Relics

by Jon Ray

For one strange, vertiginous moment everything seemed inverted. The massive weight of the ceiling above them turned into an approaching floor, barren and gray, running for kilometers in all directions. It’s not blue. Marion stared, his reeling brain focused on this single, idiotic fact: I thought it would be blue.

  As the lift pulled closer and closer — and that impossible expanse of steel dropped inexorably down — Marion couldn’t help but feel that they were actually hurtling toward their demise, just seconds away from shattering against a rough metal basin cupped beneath them. This is what New York would look like as a desert, he realized. This was the city without buildings, without people or streets or water. He had honestly never imagined anything so vast, so completely devoid of contour or shape. The dark, riveted sections were broken only by a few scattered support posts — long, spidery legs that sprouted from the city’s ceiling and dropped like stalactites into the clouds below.

  The dull, battleship-gray span descended on them like a steel press, plummeting out of the sky like an anvil. Marion’s stomach pulled ever tighter, and he was suddenly lightheaded, ready to collapse.

  At the final moment he closed his eyes, the ceiling meters above them and closing fast. It swept past with a quiet rush of air, pulling the lift into darkness, drawing a hushed breath from the prisoners crushed around the narrow windows.

  “We’re almost there,” Allison whispered, sounding nearly as frightened and awed as Marion felt. He gradually relaxed his tightened brow, blinking nervously against the dim lights. His stomach began to uncoil, bringing his sense of direction back into focus as the lift sped upwards through the dark shaft.

  “Are you okay?”

  Marion swallowed once and nodded, feeling sweat shake from his brow. Allison reached out and ran the arm of her sweater across his forehead, making him jump with pleasure and surprise.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just trying to, you know…” she shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed, feeling the snow-dampened weave of her sweater. “I guess it didn’t help much.”

  Marion touched his forehead gingerly, trying to hide his fear. “It didn’t hurt.”

  Allison pushed her hair out of her eyes, smiling back at this obviously distressed, and yet somehow adorable, skinny young boy.

  The lift began to grind slowly beneath their feet, the motor straining against the heavy weight of the passengers. The floor and window-striped walls shook, jumping fitfully as the prisoners jostled uneasily together. And then, without warning, everything stopped. There was a sudden screech of metal, as the laboring engine skipped a beat and screamed painfully to a stop. Everyone stumbled back in surprise, falling dazedly against the walls and floor.

  The lift settled back with a dry hiss. One of the guards drew his gun lazily, scowling at the crowd, positioning himself in front of the bolted door. A quiet female voice crackled out of the ceiling vent, her speech honeyed with a slight British or Australian accent — it was hard to tell which.

  “Please remain stationary. Your transportation to the correctional facility will resume shortly.”

  Allison frowned and glanced at the door guard, watching warily as he pointedly checked the chamber of his pistol.

  “What happened?” She leaned against the window, rubbing her arms through her wet sweater. Marion shrugged, gazing around the room at the nervous crowd. The protesters were getting to their feet, looking uncomfortable and cramped in the small lift. The guards eyed them with bored impatience, slowly shifting their weight from side to side.

  “Great,” Allison muttered, straining to see around the center post. “We’re going to spend Easter weekend inside a giant donut.” Marion laughed, knowing he shouldn’t. The door guard scanned the room angrily, looking for the wise-ass as Marion bit his cheek, turning away from the crowd.

  Outside, the grimy concrete of the elevator shaft lay flush against the window, blocking the narrow view. Marion found streaks where the rough stone had scraped against the window, leaving white clawmarks gouged into the thick plastic.

  Unexpectedly, Marion felt Allison nudge him softly with her shoulder, her slender white finger pointing at the lower half of the window.

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  Marion followed her gesture toward the bottom of the exposed shaft, where the concrete dissolved inexplicably into darkness. He glanced over his shoulder — making sure the guards were otherwise occupied — and then squatted down, smearing his hand across the window. He squinted through the thick, milky lucite, trying to see into the shadows, but couldn’t quite make it out.

  It was a small tunnel of some sort, he thought — but it wasn’t a sewage or water pipe, not opening out into an elevator shaft like that. He shuffled a little closer, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. The tunnel’s walls were curved instead of square, he could tell, so it wasn’t an air duct, and it didn’t seem to have any heating coils or interior lighting.

  “Hey! Whatcha trying to find out there, kid?”

  Marion fought to keep from tumbling over backwards, his feet almost jumping out of his ratty sneakers.

  “I lost my ring,” Allison explained hastily. Marion looked up, balancing himself unsteadily against the cold floor. The door guard was glaring over Allison’s right shoulder, his eyes suspicious and hostile.

  “Your ring?” the guard snorted. “What’d it do, fall through the window?”

  Allison smiled sweetly, putting her hand out to help Marion up.

  “If I knew where I lost it I wouldn’t need help, now would I?”

  The guard snarled something, but his caustic reply was drowned inside a sudden clatter, a muffled mechanical whine that echoed across the elevator shaft. The lift jerked violently upward, sending Marion to the floor again.

  “Please prepare yourself to resume transportation,” the loudspeaker instructed, popping and cracking like a short wave radio.

  “Okay, everybody stand clear,” the guard hollered, moving back toward the door. “Be prepared to disembark. Have all yer personal items ready t’deposit.”

  Marion groaned, stumbling to his feet as the lift slowly gained speed. Allison helped steady him against the window.

  “How’re you doing?”

  Marion straightened up quickly, not wanting to appear weak. He looked Allison full in the face, seeing her long, delicate nose and champagne-colored lashes for the very first time. He nodded and gave his customary smile, barely a twitch against his cheeks.

  “I’m fine,” he said, tugging his windbreaker back into place. Allison grinned back, showing her uneven teeth, her apple-green eyes blinking in the soft fluorescent light.

  The elevator began to rattle loudly, settling into a steady crawl as it rose to the second level. The concrete walls suddenly slid away from the strip windows, flooding the circular room with light. Marion felt like a submarine captain surfacing in strange waters, the thick gray tide drawing back on all sides. His fellow passengers immediately began pushing closer to the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the correctional level, fighting each other for position.

  “Awright, stand back!” The guard motioned with his beefsteak hands, his body lodged firmly in front of the doorway. “I’m gonna let you out single file. Follow the officer outside to the assignment desk, then show the clerk your induction voucher. If y’lost your voucher, or failed to receive one, then yer gonna be detained until such a time as your voucher can be located, understand?”

  There was a general padding of hands against cloth, a rustling search for paper buried in deep pockets. Marion rummaged his voucher out of his jeans, clutching it like a talisman in his clenched fist. Allison looked worried for a moment, but finally found hers buried beneath a compact in her small purse.

  The line started forming close to the door, circling around the center post. There was a solid, metallic clang as the outside bolt was released, a heavy echo of steel on steel. The lift door swung back, opening out onto bright chromium lights and a pea-soup green linoleum floor. Allison stepped int
o line, pushing her sweater sleeves up past her elbows. Marion followed close behind, winding his way around the elevator’s engine bay, squinting into the shiny foyer of the City of New York’s Correctional Industries Complex.

  The waiting room looked remarkably like a high school cafeteria. The new inductees sat at long tables with attached rotating plastic stools, clustered under rows of hanging ferns. Toward the front of the hall, a balding corrections officer turned on a microphone, quieting the room with a sharp burst of feedback. The crowd of prisoners gradually stopped mumbling, shifting on their stools to get a better view.

  Allison looked down the table at the line of faces, trying to find Joanne’s sharp features among the rows of dour frowns and worry-creased foreheads. Everyone sat straight in their seats, nervous and expectant, looking more like a choir than a chain gang. Allison couldn’t help but notice that the crowd was almost entirely white, with only a handful of black college students and a small gaggle of Japanese tourists — still wearing their Times Square T-shirts and Berlitz-recommended smiles — to break up the mix.

  “Please listen closely.” The speaker’s voice was piercingly high, a trembling whine that seemed even more annoying than the feedback. “This information will not be repeated, and you will be expected to understand and remember all regulations that apply to you during your incarceration.”

  The coughs and distracted movement began almost immediately, obscuring the speaker’s droning instructions. Allison strained to listen, but could catch only the random, echoing directive involving work credits and visitation rights.

  Where the hell was Joanne? Allison glanced around, annoyed that her roommate — and supposed best friend — had abandoned her at the riot site. Arrested! And for what? A cause that she wasn’t even sure she believed in. It didn’t seem right that Allison was stuck doing community service while Joanne was almost certainly out picking up her paycheck and buying oat bran.

  “Remember your group number,” the speaker advised, his voice cracking like a broken clarinet. “This will affect your release date. As first-time offenders, with no previous record, you will all be serving the basic ten-day community service sentence, unless you have been advised otherwise.” He stopped for a second, spreading sheets of paper across his podium. “Is there anyone here who was assigned anything other than a ten-day sentence?”

  Someone sneezed violently, and a delicate beige arm waved tentatively above the crowd. Two guards walked over to check papers, and Allison dropped her head in despair.

  “I’m in prison,” she moaned, knocking her forehead against the cold tabletop. Unexpectedly, she felt a light, comforting hand on her shoulder, heard a vaguely familiar voice.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Allison looked up, flipping her hair back out of her eyes. She maintained her poker face, but in truth she couldn’t have been happier to discover that the shy, skinny boy from the subway had somehow stuck with her.

  “Well then, I guess I’m not dreaming.” She smiled and swiveled slowly on her rotating plastic stool, watching as Marion dropped onto the empty seat next to her. His hair was surprisingly long, still tangled and damp from the snow, tumbling over the back of his blue jacket,.

  “Anyway, my name’s Allison,” she said, holding her hand out. Marion looked at it for a moment, his stool coasting slowly to a stop.

  “I know,” he said. “You told me.” He grabbed her hand, his grasp awkward and unsure. He appeared more than a little surprised to discover the warmth of the human body.

  “Oh. I guess I did. So what’s yours?”

  “My name?” Marion blinked, as if he weren’t entirely sure. “Marion. It’s Marion.”

  Allison laughed, and then bit her lip, not sure if he was kidding or not. “Like on Gilligan’s Island?”

  “No, not Mary-Ann. Marion.”

  Allison squinted at him, trying to fit the name to his skinny face and stringy auburn hair. He looked away, embarrassed.

  “It’s John Wayne’s first name,” he explained, talking into the air. “They liked John Wayne. That’s why.”

  “They?” Allison stared at him until he glanced up, trying to draw him out. “They who?”

  Marion looked at her, his eyes locked nervously on hers. “The nurses,” he replied, swallowing quietly. “I was raised in, you know, kind of a hospital.”

  Allison tilted her head, waiting to see if he would continue. He had a beautiful voice, she thought, for such a scrawny boy. It was low and soft, almost musical, like pouring sand. It was obvious that he didn’t feel comfortable talking — at least not to women. “An orphanage?”

  “No,” Marion said firmly. “A hospital.”

  Toward the front, the bald officer was coughing into his microphone, leaning crookedly over the podium. He had finished his instruction, and the guards were now directing the prisoners to get up single file and march out of the room.

  “Where?” Allison stood up, grabbing her purse from the floor, “Bellevue or something?” Marion laughed, trying to unhook his windbreaker from the table as he stood up.

  “No, not Bellevue. The Medical Center.”

  Allison began shuffling into line, keeping her eye on the prison guards. “The Center?” She tried not to sound shocked, once again half-suspecting that he was pulling her leg. “You grew up in the Medical Center?” She turned halfway around, only to discover that she was talking to nobody. Marion remained a good three meters behind, struggling against his jacket, still caught on the plastic stool.

  “Marion,” she hissed, trying to slip out of line. A paunchy, middle-aged prison official immediately moved up beside her.

  “Okay, honey, stay in line.” The fat guard smiled benevolently, motioning with his nightstick. “Gotta make way for the next group. Move along.” Allison looked back one last time, trying to peer around the guard’s waving hand. She saw Marion fall back into the crowd, his shoulders pushed by a younger guard, his jacket torn free from the table with a violent tug. The other prisoners kept moving, pressing Allison forward, stampeding through the huge double doors at the far end of the room.

  The rest of the evening was lost in an endless series of instructions and paperwork. The inmates were split into groups alphabetically by last name, and then again by size to get their uniform vouchers. Allison searched for Marion over the wooden desks and haphazard piles of stapled paper, but eventually decided that he must be in a completely different section of the prison. Eventually the prisoners were divided by sex, and the separate groups were shuttled off to the dorm areas for cataloging and room assignment.

  Allison found herself disoriented by the lack of environmental lighting. The double rows of fluorescents that lined the halls were tuned to a constant, headache-inducing hum, lighting everything the same jaundiced shade of yellow. Allison found herself longing for the dull, shaky New York sun, with all of its skips and failures. It least it pretended to be real.

  The female prisoners were led through what felt like kilometers of small corridors — snaking beneath dingy suspended ceilings low enough to touch — before being funneled into the main processing room. Allison milled about with the other inmates, fighting the disconcerting feeling that she had somehow been transported back to summer camp.

  The room itself was a disgusting peach affair, poorly lit, hung with depressing, faux-Impressionist landscapes in screwed-down metal frames. There were only two doors, flat black and knobless — one on either end of the room — and a long Formica counter that looked like it belonged in a diner. The far wall was covered with rows of gym lockers, the putty-colored steel doors chipped and battered from overuse. The ceiling here was a little higher, but not by much, hovering just low enough to dampen conversation. Allison backed into the closest corner, eyeing the line of school desks arranged opposite the lockers — a familiar sea of molded red plastic chairs and fake woodgrain tablets — feeling more and more helpless and unhappy with each passing second.

  And then, just as the group of detainees was beginning
to rustle and whisper amongst themselves, the far door slammed open with a resonant clang, revealing a stout, brown-barked stump of a woman — a loud, tough-looking Dominican with a slicked-back crimp cut and skin like a leather purse left out in the rain. She bustled into the far end of the room, smacking the Formica countertop with her palms, shouting loudly as she came.

  “Welcome to the Division of Correctional Industries, darlin’s. I sure do hope you come ready to do some work.”

  Although Allison couldn’t quite see the front of the crowd, she heard some nervous laughter, the shifting of uncertain feet.

  “What you laughing at, fat girl?”

  The dry chuckles choked into silence, the vast majority of the newly minted prisoners now carefully checking the concrete floor for cracks and stains.

  “That’s right, girls — you keep your pretty heads down.” The dorm boss strode out from behind the counter and glared at the group, moving from nervous face to lowered brow as she spoke. “You might think this is gonna be some kind of no-sweat vacation, just a little ten-day adventure you can tell your boyfriends ‘bout once you get back home. Well, you best disabuse yourself of that notion right now. Because believe you me — so much as one of you don’t work up to my specifications, you gonna be shipped over to Arthur Kills Correctional so fast, make your eyes pop. Or maybe I’ll just bribe a guard, get you smuggled into the Brightlanders containment zone in the middle of the night.”

  A tiny, black-haired girl standing in front of Allison spun around, her face a mask of confusion and despair, a single tear hanging from her delicate gold nose ring.

  “What? Who is she going to kill?”

  Before Allison could even begin to calm her, the prison matron started shouting out prisoner’s names alphabetically, wading into the crowd to push the slow movers up to the counter.

  “Everyone line up when you hear your name. Have your valuables ready for deposit, and your uniform voucher out.” She rapped the metal lockers with her wrinkled hand, leaving a damp mark. “And you best be ready to disrobe. Don’t act like you’re shy, neither. Believe me, child, I seen it all.”

  Allison edged along the wall, watching the women in front of her as they emptied their pockets and struggled unhappily out of jeans and dresses. The first woman in line was halfway out of her sports bra before the dorm boss stopped her.

  “Whoa, honey,” the old crone said, curling her lips into a tight smile. “No need to flash us. You can keep your underthings intact.” The young woman blushed and lowered her head, making Allison feel angry and ashamed at the same time.

  “You’ll be wearin’ these for two weeks,” the boss said, holding a plastic-wrapped jumpsuit out for inspection. “So if you lied about your size, believe me, you gonna regret it.”

  Allison went through the process as quickly as possible, pulling on her loose-fitting suit with sharp, angry tugs. She glanced around at the female guards and inmates as she dressed, watching their eyes jump away as she glared at them.

  Her beige jumpsuit zipped straight up the front, from crotch to neck, and the pocket was stitched with both the NYC Department of Correctional Services and CorCraft logos. The latter featured a stylized shovel and tree, as if it belonged to a benign collective of citizen pruners, and not a rapacious corporation that made trillions of dollars a year off of forced labor.

  Again, Allison felt a vague sense of despair, a sudden realization that she was actually in jail. One of the clerks handed her a second jumpsuit, still in its shrink-wrap, and assigned her a locker number, but she didn’t really hear it. She smoothed her starched prison outfit with one hand, watching carefully as they counted and catalogued her belongings. The guard piled her clothes and purse haphazardly into an empty cubicle, snapping the metal door closed on the last remnants of her outside life.

  “Quit dreaming, honey,” the dorm boss called out, shooing Allison along with one outstretched hand. “We got a lot more to do yet.”

  The prisoners were herded over to the school desks, shuffling like mental patients across the worn carpet. They were forced to fill out yet another form, punching in information about contact lenses, sexually transmitted diseases and familial insanity. Allison tore through it, not bothering to read the disclaimer or legal agreement before pressing her forefinger into the signature scanner.

  “Okay, girls, this is the routine.” The Dominican drill sergeant crossed the room slowly, rubbing her stomach as if ironing her starched blue shirt against her impressively hard abs. “You get two phone calls a day. One in the morning, and one in the p.m., starting tonight. And you’ll be using our phones, not your cute little earbugs, so get used to it. Oh yeah — if you thought maybe you might be home Easter Sunday, think again. Best give your family a little ring about that one. You gonna be up every morning at 6:00 a.m. sharp, fed in the east cafeteria, and then shot up to the Garden for eight hours of harvest, packaging and prep, with thirty minutes off for lunch. Understand?”

  Allison nodded with the rest, beginning to feel more like a patient than a prisoner, a junkie stuck in a rehabilitation clinic against her will.

  “Phone calls are local only,” the boss continued, tapping her knuckles against the shiny counter. “Any calls outside the city gotta be cleared through me, understand? You got five minutes each, so don’t waste it. Follow me.”

  She pressed a small button next to the door, waiting patiently for the guard to buzz her in.

  The phones were bolted into shallow wooden stalls, balanced over well-worn benches that were barely wide enough to accommodate even a medium-size backside. The prisoners were split into separate groups outside of the booths, everyone silently waiting their turn to call home.

  The antiquated phones, Allison noted with interest, were exactly like the ones at the office, lacking only the clamp-on headpiece. In fact, when she finally sat down in the booth and hit the relay switch, she was hit with an overpowering surge of déja vu. She sat fumbling with the familiar pattern of switches and buttons, pushing the area select and forwarding functions until a plump, rosacea-skinned guard motioned for her to hurry up.

  “Yo! Don’t play with the thing,” she called out, suppressing a yawn. “Just call and get out, awright?” Allison gave an embarrassed wave, turning back to the phone. She dialed the apartment code, hoping against hope that Joanne had managed to make it back home, but got the answering machine instead. The sound of Joanne’s distant, reedy voice depressed Allison even further.

  “Hi! You’ve reached Jo and Allie’s cruelty-free cosmetics help line. We’re out feeding the rabbits right now, but start yapping after the beep and we’ll get back to you.”

  Allison hung up before the tone, trying to think of someone else to call. The office was probably closed by now, and she hadn’t gotten clearance to call Vegas. Besides, her mom was almost certainly out dealing or drinking at this point — and wouldn’t have much to say to her incarcerated daughter, regardless. So instead Allison used up her five minutes calling codes listed on a taped-up slip of paper next to the phone: first the spiritual reclamation center, which bored her, and then the suicide hotline, which was busy. The guard finally rapped on the window with her pinkie ring, scratching at her bulbous nose with a single ragged nail.

  “Time’s up, sweets. Line up against the back wall.”

  Allison’s stomach was starting to ache with hunger, but it didn’t look as if they were going to be fed until morning. She wandered over to the other end of the room, waiting for the remaining inmates to finish their calls. Some of the younger women and students left the phone stalls crying, wiping tears angrily against their sleeves. The dorm boss leaned against a card table in the far corner, sucking on a hand-rolled cigarette until they were done, and then pulled a clipboard from under her arm.

  “I’m gonna give your room assignments now. Don’t forget ‘em, because I won’t be tellin’ you twice. And don’t whine about dinner, neither, ‘cause it ended at six. You should’ve eaten before you decided to break the law.”


  She began shouting out names and room numbers, pointing randomly with knotty fingers, her cigarette butt burning dangerously close to her hand. In a matter of minutes everyone was paired with a roommate and lined up, two abreast, marching through the narrow metal doorway into the prison dorms.

  Allison spent the night with a loud, sarcastic college girl named Bridgette. They were shown into their room at ten, the door locking behind them with a solid thud and an oily metal click. As soon as they were alone, the dark-haired girl kicked ineffectually at her bedframe and fell against the wall.

  “What a joke,” she moaned, pushing her pillow onto the floor. “I feel like I’m in kindergarten.” Allison shrugged, watching this pale, anorexic stranger pace the narrow channel between the two beds. Bridgette scuffed her feet along the dull-green carpet, paused at the bathroom door, rubbed her palm hard against her forehead. “Look at this. It’s tiny.”

  Allison peered in, seeing a small cracked sink overhanging an even smaller toilet. Both were tucked into a space no larger than a broom closet. Still, it was a separate room, which was a big improvement over most prison movies she’d seen. In fact, Allison could honestly say that she’d stayed in hotels with more meager accommodations. She dropped her spare jumpsuit onto one of the beds and plopped down next to it, making small talk as she began unlacing her sneakers with one hand.

  “What’s the deal — are we supposed to wear the same two suits all week, or what?”

  The girl spun around, looking insulted. “Laundry is every day at six-fifteen. Don’t you listen?”

  Allison slumped with weary resignation, kicking her shoes across the room. “No.”

  “Well you should,” the girl shot back, dropping onto her bed with a practiced sigh. “God, I hate this already.”

  Allison really had no idea what to say. There was obviously no way she could connect with this raven-haired pit of despair. “So, uh — how big do you think this place is, anyway?”

  The girl didn’t even bother to look up. “Exactly as big as New York, I guess. If not, then the Hamptons would collapse into the city, right?”

  Allison gave up. She undressed and slipped into her bed, pulling the institutional sheets up to her nose. The mattress was surprisingly comfortable, though a bit too soft for Allison’s taste. She wriggled around for a second, itching her stomach beneath the tight bedding, settling herself in as she waited for the lights to fade. Her dour cellmate sat on the other bed for a while, and then followed suit, folding her coveralls into a neat square before climbing into bed.

  After lights out, just as Allison began to dream, the girl spoke up, her voice rising plaintively in the dark air.

  “I just graduated from Parsons. Can you freakin’ believe it?” Allison started awake, her body creaking against the bedsprings.

  “What?”

  “Three months out of school,” the girl whined, kicking at her sheets. “Three months, and I’m stuck in stupid Corrections. You know, I was supposed to be designing eggs for Saint Martin’s this week.”

  Allison opened her eyes, staring into the blackness. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “So what do you do?” The girl asked, her voice a little softer. Allison was almost afraid to say.

  “Political surveys, phone polling. Stuff like that.”

  The girl groaned as if she were in physical pain. “God, really? Telemarketing? Isn’t that illegal or something?”

  Allison sighed, wishing that she could just go to sleep. “No, not telemarketing, just questions. We collect information, political opinion, stuff like that.”

  “Weird. What for?”

  Allison rolled over on one side, turning her back, burrowing back into sleep.

  “Good question.”

  The real trouble didn’t begin until the next day. Allison snapped awake at six a.m. sharp, roused by an incessant, discordant tone and the brightly buzzing prison lights. She woke up starving, her mouth pasty white with sleep. Her roommate kept a pillow clamped tightly over her head, refusing to budge as she mumbled curses incoherently into the mattress.

  Allison rose quickly and slipped into the bathroom, finding two plastic-wrapped packages on the metal shelf above the sink. She tore one open, spilling a small toothbrush, toothpaste, and a hotel-size bar of soap onto the grimy bathroom floor. She hastily replaced them and grabbed the other package, leaning back against the toilet to brush her teeth. The lack of a mirror was disconcerting — Allison couldn’t help but wonder how bad her hair really looked. She washed her face and hands, wishing for a hairbrush, and spat the coppery water back into the chipped sink. Bridgette began shaking the door handle, as if she thought the bathroom might be empty.

  “Come on,” she whined, “we’ve got to leave for breakfast soon.”

  Allison opened the door to let her in, smiling graciously. Bridgette grumbled and stood back, rubbing her swollen cheek against one shoulder.

  “Morning,” Allison said, stepping into the room. “How’d you sleep?”

  The girl cleared her throat, snorting like an air pump. “Right,” she growled, slamming the door closed behind her. Allison grabbed her jumpsuit from the floor, deciding to save the niceties for later. She was only half-dressed when the guard rapped on the cell door, shouting a five-minute warning for morning head count.

  They ate in the same room they had arrived in, the long tables crammed with rows of inmates in light tan uniforms. Allison worked her way through a full plate of dry scrambled eggs and burnt bacon, two triangles of soggy toast and three cups of black coffee in about ten minutes. She raised her head between bites, scanning the cafeteria for signs of Joanne, or at least her new malnourished friend Marion. The room seemed much larger now that it was filled, the endless rows of jumpsuited prisoners stretching into a faceless tapioca sea. Behind this expanse of lowered heads snaked the serving line, where hundreds of nervous detainees waited impatiently for their steaming plates of institutional gruel.

  Eventually, a harsh, metallic voice began summoning group numbers over the loudspeaker, echoing throughout the cafeteria like a cardinal’s voice in a cathedral. Allison gulped the rest of her coffee, piling plates haphazardly across her tray as she stood. Everything was happening too fast, she thought — so fast that she couldn’t even pause and contemplate just how screwed she really was.

  The groups were led back to the dorm area one by one, where they were briefed once more for transportation. There was a general buzz of expectancy — students and activists muttering excitedly about visiting the Garden, speculating about crop assignments. Allison watched them incredulously, wondering how giddy they would be after eight hours of picking oranges and digging potatoes out of hard-packed soil.

  Eventually, everyone was quieted and led into the phone room, following the daily routine. Allison pushed toward the front of the line, veering into the first open booth she saw.

  She shut the flimsy door behind her, glad for even a second of solitude, her tired body dropping onto the flat padded seat. She thought for a second about calling her mom, but just couldn’t make herself do it. Not only was it still way too early in Vegas, but Allison could already hear the mixture of shock and pride in her mother’s voice when she learned that her only daughter was in prison, and the combination was simply too much for Allison to bear right now. And so, even though she doubted anyone would notice her absence, she decided to call in sick to work.

  Once the decision was made, Allison’s hands moved instinctively, her fingers typing in the city prefix, office relay, and floor number for the survey room. She waited for the whining tone, then dialed the main office extension, hoping like hell that Saul wasn’t working.

  Without warning, the receiver exploded, spewing a screaming stew of system tones, static and garbled voices. Allison nearly dropped the phone right there, her eardrums recoiling form the deluge. The plastic receiver seemed suddenly hot in her hand, buzzing against her palm like a captured wasp. Allison cautiously brought it closer, hearing what soun
ded like thousands of people stumbling over each other to talk. There were no individual words, just levels of tone and pitch: baritone voices, piercing cries, laughter and shouting, all present in varying degrees on a single line, spilling out with no apparent organization or restraint.

  She held the phone gingerly, wondering what she had done wrong. The relay button was flashing rapidly, a faint heartbeat pulsing beneath the stream of language. Allison strained to listen, watching the phone, trying to figure out what in the world was going on. She pressed the receiver against the side of her head, following the swell and fall of clashing voices, hearing the cacophony of speech as if it were a single note.

  There was something almost rhythmic about the chatter, she realized — a swirling pattern of tone and voice that lurked just beyond her reach. Allison squinted, feeling as thought she could almost discern a familiar voice rising out of the din — a modulated and calm order in the midst of the chaos.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The dorm boss grabbed the receiver out of Allison’s hand and slapped it back into the cradle.

  “What did I say? What did I tell you all?” Allison sat up straight, swallowing against her dry throat. “I specifically said no calls outside the city.”

  Allison turned on her bench, shaking, “I was trying to call work. I dialed my work code.” Her voice, like her excuse, sounded incredibly weak.

  “You purposely called outside the city!” The boss leaned menacingly over Allison, shaking a ruby-red fingernail in her face. “You accessed an upper level without permission!”

  Allison stared back at the phone, the well-worn pattern of buttons still blinking randomly across the board. She had pressed the relay switch, Allison realized. She had dialed through her work routine without even knowing it.

  “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I’m so used to these phones, I just didn’t realize…”

  “Shut up,” the dorm boss spat, grabbing Allison by the arm. “You’ve lost your calling privileges. And your mediascreen rights. Fact, you’re gonna be detained and sent up with the second crew, understand?”

  Allison nodded, letting herself be dragged out of the phone booth. The other inmates stared at the scene, the angry warden dragging Allison across the room like a naughty child.

  What did I just do? Allison glanced back at the stall, watching the next person in line slip nervously inside. I tried to dial the office, she thought — I called the office, and ended up somewhere else entirely.

  The dorm boss pulled up short, pressing the buzzer next to the front entrance. The door swung back with a quiet groan, and Allison was pushed roughly inside.

  The loading room was crammed to capacity with sullen prisoners — a milling crowd of heavyset, scowling men who, much to Allison’s alarm, resembled actual convicts. The inmates were currently huddled against the outer walls, eyes raised toward the thirty-meter-high ceiling as the prison lift returned from the Garden, easing into the cavernous space with a gritty blast of stale air, its circular steel body shuddering against the whine of pneumatic brakes.

  Allison waited rigidly in line, squinting at the huge elevator as it descended haltingly toward the steel restraining cuff below, riding the concrete post like a wedding band slipping down a giant’s finger. As it wheezed slowly to the floor, Allison couldn’t help but think of an oversize bundt cake settling back into its shiny mold. Once the thing had settled securely into its high-walled holder, the guards quickly encircled it, stationing themselves at the four entryways, glaring angrily at the crowd.

  Following her embarrassing phone call fiasco, Allison had been detained in the dorms for over an hour, filling out page after page of non-binding institutional apologia and incomprehensible articles of compliance. The prison clerks had eventually allowed her back into the processing room, where she was placed into a discipline group and ultimately marched back to the elevator landing. Allison had found the entire process absurd and frustrating — an intricate pantomime that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of driving problematic prisoners around in enormous, annoying circles.

  Allison’s discipline group turned out to be largely solemn and dull: a bunch of petty criminals and schoolyard bullies who had mouthed off just enough to justify special treatment. Unfortunately, Allison found herself stuck next to one of the most annoying — a tiny man who kept picking his nose and shifting his weight from foot to foot as if he had to pee. She finally eased out of his way as the lift descended, abandoning her assigned place while the guards’ attention was focused elsewhere.

  As she hung back, the prisoners surged around her, filing toward the elevator doors as they rolled lazily back. A sleepy guard motioned them forward, his mouth yawning wide, his shirt half-untucked over a bulging, beer-fed belly. Allison finally joined the stampede and ducked into the lift, positioning herself near the closest window, standing clear of the widening flow of prisoners as they fanned out across the floor.

  Six guards followed the rush of convicts into the elevator, measuring their strides against the curving wall. They immediately stationed themselves around the perimeter, moving the prisoners in toward the engine post, hard stares looking for trouble.

  And then, before the prisoners had even stopped moving, the lift dropped beneath their feet, and then jumped suddenly back toward the ceiling, rumbling like a carnival ride. Allison lurched against the wall, barely keeping herself from tumbling to the floor. And then, as she carefully braced herself against further turbulence, a soft voice filled her ear.

  “Never been up this high, huh?”

  Allison spun around with quick surprise, knocking Marion off-balance against the window.

  “Marion! Where the hell have you been?” She grabbed his hand and pulled him upright, overjoyed to see a familiar face. Marion put his finger to his lips, watching the guards. Allison nodded, lowering her voice. “What happened?”

  “You know,” he whispered. “Stuff. My roommate’s totally psychotic.”

  “God, mine too. She talked all night.”

  “You’re lucky,” Marion said, grimacing. “Mine screamed.”

  Allison raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “He’s claustrophobic, or something.” Marion glanced furtively around the lift. “I think he’s in here, somewhere.”

  Allison scanned the elevator, but didn’t see anyone special. She turned back and looked Marion over, noticing how gangly and nervous he seemed inside his tan jumpsuit. He looked different, Allison thought, stripped of his grungy street wear. His hair was still a tangled mess, but the suit made him look almost respectable.

  “How’d you end up here?”

  Marion shrugged, scratching his ear. “Paperwork trouble. I wouldn’t tell them my last name.”

  “Oh?” Allison had to admit she was surprised — he didn’t seem like the rebellious type. “Why not?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Really?” Allison stared at him, wondering if he was kidding. “Didn’t you tell them?”

  “Well, I kind of tried. They don’t listen very well.”

  “Tell me about it.” Allison sighed and gazed out the window, watching the familiar blur of concrete and shadow rush past. As she turned to tell Marion about her phone call disaster, the elevator floor suddenly hiccuped, lifting her temporarily off her feet and stopping her story cold. The engine made a sound like a box of silverware falling down a flight of stairs, and then stuttered into silence, the mechanical roar instantly choked flat. The entire round room settled back with a jolt, tumbling the prisoners across the scuffed linoleum floor.

  “Please remain stationary.” The ceiling lady instructed, the voice faint and distorted, filled with ghostly static. “Your transportation to level four will resume shortly.”

  Two of the six guards pulled their guns, one of them muttering under his breath as the speaker continued to crackle and hum. Marion pulled at Allison’s sleeve, nodding his head toward the tall window behind them.

  �
��Look.” He gestured discreetly, trying to avoid detection. “Another tunnel.”

  Allison eased around, squinting through the window at the outlines of a wide hole bored into the concrete. “Is that what it is, a tunnel?”

  Marion nodded, shading his eyes against the shatterproof pane, trying to see father into the dim passage. He pressed his hand against the window, leaving a greasy handprint on the dull plastic.

  “Some sort of cooling system, I’d guess. You know, to help the concrete dry.”

  Allison didn’t know, but she nodded anyway, peering into the depths of the void. There was something attractive about the long, narrow passageway, she had to admit — something forbidden and dangerous. Allison suddenly imagined herself running through the center of the Build, hair flying, holding a pistol in one hand and a sack of money in the other. She spun toward Marion, wanting to share the joke. Unfortunately, for the second time in as many minutes, she was rudely interrupted.

  The gunshot exploded inside the elevator like an atomic blast, a percussive blast that felt like a rusty pin jabbed into Allison’s inner ear. She heard the cartoon whine of a ricochet, felt a soft burning sensation against her skin. Good lord, she thought, I’ve been shot. She grabbed at her arm, spinning toward the elevator door, trying to locate the gun.

  A pint-size, twisted little man was running frantically from the guards, knocking people out of his way, pointing a comically large pistol directly at Allison and Marion.

  “Crap,” Marion said, sounding only slightly surprised. “It’s my roommate.”

  The man fired again, and for an instant Allison was certain she was dead. She stared into the scrawny maniac’s face — head whipping wildly about, mouth full of tiny teeth wide open and screaming — and suddenly recalled his features from the loading room.

  The nose-picker, she realized. I’m going to be murdered by a dwarf who picks his nose.

  The bullet blew through the window in a cloud of dust and smoke, sending shards of molten plastic spraying across the lift. Allison’s skin was once again peppered with stinging chips, causing her to hop backward and brush wildly at her arms and face.

  “Let me out!” The crazed little man fired three more shots into the window, cracking it like a sheet of ice. “I got to, got to get the hell out!”

  He dropped the gun unexpectedly — everybody on board cringing as it bounced twice against the floor without discharging — before completing his head-first dive into the shattered window. He threw his small body against the pane full force, cutting his forehead wide open and knocking chunks of plastic into the lift. The window held, just barely, the shaking surface spun with deep cracks and bullet holes, a wide brushstroke of blood smeared from wall to floor.

  Before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, however, the guards all rushed forward and plowed into the poor guy’s back, knocking him flat against the window, burying him beneath a pile of broad shoulders and fists. The ironic effect of this attack was to complete the malcontent’s job for him, taking out the fragile window in an unexpected explosion of debris — the plastic buckling outward, raining down on top of the melee like hail.

  Everything was out of control now — people shouting and throwing punches, a shifting mass of flesh jammed against the freshly broken window. The crazed little convict was halfway out of the elevator by now, his body pressed hard against the sharp edges of plastic that still lined the window. The other prisoners were beginning to cheer, more in enthusiasm than anger, gathering around the fight scene to watch the guards jerk the tiny inmate around.

  Allison tried to keep out of the way, her back smashed against the wall of the lift, her arms pinned behind her. One of the guards pushed her roughly out of the way, grabbed the prisoner and tossed him violently toward the other end of the room. The convict’s limp, skinny body hit the engine post with a solid thump, then went reeling back against the floor. Allison watched as a bright spray of blood covered the far wall, flying from the guy’s forehead like sweat. The guards and inmates charged after him, arms already raised in gleeful anticipation.

  Allison stared down at her sneakers, trying to block out the grunting and cheering around her. She felt useless, disgusted and frightened at the same time, unable to do a thing to help.

  “Allison!” She started, turning toward the sound of Marion’s voice. The entire back end of the elevator was empty, she realized — the vacant floor scattered with ice-like chunks of plastic, flecked with blood. She looked down, finally discovering where Marion was, and her eyes went wide with fear.

  “Marion! What the hell are you doing?”

  He reached up and grabbed her leg without warning, his arm snaking in from the hiding place outside the broken window.

  “Leaving.”

  Allison nearly fell through the window frame, twisting her body to avoid the blood-soaked shards of plastic. Marion toppled beneath her, breaking her fall, letting out a squeak as she landed on his skinny stomach.

  “Are you totally insane?” Allison glanced back through the window, watching the heaving crowd as it pushed closer to the fight. A warm rush of air flowed from the far end of the tunnel, tickling her hair against the back of her neck. Behind her, Marion rolled over and up, getting quietly to his feet. She looked over at him, disoriented, breathless. “We can’t do this.”

  But Marion was already doing it — his body inching through the black tunnel, dissolving into shadow. “Hurry up,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. “They’ll see us.”

  Allison rose slowly from her knees, fully intending to clamber back into the lift, quickly, before anyone noticed that she was missing. But then, just as she grabbed the window’s edge, another gunshot split the air, followed by a terrifying scream.

  Allison shrieked involuntarily, collapsing against the cold concrete floor. Desperate, she swiveled her head from the shattered window to Marion’s beckoning hands and back again, not believing that she was about to do what she was about to do. Finally, she raised herself to a low crouch and stumbled forward in the weak light, hearing the shouts and groans fade behind her. “Jesus, Marion. Where are we going?”

  Marion paused, just for a second, staring back into her nervous eyes. “Away.”

  Allison kept moving, her brain in total denial, knowing that this one insane action basically refuted every sensible decision she had ever made. She couldn’t believe that this was really her, that she was willing to go this far.

  She reached out, grabbed Marion’s hand, and allowed herself to be led blindly into the darkness.

  The tunnel’s curved ceiling was about six centimeters too low for Marion, forcing him to walk with a slight, painful bend in his spine. Allison fared a bit better, managing to stand upright as long as she stayed in the middle of the tunnel. They ran at first, keeping silent until the grainy light from the elevator was a distant star behind them, pinpointing the end of the tunnel. As they scuttled forward, hand in hand, the clamor gradually subsided behind them, fading step by step until only an infrequent shout echoed in the distance.

  “Where do you think we are?” Allison’s voice rang cold and flat into the tunnel, dulled by concrete and stale air.

  “Between levels,” Marion guessed. “Somewhere beneath the Garden, right? Or are the Hamptons next?”

  “It’s the Hamptons,” Allison said, amazed that he wouldn’t know. She felt her hair catch against the rough ceiling and ducked, squinting into the coal-shaft darkness ahead. “I mean, why is this here? Who uses it?”

  “Nobody now, I guess,” Marion said, running his fingers along the rough walls. “It might be a ventilation shaft or something. I read this thing, once, about the Hoover Dam? It’s like, they had to fill the whole thing with Freon, through all of these tunnels, just to keep the concrete from cracking as it dried.”

  Allison looked warily up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling the immense weight of the Build bearing down on them.

  “Wow. Do you think it’s safe?”

  Before Marion coul
d answer, the shaft began to shake with a loud mechanical whine. It seemed to emanate directly from the tunnel walls, surrounding them like a swarm of bees. Allison dropped instinctively to her knees, giving them a good whack against the rock-hard floor. Marion reached down quickly and pulled her to her feet.

  “Elevator,” he whispered, his shaking hands belying his calm voice. “They must’ve gotten it working.”

  Allison’s eyes swept the shadows, not even sure which way the elevator was. She eventually caught the faint glow as it disappeared; a distant smudge of gray light that faded like someone closing a window on another planet, leaving the tunnel completely still and even darker than before. When Marion finally broke the stillness, his voice sounded like a shout in the silence.

  “They don’t know we’re gone.”

  Allison wasn’t so sure. “Maybe they just know we’re trapped.”

  “You know, you really shouldn’t be such a pessimist.”

  “This is insane,” Allison said. “We’re fugitives.”

  “Not until they find out.”

  “Great,” she sighed. “So we’re fugitives-to-be.”

  Marion grabbed her by the hand and pressed resolutely on, hunching forward like a linebacker. “Well, look at it this way — at least we have something to look forward to.”

  Allison found herself inexplicably following his lead, hand-in-hand like schoolchildren on a field trip, unable to pinpoint why, exactly, she felt so suddenly blasé about participating in a prison break. After five minutes of quiet progress, she felt the need to at least ask one important question.

  “So where are we going, exactly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  While admiring his honesty, Allison had to admit that Marion’s answer did little to qualm her fears.

  “Well then, why are we going there?”

  “Because,” Marion looked back, his feet marching steadily forward, his pale features shining with bright certainty, “it’s gotta be better than where we were.”

  Allison opened her mouth to refute him, and then closed it, not sure what she could possibly say. As she struggled to muster a response, she suddenly noticed that the tunnel seemed a bit brighter. The musty atmosphere was leavened with the slightest hint of air conditioning, and Allison could see that the darkness was now shot through with faint streaks of light. She thought about mentioning it, but figured that Marion could perceive the changes as well as she could.

  “Hey,” she called out, shuffling her feet along the gritty floor. “Did you really grow up in the Medical Center?”

  “Yeah,” Marion answered, his voice so quiet it was nearly unintelligible. “I was born there.”

  Allison stopped short, not sure that she’d heard him right.

  “Oh, come on. That’s not possible.” As she spoke, Allison felt Marion’s hand jerk rudely from her own, as if offended by her objections. “No one is born in the Center.”

  She waited for a reply, but none seemed forthcoming, so she opened her mouth to apologize, afraid that he was annoyed with her. Unfortunately, before Allison could get a word out, the unseen shaft in front of her erupted like a confetti cannon, flooding the tunnel with light and plaster dust as Marion’s plummeting body smashed through the bottom of the deep cooling vent into the prison below.

  The sense of vertigo was absolute — that feeling you get when searching for an invisible step at the top of a dark stairwell, only multiplied a thousandfold. Marion had moved firmly out into the open air, his foot missing the ground completely, pulling the rest of his body with it into the gaping shaft. There was a shifting moment of confusion, a vague sense of disbelief — this infinite second when his brain couldn’t quite fathom that it was twisting down into air. Following that, a quick rush of images: blurred iron rungs flashing past his face, a cool flow of air rushing up from below, the dark ceiling of the tunnel spiraling away far above him.

  His body punched through the roof of the prison dorm like a fist, showering the room in a fine spray of sheetrock and wood. He landed hard on his back, falling diagonally across one of the small beds. His shoulder cracked against the metal frame, bedsprings squealing beneath the impact, the cheap frame bending almost double. Spasming with pain and shock, Marion rolled off the crushed bed and onto the floor, pulling himself into a half-fetal curl against the rough industrial carpet.

  Through the closed door Marion could already hear a confused stampede of footsteps, a growing, muffled chorus of shouting filling the hallway. His bones felt swollen and hot, his brain fading in and out like a poorly tuned radio signal. With every breath he had to grimace, swallowing against his own nausea.

  “Marion!” The action outside seemed more concentrated now, voices mixed with rattling keys and slamming doors. Marion craned his neck painfully to look around the empty room, his spine popping like a bendy straw.

  “Hold on a second,” Allison called out, her voice floating down from above like an approaching angel. “I’m going to jump.”

  Marion rolled his eyes skyward, watching as Allison’s running shoes dropped through the ragged hole in the ceiling, dangling above the crumpled bed as if she’d been hung. She hesitated for a second, then dropped onto the mattress, stumbling sideways, bringing a shower of plaster chunks and paper with her.

  “God, look at you.” Allison grimaced, kneeling carefully beside him, reaching out to put one cool hand on his aching head. “Can you move?”

  Marion tested his extremities, and was happy to discover that everything still seemed to work. “Yeah. I don’t think I broke anything. I might have cracked a rib or something — it kind of hurts to breathe.”

  Behind them, the front door began to shake in its frame, the heavy lock clattering. Without warning, Allison collapsed on top of Marion, dropping her head against his chest and stretching one foot quickly across the broken bed. Marion yelped, his ribs squeezed painfully beneath her weight.

  “Shh. Don’t talk.” Marion’s stomach fluttered like a hummingbird, and his clammy skin was quickly covered in a slick, cold sheen of sweat. Allison coughed once, and the door swung open, the metal handle cracking flat against the wall. A small mob of day guards peeked timidly into the small room.

  “Holy Jesus.” The head guard stared down at them with open-mouthed amazement, and then glanced up at the ragged, papery remains of the ceiling. “What in the hell happened here?” The guy had to be at least sixty — his face half-covered with an absurd, drooping mustache, gray and greasy with food. Allison shifted her weight and groaned, casting her eyes up with a pleading, pathetic look.

  “There’s a man,” she wheezed, trembling. “A man with a gun. He’s shooting everyone. He broke a window. Killed someone…”

  The guard’s mustache twitched with confusion. “How’d you get in here?”

  One of the other guards whispered into his ear, gesturing toward the ceiling. The old man listened carefully, anxiously rubbing the seat of his pants. He finally nodded and turned back to Allison, squinting down at her with a mixture of suspicion and sympathy. “Okay, girl, don’t you talk now. You just quiet down, we’ll get a stretcher for you and your friend.” Allison swooned theatrically back, dropping her head against Marion’s skinny chest with a pained sigh. She couldn’t be one-hundred-percent certain, but, deep inside that bruised ribcage, Allison was pretty sure she heard the faint, hiccuping sound of suppressed laughter.

  The entire prison infirmary was in complete pandemonium. There were inmates everywhere; walking freely about, yelling at one another, calling loudly for the absent nurses. The sharp, antiseptic smell of hospital cleaner flooded the ward, a fog of aerosol and bleach that almost, but not quite, masked the stench of human sickness. Marion scanned his twelve-bed recovery room, blinking against the harsh lights, feeling for all the world like he was eight years old again, huddled in his bed back in the Medical Center.

  The thought was comforting, if only for a moment. He screwed his eyes shut and imagined the young nurses tousling his hair, bringing hi
m books and toys from the gift shop. He imagined that he was lying on his private bed in the children’s ward, just like he used to, nibbling at his runny eggs and burnt bacon in order to earn the much-coveted green Jell-O. He found himself once again thinking about Poppy, with his black hair and black beard, a yellow legal pad tucked like a football beneath his right arm.

  Suddenly the dream came back again, a sharp surge of memory, and Marion started awake, gazing uneasily at the room around him.

  There was, as far as he could tell, no guards or gatekeepers anywhere in the ward. The partition around his bed had been partially torn away, and the center aisle of his room was clogged with patients and prisoners, many of them dragging suspended IV bottles and metal carts in their wake. Marion watched in disbelief as two pale, naked men streaked across the floor, their bodies disappearing from view as they dropped to all fours and began rooting around under the beds like hogs. Behind him, some unseen patient kept banging his empty water glass against his bedside table, repeatedly pushing the nurses’ button in blind frustration.

  Marion scooted backwards in his bed, pushing his body into an upright position. He could feel a tight, encircling brace constricting his scrawny chest, squeezing his ribcage like a fist; it was uncomfortable, but the pain seemed pretty minimal. His shoulder still felt tender and warm, but his neck seemed perfectly functional, pulling tight only when he tried to glance too far around.

  As he tested his turning radius, Marion finally caught sight of the thirsty man behind him — a round-bellied fellow who apparently couldn’t understand that the nurses were on permanent break. As Marion watched, the old guy began blubbering through his swollen lips, his relentless right arm now pounding scars into the tabletop with his water glass. The patient in the next bed over finally got up enough energy to reach over and hit the guy in his bloated stomach, but it didn’t seem to do much good. The pounder simply smacked him in the face, one quick backhand blow, and then resumed his full force attack against the table.

  “Excuse me,” Marion said, struggling to be heard. “Where is everybody? I mean, you know, the guards and nurses and everyone.”

  The angry man had been hammering so hard that his face was flushed almost burgundy. He stared at Marion, his glass stopping in mid-air.

  “Good,” he wheezed, pausing to wipe mucus from his upper lip. “Good question.”

  “Shouldn’t there be someone here?” Marion stretched to see out the door into the far hallway. “Where’re the doctors? What’s wrong?”

  The man finally set his glass down, licking his lips with a snake-like flick of his fat tongue. “It’s day crew, is what. Ward’s at half staff.” He followed Marion’s gaze toward the open door, rubbing his swollen belly. “Plus the maintenance strike, and the prison riot. They got their hands full.”

  Marion blinked, starting to feel slightly nauseated. “Riot?”

  “Over in Arthur Kills,” the man explained. “The real prison, other side of the Build. Not this country-club crap.” He unexpectedly smashed his hand back against the table, almost separating the cheap plastic tray from its molded metal brackets. “Dammit! I need some water!”

  Marion twisted away from this obviously deranged individual, his vertebrae popping like bubble wrap. Unfortunately, the ongoing chaos of the ward didn’t make him feel much safer, so he turned back, hoping the guy might, at the very least, point him toward the nurses’ station.

  “So, uh — what are you here for?”

  The fat-bellied felon barely glanced up, his eyes still locked sullenly on his empty glass. “Counterfeiting.”

  “No,” Marion said patiently, wondering why he was even trying. “I meant, why are you in the infirmary?”

  Without warning, the hotheaded patient in the next bunk spoke up. “He’s a freakin’ hypochondriac, is why.”

  “Shut up, you goddamn liar!”

  Marion turned away for good as the blows began to fly anew, realizing that this pair was never going to be of any help.

  He started to search the room in earnest, hoping to find someone, anyone, who could help him. He briefly studied the patient in the adjacent bed — a red lump who had scratched his hospital gown into a rumpled mass around his neck, his bare chest and arms pocked with scabs, his mattress covered with dry flakes of skin — and began to despair that he might never make it out of this infirmary alive.

  And then, just as he was about swing out of bed and chance it on his own, Marion spotted the beautiful, bobbing red hair of his fellow jailbreaker, who was fighting her way from the hallway into the chaotic ward, holding a loose pile of clothes against her chest.

  “Allison!” Marion sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain in his chest, ecstatic to see a sympathetic face. “Over here!”

  Allison waved one hand and ducked through the doorway, avoiding the bedlam as best she could. As she angled closer Marion pushed his bare feet out onto the floor, trying not to wince.

  “What the hell is happening out there?”

  Allison shook her head, dumping the load of laundry on the foot of the bed.

  “It’s out of control, Marion — it really is.” Although she said it with a lighthearted laugh, Marion detected an edge of fear and apprehension in her voice. “All the day guards were called over to the penitentiary, I think, to help quiet down the convicts or something. And the riot in New York is still going strong, from what I hear. And even here, I mean — just look.”

  She gestured nervously around her, where patients continued to circle the floor like animals, moving in an infirm parade against the white walls. A surgery patient rattled by Marion’s bed, pulling his morphine drip behind him like a dog. His robe gaped open, revealing a fresh scar that wound from his neck down to his stomach, a pinkish worm against his dark skin.

  “Gross. Where’re the doctors?”

  “Hiding, I guess. Or safe at home.” Allison squinted toward the front of the infirmary. “The nurses’ station is trashed, anyway. That’s where I got these.” She lifted the bundle of clothes, spilling a plaid sock onto the floor. Marion squinted at it for a moment, puzzled.

  “What are those for?”

  “Well, we can’t leave in these.” She indicated her hospital gown with disgust.

  “Leave?” Marion blanched. “You mean, like, now?”

  “Yes, now.” Allison glanced around unhappily, observing Marion’s psoriatic neighbor. “You’ve been out for a while, so you don’t know how bad it’s gotten. But, believe me, ever since the guards killed your roommate…”

  “My roommate?” Marion was shocked, suddenly wide awake. “You mean the little crazy guy?”

  “Yes, the little crazy guy.” Allison laid her hand on his bare knee, the feverish warmth of her touch underscoring the gravity of the situation. “He’s dead, Marion. They beat him to death. That’s what set this whole thing off.”

  Marion took a moment to absorb the full scope of the pandemonium raging around them, finally realizing just how alone and unprotected they really were.

  “And this is just the infirmary,” Allison pointed out. “I mean, the rest of the CIC is even worse, as far as I can tell — and god knows what’s happening over in the penitentiary. So I was just thinking, you know, it might be best if we went back up into that air tunnel, or whatever it was, just to keep safe for a while.”

  Marion nodded, tenderly stretching his legs and aching chest, feeling his ribs creaking beneath tight layers of gauze.

  “Do you think that I can — I mean, with my injuries and everything…”

  “You just bruised your ribs, is all. The doctor said you’re lucky you didn’t break your back, though, if that makes you feel any better.” Allison shot him a sly smile as she picked at the pile of clothes, separating pants and blouses into gender-specific piles. Watching her, Marion realized that, for better or for worse, he would follow that toothy grin anywhere.

  “But, I mean — what if they don’t fit?”

  “What, the clothes? Try ‘em.” She tossed a pair of
corduroys his way, hitting him in the chest.

  “Great, cords — I’m gonna be a real fashion plate.”

  “C’mon, I even got you a windbreaker.” Allison held up a blue jacket, modeling it against her chest. Marion glanced over, wriggling into the tan trousers under his robe.

  “Where was that?” He snapped his pants and reached for the jacket.

  “It was on the guard rack,” she said. “Looks just like yours, doesn’t it?”

  Marion kept silent, rubbing the familiar, frayed blue fabric between his fingers. He turned it over, reaching tentatively into the inside pocket, feeling the cold lump of metal nestled inside.

  “It is mine.”

  Allison looked up, holding a peasant blouse against her chest. “It can’t be, Marion. It just looks that way.”

  “No.” Marion pulled the keychain free, letting it bounce against the bed. “It is.”

  Allison grabbed at the tiny statue and held it close, trying to read the miniature tablet. “Where’d you get this?”

  “It’s a souvenir. From this guy I met in the city.”

  “But…” Allison let it dangle from her pointer finger, seeming unconvinced. “But if this is yours, then how’d it get here?”

  Marion peeled off his paper robe, snatched a gray T-shirt from the pile and slipped it over his head, stretching it to accommodate the padded brace.

  “I really couldn’t tell you. Somebody took it, I guess. One of the guards.”

  “That’s too weird.”

  Marion eased to his feet, squeezing into his jacket with small, painful movements. “Well, it’s here. And it’s definitely mine.”

  Allison watched him dig his hands into the outside pockets, rattling his small tools like change in his fists.

  “Your stuff?”

  Marion pulled his hands free, revealing a tangle of glinting metal. “Yeah.”

  Allison squinted at the miniature clips and screwdrivers. “Cute.”

  Marion shoveled the tools into his inside pocket and took an exploratory step, his socks slipping over the cool linoleum.

  “Well, look at the bright side,” Allison said cheerfully. “That brace is probably going to do wonders for your muscle tone.”

  “Ha ha.” Marion grabbed the statue from her, pulling his jacket tight. “Get dressed, or I’ll leave without you.”

  The picture window to the nurses’ station was shattered inward, the thick wooden frame twisted and split. Marion climbed through carefully, leaving Allison to change in the small hallway bathroom. He poked around the looted storage room, searching for a pair of shoes among the scattered pill bottles and sheaves of patient records.

  “Marion? You in there?”

  Marion poked his head out of the back room, waving as Allison hoisted herself up and over the window ledge, her long, athletic limbs now clad in an oversize sweater and snug black jeans.

  “Hold on a sec. I’m looking for some shoes.”

  He finally reemerged in a pair of clunky suede work boots, clumping heavily across the trash-strewn floor. Allison looked him up and down, trying not to laugh.

  “Very stylish.”

  Marion yanked his shirt straight, the too-tight sleeves binding against his stiff brace. “Yeah, right. I feel like Frankenstein over here.”

  “Frankenstein’s monster,” Allison corrected.

  “What?”

  “You feel like the monster. Frankenstein was the doctor.”

  “You know, you’re really not helping.” Marion turned and strode toward the back of the nurse’s station, his feet crunching over broken glass. “Just because you found some, you know, nice-fitting jeans doesn’t give you the right to insult my wardrobe.”

  “Really? You think they’re nice-fitting?” Allison grinned mischievously as she followed Marion across the floor.

  “Sure. I mean, I don’t know, I guess.” Marion’s face began to redden, forcing him to duck his head as they approached the back exit. “Now shh — it’s wide open up ahead.”

  The rear door had, in fact, been blown from its hinges with enough force to scar the back wall. It lay in the prison hallway like a discarded napkin, a blackened metal carcass bent sharply in the middle. Marion edged slowly around it, peeking down the corridor, looking for guards. He saw a small fire burning at the far end of the hall, filling the corridor with a rosy glow.

  “Do you know the way back? To that room, I mean.” Marion reached back to help Allison navigate the detritus.

  “It’s left, I think.” She took Marion’s hand and stepped carefully over the crushed door.

  “Are you sure?”

  Allison looked up the hall, then down, blowing her hair out of her face. “Not really. But it’s better than heading into the fire, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point.”

  With that, they took off running, eyes scanning the passing rooms as they raced down the carpeted hallway. Behind them, framed against the fire, a half-dozen inmates dashed gleefully from room to room, slamming doors and screaming like children. At this distance, behind all of the smoke and flames, the bodies appeared hazy and serpentine, twisting and merging together in a frenetic jumble of jutting limbs.

  After a few minutes of silent jogging, Allison signaled to Marion, darting into an open doorway, slapping the wall with her open palm. “This way,” she called out, exhibiting a degree of certainty than Marion found baffling.

  The room was exactly like the one where Marion had been issued his prison uniform, with a low counter and rows of lockers covering the back wall. “How do you know this is the right way?”

  “Observation, my good friend.” Allison vaulted the counter with one hand. “You were pretty out of it when they carried us to the infirmary — but believe me, I counted every door.”

  Marion clambered over the counter after her, praying that her math skills were better than his.

  Unfortunately, the door next to the prisoner lockers refused to budge, no matter how hard Allison rattled the knob. Marion put his clunky boots up against the thick steel, pressing his back against the wooden counter, straining his feet hard against the closed door.

  “It’s really stuck,” he muttered, his voice tense with effort.

  Impulsively, Allison reached out and pressed the intercom button — situated like a doorbell next to the door’s scarred frame — and listened to the hollow crackle of activity on the other end. To her immense surprise, the door buzzed open instantly, dropping Marion unceremoniously to the carpeted floor.

  “Ow!” Marion rolled over, arching his back.

  “Omigod, I’m so sorry.” Allison reached down quickly, lifting him to his feet. “I really didn’t think that would work.”

  “Yeah, right.” Marion pulled himself free, brushing the back of his jacket. Allison reached out and tenderly looped her arm through his, steering him through the open door.

  “C’mon, we should move — they’re probably expecting guards or something.”

  Marion followed her lead, scuttling past the lines of vacant phone booths, keeping as quiet as possible as they crossed into the woman’s dorm area. The peach hallways were dead quiet, looking like a cheap hotel during the off season. Allison led the way, making a left turn from memory and improvising from there. Behind them, Marion could hear a faint, echoing voice.

  “Marty?”

  “Crap,” Marion whispered, pushing Allison forward. “They’re right behind us.”

  “Okay, okay — we’re almost there.” She took another left, almost missed it, and then caught the flash of a police banner at the far end of the hallway.

  “There it is!”

  Marion darted down the corridor after her, waiting for the shouting and gunshots to begin.

  The room they had so rudely burst into was now sectioned off behind yellow warning tape, a bright orange under construction sign taped to the outside wall. Allison crept beneath the plastic tape, motioning for Marion to follow as she nudged the door open.

  As th
ey slipped inside, Marion took one look at the torn ceiling and shuddered. He gazed nervously around the small room, rubbing his bruised ribs beneath his shirt. The carpet was covered with a drop cloth, and a wooden stepladder was propped beneath the hole in the ceiling, the rungs spattered with plaster and paint. The broken bed was shoved into a back corner, the frame still sagging in the middle like an old horse.

  “All right, let’s move.” Allison was already halfway up the wobbling ladder, her eyes fixed on the air shaft above. Marion felt a momentary surge of panic, a lightheaded memory of falling. His stomach dropped, experiencing the sudden plunge all over again, the fear and pain rushing instantly back.

  Allison was balanced on the top rung, swaying slightly, her upper body half-consumed by the shredded ceiling, her voice muffled and distant. “You better not be looking at my butt.” She swung her feet up, kicking once against the ceiling before disappearing inside.

  Marion took a step forward, pausing at the base of the ladder, trying to pump up his courage. In the hall outside, he suddenly heard approaching footsteps, a tuneless whistle that gradually filled the room.

  “Hey, Marty! Where’s my coffee?”

  Marion froze, his hands pasty and cold against the splintered wood. He could clearly hear the guard tapping his nightstick against the outside wall, moving in a lazy, staccato path toward the door.

  Something bounced off of Marion’s skull, making him blink and stagger back. He looked down dazedly, finding a torn black sneaker with red laces rolling across the floor. He glanced up, finding Allison hanging from the shaft’s metal ladder like a monkey, waving her free hand wildly.

  “Come on,” she hissed, glancing toward the front of the room. The guard’s whistling seemed only centimeters away, his hard soles scraping ever more loudly against the carpet.

  Marion took a dive at the ladder, scrambling up the steps as fast as his aching back would allow. Allison grabbed at his bony wrist, almost falling back into the room herself as she hoisted him up into the shaft. He flailed about for an instant, his feet teetering atop the ladder, before his free hand finally found purchase on the metal rungs lining the dark concrete shaft.

  “Let’s go!” Allison was crawling frantically upward, her single shoe clanging against metal. Marion dragged himself frantically after her, wriggling into the darkness as he heard the door opening beneath him.

  “Marty? You in here?” A shadow passed across the room below, the shaft filling with light as the guard pushed the ladder out of the way.

  Marion paused near the top of the deep vent, leaning back to peer into the dorm. The guard was almost directly below him now, his blue-clad bottom stuck in the air as he leaned over to pick up Allison’s shoe. Marion began to swoon again, imagining himself tumbling back through the ceiling, crushing the old man beneath him as he fell. The guard straightened up, sniffing the shoe delicately, a perplexed look twitching across his face.

  Allison grabbed Marion by the arm again, pulling him up and into the tunnel. He stumbled up the last few meters and fell gratefully back against the cold floor. Below, the guard moved the ladder under the open shaft. He looked up a couple of times, obviously uncertain, and then tossed the sneaker back to the ground, hitching up his pants with a quick tug.

  “Marty?” He walked out of the room again, his whistling a little louder, his steps a bit faster than before.

  “He’s scared,” Marion whispered, astonished.

  “Yeah,” Allison replied, rising quietly to her feet. “Who isn’t?”

  They kept moving, covering what felt like kilometers of pipeline over the next few hours, Allison limping in one stocking foot. They talked little, listening for the echo of voices, feeling their way carefully along the unforgiving stone floor, hugging the walls to avoid open shafts. They didn’t know where they were going, but pushed on regardless, wanting only to put distance between themselves and the chaos below.

  Marion discovered the first crack by accident, his shoe snagging on broken concrete. The split ran lengthwise across the rough floor, gaping wide enough to make him stumble forward in the low corridor. At first his heart lurched, absolutely certain that it was about to experience another free fall into open space. But then, as his foot landed hard on solid ground, Marion began to notice just how much the landscape around them was changing.

  “Jesus, Marion, look.” Allison pulled up beside him, breathless and excited, pointing past his left shoulder. Blinking, Marion suddenly realized that he could actually see her arm in the thick darkness, alongside her pale, sharp-nosed profile. As he turned full forward, he discovered that the moonless, midnight-black tunnel actually began to dissolve into a heavy cloud of gray light directly ahead.

  He took a tentative step forward, his eyes slowly adjusting to the weak light, his brain finally registering the deep valley sloping out from where they stood, a vast concrete canyon spread out hundreds of meters below. Just a few steps away the floor of the tunnel crumbled completely, cracking and cascading into a jagged slope of rusting metal and broken stone rolling off into the dirty mist.

  “What happened?” Allison’s voice was hushed with awe, barely a whisper above the huge expanse of rubble.

  “It must’ve collapsed,” Marion said, moving up to the edge of the abyss, willing his dizziness away. “It looks like it just… fell apart.”

  Allison couldn’t believe it. She tested the broken floor, kicking a pebble over the edge, watching it bounce and roll down the steep mountain of debris. “What, from the riot?”

  Marion shook his head, searching across the darkness for the opposite end of the gorge. “No, it’s way too big.” He took a wobbly step down, balancing on a broken girder, loosing a shower of brown dust. “Besides, look — everything’s all rusted. It’s been this way for a long time.”

  “Incredible. It’s like a giant quarry or something.”

  Marion took another tentative step down, picking his way through the crevices and sharp corners, feeling like an ant crawling down the sweeping mountain of dark stone. Allison hopped after him, favoring her sneaker-clad foot, nervously surveying the long path ahead.

  It took them nearly half an hour to make the descent. Marion led, testing the loose stones and trying to avoid jagged pieces of steel. Allison pressed close behind, gripping the back of his jacket to keep him steady. Once they reached the valley floor they found the light growing ever brighter, shooting through the debris in streaks and patches. As they paused to lean against a broken, long-dry water main — resting before the uphill climb — Allison uneasily surveyed the distant cracks of light squeezing through the ruins.

  “Where do you think that light is coming from?”

  Marion gazed across the cragged valley of stone, wondering the exact same thing.

  “From the prison, I’d guess.”

  “You mean the penitentiary?”

  Marion nodded. “It feels like we’ve gone that far. But I’m sure they have this section sealed off, or else people would escape all the time, right?”

  “Right,” Allison said, sounding unconvinced.

  They stared at each other, then — two tired, uncertain semi-strangers, both silently wondering how they had landed in such an insane situation. They gazed at each other, looked back the way they’d come, then turned to search the other’s face some more. Finally, with barely a shrug or conscious decision made, they broke their long gaze and set off, one behind the other, toward the punishing mountain ahead.

  The conflagration commenced about fifteen minutes later, catching them halfway up the far side. Allison was in the process of boosting Marion over a steep pass, trying to plant her feet in the loose gravel, coughing into the dusty air. Suddenly, from far below, she heard a sharp whistle, followed by a whooping yodel and a gunshot.

  “Christ!” Allison slid backward, almost dropping Marion onto the jagged concrete slope. “What the hell was that?”

  Marion managed to pull himself up and scramble over the ledge, quickly spinning around and reach
ing down to help Allison. “Come on — there’s someone down there.”

  Allison grunted up over the rocks, collapsing next to Marion. At the bottom of the chasm, a couple of flashlights were shining through the dust, their bright beams spiking over the rubble. Behind them a torch burned, looking strangely medieval, turning the shattered valley floor into a flickering pool of shadow and light.

  Allison cursed quietly, brushing off her grimy jeans. “Guards?”

  Marion squinted, trying to see how many people were down there. “I don’t think so. Not with torches.” There was another gunshot, sounding like a burst of thunder, filling the cavern with noise. A drunken yelp floated after it, and then harsh laughter.

  Allison swallowed, dry and afraid. “Brightlanders.”

  “Maybe. Or just longtime corrections.” Marion frowned grimly, getting to his feet. “We’d better keep going.”

  Allison struggled up, watching the flashlights weave across the rocky slope. There was a faint call, and the beams crossed over her, startling and bright in the darkness. Marion yanked her back.

  “Don’t look. Just keep moving.”

  The cries got louder as they climbed, echoing across the concrete mountain. Allison tried to keep from glancing back, but the torches kept reflecting off of the high ceiling, making shadows rise around her like ghosts.

  “Hold on!” Allison felt herself falling behind, her sock shredded into fuzzy yarn, her shoeless foot torn and swollen against the broken brick.

  “Shh, it’s all right.” Marion slowed down, offering his hand. Another gunshot shook through the valley, spraying a fine shower of grit from the ceiling above. Marion pulled her up, holding his bruised ribs in a tight, painful grip. “We’re close,” he promised, biting his words between clenched teeth.

  Allison nodded, trying to ignore the braying behind her, following Marion as he crab-walked his way across the steep terrain.

  Near the top, where the ground began to level out, Allison feared that their efforts at escape were futile. Although she could finally see a tunnel floating ahead, a black sun looming on the horizon, she could also clearly discern the prisoners behind them now — at least a half-dozen men staggering across the rocky slope, waving their flashlights and bottles. The convict closest to them was wearing a guard’s cap and waving a gun, shooting randomly at the sides and roof of the artificial cave.

  Allison found herself choking on her own saliva, limping from stone to stone like a wounded deer. Marion maintained a death grip on her hand as he pressed forward, trying not to slip, squeezing between the rough chunks of concrete without looking back.

  “Good lord, Marion,” Allison grumbled, spitting onto the broken ground. “What is that smell?”

  “Crap,” he wheezed, shooting a look over his shoulder. He was holding his jacket over his mouth with one hand, his watery eyes screwed nearly shut. A bottle broke behind them, and Allison felt a stone bounce harmlessly against her leg. The convicts were making pig-calling noises now, bounding from rock to rock like apes.

  “It’s right above us,” he said, struggling toward the higher ground. “Broken sewage line.”

  Allison struggled after him, feeling the ground growing sticky beneath her feet. The ripe stench burned through the air like gas, making her gag with every breath. She skidded against a slick stone and pitched forward wildly, almost pushing Marion over the edge of a jagged precipice.

  Directly ahead, the ground fell away, sloping into a thick, brackish pool of sewage on their right and a dark, shadow-obscured basin on the left. Allison could see that the disgusting lake was fed by a leaking pipe directly above them, which oozed a trickle of crude-black liquid like a waterfall across the crumbling rock. The air was almost too foul to breath, rising above that bitter pond, coating everything in a wet, stinking layer of filth.

  Allison squinted through teary eyes, trying to see into the depression on their left. She could tell that Marion was doing the same — peering into the dark pit, wondering if what lay below the shadow line could possibly be worse than the foul marsh on their right.

  Against her better judgment, Allison turned away from the precipice, finding the first couple of prisoners not ten meters away, black shapes clawing through the darkness, lunging forward like a pack of wild dogs.

  Marion jumped at the last possible second, grabbing Allison by the waist and tumbling sideways off that steep cliff. He slid down on his back, bouncing crazily off of rocks and girders alike. Allison didn’t have time to think before they were rolling on level ground, the tunnel entrance only a few meters above them. Marion smacked her leg, stumbling toward the dark corridor. “Run! Run!”

  Allison ran, the cavern behind her suddenly filled with angry shrieks and splashes as at least a couple of the convicts fell into that rank sea of sewage. There was another gunshot, completely off its mark, followed by the faint sound of retching. Marion hoisted Allison into the tunnel, grabbing both of her hands and dragging her to safety.

  The prisoners were still shouting behind them, farther away now, but with greater intensity. Marion and Allison had to duck low through the shaft, running like mice through an unlit maze.

  “They’re too close.” Allison flinched as the disorganized shouting grew ever louder behind her.

  Marion squeezed her hand. “Shh. Listen.”

  “I hear them Marion. They’re right behind us.”

  “No, not them. The other thing.”

  Allison concentrated, at first unable to hear anything except her wildly beating heart. But then, just beneath the convicts’ bellowing, she felt a soft hum flowing out of the Build itself. It seemed to grow steadily, and was soon accompanied by a high-pitched whine.

  “What is that? An alarm?”

  Marion listened for a second longer, and then suddenly burst into a run, dragging Allison after him. “Oh my god. Come on!”

  “What?” Allison stumbled after him, feeling the hum growing to a low growl beneath her feet. “What is it?”

  Marion barely looked back, dashing recklessly through the tunnel. “It’s the lift!”

  “The lift?” Allison tried to slow down, but Marion wouldn’t let her. “What are we going to do? Ask it to stop?”

  The floor began to rumble like a subway station ahead of an oncoming train, a rush of noise riding a blast of hot air. Allison saw the elevator shaft looming straight ahead — a huge circular hole drilled straight through the center of the Build. Marion ran right up to the edge of the shaft, balancing on one leg as he peered down into the gaping hole.

  “Marion!” Allison tugged him back. “We can’t do this!”

  He yelled something, but she couldn’t hear him over the clatter and hiss of the approaching lift. He finally pulled her to the edge of the shaft, shouting directly into her ear.

  “Jump!”

  She could see the elevator rising straight out of the void, shooting up the center post like a hot air balloon, roaring as it came. She thought for one rational second about her tiny apartment in the city; about Joanne and her job and her ex-boyfriend Dylan and her mother in Las Vegas and the fact that she had a hair appointment at the Beehive on Monday at three o’clock sharp.

  And then she jumped, holding tight to Marion’s hand and screaming as if it was the first stomach-churning drop on the Coney Island Cyclone.

  The elevator hit their falling bodies and kept on moving, tossing them into the air like dice. Allison sprained her ankle, sprawling close to the center post, wondering what bones she had broken. Marion landed on his back, for the second time that day, bouncing so close to the wall that it scraped one of his shoes bald. He lay still for a second, watching the concrete whir by his outspread feet.

  Allison sat dazedly where she’d fell, holding her legs. Marion crawled carefully toward her, the lift shaking beneath him like a flying beast. The noise was deafening, rolling through the shaft like nonstop thunder, covering their words. Allison watched him, shaking her head, her long hair blowing around her face like a cloud. />
  “What now?” she asked, eyes wide with shock, stunned that they’d somehow managed to survive.

  Marion shrugged, pointing up.

  “Wait,” he mouthed.

  Three: The Hamptons