The Block

by Ben Oliver

  From here, on the ground floor, I can hear Galen’s voice echoing through the building once more. I have to strain to hear the footsteps of the hosts over the crashing of the waterfall, but as they slowly pass by on the other side of the door, I can’t help but pick up on the words.

  “… Thirty-seven men and women who protested the government’s decision to choose your lives over the lives of the Regulars stand before you here today. Thirty-seven men and women who tried to undermine our plan to save your lives and your family’s lives by warning the Regulars of what was to become of them.”

  I struggle to pick up on every word that Galen is saying, but notice a wall-mounted SoCom unit and wave my hand over it. Suddenly, in front of me in perfect holographic projection, is Galen Rye. To his right, beside him on the stage, is a group of Alts, all of them with their hands magnetically cuffed behind their backs. When Galen speaks next, his voice is as clear as if I were in the room with him.

  “Do we respect their bravery? Yes, we do. Can we let such actions go unpunished? No, we cannot.”

  I look at the images of the men and women on the stage, some crying, some stoic, some shaking with fear.

  They’re going to send them to the Block, I think. And then Galen gestures offstage, and eight Alt soldiers walk onstage carrying Deleters—sickle-shaped executioners’ weapons that reduce the condemned to microscopic particles. One of the cuffed prisoners begins to scream.

  “Remember this, friends,” Galen says as the Deleters rise above the prisoners, “remember what happens to those who do not support a World Government who chose you to live through the end of the world.”

  Galen nods, and the Deleters begin to swing.

  I look away as the first prisoner is reduced to ash. I switch the SoCom off as the crowd begins to cheer, and I am left only with the ghost of that sound, resonating throughout the building.

  I exhale, thinking that I might be about to throw up.

  Happy is killing Alts, I think. Happy is killing Alts who dared to question genocide.

  And I cannot understand it. I cannot understand how so many people can be talked into believing in something so cruel, something so ruthless and vicious.

  “Apple-Moth, time?” I whisper, my voice shaking.

  “The time is 11:02 a.m., friend.”

  I feel my heart sink. Five minutes until Woods becomes a host, eighteen minutes for Malachai. I have to put the atrocities that are occurring just down the hallway to the back of my mind.

  “Apple-Moth, do you know if there’s a medical center or laboratory in this building?”

  “I don’t have access to the blueprints or plans to the Arc. Sorry, friend.”

  “Shit!” I say, almost yelling but stopping myself just in time.

  “But,” Apple-Moth says from the chest pocket of the T-shirt beneath my body armor, “the building is completely uniform on every level barring four anomalies: the hangar where the tank was parked; the big hall where that man was speaking; a single, large, circular room at the very top of the building, and two more rooms that don’t fit the symmetry on the penultimate floor.”

  “It has to be one of those three,” I say, running to the center of the room until the spray from the waterfall begins to soak me. I look up into the abyss of stairs and corridors. “How many floors to the top, Apple-Moth?”

  The drone zips out of its hiding place, the electronic mask disappearing from my face. Apple-Moth looks up too. “Sixty-six floors.”

  I know that I can’t climb sixty-six floors in less than five minutes, but my eyes have already fallen upon the emergency drone-risers inside the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency cases against the far wall. Drone-risers are used to travel up and down tall buildings rapidly in an emergency to get people to safety. They removed them from the Verticals after kids stole them and hurt themselves.

  I move to the case, using the side of my fist to break the glass, hoping that an automatic alarm won’t be set off. Luckily, there’s silence as I grab the drone-riser, switch it on, and throw it to the floor. The small black platform hovers a few inches above the ground and I step on, lifting my toes to command the board to rise up. It does so, rapidly.

  I’m whooshing up between the staircases, the gargantuan waterfall booming down beside me, Apple-Moth struggling to keep pace as I rush up and up, trying to keep an eye on the floor numbers as they flash past.

  Floor fifty-five, the black letters say, floor fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. The higher I go, the less space there is between me and the water as the dome shape of the building gets narrower and narrower. And at around floor sixty, the waterfall stops, and I am above it.

  I lower my toes, slowing the platform down, but not by much.

  As we reach the highest point, I slow the riser down to a crawl, and jump off at floor sixty-six, the top floor.

  I find myself on a circular platform, and I’m dumbstruck by what I see—a production line of drones being created by robotic arms, thousands and thousands of them. Large attack drones on the left, and small Mosquito drones on the right. The robotic workers attach rotor blades, tracking devices, cannons, antennae, and scanners, and then the drones fly straight out into the gigantic cloud that encircles the city.

  “What the hell is this?” I whisper.

  Apple-Moth glows red in front of my face, hiding me from each individual Mosquito as it is born and flies off into the air.

  The drones, both Mosquitoes and attack drones, are being produced at a rate of about one per second, maybe even faster than that.

  I stare at the conveyor belt for too long before snapping out my amazement. I have to go. I turn, running toward the staircase.

  Right now, all that matters is saving my friends, and they are not on this floor.

  I move down to floor sixty-five. Compared to the lower floors, the shape of the building means that the corridor is much, much smaller up here, and there are only two rooms facing each other. The plaque on one reads: LABORATORY: RESTRICTED ACCESS. The other reads: RECOVERY ROOM: RESTRICTED ACCESS.

  I move to the laboratory door and try the handle—it’s locked.

  “Apple-Moth, time!” I call.

  “11:04 a.m., friend.”

  “No, no, no, no!” I yell, no longer caring who hears me.

  I failed, I think. My friends are on the other side of this door, and I can’t get to them. Woods becomes one of them in three minutes.

  “I couldn’t save them,” I say, my voice coming out in a croak. “There’s no time left. I couldn’t save them.”

  “Friend,” Apple-Moth says, hovering beside my ear.

  “What?”

  “Do you need to get into that restricted area to save your friends?”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling a tentative burst of hope.

  “Normally I wouldn’t do this—breaking the rules is bad—but if it’s for friends …”

  The little drone dips to the vinyl floor and slips underneath the door and into the room. I wait in the empty corridor. Another roar from the crowd reaches me, even over the monotonous drone of the waterfall. And then the handle moves, twisting of its own accord, and the door swings open.

  “Apple-Moth, you genius!” I say, and run into the laboratory.

  Against the far wall of the large room are dozens of screens, each showing different sets of statistics and information. Vials of nanobots line one shelf on the right, and robotic equipment hangs from the ceiling. Double-size holographic projections of Malachai, Woods, and the third subject float in an open space, their bodies translucent so doctors and scientists can see their organs working inside them. Three metal arms protrude from the floor, the characters E4-EX-19 stenciled in white paint on them. There is a glowing orb of light levitating above the machinery. The arms all face away from one another—they look like an ancient fairground ride, only each of them hovers over a paralyzed human being lying in a bed. These humans are who I came here for, Woods and Malachai.

  I run over to them, and stop as I see who the
third subject is.

  Tyco Roth.

  The boy who tried to kill me, the boy who was shot six times, the boy who should be dead.

  In a moment, a million thoughts flash through my mind: Is it really him? Should I save him? He tried to kill me; why should I help him? He’ll only try to kill me again! It’s the right thing to do. It’s the wrong thing to do.

  I choose to ignore all thoughts of Tyco for now. I run over to the paralyzed test subjects, going to Woods first. I see that his eyes have been replaced by the glowing eyes of Happy. I look closely at them and see that they are not fully lit up yet—the light seems to be encircling his iris one segment at a time. Right now there is only one segment left to light up.

  “Apple-Moth, time!” I scream as I grab Woods and haul him from the bed.

  “11:06 a.m.,” the drone replies, buzzing anxiously from side to side.

  One minute, I have one minute to save him.

  Woods collapses onto the floor, gasping in a lungful of air.

  “Luka,” he says, his mechanical eyes turning to me.

  “Woods, how do I help you? Tell me how to stop this.”

  “I knew you’d come,” he says, a smile spreading across his pained face.

  “What do I do, Woods? How do I stop this?”

  “Thank you,” he replies, and his smile widens, the gap in his front teeth showing. “I’m glad they didn’t get me in the end.”

  I have enough time to think how sad that smile seems, and then he’s gone, running out of the open laboratory door. I watch as he lifts his large frame elegantly over the banister of the sixty-fifth set of stairs.

  He falls in a silence punctuated by my own inability to breathe.

  For a moment, I wonder if the waterfall might save him, if he might get swept up in the cascade and somehow live. But I know it’s not possible. Even at its closest point to the highest floor, it’s ten feet from the edge.

  “No,” I say, finally inhaling. “No. I could have saved you … I could have …”

  Images of my father falling from the roof of the Black Road Vertical, saving my life by dragging one of Happy’s hosts to its demise, flash in front of my eyes. I can feel my chest tightening, my breath coming in and out in shallow gasps that leave me craving oxygen that I can’t seem to find. I fall to the floor, my legs collapsing beneath me.

  “I … I … I …” My voice is a stammering motor that I have no control over. “I could have saved you … I … I could have … I could have saved you …”

  My hands are shaking as the images of my father falling, Blue bleeding to death, Mable screaming, the rats biting, the Smilers attacking, all become vivid and real in front of my eyes.

  The lights dim and a red light begins to flash as Happy’s voice comes over the speakers: “Incident on ground floor. Complete lockdown initiated. All floors to be scanned and searched.”

  “I could have saved you … I could have … I …”

  Somewhere, miles away, in the back of my mind, locked in a coffin buried underground, my own voice is screaming for me to get up, screaming that Tyco is still alive, Malachai is still alive, that he needs my help.

  “Friend,” a soft voice says, and my eyes focus on the low pink lights of Apple-Moth.

  “I could have saved him,” I tell the small companion drone. “I could have saved him.”

  “You can’t save everyone, friend.”

  “But he didn’t have to …”

  “That was his decision. You have risked your life to save your friends. Is this correct?”

  I nod, tears now falling down my face. “I can’t keep going, I’ve lost so many people already. They just keep on dying.”

  “You have my permission to quit, friend, if that’s what you need. But if you need someone to tell you to get up, to keep fighting, to never give up, I can do that too.”

  I wipe the tears away from my eyes, my hands still shaking, but I can breathe again, I can feel the oxygen slipping silently into my bloodstream and giving me strength.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  Apple-Moth’s lights grow brighter. “I believe in you, friend. Now get up.”

  I push myself to standing. Shaking legs carry me past Tyco’s bed. I glance at the boy who tricked me, told me he had forgiven me, that we had to work together to survive the end of the world, and then stuck an Ebb patch to my back and planned on killing me slowly with a knife. I ignore him. Let him become one of them, I think, and try not to dwell on the shame. And as the thought flashes through my mind—Kill him now—my shame doubles, not because the thought is cruel, but because it would be merciful, and yet I don’t have it in me to end his life.

  I move to Malachai’s bed as the sirens wail and Happy’s voice gives instructions.

  I grab the boy—who now has one segment of light shining out at the top of each iris—and haul him off the bed.

  Malachai sucks in air and then pushes it out of his lungs, screaming as he does. “Took your fucking time, Luka!” he gasps.

  “Sorry,” I say, unable to think of anything else.

  Suddenly, the older boy grabs me, wrapping both arms around me and holding me tight. “I love you, Luka, you’re my hero.”

  “You’re mine,” I reply, my voice muffled by the skin of his bare shoulder pressed against my mouth.

  “Got a plan?” he asks, his mechanical eyes scanning the room and the floors below us. “Because there are one thousand and ninety-eight soldiers all heading this way. We have about fifteen seconds, according to these magical eyes.”

  “Less,” a voice comes from across the room.

  I spin around and see that Tyco is sitting up, his eyes glowing bright white. Happy is onto us.

  He leaps down from the paralysis bed and strides toward Malachai and me.

  “Shit, shit,” Malachai mutters, stumbling backward, not yet recovered from the Block and the paralyses of this place.

  “Hi, new friend!” Apple-Moth says, zipping up to Tyco’s eye line.

  Tyco swats the little drone to the floor. And in that moment I feel a blinding rage.

  I move forward to meet the Alt, raising my fists. I swing hard at his head but he ducks it easily, throwing a hook as he does, his fist connecting with my solar plexus and knocking the wind out of me.

  I crumple to the floor, gasping for air, and Tyco aims a kick at me, the top of his foot slamming into the underside of my chin.

  My head rocks back and I see white stars in my vision, but the rage is still pulsing through me. I get up and run at Tyco, tackling him around the waist and dragging him to the floor.

  Tyco throws three jabs and hits me each time, once in the left eye and twice on the jaw.

  “It is futile to fight me,” Tyco says, getting to his feet. “You are shorter than this host, lighter than him, you did not have the upbringing he did, and you have no upgrades.”

  “No,” Malachai says from behind Tyco, “but I do.”

  Malachai throws four heavy punches at Tyco, landing all of them before headbutting him right between the eyes.

  Tyco stumbles backward and falls, sliding across the floor, coming to a rest against a set of stainless-steel cupboards. Malachai marches over to the cupboards, grabbing them and pulling them on top of the thrashing, bright-eyed boy.

  I look up at Malachai, who doesn’t even seem out of breath.

  “That should buy us about thirty seconds. What now?”

  I get to my feet, and just as I’m about to admit that I have no idea how we’re getting out of this one, I spot the drone-riser still hovering a few inches above the ground outside the lab door. “Does that window open?” I ask, pointing to the large pane of glass beside the shelf of nanobots.

  Malachai’s eyes—now with two segments lit up—glow orange and the window opens. “Wow, I can override Happy … because I’m about to be Happy!”

  “One more thing,” I say, and grab a small trolley by the legs. I swing it hard at one of the arms of the E4-EX-19. Sparks fly, the glowing orb that
floats in the center flickers. I hit a second arm and the orb goes out. I swing the trolley four more times, completing Abril Ortega’s cryptic task to destroy the device, whatever it is.

  “Sure, now’s the best time to deal with your anger issues,” Malachai mutters.

  I take the riser and run toward the window, grabbing Malachai by the wrist as I go. I can hear the sound of Tyco shoving off the heavy steel cupboards, hear the elevators opening up, hear about ten more drone-risers gliding up toward us.

  “Apple-Moth, let’s go!” I scream, and the drone darts into the pocket behind my body armor.

  And then we’re in midair, the enormity of the Arc beneath us, stretching out into the daylight.

  Malachai screams, half out of fear and half out of exhilaration.

  I push down the riser beneath our feet and our descent slows. Not by much—the riser is meant for only one person—but enough that there’s at least some control.

  Now I scream too as we zoom down the side of the building, the drone-riser staying flat beneath our feet, adjusting to the angle of the building, pushing us outward toward the foot of the dome.

  Suddenly, the ground is approaching, and I’m aware of just how fast we are going. Apple-Moth, possibly sensing the speed of descent, floats out of my pocket and hovers in the air. I watch the little drone get smaller and smaller.

  “This is going to hu—” I manage, and then we’re being thrown into the scrubland at the back of the Arc.

  I feel my wrist snap and something ping in my back as my legs are thrown over my head. My chin scrapes along the ground and then my ear is ripped half off. For a full five seconds I can’t breathe, my diaphragm cramping from the trauma. I sit up, finally hauling in a rasping breath. Malachai is holding his side, a bubbling stream of blood seeping out between his fingers.