Jane Doesn't Save the World

by Erin Grey

  “I’m in. Are you with me?”

  “Yes, I mean, no … Jane, you need to tell me—”

  “I’ll be at the first security gate in minutes,” I said, jogging along the service tunnel. “Will you be able to open it when I get there?”

  I heard her exhale in a rush. “Yes. I’ll open it.”

  I smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”

  One obstacle down. My stomach twisted. But so many more to go.

  Past the two security gates, I pulled out Ric’s dragonfly craft and got ready to send it to the far side of the complex. I mentally went over the steps he’d taught me, praying I hadn’t forgotten anything.

  “Ready to go cause a fuss?” I whispered to the faux insect, then used the control to fly it through the darkness to its destination.

  After a few minutes, Charis said, “Sensor overload successful. The drones have all moved over to the far zone. I hope you know how to get through that living wall.”

  It was the hardest part of the operation. But I’d shifted into full-on Sandy and nothing was going to stop me.

  The living wall powered down, and I ran across the few metres of grass.

  “I must tell them, Jane,” said Charis.

  “No! Don’t do it. We’re managing just fine.”

  “This isn’t the plan—”

  “It’s a better plan. Safer for everyone.”

  I walked up to the door and swiped my fake ID tag. Bang on time, Charis forced the door open. Inside, alarms were going off, but there was no one around. I followed the path Charis had mapped out. First left, first right, second right, first left. A man in uniform ran across the passage ahead of me, but paid me no attention. I was careful to scan each passage from end to end so that TRAG could get as much video information as possible. Left, left, right, left. More guards marching in the direction of the overloaded drones.

  The alarms got louder. More people bustled up and down the passages, mostly in uniforms of grey or blue, but a handful wore black. I was nearing the control room now, the most dangerous part of my route.

  When I got to it, the doors were wide open, and I heard people shouting. I scanned the inside of the room, as much as I could see, hoping to record something that could incriminate the Regulators. My eyes landed on a video screen.

  The guys were inside the service tunnel: Ric, Quirinus, Aidon. A drone was tracking them.

  I panicked. Why had they followed me? Weren’t all the drones supposed to be distracted?

  No one manned the screen—most were gathered around terminals on the other side of the room, shouting directions and swiping at consoles—but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

  I couldn’t let them take the fall while I got away safe.

  “Do not go in there, Jane,” commanded Jasper. “Follow your instructions.”

  “But, maybe we could help them,” said Gwendolyn, wringing her hands.

  I walked into the control room, straight up to the screen with the drone’s feed.

  “What are you doing?” hissed Charis. “You are supposed to go down that passage and turn right.”

  “They’re going to catch the guys,” I whispered. “Look what I’m seeing.”

  “Oh no.” She swore under her breath, something I couldn’t make out. “There’s nothing you can do, Jane. Go to the portal. The boys must take care of themselves.”

  “You can’t stop it? Cut off the drone’s feed?”

  “Not from here.”

  “But you can from here in the control room, can’t you? I’m here. Tell me what to do.”

  “Jane, you’d have to disconnect the screen by pulling out the wires—someone will see you and then how will you explain yourself? You must get out of there!”

  “We can save them,” said Mitch. “Doesn’t matter what happens to us.”

  “They can take care of themselves!” cried Sandy. “We have to look after us. Get out of there!”

  “But, we can save them …”

  I leaned over the screen and saw the black wires snaking out of it. I gripped them, and, as smoothly as possible, pulled them out.

  A sharp warning beep sounded five times as the monitor switched off.

  Ten faces jerked up from their monitors; ten pairs of eyes fixed on me.

  A hand landed on my shoulder.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  41

  Jasper

  They sit at the dining room table. The little girl’s brother and sister joke with Mom and Dad.

  The conversation is too quick, with too many big words. The little girl doesn’t understand. They’re making each other laugh, but she can’t follow. She laughs too, but her brother throws her a smirk that tells her he knows she doesn’t get it.

  She tries to say something funny, but they don’t hear her.

  She tugs on Mom’s sleeve. “I feel sick.”

  “I know what’s wrong,” says her sister.

  “What?”

  “You’re a hypochondriac.”

  Her brother sniggers.

  When Aunty visits the next day, the little girl tells her that she’s sick because she’s a hypochondriac. Everybody laughs and laughs until tears fall and stomachs cramp.

  The little girl’s stomach cramps too, but not because she is laughing.

  “You will never succeed unless you are intelligent,” says the serious man. “I am Jasper. I will teach you how to apply yourself and develop your thinking ability. People respect those of superior intellect and knowledge.”

  “Smart people win,” says the little girl.

  42

  The bit where I pay the price

  The cell reeked of disinfectant, the kind that smells like someone poured cough mixture into a bucket of ammonia, added green colouring, and labelled it ‘Pine Forest’. I lifted my hair off my neck as I paced the tiny space between the bed—the only furniture in the room—and the stark white walls. I was hot, and my thick, loose hair was making it worse. I tugged at the neck of the white overalls they’d made me change into. The synthetic fabric didn’t breathe. Close, white walls and disinfectant smell and clingy fabric—the claustrophobia was strong with me.

  Jasper rebuked me endlessly. “You should have listened. You knew the instructions. You ought to have obeyed.”

  “We don’t even know if we saved them,” grumbled Sandy. “This could all have been for nothing.”

  Mitch squirmed with pangs of guilt and fear. “We had to try.”

  Gwendolyn defended him. “We couldn’t just leave them, not after everything they did for us.”

  “You broke the rules,” said Jasper. “Now you must pay the price.”

  Because you failed, hissed the Deep Dark. You’ll always fail.

  I’d been wearing the overalls less than an hour (according to BIOS), but already I stank from the sweat pouring out of every gland. Couldn’t they at least have given me an elastic band for my hair? I French-plaited it, knowing it wouldn’t last five minutes without anything to secure it.

  No one had spoken to me after they’d recognised me as an intruder. They’d stripped me of all my things, exposed me to some kind of electro-magnetic pulse that jammed my translator—cutting me off from communication with Charis and preventing me from understanding anything said around me—and put me in what I assumed was a decontamination chamber where steam burned my naked body.

  Now I paced the cell like an overheating research monkey. Sitting was no good—anxiety caused palpitations and shivers. I needed to walk.

  I banged on the white metal door, almost invisible set into the identical white walls. “Hello? Please, I need water!”

  The air in the room was getting used up, I could feel it. I needed the door to open so I could breathe.

  “Calm down, Jane.” Jasper came to the rescue with cold logic. “There is an air vent above the door and another on the opposite wall. You will not run out of oxygen.”

  >BIOS ACTIVE_

  >CAUTION! Intern
al Oxygen Levels dangerously high.

  “You are hyperventilating,” said Jasper. “Sit down on the bed and calm yourself.”

  I did as he said, breathing out as much air as I could, then holding off the inhale.

  “Inhale four counts, hold four counts,” he chanted. “Exhale four counts, hold four counts. Inhale …”

  My breathing slowed, and the dizzy, faint feeling slowly passed. My heart rate did not slow, though. Some things just couldn’t be managed with breathing exercises.

  Mitch nudged me into the foetal position, and I clutched the sheet to my chest.

  “I’m sure it will all work out,” tried Gwendolyn. “They’ll realise you don’t belong here and send you home. Or Aidon will rescue us. Or something.” I could hear the furrowed brow and uncertain smile in her voice.

  “Unlikely,” was all Jasper said in reply.

  I lay on the bed, curled in on myself, running over the events of the past hour again and again. Then the events of the last few days. Then the last few years. There was no way I could sleep, not with my heart pounding out a paso doble on my chest.

  After I’d reviewed almost every significant event of my life—and a good number of insignificant ones—the door opened. A young woman with silver-toned skin and a purple uniform stood on the threshold, a blue-uniformed guard holding the door open next to her.

  “Will you please come with me?” She spoke English with a lilt similar to Zhian’s and gestured out of the door as though she were about to lead me to the best table, the one with the sea view.

  She led me down passage after passage, the guard trailing after us, until we came to a room with a single chair in it. She gestured for me to go inside.

  “Please take a seat,” she said.

  She closed the door, leaving me alone. The wall in front of me lit up, and I realised it was a screen, only nothing was being fed to it yet. The sound of a microphone being jostled echoed through the room, momentarily forcing my hands to my ears as it squealed from reverberation, then the voice of my escort—slightly distorted by the microphone—spoke. “Please state your name,” she requested.

  “How do you know English?” I asked.

  “Please state your name,” she repeated, with no indication she had heard me.

  “Jane Smith.”

  Voices whispered on the edge of the spectrum picked up by the microphone. The sound of shuffling. A male voice spoke. “We know you are from Planet Earth. We know you were transported here by Akond Zhian Cæcus.” He paused.

  “Ok,” I said. “So, can I go home now?”

  “Right,” scoffed Sandy. “The nice people in purple are just going to let you toddle off to the portal now.”

  “What is your relationship with Akond Zhian Cæcus?”

  “I have no relationship with him.”

  More shuffling.

  A female voice, different to that of my escort, spoke. “You are an intruder. Therefore, you have no rights and we are under no obligation to negotiate with you. Give us the information we request or we will employ whatever methods are necessary to extract it from you.”

  “Excuse me!” Sandy made me blurt out. “I was KIDNAPPED—that means brought to this planet against my will—and all I want to do is go home! I’m not a threat to you!”

  Loud whispers and shuffling—possibly shoving—were broadcast, then my escort spoke. “Please,” she said, as pleasant as ever. “Your cooperation will be rewarded. Tell us why Akond Zhian Cæcus retrieved you from Planet Earth.”

  “I’m not being difficult,” I snapped. “I honestly don’t know why he did it.”

  Silence.

  “Have you considered asking him?” I asked.

  A hushed conversation went on long enough for me to squirm uncomfortably in the chair. The screen in front of me flickered, and a picture of Aidon filled it.

  “Do you know this person?” asked Polite lady.

  “Don’t tell them anything!” squealed Gwendolyn.

  “You have a higher chance of survival if you cooperate,” said Jasper.

  “Say you’ll talk if they promise to send you home,” urged Sandy.

  “Protect them,” said Mitch. “Save them. You have to save them.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, No. I mean, I’m not sure.” I swallowed a mountain of dust and started coughing. “Can I have some water, please?”

  A few minutes of silence passed, then a guard entered with a rubber cup of water.

  “Clever buggers,” said Sandy. “No glass to break into useful shards, no plastic or paper to crush into a shank.”

  As I sipped, Polite Lady talked.

  “It is clear to us you know this person. He is associated with a dangerous group of insurgents. Did he have anything to do with your entering this complex?”

  “I really hope that means they didn’t catch them,” yelped Gwendolyn, hands balled up at her mouth.

  “They know more than they would have you believe. Be truthful,” advised Jasper.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to tell them everything,” said Sandy.

  “I entered by myself,” I answered.

  Frenzied whispers intensified, then trailed off into silence.

  “Why?”

  “So I can get back home. To Earth.”

  “How did you intend to get home?”

  “Is that a trick question?” asked Sandy. “Or do they not know they’re sitting on a magic portal?”

  “Be honest,” Jasper reminded me.

  “I don’t mean any harm—” I said.

  “—At least, not very much harm,” snarked Sandy.

  “—I just want to go home. I never meant to come here in the first place. That was all Zhian’s fault. All I’ve tried to do since I got here was get back home.”

  Silence. Then the man’s voice came on.

  “That will not be possible,” he said solemnly. “The people of Earth cannot know of our existence.”

  “I won’t tell, I swear!” I promised, clutching at the seat of my chair. “I won’t say a word, and I’ll never try to come back. I just want to go home!”

  “That’s odd,” said Sandy. “You really do want to go home.”

  She was right. After everything, I was no longer desperate to simply end it. I wanted to see my family again, to get out of the country with them.

  “There is no guarantee you will stick to that promise,” came the male voice. “We cannot risk the welfare of our people. In fact, you have proved yourself less than trustworthy by concealing yourself from us when we were actively pursuing you.”

  “Everyone said you’d hurt me. Imprison me.” I considered. “Which, to be fair, was completely true.”

  “You overrode our security systems, caused an altercation in Zone 8, and impersonated an officer. We were forced to treat you as hostile.”

  “So, if I’d knocked on the front door and asked to slip in and access the portal, you would have treated me differently?”

  Silence.

  “Hmmm,” I said. “You see my predicament.”

  “It may help to tell them that your intention is to cease being a waste of resources via immediate self-termination upon arrival at Earth—an act which would allow your family to become financially stable without ever knowing about this sojourn to Eorthe,” suggested Jasper.

  “I thought we promised Aidon not to do that,” said Gwendolyn.

  “Wanna go home,” said Emmy.

  Polite Lady came back on. “Are you able to give us the location of this man’s whereabouts?” The photo of Aidon on the screen flashed briefly.

  “No,” I said honestly. “I have no idea where he is.”

  “While consorting with this man, did you meet any others who worked with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you give us their names and descriptions?”

  I hesitated, lips firmly closed.

  “They will not be harmed,” called the male voice from somewhere behind Polite Lady.

  I sneered. “I
’m sorry,” I said, “But there is no guarantee you’ll stick to that promise.”

  Another prolonged conversation.

  “We will need to run some tests,” came the voice of the Polite Lady. “Please proceed to the door.”

  As I was escorted back to my cell, I asked Polite Lady for her name.

  “You may call me Examiner Atropus,” she replied, manipulating a few muscles on her lower face to approximate a smile.

  “What tests are you going to run on me?”

  “Do not be alarmed,” she assured me in a voice that instantly triggered my flight-or-fight response. “We want to compile a profile of your biological make-up and ascertain whether or not your time on Eorthe has altered it in any way.”

  “And then? When you’ve got all the information you need?”

  Her smile never left her face, pasted on by years of dealing with edgy patients. “A place will be found for you.”

  We arrived at the door to my enclosed postage stamp of a room, and the guard ‘assisted’ me inside.

  I turned to Examiner Atropus in a panic. “Wait,” I said. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “There is a washroom attached to your cell.” She tapped the wall opposite the bed and a panel slid away, revealing a tiny cube with a toilet and basin. She turned to leave.

  “Please,” I begged, reaching for her arm. The guard pulled me back none-too-gently, and the examiner faced me. “It’s too small,” I panted. “I panic in confined spaces. Don’t make me stay here!”

  Her smile tightened. “I shall provide some calming medication along with your evening meal.”

  The guard exited and closed the door.

  “Do not be alarmed,” said Examiner Atropus through the perforated plastic window. I closed my eyes and listened to her footsteps clicking off into the distance.

  * * *

  The voices debated the pros and cons of taking medication from people with a track record for doping patients, but eventually Mitch’s overwhelming anxiety won the day.

  The ‘calming’ pills gave me nightmares. Monsters chased me. I ran into tall, rickety buildings which collapsed when I reached the top. I watched my mother hang onto a railing, about to fall off the edge of a massive speeding aircraft, then fall before I could get to her. I was trapped in a room filled with water, my breathing space getting smaller and smaller. Then I was falling again, falling through air, falling past all help, falling into the dark.