“Nah, they couldn’t have gotten this far. All the streets were covered. This septic artery was closed off years ago, in a tunnel collapse. Our boys have checked; there’s no way through. As long as we keep this radius we’ll catch them.” The voice moved out of hearing range and I scurried back to safety.
Blossom held up a light stick, searched my face and gave a brief nod.
“They’re looking for us, aren’t they?” she asked, not really expecting me to answer.
“It sounds like it, but let’s not get paranoid. They could be looking for anyone” my voice sounded more confident than I felt. “I mean, how could they find us? You took out Jake’s tracker. I’m going to see if I can hear anything else, you two stay here.” I snuck back to the manhole cover, straining to catch any sound. My mind turned over the possibilities of how they located us and as the hair on my arms rippled, it came to me; my ICD. I immediately set the device to “transport mode” which disconnected me from the grid. I was in the middle of dressing myself down when I heard the transport move.
The small dots of sunlight streamed in to the tunnel again, giving the space a frozen-in-time vibe, like a disco photo that I’d seen in one of the history text books I’d read as part of my master’s degree. I clung to the shadows, as best I could. The sound of footsteps returning over my head seized my heart momentarily, but I convinced myself that no one could know, at least with a hundred percent certainty, that we were hidden just under their feet. I could hear one voice more clearly now.
“I’ll sweep here, you go down the block a bit and make sure all those doors are locked tight, we don’t want any easy hidey-holes for the kid.” One of the little apertures in the man hole darkened and the sound of metal on metal sent me scurrying back in to a darker recess of the pipeline. “No not those doors, the ones further down!” yelled the voice, before the manhole cover slowly lifted. I looked back to the utility room, and gestured to the two terrified faces peering at me. They reluctantly closed the door, leaving me to my fate.
A beam of light cut through the darkness of the old storm drain system and I froze, just out of sight.
“Pssst!” signalled the head, hanging down through the man hole. “Pssst…kid, you there?” The beam dropped lower and began a more thorough search of the tunnel. There was no way I could avoid being seen. Why couldn’t I have just stayed in the utility room? The flashlight finally fell on me and I relaxed my stance, trying to seem like it was perfectly normal to be down in the old water system. “Who are you?” the voice demanded. I couldn’t make out much more than a soft glow coming from around the opening. “Never mind. If you know that kid, Danforth, give him this. A paper fluttered down from the opening and I grabbed for it as I heard a squawk come over his com link. “Tell him, we aren’t all bad. Shit, gotta go, my partner’s coming back. Get out of the city; fast!” The head disappeared and the manhole cover dropped gingerly in to place, the clang echoing down the tunnel for just a few seconds.
I held the paper gingerly, wondering what kind of trap could be contained on the piece of paper. They could have a tracker chip buried in the plastic fibres, for all I knew, but my curiosity got the best of me and I took the note back to the utility room where Blossom still had the light stick glowing.
“Jake,” I asked, sounding calmer than I felt, “do you know anyone in the police department?” My heart was still up in my throat and although my voice sounded steady, it seemed about a half octave too high.
“Maybe,” he answered with the half-shrug that was starting to get on my nerves.
“Either you do or you don’t, kid!” I snapped, the release of adrenaline making me speak more sharply than I intended. “Look, a cop gave me this.” I handed over the note and we huddled around the light stick to see what it said. When my eyes finally made out the marks on the page, I was disappointed. There was only a string of alphanumeric digits and what looked like a finger print. I stared at it, trying to decipher some sort of meaning. The three of us exchanged glances and Jake scratched his head; bewildered. Something tickled at the back of my brain as I stared at the sequence. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I watched as Blossom counted the code.
“Twenty-one. What has a code that requires that big of a password? Or is it maybe coordinates of some sort?” Her questions jogged something in my memory and it suddenly came to me.
“The bio-dome. It’s a code to get out of the bio-dome. Grab everything, we have to go!” I scrambled to pick up the computer equipment and my bundle of clothes. The kids hadn’t moved yet and only stared at me in confusion. “It’s the code to get out of the bio-dome; they scramble it every three hours. We don’t have much time – who knows how long that guy had it. Where’s the closest access point?” There was no way that kids that young would remember a time when you could actually get out of the environmental enclosure over the city, at least not without a government escort. Most of the power grid went to keeping the city’s atmosphere enclosed in the dome. I had heard about outings beyond the dome at my grandfather’s knee and obviously, some of the information had stuck. “Get moving! Go!” I commanded and was glad to see them finally grabbed their stuff and head out into the tunnels.
Blossom paused at a junction, not too far from where we had spent the waning hours of the night, reading the letters high up on the wall.
“We’re between two access portals, about the same distance apart. One is only for people, but the other you can take a vehicle through. I don’t know which one is better.”
“The vehicle one” replied Jake without a moment’s hesitation. “The fingerprint, maybe it’s for a transport.” I nodded, understanding his reasoning immediately. Only a few things used a single finger print anymore and one of them was to start a transport, albeit an old one. Heading to the right, we ran through the tunnels until we came to a dead end. Our only exit was a rusted metal ladder that led to the street. I swallowed involuntarily, not eager to leave the safety of the drain system, but the clock was ticking and we had to make the gate before the code was scrambled again.
The first few rungs were fairly high up and I had to lever myself up using my arms, not a task that my body was used to, but with help from Jake and Blossom I managed to pull myself up on to the ladder. The oxidized metal cut in to my hands and some of the rungs felt loose, so I made my way up gingerly, checking to make sure the metal bars wouldn’t give way under my weight. I looked down to see Jake boost Blossom up on to the rungs. I should have been embarrassed by the ease at which she pulled herself up, but I couldn’t be bothered, as I pressed my ear against the manhole to listen for activity on the street above. That there wasn’t any sound coming through the thick metal was little comfort to me. The weight of responsibility for Jake and Blossom felt overwhelming, not to mention the healthy concern I had for my own miserable existence. I could hear Jake shuffling his feet in the dust down below; impatient to get on with things and I cautiously balanced myself on my rung and placed both hands on the manhole cover. My arms bulged as I attempted to lift the heavy metal disc but it didn’t budge. I took a deep breathe and tried again. I could feel one edge lift from its nest and renewed my effort. My arms started to tremble at the strain, but I could see a crack of light all around the opening as the lid slowly lifted from its resting place. I heard a slow metal groan and the light disappeared as the lid dropped silently back in place and I could feel my feet starting to slip as the iron rung bent under the combined weight of the cover and my body. I grabbed at the upper most rung and hung, suspended for a heart stopping moment before I regained my foothold. Blossom’s squeal echoed down the tunnel as she contemplated having to choose between trying to catch me and saving her own neck. I smiled down at her encouragingly and went back to the task at hand. I levered myself up to the next rung up, forcing myself to crouch slightly in order to be able to lift more with my legs. I said a small prayer that the rung would withstand the weight and opted for a slightly different tack. If I could lever the lid up slightly, I would
just slide it on to the street without lifting the entire thing.
My arms were already screaming from my previous attempt and I cursed my own laziness as I slowly wodged the lid up and onto the street. I didn’t open the space up completely, but left enough room so that I could peek over the edge and see what was happening above ground. Before I braved a look, every cop movie I had ever seen ran through my head. If only I had one of those neat little mirrors or a mini-cam feed that would allow me to look unobtrusively around. I’d even take a low ranking actor with no speaking parts to sacrifice, should the need arise, but there was only me and this wasn’t a movie. Psyching myself up, I raised my head through the opening and swivelled around to make sure that we were safe. There was no one. We were on what was ostensibly a dead end street, with the portal to the Burn Zone only fifty meters or so away. There was a transport facing the gate, but aside from that the area was empty, the buildings mostly shuttered up or crumbling and eerily empty. Nobody wanted to live near the portal and risk additional exposure to UV radiation. I pushed the lid the rest of the way over, pulled myself out of the manhole and leaned in to pull the girl up. She hopped out neatly and patted me on the shoulder; a delayed gesture of comfort for my near fall. Jake eased himself out shortly after, hauling the bags up behind him. We made our way to the transport, hoping against all hope that the fingerprint would unlock it and start up the drive mechanism.
Chapter 5 – Beyond the Bubble
Jake pressed the fingerprint against the lock’s touch pad and the side door of the transport slid open. Looking inside, we could see the vehicle was crammed with items to help us navigate outside of the biosphere. There were ample water tablets, Sunskin jumpers to protect against the harsh UV rays outside of the dome, a skid of insta-meals and other sundry items that would help. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I waved the fingerprint over was the start pad. Nothing happened. I re-angled the paper and pressed the print against the sensor. Nothing. I growled in frustration. We weren’t going to be able to use the vehicle for our trip. The insta-meal skid had track runners, so we loaded our booty onto the glorified wagon, donned the Sunskins and marched over to the exit portal.
I punched in the code and half prayed that it wouldn’t work and we wouldn’t have to head out in to the Burn Zone on foot and with hardly any idea of where we were going. The door spun open, and we entered the chamber that separated us from the unknown. As the door turned, we could feel the floor under us move with it and were forced to shuffle around in a half circle to face the exterior opening. Sunlight streamed through the ever increasing opening, and we could feel the change in air pressure as the airlock sealed off the dome and released us in to the outside world. In moments we were facing the barren reality of our insane mission.
I could feel the Sunskin retract tightly around my body as it reacted to the harsh rays of unfiltered sunlight. The glare from the bleached ground was blinding and I rooted around in our new supplies for sunglasses and a good hat. Blossom was shading herself under an umbrella and I couldn’t make out her expression under the mirrored reflection of her glasses. Jake eschewed hat or umbrella and looked around at the barren landscape; hand lifted to further shade his eyes. He spotted an unnatural shape not far from the biosphere wall through the undulating waves of heat that marred our vision and we headed towards whatever it was. Every step seemed tiring and I realized I was struggling to breath. I’d forgotten that O2 levels were low, due to the lack of plant life. I wondered if there was enough oxygen in the air to survive, but tossed the thought aside as we approached our target.
At closer inspection I could tell that it was a vehicle of some sort. It didn’t have the smooth lines of a transport and seemed to have wheels instead of a track. The tires were large and knobby and had huge springs attached to the support system underneath. From somewhere in my memory the word “suspension” popped out. It was a far cry from the smooth operation of the city transports which ran on an air suspended, sensor controlled, magnetic rail system that avoided unnecessary accidents and smoothed traffic jams. The vehicle was like something out of one of my history books, except that, if the roof sail was any indication, it had been modified to meet more recent environmental standards. The sail could convert sun or wind energy to run the motor, both of which came in handy as the earth heated and the trade winds increased their speed causing all sorts of destruction, on land and off.
“You don’t suppose it’ll start do you?” asked Blossom, half embarrassed by her optimism. I looked for a print scanner, but couldn’t see anything, so pressed my face up against the window looking for some sort of starting mechanism. On the side of the steering wheel dangled a key chain, indicating that the key was in the ignition. ‘Dear God!’ I thought to myself, ‘one of us is going to have to actually drive this thing, assuming it worked.’
“There’s only one way to find out.” I depressed the door release and pulled, cringing as the hinge squealed from lack of use. My one chipper thought was that there was no way in the world that the car would actually start. Despite the lack of grit and sand on the exterior, it had to have been sitting there for a long time. I threw my bundle of clothes in the back and placed my computer bag carefully behind the driver’s seat. Jake and Blossom popped the back hatch and threw their bags in before exchanging a long rock, paper, scissors battle for the front seat. Their little competition gave me time to survey the dash board with all its knobs and whirly gigs. The handle attached to the floor baffled me at first. The indicator highlighted a ‘P’, above it were the letters ‘N’, ‘D’ and ‘D1’; below was an ‘R’. I tried to remember everything I could about antiquated driving practices. Slowly the letters started making sense. The only one that baffled me was the ‘N’, but I could worry about that later. The floor had two pedals, one long and narrow, placed by the right foot and the other was wider, but not as long and more to the middle of the driver’s foot space. Well, I knew that one was the gas and one was the brake, how hard could it be to figure out which was which?
When I started working on my history degree I had done a paper on the automobile and its direct link to the existing environmental crisis. It had tweaked my interest in the whole ‘gear head’ culture, so I had read up on all aspects of the car craze including driving, but that was over twenty years ago. The kids had settled the seating issue and Jake climbed in beside me, stretching out his long legs as well as he could. Blossom gave me a little shrug and hopped into the back seat, propping herself up against my bag and stretching her small frame across the bench seat. She sighed and put her hands up behind her head, smiling smugly. Jake rolled his eyes heavenward, but refrained from comment. Instead he turned to me with a doubtful eye.
“You know how to work this thing?” He asked, pushing his bangs out of his eyes and giving the car’s interior a quizzical scan.
“Nope, but I’ll figure it out.” I thought I sounded fairly confident, despite the doubts running around in my head. I pressed my foot down on the right pedal, thinking that it seemed the most comfortable and logical choice for running the engine. I turned the key and the dashboard lights flashed and I heard the chug of the engine trying to turn itself over. The lights on the dash went out and nothing happened. I tried a second time and wasn’t even rewarded by seeing the lights flicker.
“Maybe it just doesn’t work?” offered Jake, “I mean, it’s pretty ancient, man.”
“Let me think a minute” I shushed, running a hand distractedly through my hair. Cars this old usually ran on liquid fuel, but this one had been converted to alternate energy, so there had to be some sort of switch to engage the energy transfer. I looked over the dash for something that looked incongruous and there it was; a little red switch, unmarked but obviously a modern edition to the console. I flipped the switch up and heard the sail unfurl. I tried the ignition again and was rewarded by a weak coughing sound, reminiscent of an uncomfortable laugh at a funeral. I pumped my foot onto the accelerator and cranked the key again, and, against all odds, the eng
ine finally came to life. I pressed the button on the side of the handle that lined up with the letters and as I did, my mind filled in the missing word ‘gear shift’. I put the indicator in line with the ‘D’ and the car slowly ground forward. I pressed down harder on the accelerator and the car picked up a small amount of speed.
“Is this as fast as this thing goes?” asked Blossom disgustedly, “I could walk faster.” I knew that antique vehicles weren’t capable of the rates of speed achieved by modern transports, but I knew they went faster than the snails pace we were currently moving at. I scanned the dashboard and noticed a little red light with and exclamation point in it. Was there something wrong with the engine? I looked around and noticed a pull handle with the same symbol and reached down and gave it a yank. The vehicle’s engine revved high and took off like a shot. Panicking, I took my foot off the accelerator and thankfully Blossom’s shriek covered up my own croak of surprise. Jake’s knuckles were white and his nails dug in to the dash, which, strangely, made me feel better. Almost as quickly as it started, the car slowed to a stop and the engine sputtered a little before catching and returning to a steady rumble. We all chuckled, a bit nervously, and took a moment to steady our nerves. I looked in the review mirror and could see Blossom turning her head around to look at the biosphere.
“Do you hear that?” she questioned, breaking the silence.
“Hear what?” replied Jake, tilting his head in the same direction.
“Shhh!” hushed the girl waving her hand to further indicate silence. We waited a few seconds and sure enough, the muffled sound of sirens floated over the air, getting louder as they approached. “Go!” she yelled at me, before I had time to completely grasp the importance of the wailing sirens. Unerringly, I pressed down the accelerator and let the car speed across the sand strewn road ignoring the squeal of the tires on the hot pavement, as I headed for a dip in the horizon that would hide us. I took a quick glimpse in the review mirror and could see the reflection of flashing lights bouncing off the curve of the dome just as we crested the hill and started to dip out of sight, I could see the access door start to pivot open. I didn’t wait to see if anything or anyone came out. I veered off the crumbling roadway and cut across the acrid sand, heading for mountains that I knew were somewhere out there to the north east.
Last Farmer: Last Farmer Series - Book 1 Page 5
