NATE SHOUTED A BAD WORD AND CROUCHED ON THE WALKWAY. “DUCK!” he said. “They’re shooting! Run!”
How could we do both? We tried the best we could, awkwardly hurrying with our heads down. I could hardly breathe, thinking about that sound. We were being shot at. Clint was shooting at us. And it hadn’t even been an hour.
Then again, we did shove a flare in his face.
As we rounded the walkway around the next building, instead of getting on the metal, elevated path between buildings, Nate jumped down to the rock floor about five feet below. We followed. Down here the ground was slightly uneven, slick with moisture and pockmarked by puddles. Here and there we saw the silhouettes of stalagmites: giant cone-shaped stone crystals that seemed to grow right out of the earth. Some were nearly as tall as me, and I even risked a few peeks toward the roof to see if there were any matching stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
There may have been. It’s hard to look up when you’re running for your life.
“Under here,” he whispered when we reached the next building. He ducked underneath the platform and we hurried after him. Savannah and I barely had to bend our heads, and Howard and Eric fit just fine.
I’d thought these freestanding buildings were elevated with concrete blocks, like trailers, but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, each stood on four columns made up of giant rings of painted steel. As I got closer, I could see that where the rings touched, chips of paint had flaked off, showing scratches on the metal as if the rings had rubbed against each other.
I touched the rings, feeling the deep grooves and the scratches in the paint. “What are these things?”
“They’re springs,” Howard whispered. “They help protect the structure by absorbing vibrations from earthquakes or nuclear strikes.”
I nodded. That must be what had caused so much damage in other parts of the city. The buildings set into the rocks didn’t have that kind of protection. Then again, springs didn’t protect the buildings from the floods.
“Guys,” Nate hissed at us. “Turn off your lights.”
We flipped off the flashlights and head lamps and huddled behind one of the large central springs. It was easily the size of a minivan. The ground was cold and wet and water dripped somewhere close by.
We heard footsteps echoing from somewhere, and then the clang of booted feet on the walkway near our building. I almost expected the springs to bounce like the underside of a couch or a bed, but even though the pounding of Clint’s and Travis’s combat boots seemed to shudder through my entire body, the springs remained solid. Omega City was built to withstand a nuclear attack. It could handle two bullies with guns.
The question was, could we?
“Check inside.” Clint. He must be the leader. A flashlight’s beam cast over the chamber floor beyond the edge of the building. We all squeezed tighter together as it occurred to me that silver jumpsuits did not make for decent camouflage. Dr. Underberg should have thought of that. He hadn’t properly prepared for the moment the citizens of Omega City may have had to run for their lives from—
Boots stomped right over my head. We wrapped our arms around one another and held our collective breath. Any minute now, Travis would realize we weren’t in the building.
Nate began making gestures in the darkness for us to head out in the other direction. I could still see Clint waving his light around on the opposite side of the structure. I shook my head vehemently. We had no plan, we had no escape, and we were wearing shiny silver suits.
And Clint was shooting at us.
Then again, what were our options? Sit around here until they found us?
Again the image of that elevator filled my brain. We’d been so close.
“Now,” Nate breathed, and shoved against my back. I ran, and the others ran too, dodging and weaving around the springs until we reached the open air. We were fifty feet from the building when I heard Clint’s shout of discovery. I was afraid he’d shoot again—and even if his aim was lousy in the dark, I didn’t want to take that chance.
“Don’t look back!” Nate called. With his long legs, he could outpace the rest of us easily, but he was sticking close. We followed him over to the right, near the far side of the chamber. Ahead of us was a dark dome tiled in a black honeycomb pattern. There was a metal door in the side, which Nate held open as we all sprinted inside.
He slammed the door, and everything stopped. Light, sound, everything. The air around us felt almost soft, the blackness fluffy, like a pillow, in comparison to the vast, echoing emptiness of the cavern.
One by one, we flipped our flashlights back on, revealing dusty floors strewn with tables and what looked like broken bits of pottery and tile. Nate dragged one of the tables in front of the door, wedging it up under the knob so it wouldn’t turn. Howard helped him, collecting shards of broken tile or something on the ground and helping block the table legs from sliding across the floor.
“Where are we?” Eric asked, once we were properly barricaded in.
“It’s marked AG on the map,” said Howard.
“I don’t care. I care about making it to exit four before those guys do. Come on.” Nate started marching off into the darkness. I caught flashes of light all around us, quick as shooting stars. What was this place? Our voices were muffled, as if the sound stopped a foot or so from our mouths.
Eric’s head lamp beam was tracing the wall, which seemed to be made of a soft, almost fuzzy brown fluff. He found a control panel and turned the lights on.
Instantly the space was filled with an intense yellow light and I squinted, though this wasn’t nearly as bad as the flare had been. A steady, humming buzz ran everywhere, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see why. Giant warming grow lights shined down on row after row of tables, each covered with trays of withered brown vines and herbs. Enormous mirrors all over the walls, floors, and ceilings reflected and refracted the light in a thousand different directions. Massive glass bubbles spaced evenly along the outside walls housed gnarled dead trees and tangles of some other dead plant I couldn’t recognize. And the interior surface of the dome? Dead moss.
“It’s a greenhouse,” I said, staring around in wonder.
It made perfect sense. If people were to live in Omega City, they had to get their food from somewhere. Astronaut ice cream and Meals, Ready to Eat were okay for emergencies, but you wouldn’t want to live off them long term. I’d bet those were fruit trees in the bubbles, and probably vegetables and herbs all along the tables under the grow lights.
There had to be more, though. This couldn’t feed my school, let alone a small city’s worth of people. Somewhere there had to be fields of underground grain or—I glanced at the tables of withered plants—pens filled with dead livestock.
I really hoped Dr. Underberg hadn’t put animals down here before whatever happened to this place happened.
“The map says there’s an exit right here,” Nate was saying. He was standing about halfway down the center row, looking puzzled and turning the map around and around in his hands.
We joined him there. He was staring at the ceiling of the dome. “I don’t know where it could be.”
I looked down. We were standing on another massive mirror, its surface reflecting the bottom of our shoes. It seemed to be the only mirror set into the floor of the greenhouse, and there were no tables around it. I glanced up, half expecting to see plants hanging from the ceiling. Why was there a mirror on the floor?
Over near the far edge of the mirror sat a small gray control box with a red button in the center.
“What if this mirror moves?” I asked. “What if all the mirrors swivel around, to help direct the lights?” I pointed at the button. “Howard, want to see what that does?”
He brightened as we all stepped off the mirror and onto the concrete.
As soon as he pressed the button, the mirrors in the ceiling and on the wall started to shift, making the light dance and leap across the inside of the greenhouse. The mirror of the floor folded down the center and tilted up into a tent shape, angling light sideways at the growing platforms. All of it was amazingly cool, but Nate and the others only had eyes for the darkness under the mirror, where a metal ramp led down into nothingness. We aimed our flashlights into the hole but could see no farther than a few feet. For the first time since entering the greenhouse, I could hear the drip of water and catch the smell of rot.
I didn’t like it one little bit.
“Where does it go?” Savannah asked.
Nate shoved the map under her nose. “Look, we go down through here and through this stairwell and come out over there and go to exit four.”
“And what happens if that doesn’t work?” I asked. Why hadn’t I planned out alternate routes while I’d been waiting for the others back in the Comm room? I don’t think I even looked at the AG room—whatever that meant, since this was clearly some sort of garden—when I’d had the chance. I had no idea if it led to operational or offline places on the map. I had no idea if we’d hit more flooding.
“Gills, what’s our option?” Eric asked. “This is the only way out.”
I heard a pounding on the dome door. “Let us in!” yelled Travis.
“Come on out!” yelled Clint.
And then a rhythmic sound, like they were throwing their weight against the door to try to break it down.
There was another crack of gunfire and then the sound of shattering glass. Giant knife-sharp icicles of mirror and terrarium started raining on us.
What choice did we have? Savannah sprinted down the ramp, with the rest of us hot on her heels. A few yards down was another red button and when Howard pressed it, the door folded shut again. Up close, the underside of the door seemed to be made of metal.
“Look, there’s a lock.” Howard shoved at a lever but he couldn’t make it stick until his brother helped him push it into place.
And just in time, too, as seconds later, we heard boots up top and the sound of the gears grinding again, as if Clint and Travis had pressed the button.
“Open up!” Another shot, but nothing happened.
“You broke it, you idiot.” Travis’s muffled voice filtered down.
“Nicely done, Howard!” said Savannah. She held out her hand for a high five, and he flinched like she was going to hit him, then lightly tapped his palm to hers.
I shined my lamp around the space. Blackness spread out in every direction, and the narrow, ghostly white ramp continued to descend into the abyss. After a quick consult with the map, we started walking, but if there was another end to the ramp, I couldn’t see it. It seemed to be suspended from the ceiling by massive metal poles and we went deeper and deeper into the Earth.
“Um, guys?” Eric said after a minute. “This is the wrong direction. We’re trying to get up.”
At last I could make something out over the side. I saw the dark glimmer of water, and more giant, pale shapes like the backs of whales ballooning up toward the surface. “What are they?” I asked in awe.
“Tanks, maybe,” Nate suggested. “Water or oil or something?”
We passed one that was set above the surface of the water. The omega symbol was stenciled on the side in red letters four feet high, and under it the word Grain.
Finally, we saw a rock wall looming in front of us, sheer and massive. We’d reached the end of the chamber. There was a door set in the side and the ramp led right down to it.
Savannah breathed a sigh of relief. “We made it.”
“Don’t get excited yet,” said Eric. “These things don’t always open.” He reached for the knob.
Just then, a huge explosion rocked the cavern. The ramp shuddered beneath my feet, then gave way. I reached for my brother, Savannah, anything, but my hands clawed nothing but air as we all dropped like stones into the icy water far below.