Beyond the hatch, she could feel sleeping computers. There was only a meter or so between them and the doorway. So little room to work. If she slipped, she’d fry them, fry the hydrostation, fry the generators, fry their chances. Consigning them all to the tender mercies of BioMaas.
So you better not slip, Lemon Fresh.
She lowered her head, glaring at the digital keypad through her bangs. Muscles corded. Fingers curled. Stepping into the wash of gray, the ocean she swam in, taking the stones of anger and guilt and shame and fear and pressing herself against them, sharpening herself to a sliver, a razor, a blade. And raising her hands, she twisted her fingers and sliced the tiniest tear she could.
The digital keypad hissed and popped. Over her shoulder, her grandpa caught his breath. For a terrible moment, she thought she’d caught him in the surge, like she’d caught those clawbeasts. But then he rose to his feet, eyes wide as the keypad flickered and died, the locks clunked, heavy and deep, and with a groan of metal and old, dry hinges, the hatchway to Section C yawned open.
Red lights came to life, spinning in the room beyond.
An alert claxon sounded over the PA.
And Lemon just stood and stared, wondering what she’d done.
Section C was cylindrical, split over three levels. The ground floor was stacked with computer equipment, decorated with a multitude of strange acronyms—CRUISE TERCOM, ASAT, DSMAC, GLONASS, TRANS. Heavy sealed hatchways lined the walls, seven in all. These hatches were stenciled with symbols for radioactivity and large warning messages in bright yellow paint.
DANGER: HIGH PRESSURE
WARNING: M-1 SAFETY GEAR REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
CAUTION: STAND CLEAR OF BLAST DOOR
SILO NO. 1
SILO NO. 2
SILO NO. 3
SILO NO. 4
SILO NO. 5
SILO NO. 6
SILO NO. 7
“And the seventh angel sounded his trumpet…,” the Major whispered.
A dead body leaned against one wall, wearing an old, rotten version of the uniform Lemon and the other freaks all wore. It was just a desiccated husk now, barely recognizable as male. Its jaw hung loose, eye sockets empty. A pistol sat on the ground near its hand, old blood spatters on the wall behind it. Glittering around its neck was a long chain, hung with a set of dog tags and a heavy red passkey.
“Hello, Lieutenant Rodrigo,” the Major murmured. “I told you we’d meet again.”
Lemon hovered on the threshold, but the old man limped slowly into the room, bathed red in the glow of the emergency lights. He ran his fingers along an old, dusty computer terminal, rewarded with a burst of electronic chatter as the system began waking. He knelt beside the corpse, gently lifted the key from around its neck. Still down on one knee, he held out his arms and looked skyward.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He turned and smiled at Lemon, eyes shining.
“Thank you,” he repeated.
Butterflies were flitting in Lemon’s belly, and she didn’t quite know why. She looked at that blood-red passkey in his palm. Hand drifting to the five-leafed clover around her throat. Her fingertips brushed the metal, cold and heavy.
“I knew it,” he said, grinning all the way to the eyeteeth. “I knew it the moment I first saw you, the moment Grimm told me you were one of us.” He turned back to the room, shaking his head. “I knew the Lord brought you to me for a reason.”
The butterflies in Lemon’s stomach died one by one.
Her fingers closed on her clover so tight the metal dug into her skin.
“I’m gonna go check on Diesel,” she heard herself say.
The Major wasn’t listening, limping farther into Section C. Lemon backed away slow, watching as the old man ran his fingers along the door to SILO NO. 1. He was looking about him in wonder, like a little boy whose dreams had suddenly all come true. Lemon shuffled over to the stairwell leading down into the greenhouse. And with one last glance to make sure his back was turned, she climbed upward.
“The moment I first saw you.”
Onto the landing, up to the Major’s office door. She looked over her shoulder to make sure he hadn’t followed her, pressed her palm against the digital lock. A burst of sparks, the smell of melted plastic. She twisted the handle, stepped inside, sickness swelling in her gut, pulse hammering like a V-8 engine.
“The moment Grimm told me you were one of us.”
Every inch of wall was plastered with photographs of the desert outside the facility. Those old blue skies. But her eyes were focused on the sealed doorway behind the Major’s desk. She could sense the power behind it, the computers she’d felt her first time in here. Staring at the label on the hatch, the collage of photographs covering the lettering. Hoping, begging, praying she was wrong. She had to be.
She had to be.
“I realize how odd it sounds. But I’ve been seeing you for a few years now. Off and on. Last time I saw you, would’ve been…maybe four days back?”
She reached out with shaking hands.
“The moment I first saw you, the moment Grimm told me…”
She tore the photographs away, exposing the label beneath.
Two words. One ton apiece.
SATELLITE IMAGING
“Oh god,” she whispered.
She fried the digital keypad, stepped inside. Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe, dragging shuddering breaths over trembling lips and wondering how she could have been so stupid.
The room was full of computer equipment. Monitor screens. Dozens upon dozens, each with a different label. SAT-10. SAT-35. SAT-118. The monitors showed pictures from across the country, high-def, close up, shot from overhead. She saw the bustling streets of Megopolis, the squalid dogleg alleys of Los Diablos, the crowded laneways of New Bethlehem.
But the monitors also showed shots from inside Miss O’s.
Cameras in the common room.
Cameras in the dormitories.
Cameras in the gym.
“I see things. Faces. Places. It only happens when I’m deep asleep.”
Lemon pressed her fingers to her lips, shaking her head.
An alarm sounded, ringing through the facility, echoing on the concrete. But Lemon could barely hear it. She was staring at the walls, eyes wide, lip trembling. Every inch was plastered with photographs, just like the office outside. But instead of big blue skies, these photographs were all of the same woman. Always shot from above. Lemon could see the Major in the shape of her chin, the line of her brow. She had a beautiful smile, dark eyes. Long dark hair. Her face was painted like a skull. She was often accompanied by a boy, wearing a pair of high-tech goggles.