A Crack in the Sky

by Mark Peter Hughes

  “Hello?” he called toward the closed door. “Anybody here?”

  Somebody must have heard him, because he heard something move on the opposite side of the door. First a distant sound like animals grunting, then a clomp, clomp, clomp like boots approaching. He backed against the opposite wall and eyed the door. Whoever it was, they were on the other side now, working the latch.

  And then the door swung open.

  Two savages—large, muscular boys with scarred, sun-damaged complexions—stepped through the door. One had a prominent lower jaw and sharp yellow teeth; the other had a gaping hole on the side of his head where an ear had once been. Both wore the black InfiniCorp uniforms of the Department of Loyalty. Neither said a word. In an instant they were on both sides of Eli, each taking an arm. They yanked him from the wall and dragged him forward, closer to the CloudNet sphere.

  Eli was too scared to speak.

  Then from overhead a voice, thin and lethargic, whispered, “Finally back among the living? How considerate of you.” The sphere was already glowing brighter and seemed to swell in size. From the haze inside it materialized the InfiniCorp logo—smiling employees cupped in the palm of a giant, protective hand—and then, in front of it, a much larger face, pale and narrow, with white hair and cold gray eyes. The sight gave Eli chills.

  “Spider …? Spider, you have to help me!”

  His cousin glowered down at him. “What a difference a day can make. Only yesterday you seemed repulsed by my presence. Not so contemptuous anymore, are we?”

  Eli felt fingernails digging into his arms. “Wh-what’s going on?” he asked, his voice shaking. He took a quick, nervous glance at the Outsiders.

  “Ah, I see you’ve met my special assistants …”

  “Special assistants?” Eli repeated, confused.

  “That’s right. I have an understanding with these two gentlemen. They do whatever I ask, and in exchange I provide them shelter from Outside. It’s an equitable arrangement. Their barbarian nature makes them far fiercer than other Department of Loyalty agents and less prone to … taking pity at inconvenient moments. These are valuable qualities that make them ideal for certain … tasks. Covert assignments that require a special sensitivity, not to mention stealth.” He snickered. “But you’ve already experienced how soundless they can be. After all, it was they who visited your home last night.”

  Outsiders working for the company? Eli had never heard of such a thing before, and the idea terrified him. He struggled, but the two barbarians held tight.

  “Let me go!” he cried. “You’re hurting me!”

  “Oh, don’t try to converse with them,” Spider said, his voice still eerily dispassionate. “They’re trained to respond only to me, aren’t you, boys? Besides, I had their tongues removed, so they don’t speak. It makes things much easier.”

  Eli could hardly believe he’d heard right. When the Outsiders responded with low grunting noises, it made Eli’s heart pound even harder. He’d cut off their tongues? His own cousin was a monster!

  He noticed something peculiar about the sphere too. It wasn’t just its size. He tried to look away from the image of Spider’s head, but he found it wasn’t easy. The very thought of taking his eyes off the glowing ball brought on a panicky feeling. What if the masked boy in the Bubble had been right that CloudNet spheres had influence over people? This sphere did seem to have a compelling power. Not only that, but the more Eli stared into the haze, the more he felt his thoughts drifting from him. He had to look away or soon he wouldn’t be able to think at all. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the panic. Only after a tremendous effort was he able to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head away.

  “Impressive,” Spider said. “Your will is strong. But that, unfortunately, is the real tragedy, little cousin. Because it was this same willfulness that led to your undoing.” Feigning a pained expression, he sighed. “But you can’t fight the sphere’s influence forever. Trying to do so would be both foolish and pointless, so I suggest you don’t bother. Keep your eyes on the sphere and I think you’ll find that things will be a lot easier for you.”

  Eli felt a rough hand under his chin. The Outsider with the missing ear twisted his head back toward the image of Spider. Eli tried to shut his eyes, but the other Outsider, baring his yellow fangs, held his eyelids open with two of his filthy fingers. Eli screamed. He had no choice except to look at the sphere.

  “I don’t understand any of this!” he called out. “Why are you doing this to me, Spider? Why did you bring me here?”

  Spider’s expression hardened. “Don’t try to play innocent with me. The Department of Loyalty knows all about the Fogger-hacked funbot you followed yesterday. And you were spotted climbing the sky. Tell me, what happened up there? Who did you meet? What did you discuss?”

  Eli opened his mouth but nothing came out. The company knew. But of course they knew, he realized. What else had he expected? He’d been so upset yesterday that he hadn’t cared what would happen to him. But that was yesterday, and now he knew he’d screwed up worse than ever.

  Spider’s eyes were still boring into him from the sphere. Eli was still so frightened that he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

  Then something bizarre happened. The two Outsiders seemed to fade away. Eli lost even the feeling of their grip on his arms. The room colors began to swirl, and the walls, floor, and ceiling melted away. When the movement stopped, Eli found himself on a gigantic field of black and red squares. He was standing on an enormous checkerboard that went on for a great distance in every direction. Placed all over the board were huge black checkers the size of boardroom tables. Stranger still, Eli realized that he himself was a checker, the only red piece on the whole playing field. His breath caught in his throat. If he hadn’t been seeing it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it.

  This was just a trick, he told himself. It was an illusion created by the CloudNet sphere. He was still in the gray room with the Outsiders.

  A face appeared high above him. Spider was a giant now, several stories tall. “What’s the matter, Eli? Isn’t this the game you and our dear grandfather enjoy so much? Well, now it’s my turn to play. And what do you know? It’s my move.”

  Spider reached out one of his long, skinny fingers and slid the nearest of the huge black pieces toward Eli, almost knocking him over. Eli had to leap out of the way to avoid getting crushed.

  Spider grinned. “Go ahead. Your move.”

  “Stop it!” Eli cried. “Whatever this is, turn it off! What do you want from me?”

  A giant fist slammed down onto the table. The impact sent a few of the game pieces flying into the air and then crashing back down to the ground. Spider’s voice was low and even. “I don’t believe you heard me. I said it’s your move.”

  Eli leapt forward to another square, any square. It didn’t matter which, he knew. There were black pieces everywhere he looked, and in any case it was clear that Spider wasn’t going to let him win. He wasn’t interested in a fair game. This wasn’t a game at all.

  As if studying the board, Spider lowered his chin thoughtfully into his hands and gazed down at Eli. “Now then,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what happened in the sky?”

  So Eli did as he was asked. Voice shaking, he told him how he’d found the mirrored door during the dome malfunction. He described the sky chamber, and the strange old Outsider who called himself Dr. S. G. Friedmann, and how he’d talked about the end of the world. He even mentioned how the old Outsider had the crazy idea he’d seen Eli in a vision. What would be the point in lying? It was obvious Spider already knew plenty. It was even possible he knew the whole story and was only testing to see if Eli would hide the truth.

  Spider’s face was expressionless at first. By the time Eli’s story was over, though, his lips showed the slightest hint of a smile.

  “Oh, Eli, Eli …,” he said, shaking his head. “How it pains me to hear of such treachery, espe
cially from a member of my own family. As I’m sure you’re aware, Dr. Friedmann was an agitator from the past, the original Fog turncoat and a deceiver of the lowest order. That old traitor has been a thorn in our heel for long enough, but we’ll get him now, rest assured. There will be no tears shed for him when we do. No, the real heartbreak here is you, Eli, because now it’s tragically obvious what you’ve let yourself become.”

  “What do you mean?” Eli’s voice was suddenly weak. “It wasn’t the real Dr. Friedmann. So what are you saying? What am I that’s so tragically obvious?”

  Spider’s finger appeared again, and, almost casually, he slid three black checkers up close to Eli. One. Then another. Then another. Eli felt them pressing around him. He couldn’t escape. He was like an ant in a trap.

  “A Fog agent, of course,” Spider said with a grin. “That’s what you are. A conspirator of the most treacherous nature.”

  “But … it’s not true!”

  Spider shook his head again. “You can deny it all you like, but the Department of Loyalty already has sufficient evidence to put you away for a long, long time. You’ve been plotting the overthrow of the company, foolish boy. Admit it. You’ve been involved in anti-InfiniCorp activity for much of your short life.”

  “No! That’s wrong! You have to believe me!” Eli’s mind whirled. “Ask Sebastian! I know he told you I’ve been anxious, but he also knows I would never be disloyal to the family! Let me ping Grandfather! Please, I have to talk to somebody!”

  “Sebastian can’t help you, I’m afraid. And I wouldn’t count on Grandfather coming to your defense anymore.”

  Something in Spider’s voice made Eli pause. “What—why?”

  “Perhaps you haven’t heard?” He grinned again. “Oh, it’s been quite a momentous evening for our family. You’ll be interested to learn that the old warhorse has fallen ill. At this moment he’s breathing through a tube and is close to death. It’s all so very tragic.”

  Eli’s insides went tight. It was too awful to imagine. But it was true that the last time he’d seen Grandfather, he didn’t seem well. All Eli wanted now was to be with him. He would have given anything to be at his bedside, to hold his hand and maybe even talk with him for the last time. But he could tell that Spider had no intention of letting that happen. In fact, he seemed to take cruel pleasure in watching Eli’s face pale at the news.

  Spider was enjoying every minute of this.

  All of a sudden the checkerboard rose under Eli’s feet. Spider had upended his side of the game board, and all the checkers began sliding downward to the opposite end. Several of the table-sized game pieces were bearing down on Eli, and in a flash he understood that unless he did something quick, he was in danger of being crushed. He leapt aside and felt the first one brush against his hand. Then he jumped on top of the next one and rode it as it slid down the board. A moment later he was on his back, on top of a jumble of checkers. One of them had knocked painfully against his arm, but otherwise he was unhurt.

  Spider snickered again. “It seems there will soon need to be a few … changes in company leadership.” He brought his giant face down close to Eli. “King me!”

  Eli was so scared, he couldn’t breathe. Spider had lost his mind.

  “All right,” he said, glancing somewhere behind Eli, as if he were talking to someone Eli couldn’t see. “That’s enough, I think.”

  Eli felt as if somebody were dialing down a knob in his brain. A moment later he found himself in the gray room again, the two Outsiders’ fingers still digging into his arms. Spider’s sneering face was still hovering overhead, although now his cousin was back to being just an image inside the CloudNet sphere. Eli was trembling. He was covered in sweat and too weak to do anything but blink into the glowing orb.

  “Such a disappointment you turned out to be,” Spider said, his voice soft once more. “The family will be devastated. I confess I’m surprised you managed to keep up the conspiracy for so long. And right under our noses!” Eli was about to protest, but Spider waved his hand. “Enough pretending!” Then to the Outsiders he said, “Take this pathetic excuse for a Papadopoulos away from my sight!”

  As the Outsiders dragged Eli toward the door, Eli summoned his last remaining strength to call out, “Wait! I’m still part of the family! You can’t do this to me! Where are you taking me? Let me go!”

  But there was no answer.

  The whole world seemed to rock and sway as the two Outsiders pulled him into a narrow gray hallway. Eli’s head slumped. He was all alone and nothing made sense and nothing would ever be right again. Somewhere in the distance he thought he could hear waves crashing. And there was a smell burning at his nose, a faint odor like sour milk.

  16

  animal instinct

  Still trapped in the cage, Marilyn kept her body in a tight, defensive ball and did her best to block out the horrifying growls of the mutant rats, only inches away. Her entire left side throbbed from the impact of the wooden bat, but she was pretty sure nothing was broken. Even as the truck carried her through the city she continued to call out silently to Eli, but she got no response. Still, she could sense his signal, faint but somewhere out there.

  At least she knew he was alive.

  Soon the truck squealed to a halt and the engine went quiet. The animals quieted too, perhaps sensing, as Marilyn did, that death was near, that they had reached the Department of Pest Control and Disposal’s final destination. But Marilyn’s eyes were shut tight in concentration. She’d noticed a steadily glowing blue light above the wire doors of each of the cages. The locks were electronic. If she could somehow find a way to mentally tap into the lock on her cage, then perhaps she could pick it open. The trouble was, her head was still fried from last night. Plus, she didn’t know if the lock mechanism used a logic chip she could access. And even if it did, figuring out how to hack her way in and then release it would take time.

  And time was something she lacked.

  The back doors of the truck swung open, and the two purple-uniformed boys appeared again. Grim-faced and wearing bulky gloves, they climbed inside and each grabbed a couple of the cages by the handles. One by one they began unloading them behind the truck. Many of the animals whimpered or snarled in protest. Marilyn’s cage was one of the first. She was dropped roughly onto a hard surface, and now she found herself at what looked like the back entrance to a small brick building where two other purple-uniformed employees, both of them teenage girls with ashen faces and dull-witted expressions, stood watching the boys unload.

  “A pretty good crop for one night’s work,” the square-jawed boy called out to them.

  Behind the girls was a garage door opening into a dark space, with a couple of tired-looking cleaning robots, just visible, slumping against the wall. Marilyn couldn’t see far inside, but what she saw looked cheerless and uninviting, with a low ceiling and walls painted a dismal gray. There were flickering shadows too, and heat, waves of it, as if somewhere in that dark space, a furnace burned hot, waiting for them. There was also something foul in the air, something unspeakable.

  The smell of smoke and flesh. Of fire and terror.

  Marilyn noticed the sign above the entrance: Organic Waste Incinerator.

  In a frenzy, she tried again to hack her way into the lock. She couldn’t feel any pathway in, though, perhaps because the lock was impenetrable to her chip, or maybe just because she was too desperate to think clearly.

  It wasn’t long before all the animals were out of the truck.

  “That’s the whole load,” the taller boy announced, removing his gloves and closing up the doors. “They’re all yours now. See you tomorrow.”

  While the truck pulled away, the girls stood a moment, scowling at the field of caged animals as if deciding where to begin a big task. “All right,” one of them said, “let’s get this over with.”

  Seconds later Marilyn saw two boots appear in front of her. To her dismay she felt her cage being lifted into the air, and then two
flat gray eyes peered at her through the wire mesh.

  “You first, little rat. Or cat. Or … whatever the heck you are.”

  Marilyn shook with fear. If only she had a little more time! But the girl was carrying her into the dark room now, and Marilyn could feel the air getting warmer, the temperature rising on her fur and skin, as they moved closer to the furnace. She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate as hard as she could. It took all her focus, and it felt like a tiny hot coal was burning somewhere behind her eyeballs. With only seconds to work with, she abandoned her attempt to pick the lock and turned all her attention to the building itself, searching for something, anything, that might help buy her a minute or two.

  At last she found something.

  When the overhead sprinkler system kicked on, it sprayed water in every direction.

  “Aw, crap! What’s this?” The girl stopped in her tracks and spun toward the other girl. “What’s going on? Nothing’s on fire!” Almost at once the girl’s hair and clothes started to soak, and so did Marilyn’s fur. Water dripped through the bars of her cage.

  The other girl, still dry on the other side of the entrance, looked just as confused. “No idea,” she called back, eyeing her now-soggy friend. “A malfunction, I guess. Try shutting off the main water supply. The valve is under the sink.”

  “Crap!” the first girl said again. “Crap, crap, crap!” She dropped Marilyn’s cage to the floor and stormed over to the other side of the room.

  Marilyn saw her chance. Heart pounding, she concentrated her thoughts on manipulating the closer of the two robots, an ancient-looking lowrider with a cracked blue chassis, a few feet away and unnoticed in the confusion. She instructed it to step over to her cage. Marilyn had no idea how the lock worked, but it didn’t matter anymore. She directed the robot to stick its rubber fingers between two of the cage’s metal bars and then pry them apart. A moment later there was a space wide enough for Marilyn to climb through.