I release myself and let my eyes adjust to survey the area. The pit is narrow but long, a tunnel within the tunnel I’m already in. It stretches out seemingly infinitely on either side.
I quickly recollect a history lesson we were given on the Skyline Transfer. Our teacher told us that the technology was loosely based on the underground train systems that used to run underneath all the major cities, a maze of connecting tunnels and shafts. When solar power became the name of the energy game and cities took to the skies, however, the underground system was shut down. The tracks were pulled up to be recycled and the entrances were sealed off. Thus, the Skyline Transfer was born and the rest fell into the history books.
As if on cue, the flashlight beams suddenly brighten. Across the pit, I can see the entrance to another tunnel on the opposite platform. I can only pray there’s a stairway that leads back to the surface at the end of it.
The surface. I never thought I’d want to feel the blistering sun so badly.
I stumble forward across the pit until I hit the platform on the other side, but my arms give out when I try to hoist myself up. My head bangs against the edge of the platform as my hand slips out from under me. I squeeze my eyelids tightly shut to halt the prickle of tears that immediately spring up in response to the pain. When I reopen my eyes, my vision is slashed with streaks of white. I try to lift myself onto the platform again, to no avail. I can’t get up. With my head pulsing and the raiders closing in, I blindly choose a direction and set off down the tunnel.
I see the tunnel suddenly illuminate around me before I hear the raider’s yell.
“Got her!” The sound is victorious and terrifying. With the flashlight lighting my path from behind, I immediately understand why. An enormous wall made up of huge metal panels stands twenty feet in front of me, blocking off the rest of the tunnel from top to bottom.
“No…” A small cry escapes my lips. Barricaded in front, raiders at my back. There’s nowhere left to run. I reach the wall and pound on it hopelessly, my fists echoing against the steel. The adrenaline that has been propelling me drains from my body as my impending defeat washes over me. A muffled ringing fills my ears, pressing against my brain, and I feel an icy chill in my cheeks, which should still be hot from the chase. The throbbing rhythm in my head calls forth a cool darkness that begins to seep into the edges of my consciousness.
A surge of light suddenly blinds me. Strong arms wrap around me, wrenching me from the wall. The arms are bare; I can feel the smooth skin against my own. I wonder with detached interest why the raiders would take off their jackets after going through the trouble of using masks and gloves up top.
My instincts tell me to struggle but it just seems so futile, I simply let my captor pull me back. Through the fog of the spreading blackness, I hear screams of outrage.
Why are they mad? They’ve caught me.
I am shoved from behind and burst through a door into impossible sunlight. I blink rapidly; my eyes, adjusted for the blackness of the tunnel, burn in response to the sudden brightness. I reach up to rub them and find them wet. The light must be making them water. Yes, that must be it.
A heavy hammering echoes from behind me, fists banging against metal, but the darkness and pain in my head has consumed me. I spin around just in time to see bare arms reaching for me, before I crumple to the ground.
Chapter 6
My head throbs. It is a relentless, pounding ache—the kind that starts in one spot but slowly spreads with each pulse. A twinge in my throat tells me that I’m thirsty, too. Really thirsty. How long was I out?
I am lying down, I know that much. I feel like I’m level with the ground, but something softer than dirt cushions the length of my body. The backs of my eyelids are a bright, fiery red; apparently, I didn’t hallucinate the brightness that encompassed me before I passed out. I try to remember those last moments in the tunnel, but everything is still fuzzy.
Green. I remember seeing the color green before I blacked out. There was green and there was sunlight and there was… someone.
My eyes fly open. The eruption of light forces me to immediately shut them again. The cursory glimpse, paired with my instincts, tells me that I am alone… but I could have sworn there was someone else. Someone who caught me before I fell. A raider? Couldn’t be. Aside from my head, parched throat, and the soreness I can already feel in my muscles, I am completely unharmed. I highly doubt that after the chase I gave them they would do me the courtesy of letting me die by way of headache.
I squint as I try to open my eyes again. I don’t understand how I’m back outside. The last thing I remember is pounding against the metal wall in the subway tunnel as the raiders closed in. It had felt like a death sentence, yet somehow I made it back to the surface? And not just back to the ruins from where I descended either; I must be back outside of the District. My hasty preview of the area overhead was decidedly lacking in tall, dilapidated buildings.
I shake my head, trying to make sense of my fuzzy thoughts, and immediately regret it.
Ow.
I wince and raise a hand to cover my brow.
With the smallest movement I can manage, I lift my head and slowly reopen my eyes. I soak in my surroundings, quickly realizing why the color green sticks out so vividly in my memory: it is everywhere.
My senses are on overload. Green covers the ground. It lines the edges of a small, clear, freestanding pool of water that sits a few yards away. It bursts from the tips of trees in the background.
I’ve never seen so much green. I’ve never been anywhere so much green
exists
. In addition to news, reality shows, and occasional specials the Tribunal airs on TV, they often feature educational programming. The topics range from the history of the Skyfall to the water purification and food manufacturing processes. Once, during a show that focused on the latter, I saw shots of an agricultural plant on the skycity, Daedryl. Up there, above the cloud layer—where the rain can’t burn through them—things grow.
It’s too expensive to transport the fresh stuff to the groundworld, of course, but at least this way we could see what it looked like in its natural state, before it is turned into the nutrient-rich but thoroughly disgusting stuff we terrestrials subsist on. Given the unceasing dusty brownness of the groundworld, my favorite part of the program was the colors of the produce: vibrant reds, oranges, and, of course, greens. That was nothing compared to what I’m seeing now.
I prop myself up on my elbow a little too quickly; the change in elevation causes pain to immediately rush to my temple. As I wait for the ache to subside, I flex my hand against the green ground and feel soft, springy blades poke up in the spaces between my fingers. I grasp one and try to pull it up, but it tears halfway down, leaving behind a tiny jagged base that I quickly lose sight of as the rest of the blades sway in the breeze and swallow it up. Grass. Not the fake plastic turf that decorates skycity residences. Real grass.
As I sit up, I watch in wonder as the breeze slowly sweeps across the ground, skimming the surface of the pool and causing delicate ripples to spread across the water. The air is so clear and weightless, I’ve barely noticed it until now. I suck in a deep breath, amazed at the temperature. It’s cool and dry, so unlike the stifling air I’m used to. It might even feel cold, if I didn’t have the sun pleasantly warming my skin.
Ha,
I scoff mentally.
Never thought there’d be a day when I’d consider the sun pleasant.
I turn my eyes skyward, only to realize that, while I can see the effects of its illumination and can feel its rays beaming on my back, there’s no actual sun in sight. The sky is vividly blue but entirely empty.
I stand up, slowly. The ache in my head has dwindled to a soft thumping, but the thirst burning in my throat is more acute now. I look longingly at the clear water in the pond, almost within reach, and desperately wish it were filtered and safe to drink. I force myself to look away. It’s then that I see it: the metal barricade behind me, an exact copy of the one that had barred my way in the underground tunnel. It suddenly occurs to me that I may not have made it to the surface after all.
The wall stretches twenty feet straight up, made of dark matte metal panels bolted to one another with shiny silver rivets. At the top, incredibly, it seems to meld right into the calm blue sky. Lush landscape stretches on all sides. It’s as if the plates just happened to fall into place in that spot—an expanse of exposed metal unattached to anything. I’m not sure how it’s even staying upright.
I walk over to the wall and touch a single finger to its surface. I trace a line along the cool metal and, upon reaching the edge, attempt to curl the rest of my fingers around the side. My fingers hit firm resistance in what should be thin air. I push against the spot with both hands. Beneath my palms, I feel the same smooth metal, even though my eyes tell me that I should be falling forward into the open space.
I step back and blink, slowly and purposefully. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought. I run my eyes up the wall in disbelief. Where I had thought that the landscape continued beyond, I now see that it ends right in front of me. It’s so subtle I probably would never have noticed if I weren’t standing inches from it. I can just barely make out where the cloudless sky ends—right where it meets the panels at the top of the wall.
I pound on the fake landscape lightly. A moment passes. Then something on the other side thumps back at me, hard.
“What in the name of…?” I back away from the boundary, unable to look away. My feet stutter as I collide with something behind me.
“Pretty neat, isn’t it?” The voice, soft and calm in my ear, immediately sets me back on red alert. I have backed up into not some
thing
, but some
one.
Instinct takes over, and before my brain can fully react, my fist swings up behind my head. It connects with something soft but firm, and I hear a stunned yelp as I pull away. I swivel around, both of my hands curled into fists and raised comically in front of me like I’m prepared to box with the stranger.
“What the hell!” He is bent over, his hands at his face. “You’re a lot stronger than you look,” he mumbles into his palms.
The stranger in front of me is pale. The light skin covering his arms is smooth and spotless, starkly lacking the freckles that pepper my own golden skin.
“Who are you?” I shout. He ignores the question as he straightens up, one hand grazing against his ribs, like he’s checking for something, the other still prodding gently at his mouth. Part of me notes with satisfaction that his lower lip is bleeding.
He runs his other hand over his head, brushing his fingers through cropped blond hair, still mumbling. The words “grateful” and “know better” jump out at me.
The stranger looks to be about my age, maybe a little older. He’s a full head taller than me. His blue eyes, squinting in pain, are framed with thick, dark blond lashes. His eyes simultaneously alarm and fascinate me. They’re blue, so it’s clear he’s a skyboy. But his eyes are not the icy, fragile blue that peers out from the eyes of elite skydwellers like the Primes of the Tribunal or the Elders—those that have never even set foot on the ground. It’s a bold, iridescent hue I have never seen before—swirls of cobalt and indigo, sapphire and cerulean.
He releases his face to hold up his arms, palms out in surrender. Through the fabric of his shirt—a thin, metallic weave I’m not familiar with—I can see the outline of the muscles in his forearms, flexed in response to my attack. His nostrils flare with each sharp intake of breath, and his expression seems to fall somewhere between fear and curiosity.
I decide that he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to attack. He certainly doesn’t look like a raider, at any rate. I drop my arms but keep them loose and ready.
“Who are you?” I ask again, sharply.
He doesn’t respond.
“What is this place? Where am I?”
After what feels like an inappropriately long pause, he draws a slow breath. “Earth?” His voice is smooth and rich behind his apprehension.
I groan and lift a hand to my face, pinching the bridge of my nose in exasperation. “Fantastic,” I grumble. “I’m having some sort of dehydration-induced hallucination with a total stranger, but at least he’s providing comic relief.”
“Who are you?” he asks.
“I asked you first,” I retort. His mouth curves up slightly, fighting a nervous grin. He looks at me amusedly and we stand for another few moments in a silent stalemate.
“My name is Adam,” he says finally.
“Wow,” I say, failing to stifle a giggle that burns my dry throat.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just that I don’t think I’ve met anyone under the age of 80 named Adam,” I say deliriously. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve met anyone with that name, period. Guess your parents must have a serious soft spot for old-fashioned stuff, huh?”
“Must be,” he says, frowning slightly.
“So Adam,” I can’t help chuckling when I say his name, “What exactly are you doing here?”
He says nothing and my frustration returns.
“At the very least, can you tell me what the hell that is?” I jab a finger in the direction of the wall, still looming ominously over us.
“It’s a wall,” he says slowly.
I stare at him. “I know it’s a wall. You said something about it back there before I, um…” I glance guiltily at the fresh split in his bottom lip and trail off. “What, uh, what did you mean?”
“You already figured it out, didn’t you? I saw you pushing on the camouflage. We’re not actually outside.”
Even though I had already considered the possibility, it is still jarring to hear my theory confirmed. “So, right now, we’re still underground?”
“Of course,” he replies as if this is a perfectly natural thing. “This is just a really well-made encapsulation dome,” he continues, looking around speculatively. “I’ve never seen one quite this… beautiful before. Usually it’s more obvious where the boundary is, but this is pretty finessed. I mean, obviously, these panels right here are broken,” he walks over and runs his hand down the front, “but it does make it easier to find the door.”