It was dark when I had fallen unconscious. It is still dark when I’m roused by a faint sound I can’t be sure of. I tug open my raspy eye lids and attempt to focus, but the darkness engulfing me is deeper than before.
I realize I’m underground. The closeness of the earth, combined with my muffled breathing, indicate it’s a small space—manmade. I hear what sounds like an echo and hold my breath. When the sound of breathing continues, I realize I’m not alone.
Someone coughs from less than a meter away. I tense but don’t move. My mind scurries for options. There isn’t enough information. I could be anywhere, held captive by anyone.
In every scenario I can fathom, the person sharing my prison is either a dim-witted captor or another prisoner. Either way, my continued silence seems counterproductive. The thought of the person being a friend tips the scales. I shift slightly and clear my throat.
“Calli, is that you?”
“Neca?”
He sighs. “Yes, it’s me.”
I crawl closer to Neca’s voice. I find him with his back propped against the wall—his uniform torn open and muddied. He winces at my touch. “You’re hurt.”
“Not badly.” He sighs again. “It’s more my hope that’s been bloodied than my body.”
“It can’t be all that bad.” I shiver and scoot myself in close to his side. The temperature has dropped several degrees, and my uniform is damp from what I hope is merely dew. “Whoever they are, they’ve taken us alive.”
I lay my head on Neca’s shoulder. All at once, the barrier I’ve constructed to protect me from him, to numb my feelings for him, is completely undone.
Neca flinches before breathing deeply. “I’ve long had a theory about the people outside New Teo, a theory I had hoped with all my strength to be true.” He sags, exhaling unevenly. “Now I’m not so sure.”
His lack of resolve pains me. I don’t want to believe I’ve contributed to weakening him, but the reality is unavoidable. If it weren’t for me, he’d be living happily as a chadzitzin. Despite it being pitch black, I close my eyes. “Tell me. Tell me about your theory.” Carefully, I navigate the wound on his chest until I find a safe place to rest my arm.
He trembles slightly at the touch. “Earlier, the reason I knew about the point of no return—I didn’t overhear people talking about it. I’ve crossed it.”
“Really?” There’s so much I don’t know about Neca, so many questions I’ve never thought to ask.
“Centavo used to send me there with supplies.”
“I don’t understand,” I respond gently, not wanting to discourage him from sharing further. “What kind of supplies? For who?”
“That was the thing. He never would say. Just that the supplies had to be dropped off at a certain spot far enough away from New Teo.”
I wait for him to continue.
He shifts and draws up a leg. “I wanted to know. Don’t get me wrong, I trust Centavo like a father. But I was hungry for anything about the outside world. I’ve always found it hard to believe everyone on the planet exists like we do in New Teo.”
“So what did you do?”
“After I learned the ability of flight, it was easy to reach the PNR with time to spare. Knowing Centavo dealt with everything dangerous and illegal, I didn’t dare open the crates or disturb their contents. Instead, I decided one day to double back and find a safe spot to lie in wait. At the very least, I’d see who the supplies were going to. I’d see someone who lived outside the dome.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I realize I’ve been holding it for several seconds. Since early childhood, I’ve been taught that the only people outside New Teo are enemies and twitchers. “What happened?”
“I saw them. I saw them, and it changed everything.” He shifts an arm around my back and secures me to his side. “There were nearly a dozen of them, including women and children. They weren’t warriors—certainly not soldiers. They weren’t twitchers. They were just people. I laid there and watched as they divided the supplies and left in two different directions.”
“What kind of supplies?” I ask.
“From where I had hidden it looked like medicine and tools, basic things that even people in Worker City take for granted.”
“So who do you think they were?”
“Up till now, I had always thought they were exiles, or they were people who had escaped.”
“You mean, from Worker City?” I furrow my brows.
“Yes,” Neca’s voice strengthens. “I felt it in my gut. Somehow I knew it to be true. They had used to be us, but now they were free.”
I sense where he is going and why he’s so grieved. “Then they attacked us.”
“I saw the outline of the man who stepped into the clearing. He was dressed like the ones I delivered supplies to. He didn’t look like a soldier.”
“But their abilities? The organized assault? It seemed planned,” I say.
“Maybe they were only after the supplies.”
“Neca, they killed—”
“But they took us alive,” Neca says. “They only disintegrated the Guardsmen. They could have done the same thing to us, but they didn’t.”
I sit up and sigh, my heart heavy with grief and fear. “How do we know that?” I shudder. “Where are the others? Did you see them?”
Neca says, “The others could be in cells like this one, or maybe they got away.”
I steady my breathing. Neca is right, and besides, it’s not going to help to panic. “Wait, how do we know we’re even in a cell?”
“I, I don’t—”
“Have you checked for an opening?”
“I only woke a minute before you. The last thing I remember was being blind-sided with an EM pulse.”
I crawl around the perimeter of the small carved out cave. Sections of the wall consist more of dirt and loose rocks than solid stone. We can’t be deep underground. “Here,” I jerk my hand back after finding a recess in one section of the wall. “There might be an opening, but there’s no way of knowing what’s on the other side.”
“I’m pretty tapped,” Neca exhales. “Do you think you have a little light left in you?”
I nod, then realize Neca can’t see the gesture. “Yes. First, let me see if I can hail my brother.” I focus on Olin, but all I find in the depth of my mind is empty silence. “Nothing.”
“I wouldn’t expect your connection to work underground. Even if he was ten meters away, you probably wouldn’t know it.” Neca rises onto his knees and shuffles toward me.
“You’re right, I know. I just thought—” I chew the inside of me cheek. “Let’s shed some light on the situation, shall we?” I do my best to sound hopeful. With a slight flick of the wrist, I conjure a green glow beneath the skin of my hand and hold it in front of me.
It’s clear we’re in a hastily dug bunker rather than a cave. The room is more or less round and only a few meters across. Directly in front of me there is a small opening, wide enough to belly crawl through. On either side of it, wooden supports have been buried in the wall.
A good sharp kick would collapse the entrance and cut the room off from whatever lay on the other side. I hesitate to explore further. “If we were meant to be prisoner’s, wouldn’t they have collapsed the entrance and trapped us inside?”
“Maybe there’s someone guarding it,” Neca whispers.
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.” I turn toward Neca. “You up for this?” Now that I look at him closer, I realize he’s been cut by a branch. An oozing gash across his chest appears to be surrounded by a smattering of smaller cuts and scrapes.
“I’m good.”
“You don’t look so good.”
He shrugs then winces. “The dirt’ll probably help stop the bleeding. Besides, you don’t look so hot yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” I hold my glowing hand out and visually scan as much of my front and arms as I can. “Oh my.” My uniform is speckled with blood and the left shoulder of the outfit is torn away. I press my right hand against the shoulder and realize its heavily bruised. Nothing feels broken. “I guess we’re both going to have to file a uniform acquisition slip when we get back.”
“I guess so,” Neca smiles and winks, the gesture barely visible in the dim, green glow.
“Here goes.” I inch forward and inspect the opening. It continues for more than a meter. My light is too weak to illuminate the other end. “If I kick my legs, pull me back out.”
“Will do, captain.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, so now you’ll take an order.” Before he can smart off again, I plunge headfirst into the tiny opening with my arms in front of me. The space is cramped, but the softness of the dirt makes the process almost comfortable.
Bit by bit, I inch my way forward by expanding and contracting my body. After a couple minutes, my left shoulder is screaming with pain and I’ve only gone a couple meters. Just as I begin to panic, my hands grasp a solid lip—the opening.
The moment I’m able to use my elbows to pull my head into the larger space, I spark my hand to life. The dim glow reveals that the room ahead is bigger than the one behind, and there’s no guard in sight. Good enough.
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