by Kevin George
“And if it doesn’t?”
Henry paused as he reached the tunnel, but he did not turn around. This time, it was his turn to shrug nonchalantly. “Then we’ll show Below how difficult it can be to deal with us. . . and with the beasts.”
He disappeared into the tunnel, leaving Julietta alone in the hallway. As tempted as she was to rush into the Dome—if only to find a dark room with a soft bed—she knew she couldn’t sleep her problems away. She hobbled to Atticus’s side and knelt beside his corpse, gently closing his eyelids, knowing she’d destroyed another life with her mere presence.
With a sigh, she took his hands in hers, slowly stood and began to drag him toward the Adolescents’ enclosure, where Atticus could serve one final purpose in this world.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sally turned from one side to the other, never staying still for longer than a few minutes, feeling the crossbar of her cot digging into her back no matter which way she tried to lie. It didn’t help that her cot squeaked whenever she breathed, let alone every time she shifted. Her mind twisted and turned as much as her body did, making sleep impossible. She eventually sat up and looked around the main room, where she heard lilting, rhythmic snores and saw the silhouettes of many Swarmers leaned against the walls or each other, their heads turned to the side, a few with their wings draped over their faces (at least those with wings large enough or well-formed enough to cover them).
She looked from one Swarmer to the next, some of them friendly, some of them not, but all of them sticking closely together, the sight never ceasing to cause her eyes to well. Sally had lost both of her parents at a young age, and though she’d shared a bond with other orphans in The Fifth—and though she’d been well-respected by Fifthers that worked alongside her—she’d never seen such a closeness among humans as she saw with the Aviaries. In some ways, she wished she felt as content as the rest of them, content to stay in the facility forever and ignore all the problems beyond their surrounding walls. . .
Just like everyone tries to do in The Fifth. . .
She stood from the cot, stopping as it squealed loudly a final time. She looked around and saw a few Swarmers shudder but remain sleeping. Tiptoeing across the room, she opened the hallway door slowly and slipped out into the darkness, a single flickering light providing just enough light for her to see. She walked through the facility without an exact plan for what she was doing, just hoping to clear her mind, not that the quiet darkness had much to help distract her from the worries that constantly hounded her.
She ended up near James’ room and suddenly understood how the solitude of confinement was driving him insane. Sally didn’t feel much better and had the sudden urge to run outside, to run into the White Nothingness, to run as far as she could for as long as she could, the consequences be damned. But the sight of Lump asleep against the hallway wall somehow calmed her and brought a smile to her face. He was supposed to be guarding James’ room—a task he normally completed with a singular focus—but he’d fallen asleep on the opposite side of the hallway, leaving Sally with a clear path to the door.
She approached it slowly, her eyes darting between the door handle and Lump, waiting for his eyes to snap open. She wasn’t afraid Lump would harm her if he woke, but she had no doubt Quinn would hear all about it. Still, Sally wondered if it was a risk worth taking, if she could somehow slide the keyring off Lump’s wrist, if she could release James and give them enough time to plan an escape.
Do you even want to escape? Do you trust James enough to put your life in his hands? To put your future in his hands? Sally asked herself, though she had zero doubt about any of those answers. She tiptoed past the door without giving it another thought.
Sally found herself in the same situation once she reached the door to Love’s room. With a glance down both ends of the hallway—finding the coast clear—she grabbed the door handle, her pulse racing with nervous anticipation. She started to turn it, but BabyDoll’s words about waiting echoed in Sally’s mind. She let go, unable to bear the idea of betraying the little girl’s wishes after all the support BabyDoll had given her.
She’d given BabyDoll no such assurances about another room she wasn’t supposed to enter. She approached the swinging doors to the radio room, looking through the small windows at the dimness within, a few glowing buttons staving off complete darkness. Certain she was alone, Sally pushed open the door and slipped inside, setting foot in the radio room for the first time since the day she and James arrived in the building.
For a moment, she stood just inside the door, remembering where James had sat near the radio, the look of shock on his face when he spoke of making contact. Sally couldn’t forget how he hadn’t cared about abandoning her to deal with the Mountain guard on her own, a situation she’d survived only because the Swarm had come to her rescue. She suddenly felt guilty to be back in this room against Quinn’s wishes, but not guilty enough to leave.
I’m not doing anything to endanger the Swarm, she told herself, placing her hands behind her back to reinforce that thought.
She eyed the large console that housed the building’s main radio system. Not nearly as many buttons were alight as the last time she was there. Sally started toward the radio but barely made it two steps when she tripped over the bag James had brought with him. The clanging of scattered parts echoed through the room. Sally held her breath, spinning toward the door as if the entire Swarm might descend on her at any moment. After listening for several tense seconds and hearing nothing, she scurried to the radio, uncertain how much time she’d have.
Sally wanted to turn on the radio but had no idea how. She flipped switches and pushed buttons but heard no noise from the radio’s speakers. The building’s lights and heating system proved the building still had power; the Swarm collectively took its job of clearing and maintaining the building’s solar panels very seriously. Sally wished James was with her—or that she’d asked him how to work the radio—when she suddenly remembered that he had possibly left her the answer. She hurried to his bag—ignored by Quinn and his followers—and rifled through it until finding the pages from the radio manual that James had brought.
She squinted to see the tiny letters. Reading had never been her strong suit and darkness made it hard to see anything but shadowy outlines of words. Sally considered taking the pages to a section of building with better lighting, but she was afraid she’d never work up enough bravery to come back to this room. She held the pages closer to a few shining buttons, trying to read whatever she could. But no matter how hard she squinted, her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness to let her read more than a few words.
“Nothing can be done from in here. . . nothing can be done due to fear. . .”
Sally startled, turning toward the voice so quickly that she dropped half the pages. She scrambled to pick them up, though BabyDoll’s tiny frame and soft voice held not a hint of malice.
“I wasn’t trying to. . .”—Sally stopped herself and frowned, standing tall once she held the pages again—“. . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
BabyDoll hobbled toward her, holding out a gnarled hand that Sally gratefully took into her own. BabyDoll gave the slightest tug, her indication that she wanted Sally to kneel. Sally crouched down until they were eye to eye. The bright console buttons shone enough light to illuminate BabyDoll’s smile.
“The Swarm wants this life, but you want much more. Beyond this room and this building, beyond our front door?”
Sally shook her head. “It’s not that, I promise you. But if you knew where I was from. . . what I had to endure. . .”
“The Fifth. . . the city. . . the king. . . the fear,” BabyDoll said, her voice dropping. With her free hand, she gently cupped the side of Sally’s burned face. “But there’s no need to fret, there’s no lava here.”
Sally smiled and nodded, though a frown wasn’t far behind. “I left the only world—the only life—I’d ever known for a chance to find something better. I can�
��t help wondering if there’s something more out there.”
“More danger. . . more death,” Quinn said from the doorway. “More evil men like those from the Mountain. . . more evil men like your friend we’ve imprisoned.”
Sally felt BabyDoll’s grip tighten in her hand. But Quinn did not speak with his usual bravado or anger. He stood alone, the first time Sally recalled seeing him not flanked by his followers. Sally stepped forward, shaking her head.
“Or there could be lands with no snow,” she said. “People as kind as all of you have been to me. A safer world farther from The Mountain.”
Quinn sighed. He walked across the radio room, picking up three chairs that had been knocked over at some point. He sat in one and motioned for Sally and BabyDoll to sit in the others. Sally couldn’t decide if she was more nervous or less to deal with the calmer version of Quinn, but she was curious nonetheless. When she sat across from Quinn, he leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.
“I’m older than Love, did you know that?” he asked. Sally and BabyDoll shook their heads in unison. Quinn’s focus turned to the little Aviary. “I’m not like the rest of you, as I’m sure you can see. I didn’t have a host womb and I wasn’t housed in the birthing rooms in The Mountain’s highest level. I wasn’t born an Aviary.”
He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hands. For a moment, his chest heaved and his shoulders shuddered. Sally wanted to reach out to comfort him, but Quinn suddenly leaned back in his seat, a wide smile splayed across his face as he couldn’t suppress his laughter.
“What you say is not true?” BabyDoll asked, clearly confused. “Lying is the thing you do?”
Quinn’s laughter settled and he shook his head. “Not at all. You just have no idea how good it feels to admit what I just told you,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone but Love. My father—and his father before him and my ancestors before that—had a spot among the ancient members of The Board. I spent my younger years in a place like. . .”—he closed his eyes, a hint of a smile passing across his face, one that conveyed sadness instead of joy—“a place not like this building.
“I was too young to understand the evils of The Board until I was ripped away from my parents to be poked and prodded and injected. I heard the scientists say how none of the test subjects being born were working, that they wanted to test a normal, healthy kid to see if a successful transformation was possible. I don’t know how they decided on me being that test subject, but my parents fought to save me, a fight they lost for themselves and for me.
“The tests they did to me. . . the injections. . . I won’t bore you with the details,” Quinn said, clearing his throat after his voice threatened to crack. “But I was tossed over the side of the ledge, just like the rest of you. . .”—he glanced to Sally—“. . . well maybe not all of you. It was a snowy day, one I’ll never forget as long as I live. I was so scared, I. . . my wings. . . they ripped out of my shirt. . . but I didn’t know which way was up or down. . . I didn’t know how to use them. . . I didn’t think I wanted to live. . .
“But Love caught me—he saved me—though I was bigger and older than he was, and my weight nearly dragged us both to our deaths. The morons that tossed me over the side, I don’t think they could’ve seen the rescue with so much snow falling. Love was supposed to be far away, searching for the Dome and the City Below, but that was one of the first times he’d ever been sent out and he didn’t want to fly too far from The Mountain. He was afraid. . . actually afraid of something. . . can you believe that?
“Anyway, he barely held onto me and circled to the far side of The Mountain. When we landed, he was too exhausted to flap his wings hard enough to lift himself off the ground, let alone to fly while holding onto me. I thought I’d wanted to die, but being saved so unexpectedly awakened a will to live in me that I’d never expected to feel after my parents were killed. We were still close enough to see The Mountain, but I’d never felt so alive. . . so free. I’d also never felt so cold. Love had more feathers to protect him from the elements, but I had nothing and I knew we had to get somewhere safe.
“I read a lot as a kid, and I had access to more information than I probably should’ve been allowed; maybe that was why I was chosen. Either way, I knew about this building, I knew it had been abandoned, I knew—at least in general—where to find it. Love and I nearly froze to death getting here, but we did and we’ve kept this place safe for everyone Love has caught since then.”
“And that’s why you’re so protective of this place,” Sally said.
Quinn frowned, his eyes staring straight ahead but not seeing anything in the radio room, his mind lost in the past.
“I never even found out if my parents were killed trying to protect me from this,” Quinn said, leaning forward in his chair and flexing his back, his massive wings extending. He stood, his face suddenly cast in shadow. “I don’t care what fantasy world you think is out there. This place is safe and that’s how I intend to keep it.” He lifted his head, his eyes aimed at the radio console. “The only reason I haven’t destroyed everything in this room is because Love once asked me not to. He never said anything about shutting the power down to it.”
Quinn turned and headed toward the hallway, flapping his giants wings to blow the doors open. Sally remained seated, but BabyDoll gently pulled her hand free and stood.
“Don’t you think there’s a reason Love wanted this place to remain in one piece, not become one big waste?” she asked.
Quinn shrugged. “You can ask him, if he ever comes back. I’m not giving up on him, but only because the others haven’t. But once they do. . .” He flapped again, the force of which blew James’ spare parts across the room, smashing into the far wall. “The same goes for your friend being held captive. He reminds me too much of the Board members to ever be trusted. You should’ve let him head into the Frozen Wasteland when he had the chance. At least he would’ve walked out of here alive. . .”
Quinn swept his way out, leaving Sally and BabyDoll staring at the swinging doors for several long seconds. BabyDoll’s tiny shoulders sagged and Sally joined her side.
“I appreciate all the support you’ve given me,” Sally said. “But maybe it would be safer for you to keep your distance from me.”
BabyDoll reached for Sally’s hand again, chuckling. “That has always true, but I’m still beside you.”
Sally smiled, her sinuses burning. “You’re a brave little girl.”
BabyDoll shook her head. “Once I asked Love how his heart was so brave, why his one goal in life was to find those to save. Do you know what he said?”
Sally shook her head.
“Love had just one answer, it’s the right thing to do. And he told me one day I would understand, too,” BabyDoll said, finishing with a mournful chirp that may or may not have been intentional. “And I do.”
Sally put her arm around the little girl and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure Love will be back one day.”
BabyDoll nodded. “I hope that he is, but maybe he’s not, but you’re here for a reason and that’s all that I’ve got. I don’t think he meant us to stay here forever, not when he sent us a girl that’s so clever.”
“Not everyone seems to agree with you,” Sally said.
“Fear. . . their fear. . . but that fear isn’t here,” BabyDoll said, tapping her chest. “The first time Love came here, he could’ve stayed herein, away from The Mountain. He didn’t, and it’s a good thing, that he did the right thing, instead of the safe thing.”
Sally smiled, in awe of BabyDoll. Sally never ceased to be amazed at the level of insight she received from such a young child. BabyDoll took her hand and led her out of the room.
“What else might be out in this world?” the little girl asked.
“I know as much about that as you do,” Sally said. “But we’ll never learn as long as the radio stays turned off. If only we could convince Quinn to let us
use it. . .”
“That will never be the case as long as he’s in charge of this place,” BabyDoll said.
They walked down the quiet hallway together, passing the same door Sally nearly entered earlier. BabyDoll noticed her staring at it.
“When our need is the greatest, when we’re faced with such doom,” BabyDoll reminded her, “is the time we must wait for to enter Love’s room.”
“And that’s not now?” Sally asked.
BabyDoll smiled and kept walking, gently pulling Sally along. “Tempting, for sure, but that time isn’t now. We must wait for the when and the why and the how.”
They continued walking in silence. Though neither spoke, Sally felt an overwhelming sense of relief and even fought the urge to yawn. BabyDoll had a soothing presence that helped Sally’s brain stop racing, her thoughts and worries fading into the recesses of her mind. . .
What she couldn’t ignore was the dipping temperature. She’d lost focus and didn’t realize they were headed for the coldest place in the building. Sally nearly steered BabyDoll away from the lobby until realizing the little Aviary knew exactly where she was headed. They no sooner took one step into the lobby than Sally began to shiver; BabyDoll’s genetic makeup was far better suited to deal with the cold. Still, Sally didn’t stop her from leading them straight toward the blockade of furniture that covered the building’s entrance.
Cold air seeped through the bullet holes in the windows, none of which had been fixed after the Mountainer had shot up the place. At least the lobby was brighter than any room in the building, as the predawn sky was in its earliest stages of morning light. Snow fell—rogue flakes entering the broken glass, tiny piles forming on the floor—but not as heavily as usual. BabyDoll released Sally’s hand and found a small path between the furniture to crawl to the outside world. Sally wanted to stop and question her, but BabyDoll always seemed to know what she was doing. Sally pushed aside a section of blockade until she could squeeze her way through.
