FLOOR 21 Page 9

  Once you’ve gotten control of yourself and start to go up, it’s like pulling yourself up a hill. It never gets easier, so you’ve got long minutes where you’re just pouring sweat. You could squeeze my shirt a few times and fill up a bucket. You’re thinking I’m exaggerating, but, swear to God, I can feel myself sliding back down the shaft every time I stop moving. It’s like I’ve been soaking myself in butter or something. You could pitch me down a hallway, and I wouldn’t come to a stop, that’s how much I’ve sweat today.

  It’s at least an hour after I see Receiver Garry before I make any real progress. I’m getting so tired of crawling by that point that I really just want to go to sleep, but I know I have to be back on my floor before nighttime. Reception’s been over for a while, and even though my mom is used to me wandering off, I really don’t want to make her too suspicious, especially with how whacko she is currently. That’s going to be hard considering I currently look as if I’ve taken a jump into a swimming pool. I mean, I can’t see myself, but I know that I look like yesterday’s diapers.

  For the first time since I’ve started trying to climb up to the top floor, I hit an obstacle, but at least it’s nothing that a screwdriver can’t handle. There are grates inside the vents as I move upward, but my biggest worry is being heard from outside. At this point I’m kind of crawling blind, though. I don’t know where I am, only that I’ve been moving up and up and up. So I’ve got to be close to the goal. I kinda wonder if there’d been a way to do this from the rooftop, but the only thing like a vent that I’ve seen up there are the narrow water filters. I’m skinny, but not a chicken bone.

  My fingers struggle with the screwdriver while my other hand holds the flashlight. Normally I like to think I have a light touch, but today I can barely manage to do two things at once. Part of the problem is my hands are so moist I keep dropping the screwdriver. Every time it hits the floor of the vent, this really deep clang seems to scream into the darkness. How nobody can hear my ruckus by this point is a mystery. Anyway, it takes a minute, but I’m finally able to undo the screws and crawl on. To nobody’s surprise, I nearly let the grate slam downward. Shoot me, but for whatever reason, I’m not thinking straight. At least I catch it before it hits the ground. I might be able to get away with dropping the screwdriver, but there’s no way I’d get away with this little adventure if I made any louder noises. I’m already making an echoing thud every time I move. You can practically hear it singing in the distance. Still, at least the only noise is me. I can’t hear anything else, so wherever I am, there doesn’t seem to be anybody else outside my narrow crawling space.

  I pull myself forward with my flashlight guiding the way. It gives off this circle of light that eats into the darkness and lets me move on. In the distance I can see the end of the tunnel, but it just looks like a dead end. Since I have enough experience to know that’s not the case, I squirm my way along, wiggling through the vent. As I do I start to hear something, and it just gets closer and closer with every inch I move.

  Whatever it is, it’s pretty steady. Every couple of seconds, I hear this heavy doom noise that masks the sound of my movement. That lets me relax a bit. I feel like I’ve been holding in my breath for a half hour, worried about whether anyone is hearing me crawl around or not. I take one shuffle forward, and doom. I take another shuffle forward, and doom. The noise is a real, deep bass that rattles the metal surface around me and puts a shiver in my teeth.

  I’m closing in on the end of the tunnel, and everything around me is shaking with every dooming sound coming from above. The vent turns suddenly upward, so I flip onto my back to see what’s making all the racket. As I point my light upward, I barely make out the sight of a massive blade as it passes across my vision. This happens a couple of times like a constantly turning clock hand. My ears are filling up with the sound of them as they pass in a slow rotation above me.

  For a moment I have to stop and wonder about these things. They’re obviously part of the circulation system, but they’re moving super-slow and they don’t seem to be particularly sharp. I kinda wonder to myself if I could just, you know, hold a hand up and catch one. Make it stop. Thing is, I’m really not sure what sort of mechanics are spinning this piece of junk. Maybe it can’t slice me in half, but if I get caught in it, I might get my chest crushed in or something. I mean, at the very least.

  Then I look down at my wrench and get to thinking. Okay, so, muscle doesn’t do really well against metal. That’s cool; I get that. On the other hand, maybe this wrench might be able to help out. I’m kinda against the idea of leaving it behind, since I don’t know how I’ll get around without it. Then again, maybe I won’t have to. Maybe I can use it to bust the fan, then keep it. If not, well, I guess I’ll just have to find other ways of getting out of the vents. I just really, really don’t want to end up trapped in here. My options in that case aren’t good: scream for help and get taken to Reinforcement, or die in here and stink up the joint.

  Mom always did say I was a pessimist.

  At this point I’m just stalling, so I flash my light upward and examine the blades. There’s about five seconds between each spin. This fan isn’t even that big, so how could something this small be such a huge problem for me? Whatever. It’s kinda a pain in my butt, but I manage to prop myself up and get my back against the vent. I don’t think about this plan backfiring too much as I shove the wrench into the recession in the wall, then snatch my hand back before it gets the execution treatment. The next blade passes overhead, its edge sliding into the recession and grinding into the wrench.

  God. It sounds like a dying mechanical unicorn. If there’s a heaven, our robotic overlords there are weeping.

  The fan keeps wrestling with the wrench like an old fighter trying to pull out a victory, but the wrench holds. This is what happens when you strike the immovable object. What I don’t anticipate is the sudden snap from somewhere deep in the bowels of the tower and a hissing as smoke starts to fizzle into the vent.

  Damn. Too much of that, and someone’s going to smell it.

  I yank the wrench out of the recession and then somehow manage to bend my body so that I’m upright. Want to guess what happens next?

  Right. More vents.

  Recording Twenty-Eight

  I’m rich. Have I talked about that?

  I mean, comparatively. I have the biggest apartment, I get the most food, I don’t have to worry about going into a bad job. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I don’t talk about myself that way much. I mean, why would I? Nobody likes the chick that can’t stop talking about how much better her life is than everyone else’s, am I right?

  Still, it’s good to remember I’m rich . . . for the Tower. Some of those Blu-Ray movies we watch have people living in big freaking houses. With yards full of trees. We’ve got trees in the Tower, but they’re kinda pathetic. They took the short end of the genetic lottery.

  What I’m telling you is that they suck.

  I mean, it’s nice to have some, but they’re all kinda limp and short. You don’t use adjectives like “towering” or “majestic” to describe them. Anyway, my floor has more trees than any other in the Tower. And you know what? My floor still doesn’t look good. Because the trees don’t look good. Because the hallways are the color of concrete and rust. Because my clothes were still handed down to me from whoever wore them first; they just happen to be made from a nicer material. For all I know, they got snatched up during a Scavenging.

  Life in the Tower is still life in the Tower, even if you’re a stuck-up rich chick. Which, for the record, I’m not. I’m just well-off compared to everyone else.

  At least, that’s what I thought until today.

  Have you ever seen heaven?

  I think I might have.

  It took a while to work my way farther up the ventilation system, but for all of the Security that Floor 1 has guarding its doors, I think I forgot that we’re still living in a pretty crappy tower that got left over from God knows what.


  So, what’s the point, Jackie? The point is I finally got to Floor 1. It wasn’t like arriving into the afterlife or suddenly bursting into a new world. Nope. It was better.

  I haul myself up into the level one vents and start pulling myself along. Down the tunnel I can see light coming up from alongside me, which, I mean, wouldn’t you get excited? I . . . start . . . to . . . freak. This has been a dream of mine for, like, years. I’d rather be going down into the Creep, maybe ’cause I’m just a little bit wrong in the head, but Floor 1’s a pretty big deal. I don’t know anyone but Scavengers and some people from Security that get here.

  The light I’m seeing is bright, too. Big time. It’s practically flooding the vents, but I know I have to be careful. I’ve got no idea who might be outside, and I don’t want to make so much noise that I set off some alarms. So, I crawl, slowly, my legs pushing me along a few inches at a time. I can see the vent grate coming closer and closer until I’m seconds away from getting a clear view of Floor 1.

  Each inch I move makes the world just a bit brighter. Then, I stop. I’m there, and my eyes are staring out of the darkness and into the light.

  Oh . . . my . . . God.

  It’s . . . it’s beautiful, man.

  Have you ever found yourself, like, getting emotional for no reason? Like, you just want to cry, and you don’t even get why you feel like that? I don’t know how else to say what I was feeling. There were white walls. There was warm light. I felt like my whole life had been painted in blacks and grays, and suddenly it had color in it.

  Do you know what it’s like to see colors you’ve never known existed?

  I start to shake as I watch people walk down the hall. They have on all white, too. Their clothing . . . it’s new. No patches or tears or rips. They have jewelry on. I’m not talking about the stupid metal rings or cheap necklaces that get found once in a while after a Scavenging. I’m low to the ground so I can’t make out any faces, but I see one guy’s wrist. Damn, who’s he trying to blind? His watch is gold. It’s pure gold, and it shines brighter than I’ve ever seen the sun shine.

  They walk by, talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Now I get it. Now I understand why you never see Authority on the lower levels.

  Why would you want to leave heaven to come down to hell?

  Recording Twenty-Nine

  As I fight to motivate my elbows to keep dragging me along, I smell something that I’ve never known existed. I don’t know how to describe it . . . it kind of stings your nostrils, but . . . it’s not bad. It smells sterile, I guess. At first it kind of makes my eyes water, but I get used to it. Then I start to hear this loud noise. It’s not constant, but every once in a while, a huge splash fills the tunnel I’m crawling through. Seconds later a bunch of feet run by. By the sound of it, I can tell there are a ton of kids around my age running around. They’re laughing and shouting at one another, and soon you hear a bunch of those splashes all at once.

  I slide up to the edge of the vent and stare into the room beyond. There are windows above the room, but I know they can’t be real. The rooftop’s still a level above us. Well, whatever. This room has “windows,” and I’m using that term loosely, above it.

  I . . . I’ve never seen a sky like what I’m seeing here.

  Clouds—not black or gray, but white—drift along under a blue sky.

  The only places I’ve seen a blue sky are in the movies we watch on our free time. It doesn’t really exist in our world.

  That’s not the part that really amazes me, though. I mean, yeah, it does, but it’s not the only thing. What’s really amazing to me is what’s directly in front of me. All those boys I heard are running again, down the edge of a swimming pool. Now, I talk about swimming pools. We know what they are from movies. Until now, though, I’ve never seen one. Water’s too scarce, you know?

  For the record, every drop of water we use gets recycled. Dirty bathwater? Recycled. Water in your toilet? Recycled. The Tower barely wastes anything. Can’t afford to, right? The rest of the water we get from the filters on the rooftop. Anyway, ’cause we can’t afford to waste water, we don’t have stuff like swimming pools.

  At least, I didn’t think we did. Not until now.

  I see a pair of doors on the opposite side of the room slide open, and a man all in white steps in. I’m not gonna lie; this man is gorgeous. He’s got a comic book chin and hair you could have ripped off the cover of a cheap romance novel. Yeah, and a chest as broad as a barrel.

  That’s not a man you’d want to get into a fight with.

  Anyway, he calls out to the boys, and they gather around him. For a second they talk, but from my place, I can’t really make out what they’re saying. Whatever it is, the boys run out of the room a second later. Mr. Fabulous Hair over there hesitates at the doorway before pulling some sort of small bottle out of his pocket. It’s hard to say for sure, but it looks like he pops out a few pills or something. I see him tilt his head back to swallow whatever that stuff was, and then he wipes at his mouth for a few seconds before walking out of the room.

  For a moment I wait at the vent, my hand trembling by my waist. I reach for the wrench in my bag, but I know I can’t stop here. I have to keep going. I have to find . . . well, I don’t know what I have to find. But I have to find something before I go back. Something that tells me what’s really going on in this tower. So, as much as I want to dive into that pool and wash this sweat off of me, I continue into the darkness.

  Recording Thirty

  Crying fills the tunnel as I move forward. The stinging scent of the pool is gone, and I kinda miss it, but I continue. Still, I slow down a bit as I do. Don’t want to make too much noise, you know? Anyway, I keep going, moving toward the sound of this woman. She’s really cutting loose, almost screaming. It’s . . . it’s hard to hear that stuff. Same way with Receiver Garry; I feel this tightness in my chest as I get closer to the grate.

  I find myself staring into a room. It’s an apartment, yeah, a lot like mine. Just, it definitely looks a lot bigger and a lot cleaner. I think it’s the bedroom, but a door is open and looks out onto what I think is a living room. The color in here is red. Not just red, you know, but like this deep scarlet. There’s a woman sitting below me on a bed, leaning over with her hands and cradling her head. As her crying gets softer, I start to hear the sounds of, I dunno, I think it’s a violin, playing softly in the air. There’s no way to tell where it’s coming from, but it’s got a slow pace. A few other violins join it as they swell together in one high moment.

  At the same time, a man screams from outside, scaring the woman. She nearly jumps out of the bed as he suddenly stumbles into the room, his fist pounding the wall.

  “Stella,” he shouts, grinning at her as he runs his meaty hand through his wave of blond hair. “Stella, stop the crying! For heaven’s sake just stop the crying!”

  “Stop it, George!” she screams back, turning and walking away before he jumps over to her. He grabs her with both his hands, this mad smile across his lips.

  “Just take your medicine, Stella; it’ll make you feel better,” he says.

  “I don’t want to feel better,” she replies, crying again as she shakes. “What’s the point? Why am I even trying?”

  “Stella, if you don’t take your medicine, I’m going to report you to Security. What do you think will happen then?”

  “You wouldn’t. You can’t. You know! You know what will happen.”

  He’s breathing really heavy as he leans in to her, and I can barely make it out, but I hear it clear enough. “That’s right. They’ll put a needle up your vein and make sure you’re topped out with Creep. You want that, Stella? You want them to fill you up with it?’

  What . . . the . . . hell?

  She pushes him off with her hands, and he slams into the wall, his eyes wide with madness. “Time to take your daily, Stella. Time to take your daily.”

  She breathes really heavily for a second, staring at him. Then she nods, walking
to the nightstand. From the top shelf, she pulls out a bottle, tapping out two blue pills. For a second she stares down at them in her hand, then glances back at him. “A daily will do you.”

  “That’s right,” he agrees, shaking his head as he smiles. “A daily will do you.”

  Stella nods, then tilts her head back and pops the pills down her throat. For a moment nothing seems to happen, but George is waiting, the two of them staring at each other. Then Stella leans forward, letting out this huge wail. It’s like she’s about to start crying again, but it turns into this long, insane laugh. The sound of it bounces off the walls and through the vents, echoing over and over again until it’s rattling inside my eardrums. I cringe as it soaks into my bones, watching as the two of them stumble into each other’s arms, laughing like maniacs as they collapse into the bed. They lie there just laughing and laughing, like they’re not going to stop.

  I can’t take it anymore. I start crawling away. Whatever they’re feeling, it’s too strong for them to notice any noise I might be making.

  Recording Thirty One

  I’m starting to think that I was wrong about Sec Tech.

  I’ve always assumed that the really supersecret technology they find below Floor 21 had something to do with whatever was outside the tower. I thought it might have been, I dunno, like, secret military stuff that was full of ways to fight the Creep. Or something.

  Yeaaaah, well, maybe not.

  I’m sitting here, and I watch these guys in the hallway. As they walk by, a screen just flares to life overhead. Except, the thing is, there wasn’t a screen there before. Images just start showing out of thin air, and everybody passes by like it’s nothing. It looks like some sort of commercial, with a bunch of ads for stuff like watches and decorations for homes. You know, the sort of things we can’t have down below unless they find it during the Scavenging.