by A I Knowles
Up ahead, someone shouts. My head lifts so quickly that my helmet-shielded head impacts the concrete above me with enough force to make my ears ring. My body begs to be allowed to scramble backward as I freeze and wait for the words to pass back down the line.
The woman in front of me twists to look at me, and even with her headlamp in my eyes, I can see the joy on her face. “They found someone! Move back!”
I feel as if I can breathe again. I scoot backward, not even waiting for El to move, and end up backing right into him. He helps me to my feet then steps forward to lend his help to the others who are emerging, dusty and blinking, from the aperture.
One...two...three...four...I count each person as they emerge. Then I wait with the others as we watch the darkness. The crowd has gone so silent that I can hear every shuffling movement as the man who was in front of the line drags his rescue along the tunnel.
When he crawls backward into the light of our combined lamps, a cheer erupts from the assembly. People surge forward to help him with the young woman, who is pale and covered in blood...but she’s alive and conscious. Her cries of pain and gratitude echo through the enclosed space.
I fade backward as the other people rush forward and stumble to the doorway, where I look out upon the snow-spitting sky and draw in great breaths of the frigid air.
***
A hand reaches out to touch my arm as I grab the shovel. “No. Not tonight.” I turn to find Lily standing there. She’s cleaner than the last time I saw her, and the arms of a brown hooded coat cover her scratches.
“What?”
“We have a different mission for you tonight, Alyss. Come with me.”
Confused, I follow her away from where the others are gathered. The people around us are shrugging on coats and grabbing shovels. There is less hope with each day that passes, but David says we will keep looking until we either find every missing rebel, or the rubble becomes impassable.
Lily leads me to the table, where a small lamp creates a circle of light. A map is spread on it, the one which shows the winding tunnel leading away from the hospital. El is also standing there, and he hands me a backpack as I approach.
“Tonight we’re heading back to the Hill.”
I stare at Lily, rendered mute with surprise. “But we haven’t finished searching the building yet.”
“No, but time is of the essence. The others can dig. We need you and your knowledge on the Hill. We need to find out how the Society found us, and what their plans are. If my suspicions are correct, we also have a limited time in which to get your friends out of the Compound. The Society seems to be eliminating anyone with the slightest hint of information that might work against them.”
“I already drew the map, why do you need me?”
Lily shakes her head. “The map was lost.” Her gaze meets El’s and I wonder what she’s not telling me. “We need you there in person to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We can’t afford to start the plan over a second time.”
I shoot a glance at El, my eyes narrowed. He just shrugs, and pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket. I didn’t realize he kept that. It was just a quick sketch I’ve done of one of the rebels’ babies, intending to give it to the little boy’s mother when it was finished. His calloused thumb, with the dirt of our labor ingrained into every ridge and crevice, passes over the tiny face. “Okay, fine. So what’s the mission?”
She motions for me to move closer to the map, and when I comply, she turns it and points to one section. “This is where our tunnel connects to the hospital. There is a side tunnel, which led to a ladder and manhole cover, but it collapsed when the building did, as did the basement of the hospital itself. While most of the tunnel is clear, it took us nearly two days to dig out. Thankfully, the journey back should be much easier.” She taps the map. “Once you get into the tunnel, it’s a ten-hour walk to get to the Hill. If you move quickly, you can reach the other end by dawn.”
“Surely I’m not going alone?” Her use of pronouns hasn’t escaped me.
“Of course not. El will accompany you. He has made the journey many times. I will follow once I’ve helped David and the other council members get our rescue efforts and plans into a better state of organization. I’ll be a day behind you, at most.”
When I glance back at El, he grins. “Hey, it beats digging.”
His humor seems rather misplaced. Instead of answering, I pick up the pack he handed me and sling it onto my back. It’s light, but our journey should be short. A small lantern swings from a carabiner on the shoulder strap.
“Well? What are we waiting for?”
El and Lily exchange a glance, then El steps forward. “Nothing. I guess we should get going.”
As I walk past Lily, she reaches out and grabs my arm. Her blue eyes meet mine. “Be careful, Alyss. I’ve already lost you once.”
Something stirs a kind of pity within me, and opens a window for me to see past my resentment of the woman who almost killed me, to perceive the one who has spent many years trying to find me. “I will. I promise.”
If there are tears in her eyes as she releases me, she turns away too quickly for me to be sure. El leads the way out onto the snow-coated ground. The clouds from last night are gone, and I lift my face to the silvery moonlight which shimmers over the thin, footprint-studded snow and ice.
El sets out across the open space and I follow. He leads me toward the hospital, then around it to the right. Another building blocks the moonlight as we round another corner, and we both press the button to turn our lamps on. The swinging puddles of light show us the way as we pick through fallen debris. The shadow-strewn land is made more dangerous by the addition of snow, which hides holes in the ground and small bits of rubble that could leave us with a twisted ankle.
The wind is even colder now than it was last night. Someone found me a jacket, and I’ve layered my blanket cape over the top of that, but the breeze bites right through it. I might as well be wearing nothing at all.
By the time we reach the back of the hospital, my eyes ache from trying to avoid the treacherous spots, and I’m shivering with cold. My foot lands the wrong way on a patch of ice and I gasp as my leg twists. My arms flail as I attempt to regain my balance.
A strong hand grasps mine, and El’s cool fingers steady me until I can step to safer ground. His eyes meet mine across the wan lantern light, and for a few seconds he hangs onto my hand before dropping it and turning away.
“Come on. Almost there.”
I follow him, more carefully this time, until he stops and crouches down by a circular depression in the snow. It’s surrounded by much higher than normal piles of rubble, as if the tunnel had vomited bits of dirt and concrete. El pulls his sleeve down to cover his hand and brushes away the powder to reveal a round metal panel. He puts his first two fingers into a ring near one side, and with a heave and a scraping noise, the panel moves. He shoves it to the side, then motions for me to walk forward.
Stepping up beside the dark hole in the ground, I peer at the ladder, which descends into obscurity. A little of my panic from before, when I had to crawl into the tunnel of rubble, creeps up.
El silently lowers himself into the hole and begins to descent the ladder. I take a deep breath, then lower myself to sit with my legs hanging into the void. Once El is far enough down, I swallow my trepidation and brace my hands on either side of the hole until my feet find a ladder rung. I grasp the top bar and follow the young man’s example.
The cold of the rungs sears through my hands as I climb down. After a moment, I hear El hop to the ground, and soon my feet hit dirt. I try to shake the circulation back into my hands, then fumble at the backpack strap to unclip the lamp from the carabiner.
El stands watching me, his head stooped to avoid the low ceiling of the rough dirt tunnel. “You ready?”
I nod. “Lead the way.” I follow as he turns and walks into the darkness. The land down here is no less treacherous than that above. It’s obvious t
his part of the tunnel was caved in and recently cleared. A path between rocks and dirt mounds has been cleared, one barely wide enough for our feet to pass.
Chapter 15: The Hill
Only a few moments elapse before the narrow, rough-walled tunnel opens into a much larger one. This one is more like an underground corridor. There’s enough space for three people to walk side-by-side without touching...or would have been, if this part hadn’t obviously also suffered a cave-in and subsequent cleanout. I have to stand on my toes to reach the ceiling. Giant wooden beams support the ceiling, upheld by thin posts of the same material.
A narrow path leads through piled rock, and one of the beams hangs at an angle from the ceiling, its lower end jagged and torn. My lamplight barely reaches to the spot up ahead where the tunnel becomes clear. Once we reach the clearer portion of the underground corridor, I step forward to walk next to El as he strides along the tunnel with the confidence born of familiarity. Our lamps do little to dispel the darkness, and the dancing shadows give me the constant feeling of something lurking, just waiting to jump out and grab me as I pass by.
This is going to be the longest ten hours ever. As if in protest of our situation, my stomach growls so loudly that El chuckles.
“There’s food in your pack, if you want it.”
I shake my head. I’m too anxious to see this mission over, so I can return to the community of people I’m growing to love. I don’t want to meet this HA they have all put so much faith in, but if I must meet them...might as well get it over with. “I just want to get to the Hill.”
We walk in silence for a while. At least it’s warmer down here, and the air is still. The tunnel makes a wide turn to the right, then another to the left.
“What’s that?” The slightest of breezes touches my skin. “We can’t be there yet.” A deeper shadow clings to the walls at the edge of where our lantern light touches.
El raises his lantern higher, highlighting the spot where our tunnel turns into a deep blackness that the light can’t seem to touch. “Before the Society took over this city, there was a large network of underground train tunnels. They are no longer used now that the Society’s drones and automated cars have taken over.” We walk closer until we stand on the edge where dirt meets gravel, and I peer into the much larger tunnel. Its walls looks identical to the one where the rest of the rebels have taken shelter. The floor of it is made of two concrete ledges which border a track that is much deeper and newer-looking than the one where I’ve spent the last few days.
“If you were to follow this, you would eventually come to a branch which connects with the tunnel where everyone is staying. In fact, they used to use the subway lines to travel, at least until the shortcut was constructed. Some subways connect to the old train lines that were once used for transporting caro. In those days, it took over a day to reach the Hill, and there were still enough Society machines underground to make it dangerous.”
“Why was the Society underground?”
His face is grim as he steps forward, toward the spot where another dark hole gapes on the opposite brick wall. I follow when he leaps down into the depression and steps over the track, then heaves himself up onto the opposite ledge. “When the Society first started pushing embedding, people who had been outspoken against them began disappearing. A lot of others became suspicious and retreated into hiding. The Society spent a lot of time actively searching for them. Some had HA duplicates appear soon after they were captured, which always seemed like the ultimate insult added to injury. It’s like they taunted us by creating these avatars meant to remind us of what we’d lost. It was demoralizing for many. Some of the rebels’ most valued people were turned into HAs that ended up in prominent positions in the Society’s government. We got to see their faces on nearly every government broadcast or news article. We knew it was a message meant for us, since so few HAs keep their ‘original’ appearance once they’re created and the person is killed.”
I follow El through the opening and we resume our trek down the smaller tunnel. “It’s still hard to comprehend that all those people are really dead.”
“It’s hard for us to imagine, and we’ve known it our whole lives.”
We spend the next while in silence. I fall into the rhythm of one foot in front of the other, allowing the dirt floor to blur in front of me as I walk with my eyes unfocused. I ignore the pinch of hunger in my stomach. I don’t want to stop. We can eat when we get there.
The gap marking another subway tunnel appears ahead. If I’m remembering the map correctly, this tunnel marks the near-halfway point.
“Wait.” El’s voice is low, and he extends an arm to block me. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Shh.” He presses the button on his lantern and it switches off, then motions for me to do the same. We’re plunged into darkness.
I strain my ears to hear anything beyond the sound of our breathing. There. El was right. A faint hum mars the heavy silence of the tunnel.
“What is it?” My voice is nothing more than a whisper. I grasp El’s arm to give me some sense of where I am. I’ve never experienced such a complete and utter darkness.
“I think I know. Let me listen.”
We stand frozen as the hum grows gradually louder. El suddenly tenses, and I feel him kneel down. I crouch next to him, trying to figure out from the movement and rustling noises what he’s doing.
“El? What is it?”
“Society drone.” His whisper sends fear running through me. My hands go cold. El shoves something into them, a corner of fabric that’s soft on one side and feels like thin foil on the other. “Get down, and help me spread this over us. Hurry!” His quiet urgency compels me to motion, and I imitate him when he lays down on the ground. I am forced to press my body close to his as he flings the fabric over us with the foil facing upward. The humming continues to grow louder. I lay still, trying not to get in El’s way as he does his best to tuck the sides of the blanket beneath first my body, then his. When he’s finished, we are laying chest to chest with his breath on my cheek and his arm around my waist.
“Don’t move.” His murmur vibrates against my ear as the humming grows ever closer. My brain can’t decide which to focus on more--his proximity, or the danger which approaches in the subway tunnel.
I’ve never been this close to another person before. Let alone a man. I may have grown up in a girls-only compound, but I’ve been given a rudimentary education on hormones and attraction. They never bothered to go into detail, because it wasn’t going to be an issue we’d ever have to deal with. Officially, it was because we’d be embedded. But really we’d just be dead.
My mind continues to latch onto random, irrelevant details of our situations as the sound approaches. The drone must be nearly to our tunnel now. There is a pebble digging into one of my ribs, but I don’t dare move. I never realized anyone could lay as still as El is now. The toe of his boot presses against my shin, another irritation to add to the list. I cycle through the minutia of niggling sensations, trying anything that will force my body to stay still and not draw attention.
The sound suddenly doubles in volume. El’s hand tightens on my waist until he’s grasping a handful of my shirt. It’s at the tunnel. My stomach cramps, and I silently beg it not to growl. I force my breathing to quiet until I start to feel lightheaded. My chest aches for air, and my heart pounds in protestation of the lack of oxygen.
After an agonizing moment, the hum lessens, and I gasp in a deep gulp of air as the drone moves away. I can’t help panting as I try to catch my breath, and El doesn’t seem to be in much better shape. We wait for several more moments until I can no longer hear the drone.
El sits up and flings the blanket off of us, then there’s a click and his lantern turns back on. He sets it on the ground as he works to roll up the blanket. I look on in mingled curiosity and numb relief.
“The reflective surface makes us invisible to the heat sensors.” El shoves the blank
et into his pack, answering the question I haven’t voiced aloud. “You don’t want to know how many people we lost until they figured out what sort of sensor the drones use to search.
“Why here? Why aren’t they doing it aboveground?”
“I don’t know. For computers, they don’t make a lot of sense sometimes.” he rises to his feet and extends a hand to help me up. “We should go. None of the tunnels are safe.”
I let him help me to my feet, then grab his arm as he turns away. “El, wait. How did my first map get lost?”
El sighs. “If you’re asking, you already know.”
“You mean my mother knew the drones were searching the tunnels again and she sent me down here anyway?”
He shrugs. “What else was she supposed to do? None of us are safe. We’re probably closer to safe down here than we would be on the surface, especially if the Society launches another attack.” He pulls his arm out of my grasp. “Now come on. We need to get moving.”
