I get so angry at the sound of it. Can only imagine what she might have been putting herself up to, to get out of it.
“I bulged it off the pocket of his jeans. So I had to make him get off of them in order to put the map back. Otherwise, it’d have been too obvious. Like, sure, you can rack off goods from other people’s pocket, but getting them back? I wouldn’t have tried that.”
“I can’t see how stealing is any less hard than retrieving the goods hustled. But, what do I know anyway? I’m not a pro or something.”
“Hey, you make me sound like I have a head for larceny. I did what I had to do. And I don’t know why you’re having such hard a time dealing with it, ‘cause it was you in the first place who asked me to.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything. Furthermore, I wouldn’t know what there was in the pocket of your boyfriend’s jeans.”
“You know what I mean. You were the first to bring up this whole thing about the place being untrustworthy.” She remains soundless for a minute, like she’s trying to recover that I, for certain, have been in accordance with her giving a hand on this thing. We were all in this together after all. And when she realizes that something doesn’t quite add up, that probably this wasn’t about her pilferage in the first place, Zoey decides to break off the silence again. “What’s with you today?”
I mean, she might have a point there. I don’t even care that she stole the map. She got it back after all. I mean, does sticking up and racking back count as thievery? The point is, is I don’t like the idea of her getting tangled at anything that involves her deviously good-looking boyfriend get his panties off.
“I’m not quite sure we’re heading the right direction,” I say, though come to think of it, which is the right direction?
“You should trust me on this one. I feel like I have an inner instinct of chasing after the map. After all, for the hundredth time, I’m the one with the directions. So you have to follow my lead.” She likes being so bossy, but it comes off a little mirthful and I barely hold myself from poking fun at it, instead I just giggle, just a little so she doesn’t have to hear.
There’s a crossing path ahead of us, as we’re struggling ourselves to make room in the ventilating system. I mean, who comes up with that derange of an idea to get themselves into such a tiny way? Well, needless to say it was me.
“I think I hear something,” she says and tries to shush me when I even haven’t decided whether I want to say something. Well, of course I do, but it’s kinda rude of her not wanting to hear whatever I night have to say next. What if I came up with the most brilliant idea and she missed on that? But does this particular bizarre girl care? (She doesn’t!)
“Really? ‘Cause I’m sure I didn’t hear a ghost around.” I decide to butt in whether she wants me to or not.
“Be quiet.” She says, ear snooping forward. Really, she looks like a crazy person there. All whooped up over something that might not even exist (I mean, in reality, wheras I don’t know what might be happening on the deranged mind of hers,) shushing everyone out and crooking all her own over something that chances are is occurring inside her own head.
That’s the real picture of a nutty person, right there.
I want to sway my head in disbelief, but the limitedness of the ventilating system doesn’t provide that kind of comfortability. So instead, I just roll my eyes.
Until, I hear something too. Well, it turns out the voices on her head weren’t occurring only inside of it. I mean, they were out… in the real.
I look down through the big stripe-wholes that keep the building aired. These louvers give me the chance to make out of what’s under me. And what I notice is a posseman waddling forward in such a haste. He enters a room at the end of the hallway, right ahead of us.
I come up with the idea to keep trudging forward to where he made an entrance and find out what’s in the only room to the end of the restricted part of the tower, until I realize that Zoey has already come up with it first, as she is clomping determinably, hands and legs involved, towards the crossing paths like a crazy baby pussyfooting.
As she reached the middle line to where the paths cross, she turned around from the other side and looks down through the louvers. I finally make it to where she is and decide to take a glimpse at what has captured her attention thoroughly.
There’s nothing special here, really. Just a couple of scientists dressed up in white suits looking at glasswares and encumbered at electronical tablets. Such a waste for all the goffer that captured us erstwhile.
The sounds we were hearing before become louder. Though we can’t decide where they’re coming from, since under us everything is so quiet.
“It’s Cody,” I realize. I’m terrified and have an ominous feeling about this. It’s expected of you to feel scared as hell when you hear your friend clamouring from somewhere in desperation.
We hobble forward to where the sound comes from. Zoey needs to make a turn and get back at the position she was prior to the howl. I’m chasing after her, heart racing, palms sweating, head perplexed in agitation. My friend is in danger out there. God, my mind swings through the most precarious of ideas.
There’s another carrefour ahead of us, so we hasten towards it. Through the louvers to that intersection, the voice becomes louder and perceivable. It’s Cody’s. I’m becoming more panic-stricken and apprehensive more and more I hear his howl. He sounds like he’s being hurt or something. These screams have got us both speechless. Even Zoey has got no time and isn’t in the mood for her silly browbeating.
As we reach the center of the intersection, she swings around, being that she’s the first to attain that level, and makes room for me to scrutinize downwards.
I’m too afraid to look. I know that whatever is happening down there is up to no good, so I’d rather not reveal what those howls come from.
Zoey looks at me in the eye, body opposite to mine, faces so close I can almost feel her breath. She tastes like mint. She looks scared too, and there’s kinda an indecision on her eyes. We look at each other for a couple of seconds and from there instantly gives each other a wee sight of determination and bravery. Eventually and synchronically our eyes move downwards.
There’s a room down there. A blue light room same as the one when we got pinched. There’s a glass barrier keeping two parts of the ambience apart. To the one part there are three medics, two of whom I recognize, the man who controlled the router when I got pinched the first time here and his assistant; the third one, I don’t know. There are five poseemen to the door observing what is occurring to that room. The other part of the room is filled with lines on the walls ending in emphasized colored dots and tubes coming out from all around. Cody lies in the center of the room. Now when I say lie, I mean, adrift in the air. It’s like he’s spuming up rudderlessly, feet in the air, tubes and wires plucking all over his body. I remember that feeling, but it didn’t hurt me quite as much. He’s shouting there, fighting like an angry tiger for its territory, though seems helpless to all the ligaments that have clutched him in the air. I’ve never seen nothing like this. How could someone stay adrift defying gravity and all that and at the same time be as fierce and ferocious in the restriction that room has to offer?
When I first reached the intersection, I was too afraid to look down, though now that I’m witnessing what is happening there, my eyes refuse to cast off it. I’m shocked, terrified, in the most literal of ways. My heart is racing dottily, like a spur track goading intractably. I finally compel myself to dispatch my look from that terrible scene and meet Zoey’s eyes. She looks just as frightened as I am. We’re both speechless, we can’t make out a single word, but just look at each other horror-stricken.
For a moment, the screams start to fade. We impetuously look down as in attack. He’s still afloat, though his not fighting anymore. He seems to have stopped struggling. The man in white suit looks at his colleges satisfied, like his mission has been accomplished.
We hear them talking, though I’m so
perplexed I can’t make out a word they’re saying. When they seem to have been done with whatever horrible thing they were up to that they were doing at this room and be ready to make an exit, it gets Zoey and me both unexpected and horrified. We don’t talk, but hasten our way to where we came from. Obviously, there is nothing I can do at this point. My knuckles hurt from the way I’ve been forcing them down to the metallic base when in anger and dudgeon. They are already red from the pain. I wish I could do something for my friend more than anything. But we both come to an acquaintance to reach for the ventilation shaft from where we came here. It’s my turn to slouch first since our way is the same backwards. Zoey doesn’t talk, she’s just close enough my abdomen to make me realize I should keep going.
I do.
Plaintively so.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit…” Zoey was talking crazily at the metal lines underneath her, wriggling under it on her hands and knees.
“What’s wrong?” through all the hassle I’m under at the moment, I try to take a glance at her, though can barely so, since we’re still unconvincing ourselves into the ventilating system.
“My phone,” she keeps looking underneath as though she’d find a resolution there or something.
“What’s wrong with the phone?”
“I dropped it.”
“You did what?”
“I’m sorry,” she’s making an excuse, but she looks terrified enough for me not to go all cuckoo on her right now. Maybe later, but not right now! Now it’s not a good moment to go with it. “It’s hard enough staggering in here as it is. I was holding it in my hand, while at the same time supporting myself with it.”
There’s a man downstairs passing by, and I pray to God he wouldn’t notice our hazard token on the floor. He seems stiff, yet nonchalant, mainly fueled by the fact that as far as they know everything is going perfectly fine on the tower. Obviously they have no clue me and Zoey are snuggled up here. But not anymore. Frowning, something strange seems to have caught his attention.
Oh, fuck!
He bends down and grabs the phone. He looks around, probably so confused as to why on earth would a phone lie up comfortably on the hallways’ tiles. I almost jump out of my own skin when he hoists his head to take a gander at the ceiling. I jostle myself at the corner and have Zoey huddle against me. I can almost feel her heart racing and puffs of breath on my neck. We stay there, quiet, with her looking at me strangely but speechlessly, until the posseman comes to understand that the phone might have been anybody’s in the crew.
“We have to go,” I realize. “There’s not something we can do about it, unless you know a way to transmogrify yourself into a tiny creature and penetrate though those slots.”
She’s giving me a weird look from behind, I don’t see her, I can only tell by the fact that I stop hearing her knees thumping over the metallic base.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I tell her.
She looks at me undecidedly for a moment and when I feel her hand on my left feet, I realize it’s the signification for me to keep going. I had crooked my head rearward as much as to have a glint at her, although it was barely enough, given the limitedness of the airing system, before I prompted myself to our destination, that is the ventilation shaft.
“We need to hurry,” I explain, hearing her breath fagging from behind. “Soon enough they’ll have the phone, take a gander at the map picture and, boy, are we in a lot of trouble.”
We can’t even say another word as we’re making our way to the upcast. Words seem like a burden, considering everything we’ve been through; the lack of air in the ambiance (which is ironic if we take into account this is the airing system we’re taking about) the limitedness of movement, the shocking, almost paranormal situation involving Cody, and the phone drop… Now that’s a total another story.
But enough with that. The only thing I compel my mind to care about right now is getting out of this loophole. So, I just keep moving forward with Zoey chasing after me.
7
Nestling on my bed, foot bumping monotonously to the corner bracket, I’m holding an orange on my head, and rather than having a taste at it, I decide that it’s far better playing with as though it is a toy.
“Would you stop that?” Zoey gives me the once over, standing half curled up at the end of the bed.
“What, outbidding with this orange?”
“No, spanging at your bad.” She frowns for a moment, looking someplace unidentified, and after a few seconds seems as though she’d come to as resolution. “But yeah, that too.”
“Hey, I’m just stressed out. This whole thing has got me blurring over.”
“We’re all stressed out here, Greyson. But you don’t see me jerking over.”
“You can’t blame a guy for being hard put. Need I remind you you were the one fueling all this in the first place?”
“How are you blaming this on me now?”
“If you had been more careful with it then they wouldn’t have found out someone in the tower had ransacked classified map and phone and getting them all freaked over it.”
“Hey,” Andrew chimes in. “It’s a good thing they didn’t know it was us for sure. I mean, we might be primary suspects, though there’s no proof on that.”
I ruminate over it for a second. At some point, he’s right, but I hate to admit it to him. If they hadn’t provided a map to all their crew members and Caden was the only one possessing it, then Zoey would be the one to have been interrogated, since she was the only outsider that he was closest to. But it’s fuzzy enough as it is. I don’t think that having them checking on all our stuff (not that there’s much of it really; none of us bristles personalized things whatsoever—but that doesn’t stop the crew from being all bumped up into running through any nonsubjective things that we have, or don’t for that matter) is any less disturbing than knowing it was us.
“Guys, I still can’t believe that with everything you were showed to, you’ve still got time to pussy out over silly things. Does it really matter they’re going through our stuff? I don’t think so. What would they find that would be of any value anyway? They’re just pissed some of us might have figured a smidge of their secretive plans.” Avery howls at us, getting over with the fuss we were causing erstwhile.
What happened with Cody was so horrendous, I try to skip over and not think of it, since I know that if I do, I won’t be able to handle myself. I’d be so crushed at myself, I’d wanna crush this whole place down. But I know that right now I’m incapacitated to do that. We need more people with us. We need a better plan. And we need a map… which we had and now we don’t due to the clumsiness of the girl I love.
Love?
Greyson? What the hell’s wrong with you?
I mean, it’s even funny since I’m not even sure my name is Greyson, and yet here I am, making demanding notes at it.
I try to systemize whatever is going on in my head, since clearly is blurring all over and I can’t have that… I can’t have getting more wooly-minded than I am.
It got us all speechless, the moment when three possemen enter the room and decide to check every silly thing that might be there. They had scrambled through each and every one of the ambiences of the tower in which the outsiders (that is a term I came up with to apart ourselves—which I’m pretty sure must be kept as hostages here without even realizing—from the other part, the fly-by-night part, that is the crew and everyone who is part of it) and now it’s our turn. Actually, Zoey and Avery don’t share the room with us. But being that we’re all drenched into bigger concerns, our posse has decided to conjoin and run through all the latent ideas regarding all the chances at making it through this place. But do we care that this might seem a little suspicious to them? We don’t.
They run through the closet, the cupboards, the windows; they even scramble under the mattresses and pillows. Really? What would we be hiding under the pillow?
They were desperate, obviously. And the fact
they didn’t find anything on the bedroom didn’t make them any less.
The guy who leads them, six foot four inches tall, heavy shoulders, well-built, looks so angrily at me as though he knows I’m hiding something. It’s the kind of look when somebody wants to let you realize that they’re aware of your secretive agenda and that they’re after you. I can almost make out of his breath. It’s terrible. This stiff look maintains for a couple of seconds and then he signals his crew to leave the room. He doesn’t talk to them, just stares at them for an instant and they already know.
“What was that?” Carter seems just as shocked I am. They all do.
“They must know something.”
“Yeah, but how? We’re the only ones cognizant of the grudge we hold for them. They wouldn’t have to know like that.”
“Guys, they must’ve put things together.” Zoey butts in. “They must know that the closest they have gotten to any of us, it’s me. They must’ve linked it up then. What was a phone doing in front of the room that linked the booth where Cody was put through whatever that thing was? It’s all safe to say they have a hint to what we were up to.”
“Yeah, but it’ll get more tough having them after us.”
“Nobody said it wouldn’t,” she tells me. “Though now we know for sure that we don’t belong here. And whatever it is they want to do to us at this horrendous place, we won’t allow them. Not now that we know it’s not safe here and that the world isn’t really unlivable.”
After all, this terrible series of events was good for something. We knew for certain we needed to leave the Eatonii as soon as possible, and the phone let us realize that there was a chance out there, that the world wasn’t all radioactive and toxic as described. I mean, we still weren’t sure of that. Just the fact that the phone had perfect signal didn’t provide enough proof on the matter. And if they hadn’t blocked the internet browsers to the phone, we might’ve surfed the net and found out whether the world was really toxic or not. At some point this was a silly resolution, since if the earth atmosphere was excruciating and suffocating, you wouldn’t expect people going online and posting on how terrible an experience it was. That’s the not luxury you have when thinking about survival. Whereas, on the other hand, if everything went on normally, then we would’ve seen a casual continuation of posts and blogs on the web, so we would’ve realized for sure that the world was rendering to its own causality.
Faking Apocalypse (The Apocalyptic Games Book 1) Page 6
