A Crack in the Sky

by Mark Peter Hughes

  Part of him was still marveling at the chip in her head.

  Being able to tap into household appliances and link to the CloudNet without a sphere was impressive enough, but she’d managed to send a file into Eli’s brain, which was entirely flesh and blood, not some system of digital processors. What else could the chip do? What startling abilities still lay dormant inside Marilyn’s little cranium, waiting to be discovered?

  And yet, at the same time, Eli worried about Marilyn. Ever since she’d started linking into the dream games, she’d been getting headaches that seemed to be growing worse and worse. The more she used the advanced features of the chip, the more it seemed to leave her lethargic.

  What was it doing to her?

  He made a mental note to press her about this later. Right now he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He focused his thoughts on the Outsider and on planning what he would say to Grandfather once he finally got in touch with him.

  Where was Grandfather, anyway? This was getting ridiculous.

  Eli checked the time again. Twelve-thirteen a.m.

  One thing was obvious: Grandfather wasn’t going to ping him back tonight. He’d probably gone to bed by now. As frustrated as Eli felt, he decided to do the same. He would ping again first thing in the morning. For now, Eli would at least get some rest.

  He slumped onto his bed and closed his eyes.

  Within moments he was asleep.

  Eli woke with a start, his heart pounding. He thought he’d heard something out in the hallway. It sounded like the faint squeak, squeak, squeak of floorboards, as if someone were creeping up the stairs to his room.

  He checked the time. One-twenty-one a.m.

  Marilyn? Was that you?

  She didn’t answer. He could hear her breathing under the bed. She was deep asleep.

  He raised himself onto his elbow. He held his breath and strained to hear any break in the quiet. In his mind he could picture Foggers coming to get him, crouching on the other side of the door, waiting. The silence continued for a long time, and finally he let himself relax. He’d only dreamed the sound, he decided. It was understandable. He was still jittery from everything that had happened. But now he breathed a sigh of relief and let his head drop back to his pillow.

  Suddenly his door swung open and they were on him.

  There were two of them: dark, hulking figures with cloaks and sunglasses. Eli didn’t get a long look, but in the dim glow of a streetlight through his window, he caught a quick flash of mottled, leathery skin. He tried to scream, but they were so fast he didn’t have time. As soon as his mouth was open, he felt a sharp jolt that began at his shoulder and rapidly spread across his entire body. He couldn’t make a sound. Terrified, he tried to struggle but found he was unable to move. He called out to Marilyn, but she didn’t answer.

  Everything happened quickly after that.

  The Outsiders didn’t say a word. They grabbed his arms and dragged him from bed. Within seconds, and more quietly than Eli would have thought possible, they lugged him down the stairs. As they carried him through the front door, he noticed that the security system was disabled. Inside his useless body he kept struggling, desperate to move his limbs or to scream, but it was no use. What was happening? Where were they taking him?

  In the dimly lit street in front of the house, a transport pod was waiting for them. The Outsiders carried him toward it. Long, low, and menacing, it had enormous road tires, red illuminators, and jagged tail fins shaped to look like angel wings. Eli knew this style of pod. Everyone did. It was a Department of Loyalty transport. But obviously this one wasn’t real because these weren’t Department of Loyalty agents, they were Outsiders. It was a good trick, he realized, a disguise that would enable the Outsiders to travel Inside unchallenged and undetected. He tried again to struggle, but his body was dead to him. If only he could call out for help! If only he could demand that they tell him what was going on!

  But somewhere in his heart, he already knew. This was the end. He was being taken away and no one would ever hear from him again.

  One last time he wondered how he could have been so foolish. Marilyn had warned him not to get involved with the Foggers, and yet he’d kept on ignoring her. Why had he let his childish curiosity get in the way of his better judgment? Was it that all along he’d believed something like this could never happen to him? Or was it that he’d secretly wanted it to happen?

  He felt himself lifted into the air, and then, with a gasp, he landed hard on his elbows. Just as he realized he’d been stuffed headfirst into the back of the pod, a cloth bag was shoved over his head. Now he couldn’t even see.

  Marilyn! Wake up! Help me! Help me!

  But it was too late. The pod was already carrying him away.

  PART II

  the tower at the end of the world

  14

  control and disposal

  While the black-robed Outsiders dragged Eli from his room and out of the house, Marilyn lay under his bed, unaware. It seemed that in recent weeks every time she did anything more mentally demanding than a simple CloudNet search, it left her feeling as though there were a hot spike in her skull. She had long suspected the brain chip was damaging her each time she used it. At first it hadn’t felt like much, just a sensation like a tiny spark going off. She’d barely noticed it. But the more time that went by, the more intense the feeling had become, as if the chip were frying her brain cells one tiny burst at a time.

  It was a real concern, of course, but what could she do?

  She’d never mentioned it to Eli. There was no point in worrying him.

  Tonight, though, after piggybacking him across the CloudNet to show him the image of Dr. Friedmann, she’d ended up so weak, her whole body trembled. After a while her thoughts had clouded over and she’d blacked out. Still comatose under the bed, she imagined she could hear Eli’s silent voice calling out to her from somewhere far, far away. It was unsettling, but some part of her realized she was asleep, so this seemed like just another piece of her troubled dream.

  But then she heard it again, this time even more desperate:

  Marilyn! Can’t you hear me? Help! Help! Please!

  Something in the urgency of the voice stirred her to attention this time. At the far edge of her consciousness, she sensed something was wrong and she needed to wake up. She tried to swim to the surface of her dream but it was as if there were a weight dragging her down, and the pain in her head was growing. She ignored it and kept fighting. After a great effort, she became aware again of the cool floor under her belly and the smell of clean sheets over her head. She opened her eyes.

  It was dark. The room was quiet. She was curled in a tight ball. The door was open. And there it was once more, Eli’s voice:

  Marilyn! Wake up! Help me! Help me!

  She pulled herself up. As she did, the throbbing in her skull was so intense that for a moment the walls spun around her. But she could sense Eli wasn’t in the room anymore. So where was he? Following the direction of his signal, she crept into the hallway and down the stairs. The front door was ajar, so she headed that way. There was already a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  Eli? Are you there …?

  She reached the darkened street just in time to see cloaked figures hop into a black transport pod like the ones used by the Department of Loyalty. She knew in an instant something was terribly wrong. Eli’s signal was faint and unresponsive, and it was coming from inside that pod. Even more disturbing, before the pod skidded away from the curb, she caught a brief glimpse of a mottled red face.

  Outsiders! They were taking Eli away from her!

  She tore after the pod, hissing and screaming. She was ready to face down the desert rats, rip them apart and scratch their eyes out. Darling, I’m here! I’m coming for you!

  But the pod was moving fast. When the long black shadow rounded the corner of Angell Street, she lost sight of it. By the time she charged around the corner herself, the red illuminators looked like dots i
n the distance. She hurtled after it. Soon, though, it disappeared from view. Marilyn dashed ahead to where she thought the pod had turned, but it wasn’t there. She spun the other way. Nothing.

  It was gone!

  Eli! she called, desperate now. Where are you? Tell me so I can follow!

  There was no response.

  She stretched herself up on her haunches and cast her gaze to the top of the dome. Still panting, she wondered if it had taken flight and she’d missed it. At this time of the cycle, in the wee hours of the morning, the sky was programmed to give off only a dim light and the stars were brilliant and beautiful. The red illuminators could be lost among all the drifting multicolored dots, some of which were probably other pods. But maybe Eli was up there. The black pod could even have flown Outside already, if that was where they were going. There had been enough time, and Marilyn had been concentrating on the street too much to even think about looking up at the sky.

  Helpless to know what else to do, she sprinted down Angell and glanced into every cross street. All she saw were shadows and darkened houses and InfiniCorp shops that were closed for the night. She cursed herself and the burning fire in her head. Even now she felt like she’d been hit with a sledgehammer. Something dreadful was happening to Eli, and tonight of all nights she had been too slow-witted to stop it.

  Eli, hold on! she cried. Don’t give up—I’ll find you!

  She spent half the night prowling the streets of Providence for any sign of the black, angel-winged transport pod. As much as she realized deep down that Eli and his captors were long gone, she couldn’t bear to give up the search in case she was wrong. Miserable, and with little energy left, she at last succumbed to her exhaustion and collapsed in a little alley by a power-storage box near the perimeter of the city.

  The pixels at the far edge of the morning sky were just starting to glimmer an electronic silver when Marilyn awoke to the sound of footsteps.

  Something was creeping up behind her.

  Something that was trying not to be heard.

  She leapt to her feet and spun around. Only a few yards away, two boys in purple uniforms were slinking in her direction. Their eyes were fixed on her, and in their hands they carried long wooden clubs. At first Marilyn didn’t understand, but then she noticed an InfiniCorp truck parked in the street behind them, lit up on the side by glowing purple words: Department of Pest Control and Disposal.

  With sudden dismay she realized that to these boys in this dim light, she must have looked like a rat or a raccoon or some other stray creature, maybe something that’d wandered in from Outside. They paused when they saw she was awake and aware of them, but then they raised their clubs even higher.

  They rushed at her.

  In a frantic split second, Marilyn tried to assess her options. She couldn’t communicate with them to let them know they were making a mistake. Behind her and on both sides were concrete walls several stories tall. To escape this narrow alley, she realized, she would have to fight her way past these boys.

  She sprang at the closer of the two, a square-jawed kid about fifteen, with close-set eyes. In midair, just as her claws were about to lash at the boy’s collar, she felt a stunning blow that took her square in the shoulder. It was his bat, and it sent her flying against the left wall. She slammed against the concrete and dropped to the ground.

  “You devil!” the boy shouted. “Coming at me, are you? Maybe this’ll settle you down!”

  He swung his bat again, except this time Marilyn saw it coming. With a squeal she rolled aside just in time, and the bat cracked against the concrete where her head had just been. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating, but as the boy reared his arm back for another swing, she had the presence of mind to change direction.

  “The net! The net!” he shouted to the other boy as she scurried between his legs. “Don’t let it get away!”

  The other boy, dark-haired and taller than the first, was already in her path, and he showed just as little fear as the first boy did. He let her rush at him and waited until she’d leapt into the air before striking a blow of his own. This time the bat connected just below her ribs and knocked the wind out of her. She landed in a heap on the ground. Something coarse and light dropped onto her. It was a mesh of sticky rope, and it wrapped itself tight around her body. Dazed and gasping for breath, she tried to twist herself free, but she found she couldn’t move.

  She was defenseless as she watched the second boy rear back his bat for a final blow.

  But that was when the square-jawed boy called out again. “No, don’t kill it! I want to take a look!”

  With a dubious glance over his shoulder, the second boy stopped his arm in midswing and then lowered his bat. When the first boy came back into Marilyn’s view, he was holding what looked like a long wooden rod, at least ten feet in length, with a circular metal band at one end. He shoved it through the net, and then Marilyn felt cold metal wrap tight around her neck.

  “Slippery little devil, isn’t it?”

  “A lot of fight in this one. I whacked it good, and it’s still going.”

  The next thing Marilyn knew, she was being lifted into the air, her whole body dangling from the end of the rod. With a vicious animal snarl that came from somewhere deep inside, some ancient, fearsome place she hadn’t even known was there, she began slashing and biting and flailing her claws, trying somehow to rip through the choking metal. But it was no use. She realized she was beaten, and she went still. She had never known such misery.

  For a moment the boys only watched her, wide-eyed, as they held on to the other end of the rod.

  “What the heck is it?”

  The taller boy leaned in close—but not too close—and squinted into Marilyn’s frightened eyes. “Don’t know. Some kind of deformed weasel, maybe. Or a squirrel mutation?”

  “That’s no squirrel,” said the square-jawed boy. “We see plenty of mutants, but I never saw anything that looked like that.”

  After a pause the taller boy reached into his pocket and pulled out an InfiniPencil. Still keeping his distance, he prodded her exposed belly with it, perhaps to see what reaction it might bring. For Marilyn this indignity was too much, and she hissed at him again with such sudden fury that it startled him. He jumped back.

  “All right, then,” he said, chuckling as he slipped the pencil back into his pocket. “Let’s load it into the truck with the others—but we better give this one its own cell.”

  Still dangling Marilyn from the end of the rod, the boys opened the back of the truck, and she found herself being forced into one of dozens of small wire cages that lined the inside walls. In the confusion of the moment, she didn’t get a good look, but she could tell there were other animals because she heard a chorus of growls and hisses. It sounded like some of the caged things were throwing themselves against the metal bars at her appearance. The air smelled of fear and fury. At last the metal collar released its choking grip on her neck, but an instant later the cage door slammed shut. Then the boys closed the back of the truck. Marilyn was trapped.

  Shaking and in pain, she could feel the eyes of the animals watching her from every direction. Despite the darkness, she could make out some of them. A couple of sick-looking dogs. A tank of snakes. Something that looked like a hairless cat with a malformed paw. Mostly, though, what glared out at her from behind the bars of the cages were the same pointed faces, pink-eyed and hateful, over and over again: rats.

  Large, evil-looking rats.

  The cage next to hers was stuffed full of them. They growled and spat at her, pressing their long teeth between the metal bars as if trying to force their way through. When Marilyn looked closer she noticed there was something horribly wrong with every one of them.

  Some had multiple tails.

  Many had extra legs.

  And the biggest one of all had three eyes.

  Marilyn shrank back. As the engine started and the truck began to move, she trembled not only because of these terrifying crea
tures but also at the thought of where the boys might be taking them. She remembered again the words she’d seen on the side of the truck: Department of Pest Control and Disposal.

  It was the disposal part that bristled her fur.

  15

  savages and kings

  Eli woke up with his face against a cold tile floor. He had no idea where he was or how long he’d been there. He was covered in sweat and his left shoulder ached. He thought he could hear the wind howling. With a great effort he used his elbows to lift his body to a kneeling position.

  Then he raised his head and looked around.

  He was in the center of a small, dark room, empty except for him and an oversized CloudNet sphere that floated overhead, dormant but still providing the little light there was. In waves he remembered climbing up the sky.

  And the strange old man with the respirator.

  And the Outsiders bursting into his room.

  And Marilyn! Oh god, where was she? Are you there? he called silently. Marilyn, are you all right?

  There was no answer. Maybe the Outsiders had grabbed her too. After all, the man who called himself Gustavo seemed to know all about her and her chip. If he was taking his revenge on Eli for refusing to join the Foggers, why stop there? Hadn’t Marilyn been just as clear about where she stood?

  Eli pulled himself to his feet. In the center of one of the four walls was a black door. He tried it, but it was locked. What was this place? Some kind of criminal den where twisted Fog conspirators brought victims to be tortured—or worse? He’d read InfiniBook stories about secret Fog dungeons, but never did he imagine he would find himself a prisoner in one. How long before somebody came for him? Had they brought him here to rot forever?

  Whatever they were planning to do, whatever horror lay ahead, he wanted it to hurry up already and happen. Waiting and not knowing was more than he could stand.