I glanced up at the clock—8:40. Was it really that late? It seemed like only a minute ago that I’d just sat down to write. Time had been crawling before then. I simply didn’t feel ready. I needed more time. But the clock kept ticking and I knew that ready or not, it was time.
Hoping it would go unnoticed, I pulled my pack out of the drawer, stuffed my few belongings into it and one more pretending to fix the position of my mattress, slipped my knife into it. Then I stuffed my diary into it as well and headed out the door.
Vanissa was just walking out of her door as I approached. She looked at me, took a nervous breath and said:
“Britta, I don’t feel well. Could you help me find an attendant or nurse or someone who could help?”
The line was obviously rehearsed but I didn’t think anyone who didn’t know our plan would notice.
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound genuinely concerned. “Sure. Let’s check downstairs.”
We made our way down the hall and headed down the steps. I felt somewhat lightheaded, so I gripped the railing tightly, so as not to fall. When I almost tripped, I began to regret not eating dinner.
Walking through the cafeteria, I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen it empty. It felt somehow unnerving passing empty tables. Because even though most of the people that had sat there were simply sleeping, others were gone. And they wouldn’t come back.
My footsteps seemed to echo off every wall and the lighting was so dim it felt almost eerie, as if someone was watching us. Of course, that was because there really were people watching us.
As if right on cue, when we exited the cafeteria and entered the hall, I saw a nurse walk up to an elevator. I guess, so far things were going our way. After all, I’d thought we’d be lucky to just to come across someone using the elevators. I certainly hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Vanissa quickened her pace so as not to appear with me. That way, I’d look like just another person walking by. I saw the nurse punch in the passcode and the doors slide open, just as Vanissa walked up to the nurse.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I don’t feel well. Would you happen to have some medicine or something that would help?”
The nurse fumbled around in her bag, while she asked Vanissa a few questions about what was bothering her. That was my chance. I walked behind the nurse, as if simply passing them. But before I did, I turned sharply, slipping through the already shutting elevator doors.
I turned and looked at the buttons frantically. With a sigh of relief, I realized all the buttons were labeled with what that particular level of the building was used for. I punched the ‘hospital’ button and waited. Very slowly, the elevator began to rise. Then, all of a sudden, the speed tripled and I grabbed the railing so as not to fall.
During the ride, I couldn’t help thinking that our luck couldn’t possibly continue like this. So far everything had gone perfectly. Vanissa had talked to the nurse as if we’d rehearsed what she needed to say and I’d slipped into the elevator without a problem. It just didn’t seem realistic. It was too good to be true.
Just then, the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. I walked out into the hall at a quick pace. I couldn’t run yet or it would probably turn the attention I’d already be attracting to myself, to someone sounding an alarm. Whoever was watching me was probably trying to figure what I was doing before actually doing that. So, as I walked, I tried to appear as if I knew what I was doing. After all, if I acted as if I knew what I was doing it would confuse the people watching me. They’d possibly even think I had a normal reason to be there.
I walked swiftly down the hall, headed toward the secret section. But only part way there, I spotted a room filled with different medicines. Could I possibly be so lucky that I’d find the medicine I needed right there? I decided I might as well try, so walking in, I glanced around the room.
The shelves of medicine were all labeled and almost immediately, I spotted what I thought was the kind I needed. Hoping, I was right and they really were the right kind, I grabbed a handful of syringes and stuffed them into my pack. Then I got up, darted out the door and sprinted down the hall to the elevator.
18
Once in the elevator, I ran over to the button panel and punched the button labeled ‘maintenance’, hoping with all my heart it was the level with the control room in it. Grasping the rail I stood there waiting, as the elevator shot upward. I’d expected the ride to be about two minutes, but as it turned out, it was only about fifteen seconds.
The minute the doors opened I darted through them, skidding to a stop in the hallway for a moment to take in my surroundings. I had three choices. To go forward, left or right. Barely hesitating, I took a wild guess and turned right. Running down the halls, I had just enough time to read the signs above each doorway. Cleaning supplies, test controls… I rounded a corner and stopped short. A door, just in front of me, that was partially opened was labeled ‘surveillance’. And, listening very carefully, I could hear voices coming from inside.
“We need to call and ask,” a voice said.
“Your right,” another voice said. “We should find out what’s going on before setting off the alarm.”
As they spoke, I crept closer and closer, until I was right next to the door.
“Look!” someone shouted in a startled voice. “Press the alarm button, she’s right outside!”
Just as the words came out of her mouth I turned, stepped into the room, and jabbed a syringe into the nearest person.
I was in a medium sized room. Three desks with personal screens attached, were set in a semicircle in front of a wall covered in multiple other screens, each showing a different part of the building. An unconscious woman lay at my feet and two others stood staring at me. A woman to the right of me, her hand still poised to press a red button on the wall and a man on my left to the far side of the room.
The man seemed to realize what was happening and ran forward but before he reached me I dashed at the woman who was about to press the alarm button. She realized all too late what was going on and made an attempt to run, but before she could I plunged a syringe into her arm and she sank to the ground, unconscious.
The man lunged at me, but I darted out of the way, nearly tripping on the unconscious woman. Then I leaped up onto a desk, breathing heavily. I saw him reaching for his gun and realized I had to do something fast. So without thinking, I leaped off the desk, hurtling at him. Just as his gun aimed at my head, the needle of my syringe sank into his arm, its contents seeping into his veins. And I was left the only conscious person in the room.
I had no idea how to shut down the system and finding no other way to do it, I took out my knife and threw it as hard as I could at one of the screens. To my surprise it shattered easily. So, one by one, I shattered each screen. On the last screen a piece of glass went flying and skimmed my arm. Immediately, I dropped my knife and pressed my hand to the cut, hoping it wouldn’t bleed much. If it did, nobody would have any trouble following us. Slowly, I took my hand away for just a moment to get a look at the cut and a wave of dizziness passed over me. It sure seemed to be bleeding an incredible amount, considering the glass had just skimmed me. I was searching around, trying to find something to help stop the bleeding, when suddenly I heard something.
“Britta!!!” someone was screaming. “Britta, where are you!?!” I recognized the voice. It was Vanissa.
What’s going on??? I thought. Why would Vanissa be here unless…
I ran out of the room and down the hall, following her voice. I ran down one hall after another, going every way I thought I heard her voice coming from, but I couldn’t find her. First, she seemed to be coming from my left, then my right, then behind me. Everywhere I went her voice was coming from somewhere else.
I stopped for a moment; looking around wildly. Just then Vanissa rounded the corner, running at me, a terrified expression on her face.
“Britta!” she stopped right in front of me. “Britta we have to get out.”
> “I know,” I said, unsure of what she was getting at. “What do you mean? I know we have to get out but—”
“Britta, they’re all gone!” she interrupted me. “Priscila, Kendall, Vanissa, Owen and Livia are the only ones still here.”
“What??? What are you talking about?”
“Everyone is just gone,” she said, in a voice it was clear she was struggling to keep calm. “I went to look for them in their rooms, so I could start getting people aware of the situation and…they weren’t there. We’ve got to get out of here now.”
“You’re right,” I said slowly. “Until we get out we’re not safe...We are going to get out of here.”
I began walking swiftly towards the elevator, Vanissa following close behind. In the elevator Vanissa reached out to press the floor labeled ‘Islanders’, but before she could, my hand shot out, pressing the button labeled ‘hospital’.
“Britta what..?” Vanissa asked frantically. “We don’t have time to worry about getting more syringes, if that’s what you're doing.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Like I said, we’re leaving. We’re getting out of the Country.”
“We can’t. You know that,” she said in a more than frustrated voice. Then she paused, seeming to suddenly realize what I was planning. “You mean…we’re going to somehow shut down The Other Side...”
My idea was that if I could manage to somehow destroy the system, (even if just temporarily), we’d able to have a chance at getting out; really getting out. Because I knew that until we were out of the country, we’d never really escape the clutches of The Island Program. When I’d heard Vanissa’s voice and realized something was wrong it had finally occurred to me that we wouldn’t have a chance if we stayed in the country. So we had to get out. We had to get out now.
The elevator slowly came to a stop and the doors slid open revealing the clean white halls of the hospital. I stepped out of the elevator and began running down the hall; Vanissa close at my heels.
It didn’t take long for us to get a keycard. All we did was knock out the first nurse who crossed our path. And the passcode wasn’t a problem either. Vanissa said she’d been watching when Priscila put it in and now had it memorized. So about a minute from the time we’d left the elevator, we found ourselves back in the secret section, running for the room I remembered from our last visit—the one with all the screens.
As I ran, getting closer to the room, I began to feel as if someone was watching me. Everything was just so quiet. The only thing I could hear was the echoing of our footsteps, seemingly twice as loud as the actual noise our feet were making against the slick floor.
I skidded to a stop in front of the room, suddenly realizing the glass was much too thick to simply break by throwing my knife. But I didn’t have any time to think over options, because at that moment I heard footsteps; running in our direction. Wait. I thought. I don’t need to break anything. Desperately hoping it would work, I swiped the keycard in a slot on the door of the room. I waited for the door to open but nothing happened. I was about to try swiping it again when the door slowly began to open.
The minute I could, I darted through the door and looked around wildly. Four astonished people sat at desks in front of their screens, staring at me wide-eyed. (I guess they were here to operate The Other Side.) I knocked them out before they had time to even call for help.
Then, I looked around the room at all the controls and screens. I knew this time just smashing the screens wouldn’t be enough. So, getting on my knees I pulled open a little hatch by the control panel and examined it. It was just an electric box and wires. I hadn’t had any experience with this kind of stuff before, but destroying things is usually easy.
I pulled out my knife and sliced the wires one by one. Then I yanked at the electric box and cut at all the wires connecting it to the wall, until I was able pull it out. Not having any other ideas, I stuffed it in my bag and got to work doing a little extra destroying just in case taking the box and cutting the wires wasn’t enough. Vanissa helping, I managed to destroy every computer and screen I could find in only about one minute.
Then we dashed back out of the room and down the hall. But the footsteps were no longer approaching us. Even though that should have reassured me, it somehow made me uneasy. Something about this still didn’t seem right. Especially the fact that there were very few people around and we hadn’t come across a single guard the entire time.
19
Once we took the elevator back down, I headed immediately toward Priscila and Kendall’s rooms, but before I got there, both them with Owen and Livia came running towards us.
“Britta!” said Kendall. “Everyone is gone. I don’t think it’s true what they said about letting us out.”
“I know,” I said. “Vanissa told me about everyone being gone and I’ve actually known they were lying about freeing us for a while. I just couldn’t find a way to tell you without someone seeing or hearing. But we need to get out now. I’ll explain everything later.”
And with that, we took off for the elevator; for our way out of the building and for our way to freedom—towards the only way to stay alive.
I entered the elevator last, to make sure everyone was still there. Then Vanissa pressed the button for the level she remembered we had to go to in order to get to the garage and the elevator began to rise.
It seemed to be going noticeably slower than the last time and I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong; very wrong. So I just clung tightly to the rail, wishing the elevator would get there faster.
“Alright,” Vanissa said. “Once we get into the city we’ll have to find a way to get to the border without anyone seeing. But I still don’t know how—” Vanissa stopped in mid-sentence and stared at me wide eyed. Because the elevator was no longer moving—we were between two floors and it had STOPPED.
Everyone waited in silence for a moment, hoping desperately it would start. But it didn’t and all hope seemed to slip out of the elevator; leaving us in a hopeless silence. Vanissa slumped against the wall and sank to the ground.
“Well,” she said half-heartedly. “I guess it’s about time our luck ran out.”
“Vanissa,” I said, walking over to the doors and trying to pry them open. “We can’t just give up. There must be some way out.”
“Britta,” said Priscila. “I think what Vanissa means, is that this isn’t a coincidence that the elevator would break down while we’re in it…they knew we were going to escape all along.”
“No…” I said. “If that was true then they wouldn’t have let us destroy all their controls to The Other Side.”
“Well that wasn’t part of the plan in the beginning, was it?” said Vanissa. “We weren’t planning on it so it probably didn’t even occur to them. I hadn’t even contemplated the idea of trying to get through The Other Side. Most of the people here were probably being used to help transport all…the other people to The Other Side. So, with very few guards still here, they were probably planning on catching us some other way to ensure there’d be no possible way for us to get passed them.”
“So when we went back to the secret section we surprised them?” I said. “And that’s why they’ve trapped us here. It must be because if we get passed the elevator there’ll be a chance we could actually get out. ”
Vanissa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. But why do you think they took everyone but us?”
“It’s because they knew it’d cause trouble if they took any of my family or friends separate from me,” I said. “So, not wanting to risk me causing any trouble they were going to get us in a group…”
“Well it looks like they’ve succeeded,” said Livia. “I guess they know this is the best place to capture us because we can’t possibly find a safe way out. I mean, I didn't even know they could control the elevator, but I guess it should've been obvious—they can control everything, right
? They know we’ll never be able to get away from them. Even if we had enough people, we still can’t outsmart them.”
Suddenly I stood up straighter and walked around the elevator; looking up at its ceiling.
“You’re right,” I said. “They do think we’ll never be able to get away from them. And they do think we can’t outsmart them. But they’re wrong.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Listen,” I said. “We have to find a way out of here. Vanissa—you’re so smart. Usually you’d be the one encouraging us to find a solution.”
“Yeah, well,” she said. “I’m just not like that anymore.”
“I agree with Britta,” said Owen. “We need to find a way out. Maybe we could climb out.”
“I’m with Britta as well,” said Priscila. “Her plan got us this far.”
“I am too,” said Kendall.
“Yeah, me too,” murmured Livia.
We all looked at Vanissa.
“Well,” she said. “I think any decision Britta makes will be a good one. I guess, like Owen said we could climb out, but I just don’t think all of us could make it to the top.”
“I can,” I said. “I’ve had a lot of experience with climbing, because I worked on the mountain, remember?” I looked up at the elevator ceiling, above. “Kendall,” I said. “Stand on my shoulders and try to see if there's a panel that opens in the ceiling or something.”
Owen helped Kendall onto my shoulders and he was able to reach the ceiling effortlessly. Kendall pressed his hands against a panel of the ceiling, pushing upward. To my great relief, it was pushed up and out of place easily. Then he pulled the panel back down and handed it to Vanissa, who carefully set it against the wall.
The Other Side (The Other Side Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
