be filled with Dame’s Rocket, her ill-advised attempt to break Jenna out of the cellblocks, the general sense he had that, in the weeks since Jenna’s arrival at the facility, Sparrow’s mental state was fraying at the edges…
Apparently she felt the need to tag the generator room with her trademark as well?
Blake loved her like a sister. He always would. But years of being undercover with her had tried his patience. He couldn’t wait to be done.
Chad Holiday’s voice, emanating from a dozen TV monitors on the walls, greeted Blake when he emerged in the Underdeck.
Seven minutes and forty seconds have passed since Nathan Cavanaugh kicked off this session of Robot Tag and four contestants are still trapped in the maze!
The nearest TV screen showed a scene from the race, which looked like it was getting wild. Rapid cuts from one runner to another, robots flitting away and disappearing into the bushes.
Ten seconds remain! said Chad.
And there was Jenna, still lost in the hedgerow, still looking for her pink robot.
Five seconds!
Good luck, Jenna, Blake thought. And good riddance.
CHAPTER 63
The clock hit zero. A buzzer sounded. The crowd came to its feet. The steel gate at one end of the maze swung open.
Something came out.
A dark gray body on four stubby legs, the creature took four quick steps and stopped. It raised its long nose in the air and sniffed.
It was a rat. A monstrous, mutant rat with a long, sleek body and stout, muscular legs. In the clearing where all paths converged, Jenna was a straight shot away from the beast. She became its first target. It tore through a hedgerow corridor to come after her.
She sprinted the other way, nearly colliding with Garson Laramie as he came around the corner.
“Not that way!” she screamed at him, but it was already too late. By the time Garson came to a stop the rat was on him. As she ran away, Jenna heard Garson scream.
A quick right turn. It was a dead end. She doubled back and ran headlong into a green robot. Jenna and robot both tumbled to the ground. The wind knocked out of her, she struggled to her feet anyway, catching a brief view of a rat looming over a bloody corpse. A huge, heaving breath and she was off again, her ears telling her the rat was following behind.
A tight turn to the left. Another. The rat still in pursuit. Ahead of her, Edwin tagged a blue robot and it fell to the ground.
“Yes!” he shouted.
As Jenna passed him, Edwin was reaching into the newly open panel on the robot’s back.
“Hurry!” she snapped at him, but Edwin, who no doubt had been running for eight minutes straight, was intent on taking this moment of triumph to catch his breath. Jenna left him in her dust, knowing that the look of satisfaction on his face would be the end of him.
Two seconds later she heard Edwin shriek in terror.
She reached the outer edge of the maze. She sprinted along the perimeter, turning a corner to find three pathways
to choose from.
She saw a flash of pink at the end of the center path.
Full blast now, her knees waist-high as she ran, she went for the robot. A quick turn at the end of a path. Another. The robot might have been faster than her on the straightaways but it was slower on the turns, and she was right behind it now. She reached out and swiped, her fingertips barely missing the robot’s head. It rounded the next turn and she followed. This turn opened on a long path to the center of the maze. The robot accelerated to a speed she couldn’t match.
It ran into Michael Petty.
Robot and runner, a blur of black spandex and pink metal going to the ground in a heap. Jenna sprinted towards the mess. The robot was up again by the time she got there, already gaining speed.
She hurdled Michael’s body, stumbling onto the other side, her forward momentum too much for her. As she fell, she reached for the robot.
She caught it by the ankle.
The robot dropped dead to the floor and the panel in its back opened. A key with a pink handle was inside.
Jenna snatched it and was back on her feet in time to see the rat bearing down on Michael.
“Oh God,” Michael said, stumbling to his feet. “Oh God!”
A straight shot to the doors was in front of her. Michael was running a few steps behind. She wished there was something she could do for him, but there wasn’t. She was the faster runner. She was the one with the key.
She pulled ahead of him and didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 64
“Cue commercial break,” Jodi said.
We have seven runners left, said Chad. Who will be the last one standing? Stick around and find out.
Bumper music. Fade out the live feed. Fade in commercial. A shared sigh of relief in the Control Room.
“Nice work, people,” said Jodi. “It’s been a strange day and a strange broadcast, but we’re holding it together.”
The death rate was a little higher than their forecasts predicted. Their models showed eight people making it out of Robot Tag, but seven was fine. Importantly, all seven were now on Platform 3, where nothing would chase them until they came back from commercial.
Jodi watched the main feed. An ad for an energy drink with two chimpanzees and a frog. She allowed her mind to get lost in the silly advertisement. She needed the break.
There was still no word about Bart.
“Sixty seconds and we’re back,” said Parna.
“Let’s start with Nathan,” said Jodi. “Show him re-enter the Tetradome.”
Parna moved the main feed to a shot of Nathan, who was bounding towards the end of the platform. In about thirty yards, Nathan would step into a tunnel that went back to the Tetradome, where the set design crew had changed everything since the opening sprint. In the ten minutes that passed since the runners entered Arena Two for robot tag, they had transformed the floor of the Tetradome into a lush, murky, and dangerous forest.
“Ten seconds to air,” said Parna.
“And Nathan’s approaching the tunnel now,” said Jodi. “Excellent timing.”
“We’re live in five…four…three…”
Welcome back to The Tetradome Run, said Chad, where Nathan Cavanaugh, solidly in first place, is about to step back into the dome!
“We’ll go to nineteen to catch him coming out of the tunnel,” said Jodi.
“Going to nineteen,” said Parna.
Camera nineteen had a canopy of leaves lining the edges of its frame. It was a pretty shot. Now they just needed Nathan to emerge.
“Guy’s taking a long time to come out,” said a production tech named Mitch.
“What camera do we have inside the tunnel? Twenty-two?”
“Yes, twenty-two is inside the tunnel,” said Parna.
“But no one’s there,” said Jodi. “I’m looking at twenty-two now.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Twenty-two is the only one we have inside the tunnel.”
“Then where is he? We’re live and we’re not showing anyone!”
“I don’t see him,” said a tech named Danny. “He’s just…gone.”
A hint of panic in Jodi’s chest.
“Show someone else,” she said. “Show Jenna.”
Parna switched the feed to camera thirty, one that was mounted on a quadricopter drone that hovered in front of Jenna as she ran.
“Where are you Nathan?” said Jodi. “Does anybody see him?”
“I can’t find him,” said Danny.
“Me either,” said Mitch.
“Fucking Christ!” Jodi snatched the walkie-talkie from the desktop. “Security, I need someone to give me a position on Nathan Cavanaugh’s TAC, over.”
She waited for three long, miserable seconds with no response before she tried again.
“Hello? This is Jodi in Control. Did anybody hear me?”
“We heard you, Ma’am,” came a guard’s voice. “It’s just that we can’t find him.”
“What do you mean you can’t find him?”
“The tracker in his cuff isn’t registering,” said the guard.
“What are you telling me? I have no idea what that means.”
“We’re not getting a signal from Nathan’s cuff,” said the guard. “It’s like it’s been turned off.”
CHAPTER 65
The Night Before It Happened, Continued
Excerpted from A Victim of Circumstance: The Memoir of Jenna Duvall
My memory of that night is a reel of flickering images.
The moonlight casting shadows in the darkness.
A car’s headlights blinding us as it drove past.
Seth, on the verge of tears, saying, “I didn’t want it to end this way. I thought we had more time.”
Me responding: “What are you talking about? More time for what?”
It happened so quickly, the shift in tone. Seth was scared, then he was sad. I was sympathetic, then I was confused.
We stood apart, then we stood together.
I knew something was off that night. I wanted to back away as Seth approached, but I didn’t.
I forced my feet to remain planted on the ground. As he entered my space, I contained my fear.
We spend so much of our lives preparing ourselves for these big, dangerous moments. The world socializes us with a million mixed messages about how we should behave when the decisive moment arrives. When the guy who has been her friend but is acting weird leads her to the park and steps into her space and she doesn’t feel comfortable about it but can see that he’s hurting and came to her for help does the girl choose to be empathetic, cautious, feisty, or strong?
Even as I write these words I can feel a hundred million pairs of eyes casting their judgements, a hundred million people with an agenda who are eager to use me and my story to further their own ends.
“If this was my last night on earth,” Seth said, “would it be okay if I kissed you?”
CHAPTER 66
A drone floated in front of Jenna, the single eye of its camera watching as she ran.
Byrd Jenkins was in view. It would have been easy to pass Byrd. His strength was fading. His gait was slowing.
But she didn’t pass him. As he slowed, she slowed. Sunny had mentioned a forest, and a forest was straight ahead. Be in last place when you run through the forest, Sunny had said.
Be the last person to pass a yellow orchid. Look for a pathway to the right.
*****
Rumors flew on social media that Bart Devlin was dead.
An Instagram account belonging to a New Rome resident named Dory Wayne broke the news. The soon-to-be-viral post showed officers from the New Rome Police Department pulling a body out of a dumpster. Thanks to a good zoom lens, the photo gave a clear view of the corpse’s face, as well as the cardboard sign hung from his neck.
Mr. Wayne’s post had a caption that read, Dead body looks an awful lot like Tetradome Run Director Bart Devlin.
Gabe was standing near the bar, looking at his phone,
waiting for something to happen. He saw the Instagram post, filed it in his mind next to the animated gif of Jenna before the race, screaming about a bomb.
What a weird night this was turning out to be.
Production on the show was out of whack. The projection screen at Polaris was showing a quiet view of an empty forest. Not a runner in sight.
Looking at the big screen, Gabe felt anxious. A little shaky. A little weak. Was Sunny here? Someone had sent him an airplane ticket and admission to the most exclusive watch party in Vegas and here he was, waiting.
For what? For Sunny? Was it silly of him to think she might be real? That the mysterious email with a treasure of an attachment might be legit?
A burble of stomach acid in his throat. The show made a sloppy cut to Jenna, running in a forest, bringing up the rear of the pack. Chad Holiday narrated an apologetic voiceover to the confusion.
Gabe opened a text to Myka, then thought better of it. He was a journalist chasing a national story. Time to start acting like one.
He opened his Twitter feed and composed a new Tweet to his pathetic, three-digit collection of followers.
Have you all seen this Instagram claiming Bart Devlin was found dead in a dumpster?
*****
The TAC status panel in the generator room showed Nathan Cavanaugh’s vital signs still active.
Jodi knew this because she, like all other senior production staff, had an app on her phone that told her so.
The problem wasn’t Nathan’s vital signs. The problem was his tracking device. No signal from the tracking device in his cuff at all. Which was a problem because, in the three minutes since Nathan disappeared, everything about the show went to shit.
Chad was giving out incorrect information, the social media campaign they’d planned for this segment wasn’t moving forward, and the main feed was stuck on a boring view of Jenna in last place. No one was calling for camera changes because everyone in the Control Room was scouring footage of the minutes before Nathan disappeared.
