The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (11 page)

“You're almost there. You should see a mesh wire covering the opening to a horizontal shaft just above you.”

Sure enough, a few feet above me the glowing arrow points at a ventilation shaft. Warm air blows across the sewage drain. My legs shove upward and I'm looking into the blowing breeze, enjoying the heated air as it tickles my shivering skin.

I stick my fingers through the wire cover and yank on it as hard as I can. The cage-like fence bends outward before popping free. I let it drop down the shaft. It sends a loud scraping noise echoing through the chamber as it falls past each floor. With a final heave, I manage to wedge my elbows inside the opening and lift the rest of my body inside. My arms and legs melt on to the floor, every muscle accepting my weakness.

“You need to keep moving.”

“I can't,” I say, barely able to catch enough breath to speak.

“Opening your door alerted security.”

“Give me a second.”

“We don't have a second. It will only be a matter of time before they send search drones into the ventilation shafts.”

“Where am I going? What's your plan? I can't go through any checkpoints without them scanning my nanomachines. They'll find me eventually.”

“We need to get you to another tower so you can get aboard a train.”

My eyes blink open. I've never been on a train before. Not in the real world. I've never wanted to go anywhere that would require that kind of transportation.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“What does that mean?”

“You'll be in NextWorld eventually. That's all that matters.”

They're right. Whoever is sending this text is speaking to me in a logical way that I can appreciate. It doesn't leave any room for doubt. I push forward. Like a machine.

The heat of the ventilation shaft is nice at first, but soon my body is sweating. My skin swells. My lips grow chapped and my mouth drys out. I'm scampering through the shaft, trying to get to my destination quicker.

When I see an opening in the floor of the shaft ahead of me, I move faster. I press my face against the metal cage that covers the opening, trying to suck in some of the colder air from outside.

“Back up!” appears in front of my face, but the cool air feels so good that I ignore it.

“It's that politician's kid,” I hear a voice say from directly below me.

I open my eyes and look down on a group of five armed officers from the DgS. The visors that normally shield their faces are casually raised as they talk to each other.

“You mean that twerp that logged-in to that game for all those years?”

“That's the one.”

“You realize they've been paying for that kid to play games all day with our global credit budget?”

“Oh, I know. I've been telling my partner for years that they should just unplug him and see what happens.”

“That'd fry his nanomachines.”

“Who cares? Just because his father is some kind of bigwig in DOTgov, that don't mean he should get any kind of special treatment. What do you think they would do if one of
our
kids got trapped in there? They'd turn them into a vegetable before we knew what was what.”

“Still don't make it right.”

I'm so lost in the conversation that I don't realize how much of my sweat is dripping through the mesh wire covering. A rather large droplet hangs from the tip of my nose, but before I can wipe it away, it breaks loose and plops on to one of the officer's forehead. She looks startled for a moment and when she peers up to see where the drip came from, I push myself away from the opening. I think I move quickly enough for her not to see me, but the sudden shift of my weight makes the thin metal bend underneath me.

The text changes to: “GO! GO! GO!”

I lunge down the chamber on my hands and knees as I hear one of the officers yell out, “He's in the ventilation shaft!”

I can hear shouting through the metal walls of the ventilation shaft. Security guards are yelling at each other in the hallway below me. They're trying to follow my movements, trying to figure out where I'm going to end up. It sounds far from organized. Some of them think I'm heading toward higher levels. Some of them think I'm heading toward lower levels. When they decide on their own courses of action, they spread out in multiple directions.

“You're lucky.”

“No matter how many times people try to tell me that, I still don't believe it.”

“You're going to be a lot less lucky if those guards catch you.”

I can't argue with that.

At the end of another long chamber, there is a large fan spinning, cutting through the beams of light from the other side. There are no other chambers leading off of this one.

“Now what?” I say, annoyed that the glowing arrow led me down a dead end.

“Keep going.”

“I can't. There's a fan blocking my path.”

“Go through it.”

I actually laugh. It's a cold, dark laugh, but it's still odd. I'm not sure I remember the last time I laughed. Not in the real world anyway.

“I
can't
go through it. The fan is active. I mean, if I go through it, this conversation is going to get cut short. Along with my neck.”

“It's timing.”

“Timing?”

“Think of it like a game. The blade rotation isn't random. Just time your movements.”

“You're insane. I'm not going to-”

I hear a buzzing sound behind me. The noise is bouncing off the metal interior of the ventilation shaft, making it impossible for me to gauge how far away it actually is.

“Drones,” I whisper.

“You need to move. Now.”

I look back at the fan and curse under my breath. This isn't a game. This isn't fun. This is real life, and I hate it.

The closer I get to the blades, the more they blur together. The heat is blowing right in my face, making my eyes water. I look down at the bottom edge of the circular opening, trying to focus on each singular blade as it swoops past. I try to count, to find the pause between each rotation, but it's too fast. There's no way I'm going to fit my entire body through the gap.

“I can't do this.”

“You have to.”

The buzzing sound from behind me grows louder. A small machine floats around the corner. Four propellers keep it aloft and a bright light sits under the front-mounted camera. It points directly at me.

“Go!”

I turn back to the fan, trying to push myself forward, to summon the bravery to leap through the decapitating machine, but I can't. My brain won't let me. It's impossible.

The drone slides through the ventilation shaft with ease. Its approach is calculated, zooming in on my image. It stops a few feet away, keeping me centered in the camera's view.

I glance at the fan, then back at the drone. With a quick lunge, I grip on to the sides of the drone and yank it toward me. The propellers spin faster as it tries to fly away from me, but I don't give it the chance. I throw it the other way, toward the fan. The large blades hack through one of the drone's propellers and tear it off. The fan drags the body of the drone with the rotation, wedging it inside the track of the fan's blades. The fan screeches to a halt. I don't hesitate. I jump through the stalled blades. As soon as I'm on the other side, the fan manages to rip the drone free and continue spinning.

“Nicely done.”

I exhale and say, “Two birds. One stone.”

The arrow leads me through more of the maze of ventilation shafts until I reach another mesh wire opening. I approach it slowly and peer through the cage. It looks out into a huge vertical chamber with tracks running up and down the walls. I'm not sure what I'm looking at until an elevator rushes past at an incredible speed. Another one drops down the other side.

“We need to get you to the upper floors.”

“You want me to take an elevator?”

“You can't go inside them. They'll scan your nanomachines.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

The dramatic pause before the text appears makes me nervous. For good reason.

“You need to jump on top.”

“Okay,” I say leaning back. “I had a hunch when you tried to get me to jump through that fan, but now I'm sure of it. You're trying to kill me.”

“There's no other way to go up.”

“Then I guess we're done. I lose.”

“If I thought giving up or losing was an option for you, I wouldn't have tried.”

Another elevator rushes past the opening. The entire ventilation shaft shakes.

“If one of those things hits me, I'm going to be a stain. A big, red stain.”

“You need to be smart about it.”

“Going anywhere near that opening is probably the stupidest thing I could do.”

“You're wasting time. Time that Cyren doesn't have.”

I clench my fist and bang it on the metal wall. Seeing her name causes such an emotional upheaval inside me that even if there was a slight chance of saving her, I'd be willing to throw myself down the shaft and just hope I land on my feet. Whoever is sending this text knows that.

I push my face against the mesh wire and watch another elevator rush past, speeding upward like a rocket. Another elevator drops toward the lower levels at the same speed. My gamer brain clicks in. Strategies flow through me. Calculations and patterns.

“If I step on to an elevator lifting into the air, I'm going to die. It will splatter me. But if I drop on to an elevator that's lowering... I should catch up to it and land softly.” I shut my eyes, not believing the words coming out of my mouth. “I hope.”

“Now you're using your brain.”

“No. My brain is telling me to stop listening to you. This is my stupid, stupid heart talking.”

I shuffle around inside the tight chamber until my legs are in front of me. With a few swift kicks, I manage to knock the covering off the opening. I watch as it falls down the elevator shaft, disappearing into the bottomless pit. I look up, waiting to see an elevator approaching. One rushes past, but I hesitate too long. Luckily I manage to stop myself from leaping out. If I don't time it correctly, I'm going to fall too far, too fast, and slam into the top of the elevator.

A big, red stain.

Another elevator drops toward me and I count silently. One, two, three. When the roof passes by, I shut my eyes, picture Cyren's smile, and jump out into the open air.

It's much cooler in the elevator shaft, which is a nice feeling as I plummet to my death. The cold is surging past me. I try to take a breath, but I can't breathe. There's too much pressure on my chest. Is that panic? I'm going to die. What did I do? What was I thinking?

Ten, twenty, thirty floors rush past. The minimal lighting blurs together as my speed builds. The details of my death become a stream of color and sound that detaches me from what I'm doing.

I force the panic out of my head and start to think straight. Rolling in mid-air, I tuck my legs under me. My toes touch something. It's the metal roof of the elevator, descending right below me. We've been dropping at the same speed, but it's slowing down. My feet press down on the roof. My heels set down. My knees gradually bend, allowing my weightless body to grip on to the ridged metal. It takes another twenty floors, but eventually gravity returns and I settle on to the roof. When I stop moving completely, my lungs heave, taking in quick, strained breaths. Between the tiny, frenzied gasps of air, I manage to read the text floating in front of me.

“Wow. I can't believe that worked.”

I'm about to yell out at the text when the elevator surges into motion. The speed flattens me against the roof when the elevator lifts upward. The rush is so intense, that I have to close my eyes and pretend I'm somewhere else. Thankfully, it doesn't last long. The elevator slows, just like it did when going down.

“Okay. This floor should work.”

The glowing arrow appears again, pointing at another hatch. There's a label, but it's old and faded. I can't read any of the print below the word: “Warning.”

“What is this?”

“It's an emergency release valve. In case the elevator shaft ever got flooded.”

“I don't understand,” I say, squinting my eyes and trying to read the label again. “Where does it go?”

Even when I read the text for a second time, I don't believe what I'm seeing.

“It goes outside.”

“We don't have time to argue,” the text appears while I'm yelling objections at it. “This elevator isn't going to sit here and wait for you.”

I slam my hand against the warning label and yell, “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because it's the only way out.”

“I'll die.”

“No, you won't.”

“It's the outside!”

“You won't be out there long.”

“No!” I yell, then in a whisper I say, “I'm scared.”

“Trust me. I've gotten you this far.”

“No,
I've
gotten me this far. You've just been directing me toward one death trap after another.”

“I never said it would be easy.”

“But-”

“Cyren can't afford the time we're wasting.”

I take a deep breath, trying to bottle my fear as I grit my teeth and pull the lever on the hatch. The door swings open with a loud, wrenching creak, like no one has oiled it in decades. Inside is a long, dark tube, rusted and unused. I crawl inside, but my shoulder width barely fits. I have to wrestle to get my entire body inside. A panicked sense of claustrophobia tries to back me out, but I close my eyes and force myself deeper. Once I'm a few yards in, all I can see is the text, hovering inside my eyes.

“100 yards.”

“Is that all?”

I wiggle and worm my way through every yard, like vitapaste trying to free itself from the tube. Eventually I spot a point of light in the distance. It grows with every push forward, beckoning me closer. By the time I get near, I see a yellow utility bulb over yet another hatch. I wrestle my arm out from under my body and grab on to the handle.

“Wait!” appears in front of me.

“What now?”

“That's the last door before you're outside.”

I pull my hand away.

“There are no sensors outside the tower, so I'm going to lose contact with your nanomachines, but it's okay. Follow the ledge to your right, cross the train bridge, and enter the hatch in the adjoining tower.”