‘Warning. Lockdown in progress. Proceed to your quarters.’
Cole’s eyes glaze over. ‘Crick has the clonebox and just kicked off the simulation. He and Leoben got into a scuffle with some guards, but they’re OK. They’re making their way to the parking levels now. It’s time to leave.’ He swings his backpack on, then lifts mine up so I can slide my arms through the straps. I shift it on my shoulders nervously.
‘You haven’t answered me, Cole. Is anyone going to get hurt?’
He gives me a quick, false smile. ‘Of course they won’t.’
CHAPTER 26
Cole hurries into the hallway, where a wave of civilians are running to their rooms, swarming through the corridors. ‘We’re going to the elevators,’ he says, pushing through a crowd of people. ‘I’ve got the route mapped out. Stay close to me.’
I jog after him, clutching the backpack’s straps, a twinge of pain flickering in my bandaged arm. I use the pain to sharpen my focus. Cole leads the way, following some virtual map in his panel that I can’t see, guiding me through a seemingly endless series of hallways. All the apartment doors are open, showing me the tiny rooms inside. Hand-knitted blankets are tossed over bunks, and the occasional dog watches us from behind a knee-high gate. The families inside are huddled together, their eyes glazed over, probably waiting for more instructions to tell them they’re safe.
But I don’t know if they are. Cole’s tone has driven a splinter of fear through me. I don’t know anything about the simulation we’re running. It could be harmless, but from what I’ve heard about Jun Bei, it sounds like safety was the least of her concerns.
And I don’t want to put these people in danger just to get us out of here.
‘Almost there,’ Cole shouts, finally turning into a hallway I recognize. At the far end I can see the faux sunlight and greenery outside. Cole picks up his pace, running now that our path has cleared, with most of the residents already back in their rooms. A little boy at one of the doors gives me a plaintive look as I pass. He’s trying to push his door closed, but it won’t budge.
It suddenly occurs to me that all the doors are open.
The lockdown must have opened them so people could get back into their rooms. But that can’t be right. These rooms are designed to be airtight to keep the civilians safe. Surely the most important thing to do in a lockdown is seal the doors, right?
‘Just two more blocks,’ Cole calls back.
I jog faster to keep up with him, glancing nervously at the doors. They’re still open, and now more people are pulling on them, calling out to one another. They must have run lockdown drills before, and they obviously expect their doors to be closed by now. There must be a delay, some conflict with the simulation. Any minute now the system will surely override it.
We jog out of the building and into an empty street. Tables and chairs lie on their sides outside a café, food splattered across the cobblestones. Everything has been knocked down and tossed aside in the stampede of people running back to their rooms. Cole waves his arm, leading me down the street, past a recreation centre where families dressed in gym gear are streaming out.
‘Make way!’ Cole yells. We turn into the square with the wall of elevators that Leoben and I first came through. A crowd has formed, waiting to get back to their floors. Cole must be sending out some kind of virtual message, because they move back instantly when they see him, clearing us a path.
‘Is this a drill?’ someone asks.
‘Please stay calm, sir.’ Cole pulls me into an empty elevator. He presses his hand to the side, and the doors slowly begin to slide shut. ‘Proceed to your quarters and seal the doors.’
‘But my door won’t seal, sir! There’s somethi–’ a woman shouts, but the elevator closes, cutting her off.
I turn to Cole. ‘The apartment doors weren’t closing.’
‘They’re on a redundant system. These floors have a dozen levels of airtight security.’
‘And exactly how many of them are we breaching to get out?’
‘It’ll be OK, Cat. We’ll be out in a few minutes, and this will all be over.’
I bring my hand up to chew my thumbnail. It’s not us I’m worried about. It’s the eighty thousand Homestake residents living here without immunity. The airlock system is the only thing keeping them safe, and I have a sinking feeling that Jun Bei’s simulation has compromised it.
The elevator shudders to a stop, and the doors ping open, letting in a puff of warm, humid air. A woman and a little boy rush in from what looks like an aquaponics floor. Shelves of plants stretch out as far as I can see, built above glass tanks filled with tiny, iridescent fish.
‘Ma’am, you need to –’ Cole says, and curses as the doors close.
The woman pulls off a pair of rubber gloves, wiping her forehead. ‘Is there a problem, sir?’
‘I’ve commandeered this elevator.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know. We were in the hothouse. My son was helping me with the tomatoes.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Cole mutters. ‘We weren’t supposed to stop.’
I shoot him a worried glance. It sounds like there are some holes in this plan. First the residential doors won’t seal – now the elevators are glitching.
‘Where are we going?’ the woman asks as we keep rising. ‘That was my floor. Why aren’t we stopping?’
Cole doesn’t reply.
‘What’s happening?’ The woman’s voice grows frantic as we rise beyond the residential floors. ‘We can’t go up – it’s not safe. These elevators aren’t even supposed to go this high.’
‘They do in an emergency, ma’am.’
The woman’s grip on her son tightens, and they back into the corner. I shoot Cole a questioning glance, but he just shakes his head. We rise for what feels like an eternity, at least another thirty floors, until the doors finally slide open to an underground parking lot. The walls and floor have red diagonal stripes painted across them, with signs warning that this floor is exposed to untreated air. A massive Wash-and-Blast airlock lies between us and the rest of the floor, complete with the space-grade circular doors.
But they’re open.
The lights are off, and the airlock doors are wide open. A gust of cold wind blows straight into the elevator. At the far end of the parking lot a ramp leads up to the ground, where I can make out a hint of daylight. The woman clasps her hands over her son’s mouth, letting out a scream.
They just got hit with a gust of wind from outside.
‘What the hell?’ I grab Cole’s arm, staring through the gaping Wash-and-Blast at the parking lot. ‘Why is this airlock open? This elevator goes right down to residential.’
‘We’re still safe,’ Cole says to both me and the mother, gesturing to a green light on the wall. ‘This air is clear.’
‘But it’s open! There are eighty thousand people here, Cole. This isn’t safe.’