by Harrison, S.
A darkening patch on the floor catches the corner of my eye, and I look down to see the shiny white beneath my feet give way to a spreading bluey green as the whole floor suddenly becomes a huge, triangular map of what appears to be all the oceans on Earth. Faintly glowing computer wires flicker into view and connect, tracing the peaks and valleys of the global underwater landscape as trails of arrows representing ocean currents curve around dozens of tiny, yellow-numbered shapes scattered across the floor: one for every freight ship, oil tanker, military vessel, and submarine in every sunken corner and watery depth of the planet.
Every part of the room is alive and bristling with information. I scan the displays, and my eyes narrow with suspicion. They may call this a “Security Station,” but to me, it looks much more like a military monitoring facility. Or what civilians might call a “spy base.”
With a soft ping, the elevator door slides open, and the owner of the voice finally steps out into the room. He’s a skinny man dressed in beige coveralls. He looks to be in his late forties or early fifties and has neatly side-parted salt-and-pepper hair, thick tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, and a gray goatee frizzing from his chin. The handle of a hard-shell briefcase is clutched in one hand, and a screwdriver is grasped in the other. The man shuffles sideways, holding the screwdriver out in front of him like a weapon, and everyone backs away. His gaze flits across our faces, and after a couple of seconds, he visibly relaxes, slides the screwdriver into one of his pockets, and gently sets the case on the floor.
“You really are just a bunch of schoolkids,” he says. “I never thought I’d see the day when they’d let children wander around Blackstone Technologies, especially on a Saturday. This place isn’t exactly a chocolate factory, y’know.”
“No kidding,” whispers Margaux.
“Thanks for getting me out,” says the man. “I was starting to worry that I’d be stuck in there until Monday morning.” He looks around the room, perplexed. “Where are the security personnel?”
“We haven’t seen anyone,” I say. “Who are you?”
“My name is George—George Parsons. I do general maintenance around here. I was on my way down from fixing a coolant circulator on the sixth floor when the power went out, and I got trapped in the elevator. What’s happened? Why are you all in here?” George asks, looking from side to side. “And where is your teacher?”
“One of our teachers is trapped inside Dome Two,” Otto says as she aggressively taps and swipes at one of the computer slates.
“And the other one . . . ,” Margaux whispers. “Miss Cole is . . . she’s . . .”
“She’s dead,” mutters Brody.
“Excuse me?” George says skeptically.
“There’s been a situation, George,” I say. “System-wide computer malfunctions have resulted in multiple deaths. We need to call for assistance.”
“Hold on; hold on! Tell me what’s happened,” he prompts.
“A mechanoid went berserk and killed our teacher, our classmates, and three soldiers,” says Ryan. “We broke in here to get our phones and call for help.”
George frowns and then smiles. “You’re joking. Please tell me that you’re pulling my leg.”
“No joke, George,” I say.
George very understandably looks a little stunned.
“Can’t we just call for help from in here?” asks Brent. “The computers are working now; let’s call for help.”
“We can’t,” says Otto. “Every computer in this room is iced up.”
“What does that mean in English?” asks Ryan.
“Look around . . . ,” Otto says, pointing at the walls. “The information is frozen. All the screens are showing data displayed at the time of the blackout. Satellites move fast,” Otto says, pointing at the ceiling, “but none of those blue tracking dots up there have moved at all. The computers in this room are closed off from the Hypernet, the mainframe, and the outside world. They’re useless to us.” Otto looks over at George. He’s just standing there frowning in silence, staring at the floor. “Mr. Parsons?” she asks. He doesn’t seem to hear her at all. “Hey, George!” shouts Otto, and he jumps in his skin. “We need to find our phones and computer slates. Can you help us?”
George slowly turns to Otto. “Your phones?”
“They were taken when we arrived. Do you know where they might be?”
“They’ll . . . they’ll be stored up on the eighth floor, in the data scanners.”
“I’ll go and get them,” says Otto.
“Wait,” says George. “You can’t. The elevator won’t accept your fingerprint.”
“Then take me up there,” Otto demands.
“I’m going, too,” I add.
“Absolutely not. Neither of you have security clearance. I’d lose my job!”
Otto’s expression hardens. “Mr. Parsons, innocent people have died, Blackstone employees are missing, the most classified research facility in the world has been compromised, we’ve been cut off from the outside world, and all you’re concerned about . . . is your job?”
George looks like a scolded child. “Yes?” he says sheepishly.
“Take us up there. Right now!” barks Otto, and George flinches. Otto pushes past the still visibly shaken George and disappears behind the elevator shaft. A moment later, her frowning face leans back out. “Anytime this year would be great.” George fumbles with the handle of his briefcase, then hops in step toward the door of the elevator.
A smile crawls onto my lips. I have to admit that I’m liking this headstrong Bettina Otto more and more as the day goes on. “We’ll get the phones and computers; you stay down here,” I say to the rest of the group.
“Fine with me,” says Ryan.
“Don’t take too long,” whines Margaux. “I feel safer when you’re around.”
Brent and Brody both look at her with surprised disbelief.
“What?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just do!”
Margaux’s comment caught me off guard, as well. She wasn’t being sarcastic at all. I give her a nod and a quizzical smile, then turn and head around to the other side of the cylinder. I’m still not used to people putting their lives in my hands like this. My hands were trained to take life, and when Otto gets her slate and shuts down the Drones, and I finally get a chance to lay these hands on Richard Blackstone, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do. I walk into the elevator, where a determined-looking Otto and an anxious George are waiting. George leans over and reluctantly presses his thumb to a small, black glass plate on the wall. The door slides closed, he taps the top button in a line of eight, and a short ride of uncomfortable silence later, the elevator opens onto the uppermost level.
George shuffles into the room. We follow right behind him, and the first thing that hits me is the cold. It’s like walking into a meat locker. I can even see my breath puffing like mist as I step into the room. Not only is it chilly on level eight, but it’s bright, too. Unlike the tinted windows on the ground level, the glass walls up here are crystal clear. The sunlight streaming in illuminates the overall strangeness of the eighth floor.
I’m standing in a narrow gap between dozens of rows of what appear to be dark-gray, chest-high termite mounds. There must be at least a couple hundred covering the floor space, and each one is grooved and pitted all over with lines of tiny, honeycomb-shaped holes. Beneath the holes, blue rivulets of light lazily course up and down the length of each mound. They seem to fill the entire level, and are not only sticking up out of the floor, but hanging down from the ceiling, too, like artificial stalactites. There are a couple of meters’ clearance between the mounds on the floor and the ones overhead, providing a 360-degree view out the windows. To the left, I can see the neighboring buildings, and, in the distance, curving high into the bright-blue sky, is the majestic black cap of Dome One.
“This way,” G
eorge says, shuffling ahead between the mounds. “And, please, don’t touch the hard drives.”
“Is that what they are?” I whisper.
“Yes,” replies Otto. “They’re data hives—look,” she says, pointing to the closest one. “They process information on coded protein strands. Just one of those little holes has the capacity to store a million full-length holographic movies.” A goofy smile lights up her face. “Imagine how much information is kept in just this one room alone.”
“It boggles the mind,” I murmur sarcastically.
“It really does,” Otto insists with wide-eyed, nerdy joy.
George leads the way down the narrow path, and when we reach the wall of windows, the pathway splits. George heads to the right, and we follow him all the way along the edge of the hives and around the far corner of the triangle. There, in a clearing among the hives, is a single seat positioned behind a small, semicircular desk. George sits down, and a moment later, four eye-level holographic screens shimmer into view around the curved perimeter of the desk. Three of them are showing meaningless frozen lines of code, but the fourth screen displays a list of serial numbers with pictures of phones and computer slates beside each line.
“They’re here,” George says. “Scanned and cataloged.”
“Where are they kept?” Otto asks impatiently, peering at the screen with concern.
George swivels in the chair and looks at the floor just behind us. “There,” he says. “Step on that foot pedal by the window.”
I look down to see a white rectangular tile with a pulsing green light set into the floor by the glass wall. Otto hurries over and plants her shoe on it. There’s a click and then a quiet whirring sound as a long, thin section, almost as long as the entire glass wall itself, begins rising from the floor. As it elevates, I can see that it’s actually a set of shelves, and row upon row of phones and slates have been propped along them. The two-meter-high section jolts to a stop, and at a glance I guess there must be over a hundred phones and slates, each one resting in its own spot on one of the ledges.
Otto lunges with both arms extended, snatching a computer slate and a phone and hugging them to her chest like long-lost friends. She gently slides them into her bag and begins gathering others. Apart from the different-colored covers, they all look the same to me, but Otto seems to recognize each and every one she picks up, muttering the owners’ names as she puts them into the two satchels slung over her shoulder. I can tell by the way she handles some of them and by the hushed tones she uses when she whispers the owners’ names that some of them belong to people who have died. One by one, she takes devices from the shelves until she’s collected nearly twenty of them, and as the satchels bulge to capacity, she begins stacking more in the crook of her elbow. “Here,” she says, plucking a phone from a shelf and holding it out to me.
“I don’t want it,” I say.
“But . . . it’s yours.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not,” I reply.
Otto smiles timidly. “What I meant is . . . it’s Finn’s.”
I push her hand away. “Well, she’s not coming back,” I say coldly. “So she’s never going to need it again.”
Otto looks at me and blinks. Her head drops, and she looks down at the phone, cradling it in her palm. She gently traces her thumb across the screen, then slowly slips it into the breast pocket of her blouse. “No . . . I guess not,” she murmurs.
“Mission accomplished. Let’s get outta here,” I say as I step on the now red-blinking tile. The long shelving begins lowering into the floor as George stands up, automatically deactivating the desk. Suddenly a clever idea springs to mind. George could be my chance to get those four teenage anchors off my heels and safely tucked away somewhere while Otto and I hunt down dear old Dr. Blackstone. I slap a hand on George’s shoulder and fake an honest smile. “Thank you for your assistance, George. Are you willing to help us further?”
“I’m n-not sure what else I c-can do?” he stammers.
“Well, you can start by taking those kids downstairs to a safe place.”
“But . . . surely you can call the authorities now. All we have to do is wait for them to arrive.” I can tell by the look on his face that George is less than keen on the prospect of being a babysitter. I can relate.
I slowly shake my head, feigning concern. “This complex is in the middle of nowhere, George. It’s dangerous out there, and it’s gonna take time for help to get here. You must know of somewhere nearby where you can all barricade yourselves in. They’ll be safer with you.”
He thinks for a second, then slowly nods. “Well, we might be able to . . . Hey, wait a second. It doesn’t sound like you’re coming with us.”
“Let me know where you’re going, and we’ll join you soon. There’s something else we need to take care of first.”
“And what might that be?” George asks, his eyes narrowing.
I begin searching my brain for a half-believable story that doesn’t involve me murdering his employer when Otto thankfully saves me with a welcome interruption.
“Our teacher, Professor Francis, our classmate Dean McCarthy, and our tour guide, Percy. We need to rescue them. They’re all trapped over there in Dome—”
The loud clatter of computer slates hitting the floor startles even me, and I turn to see Otto staring out the window, her hands pressed against the glass. “Otto, what is it?” I ask, peering out across the complex with absolutely no idea of what I’m supposed to be looking at.
“Dome Two,” she murmurs.
“What about it? Which way is it? Point it out,” I ask, scanning the buildings and structures down below.
“I can’t point it out, Infinity . . . ,” Otto says, “because it’s not there.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, squinting out the window.
“I don’t know why I didn’t notice when we first came in,” she whispers. “I should’ve noticed it right away.” Otto turns to me, her eyes filled with confusion and distress.
“Dome Two . . . It’s gone.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I’ve seen the classified satellite photographs of this complex. From above, Blackstone Technologies is three perfect black circles surrounded by bone-white buildings, snaking footpaths, silver-topped towers, and massive black-and-gold transport hangers. It’s almost impossible to judge the height of anything from looking at satellite pictures, so actually being here, creeping around this top-secret facility at ground level, I find myself at a loss. Structures block each other, buildings overlap at the edges, trees conceal pathways, and bearings can get skewed. But, despite what magicians would have you believe, things can’t just disappear.
“Are you sure it’s gone?” I ask. “Maybe it’s behind those—”
“I saw the model!” Otto barks. “Dome Two would be at least a hundred meters high. Of course it’s bloody gone!”
My limited knowledge of this complex counts for nothing right now, so it doesn’t exactly boost my confidence to see the person I’m relying on to guide me through this place freaking out like a frizzy-haired, hyperventilating squirrel.
“Where did it go?” Otto screeches.
I grab her hard by the wrist and pull her away from the glass wall. “Hey. Try and calm down, OK? There must be an explanation. George, what’s happened to the dome?”
“Power . . . The power must be out in Sector Two. The domes need it to stay constructed. Without power, the quantum grains come apart and a dome would . . . dissolve.”
“Dome One is still standing,” I mention, pointing to the far glass wall.
“Yes, I saw that,” George says, scratching his chin in thought. “The mainframe must be rebooting systems one sector at a time.”
“How long until the whole place is up and running again?” asks Otto.
George shakes his head, walks to the window, and surveys the
buildings below. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. I don’t even have the faintest idea of what could’ve caused it; there are so many built-in safeguards and backups. Before today, I never would’ve thought something like this could be possible.”
“Look, whoever caused this probably feels bad enough without you two talking about it all the time,” Otto says angrily.
I can recognize remorse from a thousand paces. I’ve seen it on the faces of soldiers in far-flung places as they’ve stood over the freshly steaming wounds of the innocent dead, and, right now, Otto might as well be broadcasting her guilt through a loudspeaker mounted on her head between two flashing lights. With one eye on George’s back, I silently mouth the words, “Did you do this?”
Otto backs away from me, her expression sad and silent as she walks over to the glass wall beside George. Suddenly it dawns on me. She isn’t freaking out over concern for the people who survived; she’s being eaten alive by the possibility that she’s responsible for the ones who died, and she’s trying her best to stop it from getting worse. It’s a problem she has to deal with; I don’t care either way. But I still have to admit, Bettina Otto is certainly chock-full of surprises, and one of them is much darker than I would have thought possible of her.
“Mr. Parsons, what would happen to someone inside a dome when it dissolves?” Otto asks, the taint of anger in her words doing little to disguise the shame.
“Well, I think they would probably be fine,” replies George.
“You think they would probably?” squawks Otto. “I hope you realize that’s not really an answer.”
George looks awkwardly uncomfortable. “I’ve never seen a dome deconstruct before,” he says, leaning away from the leering, fist-clenching teenage girl. “But if the quantum field went down, the grains would revert to their original state. I’ve seen it in the labs; it kinda looks like that gray kinetic-sand stuff that kids play with. As long as your friends can dig their way out before they suffocate, they should be OK.”
