She drew a soft hand over my face, closing my eyes. “Kinder sent a message with me,” she said, almost like an apology.
I sighed heavily again. Kinder’s plans always seemed to mean trouble for me. “I should have known he’d eventually make me pay for all this time alone with you.”
“Do you regret—”
I cut her off. “Not for a second. I’d do far more to be with you.” I kissed her lips to stop her senseless words. Maybe if I kissed her enough all this talk would fade away, but she continued.
“I’ll bring you the supplies you need. Kinder will disable the locks at precisely one minute after midnight. Each night you’ll search a different level of the compound. Kinder’s searched most of the upper levels. He needs your help with the lower ones.”
“Do you trust him? How do we know he isn’t one of them?”
“I don’t believe he’s a Reticent, or ever has been. He’s just been very adept at gaining their trust.”
“And your trust?” I looked deep into her eyes, so like my own.
“I trust him to get us out of here. He knows their weaknesses. And he has no love for their brand of control.”
I had to agree with her there.
Over the next few nights, Alana brought me all manner of things—maps of duct systems, self-contained torches powered by battery, and communication radios, also powered by simple batteries Kinder had built himself with bits of copper. Really quite ingenious. Last she brought the signal devices, small, black squares of plastic. They were just the sort of things that would get a commoner burned for heresy. They had “Kinder” written all over them.
“He wants you to place one of these on each level you visit and anywhere you suspect the Reticents are making power,” Alana told me.
“What do they do?” I asked, turning one over in my hand. It was only about the size of a fortune teller’s card deck.
“I’m not sure exactly. They collect data of some sort. They’ll link back to Kinder’s computer.”
“When is all this snooping to start?”
“Tomorrow night. Are you ready?”
“I guess I’ll have to be.”
Alana smiled and gave me a warm hug. “I’ll be with you every step.”
Kinder’s hunches proved to be just that—hunches. He’d picked about here and there, but he hadn’t crawled through the vent system on his hands and knees for hours like I was now. After the first few tries, I insisted he get me some kneepads. Each time, I went further into the underground facility. There were storerooms, server rooms, even rooms where recruits made our clothing and other goods.
The deeper levels looked like mines from the Dark Days with rock caverns big enough to drive a truck through. Indeed, there were tractors and trucks mining ore. Of course, there were no ducts on those levels. I had to use the elevators, or worse, stairs.
Access to the stairs was hidden, but Kinder discovered it while studying the building plans he unearthed in the library. I did most of my exploring at night, which was beginning to interfere with my sleep. Even on the nights Alana visited me, I hardly stayed awake, but even sleeping next to her made me happy. Maybe I didn’t care if I ever found the power source. I was beginning to think it didn’t exist.
Now I crawled through a vent I was fairly certain I hadn’t noticed before on sub-level thirteen. After a short scramble, I approached an opening where I found myself looking down on an enormous pool of blue-green water. Never having seen a body of water in the compound before, I was intrigued. I hovered there a few minutes, watching the water for any sign of movement, holding my breath. Nothing stirred. I could hear Kinder’s usual warning in my head: “Haste makes waste.”
No one was there, just a low mechanical hum issuing from somewhere. Thinking it would definitely be of interest to Kinder, I stuck one of his monitors on the wall of the vent. I’d been leaving them everywhere I went for him to receive signals from, and they functioned as a sort of a sign to myself of which vents I’d already been through.
I was way too high to get down from the vent, so I shimmied further along the ceiling of the room. I tamped down the excitement thumping in my chest. I reasoned that it could be nothing at all. Perhaps it was an underground aquaculture farm of some sort but I knew there weren’t any fish in that water. I needed a closer look to be sure.
I reached the wall and discovered the vent took a ninety-degree turn downward. I knew from hours in this ventilation system that there’d be an opening at the bottom. I pushed my back against one side and braced myself against the other so I could control my descent. The technique worked well for vertical shafts.
At the bottom, I waited again, watching though the vent for any sign of movement. Fluorescent light flooded the room, brighter than most of the empty rooms in the compound. It glowed an unnatural blue color, cold like the snow that covered the mountains now.
I carefully detached the grate and slipped into the room. A sharp smell I didn’t recognize stung my nose and tears sprang from my eyes. What was this place?
I rubbed my stinging eyes, my back up against the wall. To my right was a large window that opened into another room. From where I stood plastered against the wall I couldn’t see if anyone was watching through the window. There was still no sound but the hum.
I leaned forward slightly, seeing without being seen. The room, a control room of some kind illuminated with panels of multicolored lights, appeared empty. I leaned forward a little further to get a better view. Inside at one of the consoles was a technician very much absorbed in tapping his computer screen almost frantically.
“I don’t know why,” he said loud enough for me to hear through the glass. “The temperature’s gone up two degrees in the last four minutes. It’s like someone’s inside the room.”
I sucked in my breath and pressed into the wall again. They knew something was wrong. I’d upset some balance by being there. It had to be the place Kinder was looking for.
I inched my way back toward the vent. Before I could squeeze myself inside, the door opened and someone in a space suit emerged. At least it looked kind of like the space suits I’d seen on my downloads of human history. I froze in place. The person in the suit lumbered forward with an awkward gait caused by the stiff material he wore. He walked straight toward the pool. His hood must have blocked his vision. He focused on the pool and a gauge of some kind he held in his hand.
I slipped out the open door, thinking it might be a quicker escape than the vent. The door slammed shut behind me, and I found myself in a tiny room with two doors. The closing of the door seemed to trigger a computer on the wall next to the door. All the lights turned red.
“Decontaminating in three … two … one,” a metallic voice coming from the ceiling said. The countdown panicked me. I jerked at the second door, but it was locked tight. A cool mist blasted out of the spigots in the ceiling, drenching me in some liquid too odd to be just water. It lasted only a few minutes and then stopped automatically. The lights turned green. I heard the lock on the door move. Trying it again, the handle moved easily. I opened it, half expecting to be met by Reticents ready to zap me. The door opened, not into the control room as I feared, but into a locker room.
I bolted out into a corridor and ran without any idea of where I went. I needed to find the stairs to get off this level. Hearing the sound of many footsteps coming toward me, I knew I needed to hide again. I was wet and smelled like the muskrat I used to catch when there was nothing else to eat—not an easy thing to hide. The first couple door handles were locked, but I finally found an unlocked door and tucked myself inside the darkness.
Hunkered there listening for the sound of boots outside in the hall, my chest heaved, and my lungs burned. I felt myself close to blacking out. I fumbled for the radio Alana had given me which was strapped underneath my shirt and ripped off my hood in an effort to breathe easier. Finding it, I pressed the button and struggled to speak.
“Alana?” My bre
ath was barely a whisper. With no air getting into my lungs, I couldn’t have gone any farther if I’d wanted to. She answered as if she had been waiting for me all along.
“Recks? What is it?”
I gasped for breath. “I’m lost … and I think I’m sick. I can’t breathe right.”
“Are you safe? Can you rest a minute?”
“I think so. I found this weird room with a pool, but it made me sick. I had to leave a different way, and now I have no idea where I am.” I tried not to let my panic affect my voice, but continued gasping between words.
“Okay, calm down and let’s think this through,” she said.
“I can’t … ”
Alana didn’t answer. Instead, she sang a low, sweet song, the words of which I didn’t understand, like some lullaby I’d heard long ago and had since forgotten. I closed my eyes and focused only on the song and the sound of her gentle voice until all I imagined was her face. I felt my heart finally slow.
“Recks? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“When you left here, you went to the twelfth level, right?”
“No, I entered the vent on the thirteenth. I went down one more. I must be on level fourteen.”
“Hang on. Let me open up the plans,” she said. Just hearing her voice made me feel better. My head ached, but my tears washed the sting from my eyes finally.
“Level fourteen’s shaped like the English letter E, a main corridor with three wings off of it.”
“Okay.” My mind whirled again.
“Did you come to any intersections?”
“I think so. One maybe.”
“There’s stairway access at either end of the main corridor. Find a ninety-degree turn, and it should be there.”
Stairs were hidden in corners, but the access doors weren’t always obvious. The latch could be in the corner itself.
“If I get caught … ”
“You won’t get caught, Recks.” She didn’t want to consider the possibility.
“Listen … tell Kinder there’s a pool on level fourteen that looks like a spent rod cooling pool. The power source has got to be on this level.”
“Okay, but you can tell him yourself because you’re coming back.”
I gave up arguing. If it made her feel better, I’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear. “I’ll contact you soon.”
“Hurry back.”
“I will,” I promised her before I shut off the device. Which way had I been going before I stumbled into this closet? I balled my fists and pressed them into my forehead, willing myself to think, to focus, and to get it together. I opened my eyes and listened for noises outside, opening the door a crack.
The light flooded in from the hallway and blinded my over-dilated eyes at first. The hall was empty, so I eased out of my hiding spot and let the door shut softly behind me. My legs, stiff from all the crouching, refused to move at first, and my steps were jerky. Noises from down the corridor got me going faster as adrenalin shot through me once more. I raced by several doors to get to the end of the hall. The lighting was dim, like all the other corridors in the compound, but the corner was in sight. Not surprisingly, the door handle was nowhere to be found. I dug my fingers into the corner, feeling for a latch or a button—anything that might release the door to the stairs. Wearing black helped me blend into the shadowy corners, but I couldn’t risk letting anyone get close enough to see me.
Urgent voices echoed down the corridor, growing louder. My time was running out. Just as my fingers slid into the invisible slot that opened the door, someone grabbed me from behind. I swung around and smacked him hard with the back of my elbow, stunning him. I hit him again to be sure he was knocked out. The fool should have zapped me when he had the chance. Now he lay in the doorway. If I left him there, they’d know I was in the stairwell. Time was out. There was no moving him.
I ran back down the corridor, hoping I could reach the other stairwell before the alarm went up. Alarm … that was it. I’d seen a fire alarm on the wall. Where was it? There!
I ripped off the plastic cover and pulled the lever as I ran by. Nothing happened. Behind me, I heard the others discovering the unconscious man in the doorway to the stairwell. I did my best to run softly, to fade into the shadows. I pulled the next fire alarm I saw, and this time it went off. A high-pitched siren screamed in my ears. As I reached the far end of the hall and dug my fingers into the corner to open the stairwell door, sprinklers on the ceiling unleashed a shower of water on the hallway. I pulled the door shut behind me and climbed for my life.
The next day, I rounded the corner to my download classroom bursting with questions for Master Bane. His usual sunny smile was gone. Something was wrong. I quickly realized there were two others in the room. Waiting for me in the shadows was Master Anders and recruit Tiber. My heart stopped. Did Anders know where I’d been? Why was he here today? I stopped next to Master Bane like I always did.
“Good morning, Master,” I said, hiding my nervousness well enough. Composure was a skill this place had taught me quite well.
“Good morning, Recruit. We have visitors this morning, as you can see.” Bane gestured to Anders who nodded in recognition.
“Master Anders,” I said, my voice falling. This must be about the Cleansing, something I’d been dreading. Before he spoke, Bane cut in.
“Are you sure about this, Master Anders? We’ve been making such good progress in the last few weeks … ”
What was he talking about?
“Your efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, Bane. It is in no way a reflection upon you,” said Anders.
Bane bowed his head in acceptance.
“There are greater things in store for young Master Recks.” Anders smiled, an expression strangely devoid of joy that left me cold and uneasy.
“And Master Tiber,” he added and turned toward the other recruit behind him. I was confused.
“What’s going on?” I asked Bane.
“Master Anders will be your instructor now.” I heard the defeat in his voice. Bane’s face was so grim it made me wonder what he knew. Getting closer to Anders would thrill Kinder, but it wasn’t a place I wanted to be.
“It’s been so long since I’ve personally trained recruits myself,” said Anders. “This will be fun.”
Tiber must have finally learned some restraint, because he never moved a muscle. I couldn’t read him at all.
“Come,” said Anders. “Let me show you your new classroom.”
Anders swept past us out into the hall followed by Tiber, but I only looked at Bane. His face was an odd mixture of sadness and happiness.
“Goodbye, Master Bane.”
I hugged him, surprising us both a little. Even though he was a Reticent, he was the first true teacher I’d ever known. He hugged me back warmly.
“It will be all right, Recks. You’ll do great things. I know it.”
Looking into his eyes, I wondered if he had any idea of the kinds of things I might do. Kinder would have me bring about the downfall of the Reticents. Did Bane know?
I thanked him and followed my enemies out into the hall toward the next stage of my journey.
After an awkwardly silent ride in the elevator, the padded doors opened and we stepped into the library. Tiber looked around as though he’d never seen it before. I pretended to do the same, except I looked for the librarian and his assistant. Was this my new classroom? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Outside the huge glass windows, the forest lay cloaked in a blanket of snow glittering blue and green in Mother’s Love.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” said Anders. “This is the library, where we keep all knowledge in the known world. There are many volumes here, some hundreds of years old, saved from the Dark Times.”
“But the Cleansings?” Tiber spoke for the first time. “What books are those?”
“Mass produced fiction mostly. Lies. Stories of no consequence. All the true
knowledge we keep.”
“Why burn books at all?” I said, knowing it was the wrong question to ask but asking it anyway. I was in no mood to back down today.
“Books have words, Recks. Words are knowledge. To understand words is to be knowledgeable and knowledge is power.”
“You want people to be powerless?” I tried hard to make my question sound harmless even though it made me angry to think it.
“Essentially, yes. Mother Sun blessed the Reticents with knowledge and power. Not all have or ever will attain her blessing.”
I followed them along the stacks of books. The librarians were nowhere to be seen. No one was. Anders opened one of the rooms Kinder had taken me to, private study rooms I guessed. This one was larger with several deep couches and its own bay of windows overlooking the forest. The glow of tiny fires in the distance caught my eye. Anders saw me looking.
“We’ll be paying a visit soon.”
“We will?” asked Tiber, joining me at the window.
“It’s almost time for the Cleansing.”
I felt myself cringe but reminded myself not to show it. Where was Stef?
“When will we go?” asked Tiber. The excitement in his voice sickened me.
“Within the week,” said Anders. “Now, take a seat.”
Anders talked at length before administering any downloads. Afterwards, he would quiz us, giving a shock if the answers were wrong or slow. Tiber got most of the punishment, thankfully, but it didn’t seem to faze him much. He just accepted it. Somehow, they’d broken him since I’d last seen him. I had no doubt he was still dangerous. Anders let us go by mid-afternoon with instructions to spend at least four hours in the library downloading whatever material we saw fit.
Kinder, the kindly librarian once again, guided Tiber to the history section, leaving me on my own. I wandered the stacks looking at the subjects—geography, biology, astrophysics. Could there really be no fiction here? No stories? How could the Reticents have been so foolish? Even I knew stories reflected what lay in peoples’ hearts. My former life as a storyteller taught me that much.
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