“How do you feel?” I asked her.
“Like I swallowed a bunch of water from an underground lake and then threw it all up again.” She stuck out her tongue. “I may pass on the ice cream.”
By the time Sav and I had gotten back to the boys they’d left a pile of crumpled ice-cream wrappers around their table, and on top of the jumpsuits, they each wore a rainbow mustache of sticky powder.
“Here,” Howard said to me, handing over another ice cream. “I saved you a lemon-lime. It’s definitely the best flavor.”
“Thanks,” I replied, surprised. I guess he’d forgiven me for the whole “freak” thing. Maybe almost dying a few times makes name-calling seem like no big deal.
Nate shrugged. “I liked mint chocolate, actually.” He tore into another packet.
Savannah sighed, looking at her options. “Can you imagine actually living down here and eating freeze-dried food every day? It’s disgusting.”
“I think it’s awesome,” said Howard. He was hungrily eyeing the rest of the shelves.
“Better than pizza,” Nate said. “I think I could go the rest of my life without eating another piece of pizza. Especially that nasty sesame chicken one you guys always order.” He made a face.
“You say that now,” said Eric, his mouth full of freeze-dried ice cream mush. “But try a few months of this and you’ll change your tune. Believe me, I thought I’d never get enough s’mores, but you go camping with my dad for a month or two and the very thought of marshmallows will make you want to vomit.” He shot a guilty glance at Savannah. “Sorry.”
After I was done with my ice cream, I pulled the comb out of the toiletry kit. “Come here, Sav. I’ll braid your hair.” Right now it looked like it had been attacked by a particularly excitable rat.
“Ladies,” Nate said. “We don’t have time for hairdos, okay?”
I glared at him. Savannah finger-combed her hair and looked down.
“Hairdos?” I snapped. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yes,” he replied. “We have no idea when those people with the guns are going to show up again. We can’t sit around forever. We have to get out of here.”
“You so don’t have a sister, do you?” Eric asked wearily.
“It takes two minutes to get her hair safely out of the way of anything that might catch in it,” I said. “How long have you been sitting here shoving ice cream in your face?”
Eric held up his hands. “Look, we’re fine. We’re still resting, and everyone wants a snack, anyway, am I right?”
Howard was fiddling with something on the arm of his suit. “Yeah. I wanted to try one of those MREs.”
“What?” Savannah asked.
“Meals, Ready-to-Eat,” he explained. “They even have a chicken and dumpling.”
“Don’t do the dumplings,” Eric warned. I had to agree with him. Dad made us eat the occasional MRE when we were off grid, and the dumplings tasted like burnt water. I could only force it down on nights when Dad’s culinary experiments were worse than usual. “But if they have a beef teriyaki, that’s not too bad.”
“Trust me, kid,” said Nate. “Howard won’t eat anything labeled teriyaki.”
“I don’t think he should eat too much of this stuff no matter what flavor it comes in,” I said. I was combing through Savannah’s hair as we talked, the lemon-lime ice cream tucked away in one of my utility suit’s many zippered pockets. “We have no idea how long it’s been down here. Maybe it’s all gone bad.”
“I thought that was Dr. Underberg’s thing,” Nate said. “Howard said he invented food that never went bad.”
“There’s no food that never goes bad,” Howard said. “Except honey.”
“That’s a myth,” I said, braiding. “Only if it’s sealed and stored in dry conditions. And doesn’t have botulism in it.”
“So the honey thing is a myth, but Tunguska was aliens?” Howard asked. “Maybe you should make up a list so we can follow which crazy theories you actually believe.”
I snapped a rubber band around the end of Savannah’s braid. “We’ve now spent more time discussing food we don’t need to eat than we have on girly hairdos. Satisfied, Nate?”
He laughed. “Okay, you win. But now can we go?”
“Sure.” I pulled the map and the lemon-lime out of my pockets and walked over to the table. “According to the diagram, the fastest route to an exit from here is like this.” I traced the line through three buildings and connected pathways to one of those little red Exit symbols.
Eric looked over my shoulder. “Look at all these rooms.”
Honestly, I was trying not to. The battery could be in any of them, and we were heading straight for the exit.
“What do you think they’re all for? A.T.R. . . . F.L.F. . . . E.M.O. . . . S.I.L.O. . . .”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Nate. “Just find the one marked e-x-i-t.”
I pointed at another building marked Comm. “I wonder if this stands for Communications. Maybe we should try to call the police or something.”
“And say what?” Savannah asked. “Help! We’re trapped in weird city a mile underground and being chased by creepy thugs with guns?”
“It’s the truth,” Eric pointed out.
“I wonder if Omega City phones are unlisted,” Howard said. He was twisting in his suit now, running his hands along the seams and trying to reach for something at the small of his back.
“Do you have ants in your pants or something?” I asked him.
“This suit is wired,” Howard said. He held out his forearm. “Look: a control panel.”
“Does it have a silence setting?” Savannah deadpanned.
“I’m not sure. . . .” Howard started jamming buttons. Oh, great. More buttons for him to press.
“She’s joking, bro,” said Nate.
“Oh.” He frowned. “It does have a warming setting . . . a cooling setting . . . water lines, I think?”
“Think later,” his brother said. “We should go, before those guys catch up to us. Everyone grab some of those flashlights and a bottle or two of water. The last thing we need to worry about is dehydration.”
“I think it’s the last thing you should worry about.” I shrugged. “There’s water everywhere here.”
“Not potable.”
“What’s potable mean?”
“Drinkable. And you aren’t keeping up your end of the deal. What did I say on the drive out here?”
I hung my head. “When you say go, we go.” But things had gotten . . . well, really weird since then. How could Nate keep playing camp counselor when we were stuck in a secret underground city with Fiona and her friends?
Nate shoved a bunch of first aid supplies in his pockets and we all picked up flashlights. They were perfectly normal little mini lights, about the size of candy bars and made of metal in primary colors. There wasn’t even an Omega symbol on them, like the suits. I scanned the shelves for anything that looked like Underberg’s work. Nothing, except the ice cream. Normal first aid kits, normal flashlights, cool suits that were made by some other company. . . . No giant hundred-year batteries or unimaginably awesome lost pieces of tech like Dad used to tell me about. Maybe all those naysayers had been correct—maybe Underberg was a fraud, and his marvelous inventions weren’t all that marvelous. Maybe this city didn’t even belong to him.
After all, could any man build a city—even a small, secret city—all by himself? This was probably a government installation of some kind. Or maybe it did belong to whoever Fiona was working for. Maybe the only part Underberg had played in all of this was building his own secret entrance near his cabin. Maybe that’s the bit Fiona had been looking for.
Then again, it had been easy to find Underberg’s entrance from the inside: it looked like a giant elevator shaft. It was only from the outside that it had been disguised. My last and lasting gift to mankind. One that would only be useful if mankind itself were on the brink of destruction.
; Dr. Underberg had a hand in creating so many things to help us survive, but this city was proof that someone, at least, was sure we would fail.
Armed with water, flashlights, and the last of the astronaut ice cream, we headed off toward the nearest exit. The path led out of the mess hall building and onto another raised metal walkway. This one was a lot more rickety and sagging, and in some places we had to wade through knee-deep water and across rusted-out sections. The eerie blue glow cast an endless twilight around us, enough to see by, but I still clutched my flashlight. We skirted another building marked Ω2—showers and sleeping quarters, according to the map—and headed toward one of the chamber’s side walls. As the stone started arching over my head, I got that weird topsy-turvy sensation again. I knew I was on solid ground, but I felt like an ant crawling up a wall. I had no idea which way was which and I was afraid I was going to slide right off the edge.
I forced my attention onto the map in my hands until the dizziness faded. “It should be right here.”
Only a few more minutes and we’d be safely above ground. The city, and everything inside it, would be nothing but a memory.
“It is,” Nate said. His voice sounded odd. “But . . .”
I looked up. In front of us stood an elevator shaft. The doors at its base were broken open, and the elevator itself lay smashed to smithereens inside.
15
GUNS, WORMS, AND STEEL
AT THE SIGHT OF THE WRECKED ELEVATOR, THE BOTTOM DROPPED OUT of my stomach. Forget an ant crawling up a wall. I was an ant in a snow globe, and some cruel giant was shaking me. I grabbed on to Eric’s silver sleeve as if I was going to fall.
“Gills?” He steadied me. “Are you okay?”
“She’s claustrophobic,” Nate growled. “Perfect.”
I wasn’t claustrophobic. That was about being afraid of closed spaces. I wasn’t afraid. I was dizzy. There was a difference. I shook my head. Stop it, Gillian. The ground is beneath your feet. “I’m fine.”
“Now what?” Savannah asked, looking at the wreckage of the elevator. “Is there another exit?”
“Five more,” said Howard, sneaking a peek at my map. His flashlight roamed the page, the grimy metal walkway, the dark water surrounding us on all sides. The walkway seemed to sway like a rope bridge in high wind.
Nate kicked at the broken elevator doors. “What are the chances those are a bust, too?”
“Gillian?” Savannah touched my shoulder. “You look kind of green.”
“We shouldn’t have eaten those ice creams,” I muttered through gritted teeth. “I told you guys.” The ground. Was beneath. My feet.
“There have to be stairs, right?” Eric asked. “There are always stairs. In case of emergency power failures . . . and . . . stuff.”
“Oh, sure, because this place was obviously built to some kind of code.” Nate rustled his hand through his hair. “Okay, what are our options? Gillian? You still good with the map?”
I gave a firm nod. The map might be the only thing I was good with right now. Every time I looked at its neatly drawn, flat black lines, the flipping feeling stopped. “There are other exits, but I’m not sure how easy they are to get to. Like this one—” I pointed at another red mark on the diagram. “That may be underwater. Maybe it would be better to try to get to the Comm station.” I pointed at the room marked Comm on the map, which was on an upper level, set not in the cavern but somewhere within the rock wall to our left.
“Deeper into the city?” Nate asked, annoyed.
“We have to go deeper in either way,” I said. “And look—the Comm room is on the way to the next exit.” All the other elevator shafts marked on the map were set farther into the rocks, rather than in this big cavern.
Nate sighed. “I swear . . . I should have turned around when I realized you were lying about the whole school project thing. I never should have let you guys come this far.”
“You were the one who shoved us all inside that boulder,” Savannah pointed out.
I stared at her. Savannah was actually disagreeing with Nate?
“What?” She shrugged. “It’s true.”
“Well, I didn’t expect it to deposit us in some inescapable underground doomsday deathtrap.”
“Trust me, Nate,” said Eric. “No one did. Not even Gills, and she believes everything.”
“Not the thing about the honey,” Howard piped up.
Nate swiped his hand across his body in a cut-it-out motion. “Okay. Enough. No more arguments, no more finger-pointing. We’re getting out of here. Shut your mouths and follow me.”
He took off toward the Comm room and we fell into line behind him.
“I think I’m officially over my crush,” said Savannah, trudging along behind me.
“Sure,” said Eric, who was bringing up the rear. “No one’s as cute not holding a pizza.”
Nate yanked open the door of the next building and marched inside. Dutifully, we all followed. Whatever had happened to Omega City to cause all this damage, this building seemed even harder hit than the one containing the mess hall. The lights in this building were out, except for an occasional ceiling emergency light that cast the entire space in a dim red glow. The beams of our flashlights bounced off cracked walls and collapsed doorways. The hallways sloped at slight angles, and the carpets squished beneath our feet as we walked. Everything smelled like mold. We passed dark doorway after dark doorway.
Oddly enough, I felt better. See? It wasn’t claustrophobia, no matter what Nate said. Claustrophobia was fear of tight spaces. Everyone knew that. And this little trailer building—well, it was much smaller than that enormous cavern. I took a deep breath and shook off my unease. We’d just . . . get to the exit. Get home. No more problems.
“Gills . . . ,” Eric whispered, his voice shaky. He crowded up close behind Savannah and me. “Why am I in the back? It’s always the slow gazelle that gets eaten by the lion.”
Savannah elbowed him until he stopped stepping on her heels. “It won’t be a lion here, Eric. It’ll be a giant earthworm.”
“Gills!” my brother cried, reaching for me.
I stopped short. “Worms, Sav? Really? You had to bring up worms?”
“It’s not my fault he reads too much sci-fi.”
I pushed them both ahead of me. “Here, Eric. I’ll take the back.”
I was used to Eric’s overactive imagination. When we were camping, he’d gotten his hands on some stupid horror novel and wouldn’t go to the bathroom alone for a week. You haven’t had fun until you’ve been forced to listen to your brother pee on a tree from a foot away.
Besides, back here no one could see me consulting the map for every room we passed. C15 was a broom closet, C17 was a bathroom, and C23 looked like a classroom, with wooden desks bolted to the floor and a cracked chalkboard hanging at a crazy angle. I almost stopped the others, thinking they’d enjoy a glimpse at a trashed schoolroom.
C27 was marked M.B. on the map, and when I flashed my light into the room, I saw bunk beds and footlockers. Men’s Bedroom, maybe? I ran the beam of the flashlight over the walls and caught sight of an empty gun rack. Military Bedroom? Of course, that made sense. They’d need to have some sort of protection in the city. But once I started thinking about guns, the image of Clint dangling from the sky and threatening to shoot us filled my mind. Where were they now? Were they still chasing us? Inside like this, we had no way of knowing how close they might be.
Now I was the one running to catch up to the others.
At the end of the next hallway, we hit a dead end. The floor tilted sharply downward here, and the rest of the hall was above our head, revealing sheer blasted rock edges and busted wiring. Nate didn’t even seem fazed. He simply boosted Howard up, then turned to help Savannah. Eric came next and then it was my turn.
“This takes us back out of this chamber,” I said to him as he held out his hands for me to step into.
“I’m hoping it takes us out of the ground.”
“Yo
u know I didn’t plan on this,” I said by way of apology. “Fiona, or the elevator, or . . . I don’t know. I thought it was just a little cabin or something.” He lifted me up. I grabbed Eric’s hand and stepped onto the higher level, and Nate hefted himself up behind me.
“I know. But here we are,” he replied flatly.
Yeah. Here we were. In Dr. Underberg’s greatest creation—well, what was left of it, anyway. Dad wouldn’t be rushing us through this thing as quickly as Nate was. Dad would want to stop and enjoy every part.
Well, unless Fiona decided to chase Dad around with goons and guns, too.
I consulted the map again. “The Comm room is over there, but this looks like a flight of stairs.” I pointed to a series of hash marks on the diagram.
“What’s this thing over by the stairs?” Howard asked. The beam of his flashlight circled around a large fan-shaped room marked M.T. After what I’d seen in the C-block with the gun rack, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Military Training?” I suggested, a little nervous.
“Like maybe a gun range?” Nate asked.
I hoped it wasn’t a gun range. There was an outside and two inside ones in our town, and they were always packed. Only one pizza-slash-Chinese delivery place, but three gun ranges. People around here liked shooting more than eating.
“Maybe we should check it out,” he suggested. “If there are any guns in there, we can at least put ourselves on equal footing with those guys.”
Omega City Page 11
