The Block

by Ben Oliver

“All right,” he replies, “get me a gun. I may be blind, but I’m going out fighting … just nobody walk in front of me.”

  “We have to take our chances in the city,” Pander says. “We have to run, and split up, and hope that they can’t track all of us.”

  I look toward the front door of the library. It won’t work, I think. There are thousands of drones, thousands of soldiers—we’d be dead in seconds, and even if we wanted to try, Sam is in labor. We couldn’t—

  My thoughts are cut off as the metal panel that is riveted to the library’s front door begins to disappear, from the center out. I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m really seeing it. The thick, protective metal just evaporates, turning to tiny fragments of dust and blowing out into the storm.

  As the metal peels away completely, I see, standing there in the machine-sent downpour, carrying an enormous gun that is strapped around his waist, Tyco Roth.

  I stare at the boy’s deranged, grinning face as he scans the room, and I notice that his eyes aren’t lit up—Happy is not controlling him in this moment.

  Tyco raises a hand from the gun—which must contain Deleter technology in bullet form, judging by what it did to the door—and points a finger at me.

  “Luka Kane,” he says, just loud enough for me to hear him over the timpani roll of rain. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Someone rushes past me, drops to one knee, and aims one of the old-fashioned USWs at my former prison mate.

  Without taking his eyes off me, Tyco adjusts the aim of his Deleter gun and fires.

  I hear the clatter of the USW hitting the varnished floor of the library, and Akimi making a strange sound. “Ah, ugh, ah.”

  I look down. The Deleter round has struck her right hand, which has already disappeared as she holds it up to her face.

  “Ahhh, ahh, what … ahh, what’s happening?”

  I run to Akimi and drag her away. By the time I’ve reached the center of the room, her arm has vanished up to the elbow.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she says, almost fascinated as she watches the progress of the Deleter tech erasing her.

  “Abril!” I call out, and the doctor leaves Sam’s side and rushes over to us, skidding down onto her knees, sending puddled rainwater splashing up on either side of her.

  “What fresh hell is this?” she asks, wide-eyed. “Get her to the bathroom—we need to amputate, and do not touch the light.”

  I look to the remaining part of Akimi’s arm and see that there is a light tracing its way up toward her shoulder, leaving nothing but dust behind.

  Sam’s screams reach a new high as labor ramps up.

  Akimi begins to repeat the same word over and over, her terrified voice almost childlike. “Wait, wait, wait …”

  From the doorway, Tyco calls, “Luka Kane, you and I need to have a little chat.”

  “Wait,” Akimi continues, her voice slowing now.

  The attack drones hover in the remains of the shattered roof, the soldiers’ commands echo out from the tunnels, and Tyco stands in the empty doorway, the rain drenching him.

  I try to think of what to do next, of where to go, of how to save these people. As Dr. Ortega and I carry Akimi toward the bathroom, the shoulder that I’m holding on to disappears and she falls to the floor.

  “Wait!” she screams. “Not yet, not yet, you have to make it stop.” Her wide eyes watch the nothingness creeps toward her neck. And then she falls silent as she disappears.

  We stand there, watching the last of her being eaten by the light.

  “She was a little girl,” Dr. Ortega says, absentmindedly taking a half patch of Ebb out of her pocket and placing it on her wrist. “She was just a little girl.”

  I walk back to the group. Kina is cutting Sam out of her trousers while Pod and Igby try fruitlessly to reassure her that everything is going to be all right.

  “Luka, you can make all of this go away,” Tyco calls from the doorway.

  I ignore him.

  “Igby, the panic room, is it big enough for everyone?”

  Igby looks around at all the people. “Yes, just.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Sam screams. “I’m in labor!”

  “Where’s Akimi?” Igby asks.

  I shake my head, hardly able to believe what I’m about to say. “She’s … gone. She’s dead.”

  “Oh, she’s dead all right,” Tyco screams from the doorway, “and in ten seconds, the rest of you will be too.”

  “We need to move, now,” Kina says, grabbing Sam by the ankles as I grab her under her arms.

  “Ten, nine, eight …” Tyco yells, his voice distorted by the rain.

  Why isn’t he just killing us?

  I help Kina carry Sam toward the panic room.

  “Oh, leave me alone,” Sam moans.

  Igby leaps over the checkout desk, throws the small rug over his shoulder, and then begins to remove the loose floorboards revealing the trapdoor beneath.

  “Seven, six, five, four …” Tyco continues.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, this might be a bad idea,” Igby says.

  “Igby, we’re literally surrounded,” Pander yells.

  “Yeah, but if we go in there we’re surrounded and trapped in a small metal box!”

  “We’ll be alive,” Kina reminds him.

  “Three, two, one, zero,” Tyco finishes.

  A Deleter round, bright and cold, zips across the library, striking the center of the sci-fi shelf. A hole appears and grows as books fall to the ground.

  Igby’s eyes grow wide. He opens the trapdoor, grabs the laptop from the desk, and climbs down into the darkness.

  I hear the Alt soldiers who were hiding in the tunnels run through the bathroom door and enter the library.

  “Go, go, go,” Pod calls from behind me.

  Another Deleter round speeds toward us as I turn to help Kina carry Sam down the wooden stairs, and I feel it rushing over my head. It clips the laptop in Igby’s hands.

  I watch the erasing light eating the laptop.

  “Igby, drop it!” I scream as the light gets closer and closer to his hands.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” he screams, frantically typing as he runs into the corridor.

  “Igby, if that light touches you, it’ll kill you,” I call after him.

  We carry Sam down the wooden stairs and into the short, dim corridor below. Water is pouring down here from the open library ceiling, cascading down the steps. Apple-Moth’s green light illuminates the corridor in an alien glow.

  The soldiers’ footsteps grow louder behind us as they discover the trapdoor and begin to descend the steps.

  Igby taps away at the keys of his disappearing laptop and the circular door unwinds, opening up in front of us. Once he has pressed the last key, he shouts, “Duck!” We all drop and Igby throws the laptop over our heads toward the soldiers, missing them by a few inches.

  Igby’s eyes dart from us to the approaching soldiers and back to us as he stands against the wall. When Kina and I have carried Sam across the threshold, Dr. Ortega, Malachai, Wren, Pander, and Pod stumble in after us. Igby slams his fist against a big red button on the wall and the door crashes shut, just as the lead Alt soldier sprints for the gap.

  We take Sam to the far end of the metal room and lay her down on the floor, and other than her cries of pain and effort, there is silence in the room.

  “Can Tyco’s gun burn through that door?” Pander asks.

  Igby shrugs. “I don’t think so. It’s Deleter-proof, and that looks like Deleter tech to me.”

  “Well,” Malachai says from among the crowd, “what now?”

  I look to the Natural—Wren is holding on to his hand as she breathes in short gasps. “Honestly, I don’t know,” I reply, and I can still hear Akimi’s panicked voice as she disappeared a bit at a time. I feel anger burning in my heart and I want nothing more than to kill Tyco Roth. I calm myself, knowing that this is far from over.

  “F
riends! Friends!” Apple-Moth cries, zipping around our heads. “What’s going on, friends?”

  “Apple-Moth, calm down,” I say, but the drone won’t listen—it’s so frantic now that it’s started crashing into the walls.

  “I don’t like small spaces!” Apple-Moth says.

  “Apple-Moth, power down!” I say, and—for once—the drone doesn’t argue. I don’t know if it’s because it was panicking, or if it could hear in my voice that I meant it, but the drone powers down immediately and I grab it out of the air before it hits the floor.

  I turn to Wren. “How are you doing, Wren? You seem better?”

  She nods, moving even closer to Malachai.

  “I think you just can’t bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight,” Malachai says, kissing her on the top of her head.

  “Shut—shut up, loser,” Wren mutters, and I feel a burst of happiness inside me, seeing the first glimpses of the old Wren returning, and then I think what a shame it is that she might only get to enjoy it for a little while.

  “Luka, can I talk to you a second?” Igby asks.

  I walk over to him and he speaks with a lowered voice. “I didn’t fix the glitch with the door.”

  “What does that mean?” Kina asks, joining our small group.

  “It’s … it’s probably going to be okay. I’ll just need to get a new laptop and rewrite the program.”

  “A new laptop? In here?” I look around the bare cell. “Igby, what’s the problem?” I ask.

  “Look, we’re probably all going to die down here anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t matter, why not just say it?” Kina asks.

  Igby sighs. “You see that handle over there?” he asks, pointing through the darkness to a large spin handle that looks like a car steering wheel.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a dead-bolt lock; it’s connected to a drive cog, which is connected to eleven rotating cams.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means,” I tell him, putting Apple-Moth into my pocket.

  “It means we’re completely safe in here and no one can get in from the outside.”

  “So, where’s the problem?” Pander asks from her position on the floor, kneeling beside Sam.

  “The problem is in the weighted auto-shut mechanism. If whoever opens the door lets go of the spin handle, the door will snap shut.”

  I think about this for a few seconds. “So, without the laptop to power the door, someone will be left behind in here?”

  “Whoever opens the door for everyone else will be trapped until I can either get a new laptop to hook up to this thing or hot-wire it from outside, which might take hours.”

  “So, what do we do?” Kina asks, raising her voice to be heard over Sam’s cries of pain.

  My eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness. I look around at the faces of my friends as Igby begins to talk, laying out a plan involving a weighted system that would hold the handle in place. I barely hear him, though.

  Is this all my fault? I think. Could I have done anything differently? What if I had left Purgatory faster? Would that have changed anything?

  I look away from the faces of my friends, and my eyes are drawn to the corner of the room, to the place where two sheets of thick metal meet. Droplets of water are beginning to seep through. What’s happening? Is Happy flooding the library? Trying to flush us out?

  I turn back to the group and see Pander walking toward the spin handle. “I think I could open the door and make it through before it closes.”

  “You can’t,” Igby says, turning away from her. “It doesn’t matter,” he continues. “We have hours to figure this out; there’s no way they’re getting in here.”

  I watch Pander as she grips the spin handle and begins to turn.

  “Wait!” I say—but it’s too late, the circular door starts to open. Before she can get it open more than a few inches, a flood of water bursts into the panic room.

  Pander releases the handle, and the door slams shut with a deafening boom.

  The corridor beyond the panic room door is no longer filled with soldiers—it is filled with water, gallons of which have now poured into this room with us. The shut door has slowed the flow but not stopped it completely.

  My head is spinning.

  Attack drones, soldiers, Tyco Roth, rainwater flooding us out like rats, and one person might have to stay behind if we want to get out of here.

  The droplets of water in the joins of the room have already turned into steady streams, and yet more water is spraying in through microscopic gaps in the door.

  “Is it raining?” I hear Wren ask Malachai. His reply is lost in Sam’s screams and the general hum of fear emanating through us.

  “You picked a great day to make an appearance!” Sam screams at her unborn baby between her parted knees. “Idiot!”

  The water is already up to our ankles.

  Think, think, think, I tell myself.

  “Igby, figure out how to get that door to stay open,” Pander orders, and then turns back to Sam. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but you need to get this child out of your body before it’s born underwater. So, push!”

  Kina ushers everyone as far back from the spin handle as possible while Pod and Igby try to figure something out.

  “The problem is,” Pod says, his voice surprisingly calm, “we can’t test anything out without opening the door and letting more water in.”

  Kina and Pander lift Sam onto one of the molded steel benches. The water continues to spill in and is already up to our knees.

  How do we get out of this? I ask myself, looking around at the chaos that is unfolding.

  I think about the threats that await us outside the panic room: drones, soldiers, Tyco.

  Tyco, I think. His eyes weren’t lit up; he’s here under his own free will.

  And then I think about the soldiers who chased us down here—they didn’t shoot us. And I think about the attack drones hovering in the domed window; their cannons were aimed at us, but they didn’t fire.

  Luka, you can make all of this go away. Tyco said that.

  And then it hits me.

  “They need three people,” I say, more to myself than to anyone else.

  “What?” Kina asks.

  “They need three; that’s why they didn’t kill all of us. When I got Malachai out of the Arc, and Woods killed himself, we took away two of their test subjects. Tyco has volunteered himself, but they need two more.”

  “Are you saying they’re not here to kill us?” Pod asks. “They’re here to capture us?”

  “Maybe just two of us,” I say, “but maybe we could make a deal? They take two of us and let the rest go?”

  “I volunteer,” Pander says.

  “Me too,” Kina replies.

  “And me,” Pod adds.

  “I volunteer,” says Igby.

  “You’re all amazing,” I say, genuinely proud of the bravery of my friends, “but let me get out there first, okay? Let me make a deal with Happy to make sure they take only two of us and let the rest go.”

  I look to Igby, who walks over to the spin handle. “Go quickly,” he says. “Once the door opens, a lot of water is going to get in.”

  I nod, and get ready to run as he opens the circular door.

  It opens. Water immediately spills in so fast that I can’t even push against the current, but finally the flow slows, and I dive through into the corridor, feeling the ripple of the door slamming shut in the water. There’s only a yard or so left between the water and the ceiling.

  I swim to the wooden staircase and climb up. I push hard against the trapdoor, having to fight against the weight of the pouring water to throw it over, but finally I climb into the library.

  The drones still hover at the dome window, seeming to watch me as I cross the library. The soldiers wait by the bathroom door, their guns trained on me. I walk to Tyco, who still stands at the doorway, unbothered by th
e rain.

  “Luka, Luka, Luka,” he says, grinning, “didn’t I tell you I’d be the death of you?”

  “You did,” I agree, “many times, but I think you and I both know it will be Happy that gets the last laugh.”

  “As long as I get to see you die, I don’t care.”

  I decide to move the conversation on, not wanting to waste time. “Happy needs two of us, right?”

  “Wrong. Happy wants you, and you alone. The rest don’t matter.”

  “I thought they needed three for their experiments?”

  “They do,” Tyco tells me, “but they already have two, and you will make three.”

  “Who’s the other?” I ask.

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “Fine,” I say, “then I’ll come with you. I won’t fight, I won’t try to escape, I won’t try to trick you. I’ll come quietly, but you have to let the rest of them go.”

  Tyco raises his eyebrows. “Do I?”

  “It’s up to you, take the offer or don’t, but there are eleven of us,” I say, generously counting Apple-Moth and Sam’s soon-to-be-born baby among our ranks, “and we’ll fight to the death. We won’t give up, we’ll either kill you or die trying. Can you really go back to Happy empty-handed? Let the rest of them go, let them run and hide, give them an hour’s head start. That’s all I ask.” An hour should be enough to get to the Red Zone, I think.

  Tyco smirks, and raises the Deleter gun until the barrel is facing me.

  “Luka Kane, I’m going to—”

  Before he can finish his sentence, his eyes glow bright white, and all expression drops from his face.

  “We accept your offer, Mr. Kane,” Tyco says, his voice now flat and emotionless. Happy has taken over.

  The lights fade out from Tyco’s eyes, and he returns, looking shaken and scared. Then his face flushes. “But you told me I would have what I wanted!” Tyco growls to himself.

  His eyes light up once more, and Happy makes Tyco’s lips move, but he speaks so quietly I can’t make out what he is saying.

  The lights fade once again, and Tyco smiles.

  “Yes,” he says, “if you come quietly, we accept your offer.”

  “Good,” I reply. “Now tell Happy to call off the drones and the soldiers and turn the rain off.”

  As I say this the drones rise up from the window above our heads and fly away. The soldiers turn on their heels and exit though the sewer tunnels, but the rain doesn’t stop.