Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy)

by Jerri Chisholm

  I think I would rather die, I tell them.

  In fact, I would rather die than hold any position down here, because every Mean job ultimately does one thing. It serves the Preme leaders, the people responsible for what happened to Jack. I refuse to serve them, not for a day, not for an hour, not even for a minute. I refuse to kneel before them and pledge my service. I refuse to have a painful past branded forever along my skin. So I will have to escape Compound Eleven before that time comes.

  Six weeks. Six weeks to find a way out.

  Tick tock.

  I take a deep breath and turn away from the violence. There was a time when I would have interfered. Called out, told the guard to stop. Stepped in front of the kid. That natural inclination to right wrong has been beaten out of me, though. It is every man, woman, and child for themselves. I understand that now. Perhaps other compounds are less cruel, but ours is not.

  Ours is cruel.

  As I take my first step, the boy groans, low and guttural, and it reaches my ears over the dull thuds of metal against bone. My stomach curls; my vision twitches. My voice bursts from my chest before I can force it down again. “Get away from him!”

  When will I learn, when will I learn.

  The guard freezes with his baton suspended in midair. His head swivels in my direction. Black marble beads glare at me, and then his spine straightens. The boy is barely moving at his feet, but there is life in him yet.

  I swallow. I am in no condition to defend myself. That is the biggest downside to fighting at the Bowl: how vulnerable I am in the hours and days that follow. Weak from expending every last molecule of energy, then another mile more. No, I cannot fight. My only chance is to run.

  Perhaps the guard will let me be. He won’t let both of us be, though. He needs to take his rage out on one of us, and I decide quickly it had better be me. “Coward,” I say loud enough for him to hear, and then my muscles contract and expand and I am running up the main corridor as fast as my boots will allow.

  The lightbulbs are strung at long intervals, and every third or fourth is burned out so that I pass in and out of a cloud of darkness. My boots smack against the cold cement floor, the guard’s steps echoing close behind.

  I will veer off the main corridor soon and lose him. I know these halls better than he does, and I’m quick around corners. But I need to find someone first.

  Finally, bodies up ahead—live ones.

  “Go down there!” I yell between breaths to a group in front of me. Women and children. “There’s a boy there, hurt. Go help him.”

  The women scowl at me and draw the children near to their chests as though I might attack. As though I am not currently preoccupied. “Stay away from us,” one spits at me as I pass. They are Upper Mean. Well dressed and groomed, the number four tattooed on their hands. They can tell by my wrinkled T-shirt and ripped jeans alone that I am Lower Mean. That this level is my home.

  They will not help the boy.

  But an old man with white stubble and a twisted arm nods at me as I fly past. He has heard. He will go. My work is done, my meddling complete.

  I dart left, down the corridor that leads to the family cells, my own neighborhood until a couple weeks ago. This one has a pink stripe painted along the concrete walls, and it is mostly covered in wadded-up paper crusted with saliva. There will be more bodies down here, crowds of them; kids tend to wake early, or so I remember. Right now, though—right now it is just the guard and me.

  I glance over my shoulder as I run. He hasn’t gained on me; he hasn’t dropped away, either. But most disconcerting of all is his silence. Most guards shout. They tell me to stop, then they give up. This one is determined.

  Dark turns to light, and light turns to dark. A strobe effect, dizzying. No sound but my heart thumping in my ears, my boots slapping the floor. And then a strange thing happens. Part of me thinks about giving up. Slowing my pace. I see myself coming to a stop, letting the guard’s fury find me, baton cocked. I see myself lying in a pool of red, waiting for death.

  He is closer now.

  A rush of adrenaline finds me, and I push on, the will to live still burning bright. Sometimes I wonder if it is better to be alive and caged or dead and free. I guess if I’m fighting for my life right now, I believe the former.

  It is always better to be alive.

  Weary muscles sear with pain, and my lungs burn. Running from guards when I was small was something of a pastime, something fun. Now I just want to be free of him—of all of them. I want to be left alone.

  Up ahead is my out.

  Children kick a ball around; parents supervise, they mingle. More and more appear from their cell doors as I watch, ready to start the day, and the crowd grows thicker. Kids laugh, and babies scream. This is my chance. I push several feet into the crowd, then duck behind a cluster of women, and from there I jump after another group trailing that. I don’t look back or let my eyes scan for my foe, I just keep moving, weaving through bodies with my head low, losing myself in the sea of people.

  “…And last month’s allotment was stolen right out of my hands,” complains a woman loudly in my ear.

  “No respect,” mutters her companion.

  Then a thumb digs painfully into bone until I wince. A heartbeat later I swivel and put all my force behind a blow to the nose. I hear it crack over the noise of the children. A perfect strike. The guard is stunned and distracted, and I yank myself free and disappear through the crowd, running harder than before. Now, just like that, the stakes are raised. Now he will shoot, if he gets a clear line.

  I force my way through a group of boys playing with a handmade hacky sack and veer right, down a tight-fitting corridor. That is when I notice another guard up ahead—a female one, something of a rarity. Those belonging to Compound Eleven’s guardship are mostly men—men hungry for clout, domination, the right to rule with brutal force. But it is impossible to mistake her for anything else. Black combat boots and fingerless gloves, knee and elbow pads of the same color. A protective vest full of artillery pockets. And lastly, the face mask. A flat piece of metal painted matte black with two holes for the eyes. Except the guards never wear them; they are too uncomfortable, so instead they hang around the neck to be used as needed.

  More disconcerting than any of it, though—a gun in one holster and a baton in the other.

  But I am smiling because I know there is a supply closet just ahead, down a corridor to my left. If it’s locked, I am dead. If it isn’t, I have a chance. A good one.

  The female guard looks up, and her eyes latch onto mine through strands of stringy brown hair. Then her head arches, and she spots the guard behind me. Automatically, and just as I knew it would, her hand reaches for her weapon. There are no sanctions she or the others would face for killing a Lower Mean like me, not in practice. Head of Security Jeffrey Sitwell may preach protection for all, but everyone knows the guards are here for one reason: to keep safe the ruling floor. I am not a Preeminate, not even close. I am disposable.

  Quickly I throw myself left, speed down a short corridor with a single door at its end. The supply closet will be connected to other hallways, and that is why it is worth the risk.

  Don’t be locked, don’t be locked, don’t be locked.

  They hardly ever are—most of the locks don’t even work. Nobody around here wants to steal a broom. My legs drive me to the end of the corridor, and an unsteady hand shoots forward. My stomach seizes up like an elastic band has been wrapped around it.

  Don’t be locked.

  It opens easily, and I jump inside, grab a handful of mops, and jam them under the door as far as they will go. It will slow the guards, and that is the best I can hope for. Next I turn, and as a gunshot rings out, as it cracks the door I have just wedged shut, I jump over a trash bin and pull open the door straight in front of me. I hear the guards shouting—that and their guns firing again
into the small room—but I am gone.

  I run quickly, my boots carrying me down one hall and into the next. I keep going and going, longer than I have to, rolling up my sleeves as I go, even changing my hair so that it falls loosely past my shoulders. I am more risk averse now that I am older. Finally, with half of Floor Two separating me from that supply closet, I let myself smile. I shake out my muscles, shove my hands in my pockets. I even think about telling Maggie and Hunter about my adventure later, how it will remind all of us of old times.

  Hunter refused to run from the guards when we were little—maybe he was too afraid, or maybe he just knew better. Whatever it was, he kept himself out of trouble, played the system to his advantage. Still does. Maggie and I, though, spent many hours of our early childhood on the run, causing a ruckus in a supply closet or smuggling treats out of the cafeteria—nothing serious, just enough to attract the attention of a nearby guard. And once we’d shaken him, we would hunch over with laughter.

  The guards were less ruthless back then. Everyone was. But as time beat on, agitation grew—the sort of toxic agitation I attribute to life quarantined inside an underground box. Now people are miserable; they are mad, particularly on the bottom floors, where life is most difficult. The fourth-floor guards have a good life—too good, as far as I’m concerned—so I don’t know why they are more sadistic now than they were. Maybe they’re sick of putting up with shit from the rest of us. Or maybe they’ve always been this way and I was simply too young, too naive to see it.

  It has been a few generations since civilization moved underground, and they say our generation is the worst. We are too far removed from it. We don’t appreciate the gift of life we have been given here, firmly below the earth’s crust. We don’t realize how tough life was aboveground. How much had to be sacrificed to start over somewhere safe.

  Perhaps. But it’s not as though we are unfamiliar with the details. They teach it in school—drill it into us from an early age. I know the story of our inception as well as anyone.

  It all began when the writing was on the wall. When it became clear that within decades, crops would be in a permanent state of ruin. Cities would be awash with ocean water. Young and old and everyone in between would be killed by smothering heat, by viruses festering in skyrocketing humidity. Panic spread; denial, too. Governments teetered as they rushed to turn back time. Humanity started to come undone.

  But first, an idea was born: to transfer society underground and away from it all.

  Governments wouldn’t hear of it; their focus was aboveground, their revenues earmarked for efforts to cool the earth. Yet still the idea of an underground society persisted—it grew into a movement in its own right, populated by those who correctly predicted that the governments’ efforts were in vain. But such a vast project required vast funds.

  And so the wealthiest, most powerful members of the movement banded together, our so-called saviors—they agreed to finance every aspect of the new society, on one condition. That it would be theirs to rule.

  Early proposals excluded the indigent entirely—space was reserved for only those who could afford it, something our teachers conveniently left out of their lectures. But I know the real story from whisperings in the corridors, from our elders and the elders before that. I know that eventually the wealthy realized they would need muscle to build the compounds, laborers to clean them, workers to fill the underground factories where goods would be made, where genetically modified food would be produced. And so, because of necessity and nothing more, those of little means were invited in—offered a chance at survival, so long as they abided by the rules. So long as they inhabited the lowest floors, so long as they asked for little.

  Our saviors indeed.

  When the indigent agreed to such harsh terms, they probably didn’t realize how deeply they would be oppressed or how dire their circumstances would be. And they couldn’t know then that all their descendants would be sentenced to the same cruel fate. So when the time came, when the clock finally ran out on Planet Earth and the last embers of aboveground civilization turned to ash, down they came, rich and poor and those in between, and a new order was established…

  They say we can’t understand. I suppose we can’t, and so misery abounds.

  All around me, I see evidence of it: faces touched with strain, eyes tomb-like and empty. Even the sound bites are depressing:

  “Oh, Billy? He hung himself at the equinox.”

  “We ran outta diapers. We’ve been reusing them dirty till the compound authorizes more.”

  “His broken arm was never set. Don’t you see it sticking out funny?”

  With intention, I drop my gaze to the floor, hum the compound’s anthem loudly under my breath. Time to circle back to the elevators; time to go to the fifth floor.

  To the Oracle.

  Chapter Six

  I kick an empty can all the way back to the elevators and find them busy. The cafeteria is on the third floor, and people are waking in droves now, heading up for breakfast. I have barely eaten since the fight; my jaw has been too sore, my appetite too sparse. Right now I just need to get upstairs to the fifth floor. I just need to try today’s code: 11000536.

  Usually I take the stairs—they’re always empty—but I am too sore, especially now. So I board the elevator and try to ignore the feeling of shoulders pressing against mine, the breath of many mingling and rising. I blot away the remaining blood from my knuckles and run my fingers over broken scabs. That guard deserved a broken nose. I am happy that I was the one to give it to him. I am angry that I had to.

  The doors slide open at the third floor, and the elevator clears out. Perfect. Except Daniel spots me through the crowd, and he jumps aboard before the doors can close. My muscles tighten and my breathing quickens, but the rest of me is still. Impassive.

  He is an Upper Mean, tall with curly hair cut short, and he smells like bitter, astringent soap. Otherwise he is plain and unmemorable, except for an evil streak that cuts through him like acid. To describe him as heartless would be too kind.

  “What do you want,” I say as the elevator glides upward. My voice is sour.

  He shoves a piece of toast into his mouth and smirks. “Haven’t seen you around for the past few days, Eve. What happened? Did you get an ouchie on your face?” His fingers reach toward my bruises. I grab his wrist.

  “Touch me, and I’ll destroy you,” I say quietly.

  He laughs. “Hard to believe that, sweetheart.” He pulls his hand free and makes a point of wiping it on his pleated pants. “Heard you had to get medical attention, you were so bad. And against a Preme. Maybe you’re losing your edge, Evie.”

  I scoff. “You think calling me a childhood nickname is going to get under my skin? Get real, Dan-Dan.”

  Now his hand curls into a fist, and he studies it. He puts on a show that is meant to intimidate me. I don’t allow it to. But I do glance at the buttons of the elevator, feeling my muscles unclench when I see we are almost at the fifth floor. I don’t have it in me to fight him, not right now, but if I had to—if I had to—I would win. I am confident of that.

  I was confident of that back in fourth grade when I threw an elbow into his teeth, sick of the endless taunts he leveled against us Lower Means, particularly against Maggie, who I think he had a thing for. It was the first time one of us stood up to him, and it cemented his hatred for me then and there—it serves as the foundation for our endless feud that lives on today.

  The doors are slow to open, and when they do, his hand reaches out and stops me—pushes roughly against my stomach. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

  “None of your business.”

  “What, think you’re going to land a job with the Premes?” He sneers, and his face looks so smug I want to punch it.

  “I’d have a better shot than you,” I say hotly. I know I shouldn’t let him get to me, but I can�
�t help it. “My grades are better than yours. I fight, I volunteer. Maybe I’ll try for one of those guard jobs you’re always talking about,” I lie.

  “Go back to where you came from, Lower Mean,” he snaps. I’ve hit a nerve.

  A wicked smile curls my lips, and then I push past him and into the Preme atrium, where the floors are spotless and the air is clean. “Trash,” he mutters, but before I can retaliate, the elevator doors seal into one and he is gone.

  Relax, Eve.

  But I am rattled; I can feel it in my bones. Between the orange-haired boy downstairs, the guard, and Daniel, I am shaken. I need to breathe. I need to calm down and concentrate. Because today is the day. Today will be the day. 11000536.

  I start forward, but I pause at the bronze sculpture of a globe that hogs the middle of the atrium. I have walked by it hundreds of times, but never have I studied it. I know it represents the world, and I know that the small red X indicates our position on a piece of land known as North America, but the whole thing is meaningless. Maybe people used to study this sort of thing when they lived aboveground, but what’s the point now?

  Slowly I walk around it. Perhaps it does have meaning. Because as I stare at it, I see that the world is a very big place, and that Compound Eleven occupies a very tiny sliver of it. Under five square miles, to be precise. The number of other compounds out there must be staggering. And surely not all of them are as cruel as ours.

  Now my eyes twist around the atrium in search of something else—a sign, any sign, any indication at all of where the tunnels to other compounds could be. I don’t have to accept Compound Eleven, I already know that. I don’t even have to accept the nearby compounds Ten or Twelve. I can keep searching, on and on, for my rightful home…

  The thought is soothing, just what I need. So it’s with something approaching contentment that I walk past the library, past its large glass windows that let me glimpse the long tables and rows of books inside.