Revolution in the Underground (13 page)

Ember, who was trying all he could to maintain a sense of individuality, found some success in repeating words over and over again like a mantra—but even then, his words fell slave to the rhythm of the music.  He knew not what he was saying nor why he wanted to say it.  Any chance that Ember had in retaining his rationality was quickly lost by the sight of a shirtless, hairy chested man who was standing on top of a wobbly table with a giant foam lizard mask around his head.

As it happened, Maggie, who had just recently been set down from the haze of hands, also noticed the strange lizard man who was now nodding his head to the beat of the music and throwing sparkly confetti into the air.  Maggie was doing her best to enjoy the moment and on occasion even put her hands in the air to help pass other people around.  Her clothes were wet from a mixture of her sweat, other peoples’ sweat, and a strange sticky liquid that seemed to randomly rain down from above.  As with before, she did not recognize the electronic sound as music per se, but rather as a deafening hypnotic backdrop.  Though she moved through the crowd with considerable apprehension, she couldn’t help but feel some sort of grand liberation.

Ember, on the other hand, was in the middle of his third and most serious anxiety attack that night.  The steam from the hot, smelly bodies formed a miasma that was particularly suffocating for Ember.  Every time he thought he had acclimated to the putrid odor, he walked right into a pocket of air so rancid that he would get dizzy.  He felt trapped.  His heart beat tortuously as the crowd convulsed to and fro.  Besides for his claustrophobia and occasional pungent encounters, Ember was overheated and increasingly light headed.  Sweat was dripping from his hair and beading off his forearms.  The saltiness burned his eyes and dried his mouth.  He found it increasingly hard to focus and his skin, particularly his cheeks, possessed an astonishing burgundy hue.  The music’s hypnotic waves had become an annoying, almost ticklish, buzz in the back of his brain.

Ember, who was taller than most of the people in the crowd, was vaguely aware of a fat, gentleman nearby.  The gentleman was exceedingly tall, at least a full head above Ember, and had long black hair and a gothic attire.  Even in his hypoxic state Ember sensed that the man was following him, and, on occasion even thought that he saw the man point to him and mumble some words to some nearby invisible companion.  Though it was difficult to focus on anything, Ember was, at some instinctual level, able to eliminate all superfluous information vying for his attention, and just concentrate on the strange man. 

Ember decided to test his hypothesis.  He squeezed his way through the crowd, stumbling forward against the nearly impenetrable wall of bodies.  The man followed.  Ember’s heart dropped.  His anxiety had quickly been replaced with a fight-or-flight response.  He did not know what the man wanted or even why he feared him, but didn’t want to wait to find out.  He used his long arms to pry open a division between a particularly dense cluster of dancing bodies, subsequently pushing them back together after he entered, as if closing a door.  The man followed again.  For a few chilly fractions of a second their eyes caught.  There was no mistaking it now.

And then, above the hypnotic music came an ear-piercing explosion.  Ember whipped his head around in the direction of the deadening boom, but all he saw were terrorized pale faces.  People shouted, in an uncontrollable frenzy—the aggregate of which was far louder than any music—and pushed ceaselessly toward the exit.

Maggie, who was as confused as ever, followed the people in front of her as they slowly, yet chaotically, inched forward.  Maggie screamed, for no other reason than the fact that everyone else was doing it and it seemed right.  It wasn’t until she saw the morbid faces of her companions, and felt them violently push her aside that she started to get worried.  The blast itself didn’t not scare her—it was peoples’ reaction to it.

When the second detonation came, the crowd’s panic degenerated into an all-out cataclysm.  Maggie’s heart leapt as she struggled to understand the pallid tortured expressions of her neighbors’ faces.  They were the faces of people with the singular desire to leave, and the willingness of mind to do anything in their power to achieve that end.  There was no malice in their opportunistic pushing, but there was no humanity either.  What transpired was the sheer byproduct of pure, un-tempered will for survival—no more blameworthy than a plants struggle towards light.

Maggie labored to maintain a solid footing against the uneven pressure from her sides.  There was a sudden outburst from her right side as a group of particularly ambitious men tried to jump on top of the crowd.  Maggie compensated by leaning heavily to her right, but just at that moment another, more powerful surge came from her left and before she knew it, she was knocked to the ground on her hands and knees.

All seemed quiet for a split moment.  The light from above shone through the clothing and between the legs of her neighbors, and seemed to create a warm and protective glow.  This illusion, however, was sharply shattered as a woman with heels stepped onto her hand.  Maggie shrieked with unbearable pain as the woman, who had no conscious desire to hurt anyone much less sprang an ankle, promptly shifted her weight to the other leg.  As the heel withdrew, Maggie recoiled her hand and observed with horror a bloody groove on its backside. 

She sat back on her knees and rolled her eyes back, nearly fainting in the process.  Though she was being kicked at from behind, she did not register any pain besides that on her hand.  A few people climbed over her, forcefully knocking her down so that the task of resurfacing seemed to be an all but insurmountable task.  Despite all the haze, there seemed to be layers to Maggie’s perspective: at the very bottom was the blurry shuffle of feet and ankles; in the middle, which is where Maggie’s head currently resided, there were bulging knees and copious pink finger tips; and at the top was the fabric fog of t-shirts and waist lines, above which Maggie could not see.  This top layer was like the surface of a body water—beyond it light seemed to refract and dance.  Though the interface was so near to her, she could not muster the strength to rise to her feet to meet it. 

A large gentleman thrashed through the crowd with a sense of purpose that seemed greatly out-of-place.  Even from below, Maggie could see the comparatively small feet of others shuffle to the side, as the monstrously large boots chopped through.  As they approached her, Maggie closed her eyes and cried out in horror, believing that it was the end.  To her surprise, no decisive blow came.  On the contrary, the two colossal legs straddled over her protectively.  At first, Maggie believed it was a mistake, but after a few moments passed in which she was not kicked, she opened her eyes and saw plainly that it was deliberate.

Maggie was grateful to her mysterious savior but did not dare to endeavor to rise up and look at him lest she risk getting swept up again by the crowd.  His looming legs seemed immovable against the floor, as if they were a fixed part of the building itself.  She saw how the crowd parted around his powerful presence and couldn’t help but feel some sense of admiration. 

After a few minutes, though it seemed much longer, the crowd had almost entirely cleared out.  Maggie crawled through the resolute legs, and rose to her feet.  She turned around to face the strange man, who was vigilantly scanning a pocket of the room for signs of danger.  On top of his shoulders was a beautiful woman in a bright tank-top and tight, dark pants.  She climbed down the man as if scaling a mountain, and motioned to greet Maggie.

“Maggie!” Ember cried from a distant part of the room, evidently relieved to have found his sister in one piece.  He was standing with Luna whom, by comparison, seemed extraordinarily composed.

Maggie lunged forward, in the direction of her brother, but was stopped short by the woman, who was grabbing onto her by her shoulder.  Maggie turned around and looked at her.  She seemed to want to say something to her but at last her grip fell limp.  Maggie stared at her for a curious second, scanning her face for clues, before turning and running into Ember’s arms.

“I thought I was going to die,” Maggie cried as she fell into his embrace.

“I thought I lost you,” Ember said.  “We were looking all over for you.”  They held each other deeply.

“I wouldn’t have taken you here should I have known that this was going to happen,” Luna explained, reminding them of all their dormant questions.  Though they had only met Luna the previous night, already she seemed to be an invaluable friend. 

Maggie squirmed free from Ember’s grip and looked at Luna with an inappropriate smile, “What did happen?”

“Some people outside were saying that there was a bomb, but there doesn’t seem to be any physical evidence for an explosion.”

“I’m just glad that you’re okay,” Ember expressed, again sounding greatly relieved.

“Do you know those two,” Luna said to Maggie.  “They’re looking at us pretty intently.”

Ember followed Luna’s eyes to the gothic man, and remarked with some anger, “That’s the guy that was following me throughout the party!  I caught his eye just before the first blast!”

“That’s strange, he’s also the guy that saved me when I fell.  If it weren’t from him, I would’ve been trampled to death!” Maggie said, trying to subdue Ember’s indignation.

“Really?” he said, surprised.

Ember looked again at the man, and then at his female companion, whom he immediately regarded as the prettiest thing he had ever set eyes on.  The gothic man and the women were now casually walking towards them, but were talking to each other in such a way as to suggest that they had other matters on their mind.  Ember, Maggie and Luna stood silently staring at the strange incongruent duo as they approached.

“Hello,” the intimidating gothic man said with a non-threatening jubilant hand wave that caught the three of them off guard.  He extended his arm for a handshake, but retracted it when he perceived the chilly reception.  “My name’s Sven.”

“And I’m Kara.”

“Luna.”  She smiled as she ran her fingers through her hair.

“I’m Maggie, and this is Ember.”

“How do you do, Ember?” Sven said, again stretching his hand out for Ember to shake. 

Ember eyed him suspiciously.  “I’m alive, I suppose,” he said grimly, squeezing the mitt as hard as he could so that the beast could feel something.  Sven squeezed back, evidently trying to restrain himself.

“Thanks for saving me!” Maggie blurted.

“No problem!” he said with a goofy smile.

“Why were you following me?” Ember asked, not quite yet attributing the deed of saving his sister with the face at which he glared.

“Where are you from?” Kara chimed in, wanting to advance the conversation.

Ember lost himself in her ocean blue eyes.  He could not hold onto anger let alone curiosity in the face of such beauty.  He temporarily forgot how to speak.  As his heart beat faster it occurred to him that he was in love.

Having seen Ember blush, and having instantly understood his feelings, Maggie sighed.  “We’re not from around here,” she answered for him.

“I know that,” she said as if that were obvious, “but where are you from?”

“Oh…  You’ll probably think I’m crazy.”  Maggie looked at Ember and then at Luna for moral support.

“Try me,” Kara challenged.

“We’re from up-above.  You know, the place with—”

“I knew it!” Kara exclaimed, her stern face instantly transforming into a brilliant smile.  Seeing her smile, made Ember smile too.

“Who else have you told,” Sven said gravely, as if to suggest that it might be too early to celebrate.

“Oh, I don’t know…  Thirty, forty, maybe fifty people.  A lot…  Why do you ask?”

Kara brought her hand to her head and said in disgust, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“So you believe us?!” Maggie said with an upbeat voice.

“It’s okay,” Sven said, talking as much to Kara as to Maggie or Ember, “we can work with this.”

“Is it safe to be here, right now?” Maggie interrupted to ask.

Sven shrugged to express uncertainty.  “Come with us.  Let’s bandage that hand.”

Maggie had nearly forgotten about it.  She looked down once more at the depression in her hand and passed out.

             
When Maggie awoke, she was lying on a large beat-up, but comfortable couch.  She had never been on a couch before, at least not one of this variety, and was quite unaccustomed to its cushioned feel.  When she opened her eyes she saw four circling faces bearing down on her and screamed from surprise.  Though the dangling mess of hair from the four figures marked the boundaries of each face, it paradoxically seemed to blend the faces together, and it took a few seconds before Maggie was able to correctly attribute a proper name to each.  The two top-most heads belonged to Ember and Luna but were in upside-down orientation so that it was harder for Maggie to recognize despite the fact that they were the faces she was most familiar with.  Maggie felt understandably self-conscious being the sole object beneath the gaze of the eight scrutinizing eyes and resolved to sit up. 

Her hand was bandaged in a tight white tape not all that dissimilar to the one the shopkeeper used on her foot the first night.  Upon adjusting orientations, she looked around the room.  It was surprisingly spacious and well-lit, but had no apparent doors.  As far as she could tell, it was a single room with no clear entrance or exit.  A bunch of cushioned-chairs and couches were placed in a casual circular arrangement, and a few coffee tables lied in the interior.  She started to look at the back of the room when a dirty glass of water was thrust before her.

“She’s just dehydrated, that’s all,” Sven said.

“Drink this.  It will, make you feel better,” Kara reassured.  Maggie complied, opening her palate wide so that the cool liquid could flow down, unobstructed. 

Sven re-filled the glass from an equally dirty pitcher and gestured for the others to sit down.  Maggie drank from the second glass as ravenously as before.  Sven re-filled it again, also taking the time to pour water into four other glasses.  “Here, have some water,” he said to everyone else before they sat down in their seats. 

Ember was sweaty and seemed particularly paranoid.  After he grabbed the glass he sat down in a cushioned grey armchair and rocked himself back forth.  He was scratching himself nervously as if he were trying to get something off of him.  “Are you okay?” he asked Maggie.

She sipped slowly from her third glass and answered with an exasperated breath, “Yes… I’m fine…  where am I?”

“We carried you to one of the seminar rooms.  It’s ‘under’ the Underground, so we’ll be safe here,” Sven said with a smile.

“How long was I—”

“Not too long.  Maybe half an hour or so,” Kara interrupted.  Kara looked at Luna, who was the only one to not take a glass of water.  “Aren’t you thirsty?”

Luna was sitting tall, her hands delicately perched on her knees.  “I’m fine, thank you.”

“So how much do you know?” Kara asked.

Maggie looked at Ember and Ember looked at Maggie, but it was Luna that answered.  “They don’t know anything, they just came here yesterday.”  Everyone seemed surprised at Luna for speaking.

“Are you one of us?” Sven said with urgency.

“One of you?” Luna said, bringing one of her hands to her chest, “A revolutionary?”  Sven and Kara watched her absorbedly, but did not yet seem willing to incriminate themselves with an answer.  “Me?  No, I’m not a revolutionary… at least not formally.  But I am sympathetic to the cause… if that’s what you mean.”

Sven and Kara continued their stare for a few awkward seconds, examining every inch of her face for signs of treachery.  “Let’s do it this way,” Kara said without taking her eyes off of Luna, “Maggie, that’s your name, right?  Why don’t you tell us everything from the beginning.”

“Well…  My brother—his name’s Ember—and I are from a treetop village called Erosa.  No one, as far as we know, from our village knew that this place even existed.  I swear!”  Maggie paused for a moment, before deciding to skip over the bit about the old man and the key.  She glanced over at Ember.  He was still rocking nervously in his chair, but nonetheless seemed supportive of her decision and, at the very least, did not seem obliged to call her out on any gaps or inaccuracies.  “One day, we went out into the forest and found a small burrow in the ground.  Soon after we entered the hole, the ground collapsed.  When we woke up, we were in a large pile of trash.”

“Do you think you could find and identify this area?!” Kara said, practically jumping out of her seat with excitement.

Maggie was uncertain, and looked at Ember for an answer.  “I should think so,” Ember said. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sven said with the tone of one with the burdensome task of breaking someone else’s spirit.  “Even if we could reach the egress, they surely would have patched it up by now… and it’s probably heavily guarded…  going there now would be suicide.”

“We could go in disguise… we can be careful,” Kara offered.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it’s out of the question.  It’s not worth it.  Even if we could, it wouldn’t change anything.  If we leave, we leave with everyone, right?”

“Right!” Kara exclaimed, as if returning to a selfless revolutionary plane. 

“And… ya… basically we walked around and found Luna… and then… well… you know the rest,” Maggie said, wanting to complete her story.

“Okay, just what the heck is going on!” Ember shouted, as if he had been holding something in for sometime.  “It’s our turn for some explanations!”

“That’s fair,” Sven said understandingly.  “We’ll explain everything.”

“Feel free to interrupt at any time,” Kara said, herself demonstrating her point.  She looked at Sven to see who should begin the explanation.  They started to speak at the same time and both stopped when they heard the other speak.  This happened two more times.  On the third time, Kara raised her voice and continued speaking after Sven stopped.  “You’re in the Underground.  Don’t worry if no one from your village knows about us, because chances are, no one here knows anything about any of you.  About five hundred years ago there was a great war—so great that all of existence was threatened.  The Underground was built as a last-ditch international effort to save humanity.”

“Abigail!  Do you know about Abigail?!” Maggie asked inanely.

“What?”

“Do you know about her letter?!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s okay,” Ember said to Maggie with a look that seemed to say
Not now.  Let her speak.  There are more important things to be discussed.
  Ember was still rocking, but seemed to have increasing composure.

“Anyway…” Kara said, “The Underground was once a glowing metropolis—engineered to support half a million people and last for hundreds of years.  People were selected from around the globe to come live in the Underground.  The whole of human knowledge—all of our history, all of our scientific achievements, everything—was handed over to us in the form of a main frame computer.”

“Computer?” Maggie and Ember both asked in unison.

“It’s a machine that does stuff…  Don’t worry about it for now,” Sven explained, clearly enjoying Kara’s rendition of the story and evidently desiring to return to it.

“A government was formed.  They were given the main frame computer… and then the Great Gate was sealed.”

“Why did they—”

“So no one can get out,” Sven explained.  “The engineers believed that the Earth wouldn’t be safe for at least a quarter of a century so they designed a special gate to protect the populace.”

“Protect them from what?”

“Deadly viruses?  Nuclear radiation?  Mutated creatures?  No one knows any more… but that’s hardly what’s important,” Kara said.

“But the Gate…  The Gate is really important,” Sven said with a face that seemed to suggest that he really liked to talk about it.  “So…  I’m going to give you a lot of details now…  It’s okay if you don’t memorize them all…  okay?”  Ember and Maggie nodded.  “This Gate has a few ingenious designs.  First and foremost, it was designed to be the only practical entrance and exit to the Underground.  Is that clear?  Secondly, it was made so that it couldn’t be opened for at least two hundred and fifty years.  It’s year five hundred now.  Third, it can only be opened in two ways.”

“Three ways,” Kara said, quick to clarify.”

“Three ways!  It can only be opened in three ways!” Sven said, excitedly correcting himself.  “The first way is from the outside.  The city was built with sensors that would open the door if it determined the outside world to be hospitable.”  Sven’s jaw was open, and he stared at Maggie and Ember with a dorky smile.  “Do you get it?!”

“Yes…” Ember said doubtfully, lowering his brow, suspicious that some conclusion had missed his grasp.

“No, you don’t get it!  You guys!  You’re it.  You’re the proof!  You came from above.  You’re the proof that the outside world is hospitable again!  The Gate must have been opened!  You’re the proof that they lied!”

“But we already knew that, didn’t we Sven,” Kara said, clearly annoyed about something.

“Yes, but now that there’s two more of them, it’s undeniable!”  Kara gave Sven a disgusted glance.

“Maybe there was a problem with the circuitry,” Luna suggested.

Kara and Sven gave her a dirty look.  “You’re not thinking!  You have to see with you mind!” Sven said enthusiastically, tapping his head with his finger.  “They’re hiding it from us.”

“Whatever,” Ember said, wanting things to start making sense quicker than they were. “What are the other two ways to open the gate?”

“The other ways,” Sven continued, “are from the inside.  The engineers were worried that the gate might not open…  For reasons similar to what Luna just suggested…  a problem with the circuitry, faulty automation, broken sensors… whatever…  so they gave the government a code…  but only a handful of people alive today know where that code is… and they’re not the type people that are going to share.  The rumor is, however, that the code is the genetic sequence of a plant species that used to be common in the Underground.”

“What about mutations?” Luna challenged.  “There is genetic variation within each plant…  Independent assortment and crossing over will cause a varied sequence…”

“I know, I know,” Sven said quickly and defensively.  “I don’t know how it works, but I’m sure the engineers took it into account.  They knew about all that stuff.  Maybe the Gate only requires a certain amount of overlap between the codes.  I’m not a scientist or an engineer.”

“Why do you think that a plant sequence is the code?” Luna asked.

“Soon after the present governments came to power, about three hundred years ago,” Kara explained, “they began eradicating the plant species
Toxicodendron radicans
.  Why else would they go through all of the effort of annihilating the species?”

“Tell me Ember… Maggie… where you’re from… Erosa…  does there exist a plant with three leaflets, a hairy vine and a long middle stem?  It makes you itch if you touch it?  You might know it by the common name, poison ivy.”  Sven was on the edge of his seat, his excitement practically springing from him.

“Yes, of course!” Maggie said, grateful to be able to offer reason for enthusiasm.  “I used to run into it all the time as a child… but it hardly bothers me anymore because I’m so used to it.

“You didn’t, by any chance,” Kara said slowly, “bring any with you… to the Underground…  did you?”

Maggie and Ember looked at each other, not yet understanding the significance of the question.  “No, I don’t think so,” Ember answered.  “You can check our clothing, but I doubt there will be any.”

Sven let out long sigh as if he expected that answer.  “If only…”

“What’s the last way?” Maggie asked, not wanting to see him upset.

“The last way… oh ya… the last way…  is to break through it manually!”

“But…” Kara added, trying to be upfront, “the Gate isn’t exactly something that can be broken through easily.  It would take a lot of people a really long time to break through it.”
              “Why can’t you just dig around it,” Ember suggested.

“We could… but… we wouldn’t know where we were digging,” Sven explained.  “You have to remember too, that the engineers designed the Gate to be the only practical entrance or exit.  You are right, it is a possibility... and it has been tried before… The fact that you came from somewhere else tells us that there must be other ways in and out.  I like the effort…”

“Also, they have the whole perimeter under surveillance… but still… it’s always an option,” Kara said.  “My father and mother were big believers in this.  They believed that there existed another way out of the Underground and spent their entire lives trying to prove it.”

“Who?  Who do you keep referring to?  Who’s doing this?!” Ember shouted.

“Oh, right,” Kara said, “I’ll explain…  About three hundred years ago people in the government started to worry that they would lose their power once the Gate was opened…  At first they used it to justify their existence.  They would tell the people that they had discovered the rest of the planet was in ruin and would never be safe, and that the Gate would never open.  Then they started to change their story a little bit…  they would say that the Gate was never really designed to be opened but rather to keep other things out… crazy things like that…  stuff that didn’t even make any sense…  and then… more recently, within the past hundred and fifty years or so, they started denying the existence of the Gate altogether.  They say that there is no such thing as a sky and routinely argue that the Underground is all that ever was and ever will be—that there is no world outside, that the universe is the city itself, nothing more, nothing less.”