Beat (14 page)

The elevator stopped.

My finger brushed the tip of the spoke. I reached again, the incredibly awkward position feeling like murder on my right side. Got it.

I yanked the spoke out of my pocket, hiding it between my hands.

Light blasted through all of the pod’s windows. The Enforser squad leader stood waiting with the Enforser closest to the pod’s rear door. While the squad leader waited, the other Enforser punched a round, red button and the pod door vibrated, popped outward a little, and then whirred upward. I guessed it was sliding across the top of the pod. Within moments, a space the width and height of the pod had opened. One of the Enforsers removed the strap around my neck and the cuffs on my wrists and led me out of the pod toward a door guarded by two . . .  things. They were upright but didn’t have legs.

They were a little taller than me, made entirely of a material that looked very hard but wasn’t exactly metal, and had heads with optical sensors all over them. Their “legs” extended maybe a meter. But the legs ended at a triangular-shaped track. They reminded me of the tanks in the history textbooks. Between the two tracks that each machine had was a variety of machinery, with a few wheels. The guards’ torsos were completely smooth and matte black. They reminded me of the Keepers and my stomach lurched. But as we approached, the material covering the torsos opened up, and two long arms extended. As I watched, a long barrel extended from one arm while an oblong tool with a few gold lights on it folded out from the other arm.

I glanced around the platform we stood on, letting my eyes wander up. The pod elevator had dropped around fifty meters and was now level with a narrow platform. Somewhere above us, light from Prime One combined with a pale blue fixture inset into the concrete of the elevator shaft, which meant that there were pretty much no shadows. 

If I was going to be searched, now was the time. My hands were in front of me at the bottom of my zip. I scanned quickly; all of the Enforsers were watching the guard robots as we approached the door. I quickly straightened the spoke as much as I could and then, using my right hand to hold the bottom of my zip, jabbed the spoke up just inside the cloth. If I could slide the spoke up next to the metal zipper, a sensor shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

We advanced. The Enforsers weren’t being scanned, but they were herding me right at the robots. My heart hammered wildly. I finally succeeded in pushing the spoke up inside the fabric of my zip and slid it up as fast as I could.

No more time.

The robot on the right lifted its glowing tool to the top of my head and then in front of my face. Thin arms shot out from either end of the tool, startling me and making me jump. I gripped at least ten centimeters of the spoke in my hands still and tried to push it up some more without showing any movement. I heard the arms of the tool connect as they finished circling my head. As the sensor, tool lowered, the arms extended and retracted, following the contours of my shoulders, arms, and torso. The sensor beeped softly when it got to the top of my zipper and continued beeping. By the time the sensor got to my midriff, I held just a little of the spoke in my hand still. I hoped it was enough.

Beeping softly, the sensor continued down all the way to my feet, the arm of the robot extending with a low whir. The sensor arms retracted, and folded back into the arm of the robot. “Clear.” The voice was metallic and cold.

I let out my held breath quietly.

“Non-metallic substance, left midriff.” The cold voice sent tingles down my spine. Very creepy.

The nearest Enforser to me stood in front of me and roughly patted my left side, coming to my pocket quickly. He yanked out the pouch, opened it, and pulled out one of the silvery packets. “Just food packets.” He handed the pouch to the squad leader and then headed back to the Enforser pod.

The door slid open, revealing a long hallway lit with lights the color of the snow that we sometimes saw on mountains. Another robot guard, which had obviously just arrived, whirred to a stop just inside the corridor. I was pushed roughly forward through the door.

“Follow.” The new robot’s voice was the same as that of the other. The small triumph of having hidden the spoke was totally swallowed in the fear that filled me at these machines. I’d never heard of this kind of thing. The New Chapter had plenty of machinery and used robotic tools, but I’d never seen anything like this or heard anyone ever talk about them.

The door back to the elevator shaft slid closed, trapping me in a very long hallway, following a freaky-looking robot that rolled forward in almost complete silence.

One thought chased another around my head, and I was unable to dislodge the cold knot of fear that had settled into my stomach. I was being taken to the Prime Administrator, or maybe someone else high up in the ranks of New Frisko’s bosses. The hallway felt cold, impersonal. A few doors lined the walls to the left and right, but they were almost unnoticeable in that they were the same pale white color as the walls, floor and ceiling. If I squinted, I felt like everything would blend into a colorless blur. Couldn’t the Prime Administrator afford to decorate a little? A little paint . . .

The idea was interrupted by the robot escort drawing to a whirring stop in front of the door that was the end of the hallway. For a moment, the complete silence left me feeling suspended, in some kind of stasis.

Then the door disappeared into a wall with a soft hiss and yellow light spilled out.

“Proceed.” The robot’s voice clanged metallically. I was almost happy to obey, despite not knowing what was coming. I passed through the doorway and found myself in a medium-sized room that couldn’t have been much bigger than my bedroom. Only where my bed would have been was a glass-looking table that seemed to sprout from a wall. The table doubled as a skreen, as countless icons and images and lists fluttered across its surface. I looked around as the door slid shut behind me. The walls of this room were pale to the point of almost having no color, but what color was there was green. Recessed yellow lights illuminated several doors, one of them looking a lot like an elevator’s doors.

“Proceed to the desk.”

The voice came from above. I looked up, noticing small, circular spots of mesh, maybe six of them, scattered about the ceiling. Speakers.

I obeyed, confused. It seemed like there were no humans down here.

The moment I stood next to the desk, a panel opened in the nearby wall and a skinny, polished metal arm extended. It was shinier than the chrome I had seen sometimes in the Enjineering Dome. An optical sensor opened at the end of the arm, casting a gold light on my face, making me blink. The sensor slid down, maybe ten centimeters in front of my body, until it came to my hands. Had it noticed the spoke?

“Nik Granjer. Identity confirmed.” The voice came from the speakers again. “Personal Assistant inoperable.”

I felt a brief wave of relief, but couldn’t dispel my growing sense of unease. I was sure the Prime Administrator was supposed to be down here.

Another panel opened in the wall to my right, this one about a meter below the previous one. Another practically glowing arm extended, this one fast, and stopped at my Papa. I saw the optical sensor it must have been using to know where it was going, but only briefly, because the end of the arm flipped into the body of the arm, then swiveled almost noiselessly. A moment later, another tool flipped out of the arm and glowed for a moment. The arm slid back into the wall.

“Proceed.” This time the voice was accompanied by another soft hiss and a door a few meters along the wall from the desk was swallowed into the wall.

I swallowed, my heart thudding heavily. What were they going to do to me?

The open doorway seemed to beckon me forward, but I hesitated, tempted to turn and run.  The Enforsers had started by trying to kill me, but if the New Chapter wanted me dead, you’d think the Enforsers wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing me back to New Frisko.

They had to want me alive now for some reason.

But I had no idea why. A sour tasted filled my mouth. I couldn’t go in there. But if I ran, they might actually kill me.

“Proceed.” The voice clanged from the speakers in the ceiling.

“I’d rather not.” The words had to squeeze through my tight throat. I forced a laugh. I was arguing with speakers.

I couldn’t just stand there.

I stepped forward, my legs shaky. No. They’d been controlling my life, the life of everyone I knew, for as long as I remembered. In a way, they controlled the Wanderers, too. I couldn’t let the fear that bubbled in my chest control me. Besides, if I was immune, I could help everyone. Right? No, that was stupid. The Wanderers couldn’t all be immune. Either they were or the Bug was gone.

But then there was Bren, dead from the Bug.

I tried to make my next step firmer. By the time I passed through the doorway, the strength had come back to my legs. I straightened my back and looked around. I was in some kind of closet-sized space. But it was shaped like a cylinder and lit by only one inset light directly above me. Colored lights flashed all around me, with soft pops and hisses accompanying the blinding explosions.

“Proceed.”

A door in front of me slid into the wall. The room on the other side was well lit. I stepped through and glanced left and right. The room had four walls, three of them covered with multiple flat skreens. The door I’d come through was at the corner of two walls. If I turned left, I’d walk directly into a wall; the room was laid out to my right. I turned.

A wide desk of the same clear material I’d seen earlier, kind of like glass, but not as glossy, sat in front of a wall that looked to be one big window. The view outside was of trees and mountains, with a sky of a perfect blue.

But we were at least a hundred feet below ground.

That had to be one giant skreen, not a window.

I had avoided looking at the man behind the desk for as long as I could. The Prime Administrator. He sat there looking at me through narrowed eyes. I’d seen his face plenty on skreens around the city, but in person, he seemed a little thinner, his low, flat cheekbones more pronounced. The way he sat in his white chair, staring at me, his head thrown slightly back made it seem like he was literally looking down his nose at me.

“Mr. Granjer.” He stood, his voice instantly familiar. I’d heard him explain directives and rules hundreds, maybe thousands of times. A little bit nasal, and fairly high-pitched, he sounded younger than his years. He had to be around fifty.

The Prime Administrator held out his hand. “I am glad to finally meet you.”

“What?” Why was he being so polite?

He smiled. “I see you are confused. No surprise, of course. There’s just been the most dreadful of communication breakdowns.” His hand dropped to his side. He sat. “Please, join me.”

It sounded like he’d practiced each word a hundred times.

His hand brushed a spot on his desk and a section of the floor bulged upward, resolving into the shape of a chair.
Bug me. That’s amazing.
My mind raced. Nobody had tried to kill me in over an hour, or betrayed me for that long. Something awful had to happen soon. I scanned the room, noticing another door on the wall with the doorway I’d come through. This new door was in the opposite corner. There was another door behind and to the Prime Administrator’s right, also in the corner.

“Mr. Granjer, I assure you nobody is going to hurt you.”

I met the man’s gaze, took a breath, and sat on the incredible chair. I’d never seen morphing material like that. “That’d be new.”

He laughed. No, he actually chortled, his hands going to his stomach and his mouth stretching wide. I felt like a cold, oily drop of something slithered down my spine.

“Yes. Again, that is all due to a very unpleasant breakdown of communications.”

I stared at him. “Being shot at? By real bullets? And being attacked by a bunch of Ranjers? And then being kidnapped and brought here?” I had to take a ragged breath, try to slow down. I felt my pulse behind my eyes. “That’s either a breakdown of communications or . . . ” I had no idea how to finish the sentence. I glared at the Prime Administrator. “My friend’s dead.”

“Yes.” The man’s face changed somewhat, the ends of his mouth turning down a little and his eyes closing once, briefly. “What a terrible thing.” Every word, every movement of the man seemed completely rehearsed. There was something very wrong here.

“Well how’d he die and not me? How’d the Bug get him and not me?”

A moment passed. “We are still unsure. Perhaps you are somehow immune to the virus.”

“If I’m immune, then so are all the Wanderers!”

“The Wanderers are a myth.” The response came rapid-fire, automatically.

Fury pushed me to my feet. I felt my face grow hot. “Spam! I was with them, met them. They gave me food.”

The Prime Administrator didn’t react to my shouting. “Impossible. Anyone living outside of the New Chapter would be unsafe and would die within days.” He said this as if it were fact. He had to know I wasn’t lying.

I opened my mouth, trying to figure out what to shout at him next.

Wait.

I’d heard that before. I’d heard his voice say those exact words before. At least once or twice. The oily feeling slid further down my spine.

“Wrong. That’s just completely stupidly wrong. I just survived for almost a day out there.”

A moment of silence. “We would like to understand why. We think you can help us finally destroy the Bug.”

That set me back and I sat again. “I don’t believe you.”

“I assure you I am speaking the truth.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Mr. Granjer.” The Prime Administrator stood and strode out from behind his desk, sliding his hand along one edge. A wall of skreens turned on, with images of people clarifying almost immediately. I recognized the exterior of the School Dome and even felt like some of the faces I saw were familiar. Other images, obviously from all over New Frisko, filled the rest of the skreens on the wall. “You might have the opportunity to change the lives of these people significantly. But we need you to cooperate and help us keep everyone calm.”

“Keep them calm?”
Better safe than sorry, better calm than dead.
The motto of the New Chapter flashed through my head. “What do you mean?”

“People are aware of Bren Radklif’s death. There are rumors that the knockout didn’t work and that the Bug killed him.”

Those weren’t rumors. The knockout didn’t work because of
me
. I shook the grief away. “He
did
die of the Bug.”

“Certainly.” The man, who stood a maybe a couple of centimeters taller than me, raised his arm toward the wall of skreens. “But these people, your friends and family, are worried that they are in danger now, too. They are not sure they should trust the knockout. But of course they should.” He gestured at the skreens. “Here they are, living productive lives. I see them each day of their lives, here in my office. I know that they need to trust that we as the leaders of the New Chapter have their best interests in mind and are trying to keep them safe.”

I wanted to argue with him, but couldn’t find anything to say. “So?”

“We know you were there with Mr. Radklif when he died. We have talked to the others in your little group.”

A memory of Pol, Melisa, and Koner, all of them staring at me in surprise last night, flashed behind my eyes. “What?”

“They were very forthcoming about your activities of that night. They have returned to their productive and calm lives.”

“But you had to know we’d been doing that for a while. The Papas tell you where we are.” I stared at the man. “Don’t they?”

“Of course. It was harmless play until you found a way to endanger yourselves by avoiding the knockout injection.” He stared at me. “The people of our New Chapter need your help now, Mr. Granjer.”

Feeling antsy at having to look up at him while he strode back and forth in front of the skreens, I stood too. “With what?”

A moment of silence passed, then stretched uncomfortably while the man looked at me with his brow furrowed. Finally, he spoke again. “The people of our New Chapter need your help now, Mr. Granjer. They need to be reassured.”

“What do you mean?”

“We want you to tell them the story of that night. Tell them that the knockout injection works, but that Mr. Radklif found a way to avoid the injection.”

“What about me?” I couldn’t believe they seriously wanted me to just tell the truth.. Something else had to be going on. I couldn’t deny the fact that I wanted the world to know how Bren had died. Maybe revealing the secret would take the guilt away.

I glanced at the skreens, the images of people going about their ordered, calm lives in New Frisko. In several images, there were small clusters of people gathered around public skreens, obviously listening anxiously to whatever the Speekers were saying. As the Prime Administrator spoke, I scanned the rest of the skreens, noting the familiar faces.

“That, unfortunately, is where we must bend the truth a little. For the good of the New Chapter. We would ask you not to talk about your experience. Your friends have agreed to this, for the good of our society. We ask that you tell this helpful untruth to help your people. In addition, we need to study you and discover whether you really are immune to the Bug.”

A skreen about halfway up the wall, toward the right side, caught my eye. Hope Park at night time. The surveillance camera must have been panning, because the image moved steadily left. What I saw next took my breath away. I fought to control my expression.

I floundered for something to say to fill the silence. “S-study me? You mean cut me open?”