A Crack in the Sky (40 page)

She stumbled after him down the hallway. Eli was swinging his makeshift baton like a madman, whacking every sphere he passed as he headed down the long corridor. There were seven or eight of them, floating in regular intervals along the narrow ceiling. Some he struck several times. Sparks flew, but instead of breaking, they seemed to glow brighter.

“Disturbance on level five,” came a voice from the spheres. “Resisters in Wayward Dormitory corridor B.”

“Wake up! Wake up!”
Eli shouted over the blaring alarm. He slammed his fist against each bunk-room door he passed.

Tabitha ran after him. “Eli, stop!” She had a desperate idea. Maybe if they hurried back to the air duct, they could still slip away. With luck they might reach the pods before the Guardians figured out what had happened to them. It wasn’t likely, but it was the best she could think of. They had to at least try. “What are you doing, Eli! We need to go back!”

“We can’t go back! We’re the only chance the Waywards have! Come on, hurry!”

“There’s nothing you can do for them! Eli, please!”

Eli stopped at an arched door near the end of the hallway. She caught up with him, but it was already too late. She could hear footsteps rushing up the stairway. In seconds the Guardians would swarm the corridor, and their passage back to her bunk room would be cut off. Frantic to find another way out, she tried the door but of course it was locked, just like all the others. They were trapped.

Another crash of thunder shook the walls. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins and she wondered how on earth she’d allowed this to happen. Back at the pods she could have just let Eli go. Even up until moments earlier she could have dashed back to the open air duct while she still had a slim hope of making it to the pods without him. But she hadn’t, and now that option was gone. Why had she done this to herself? With one bad decision she’d let everything crumble to nothing.

The footsteps were closer. The first of the Guardians was about to appear from the stairwell.

And then something strange happened: the door in front of them slid open, even though Tabitha had been positive it was locked. “Follow me!” Eli said. Astonished, and with no idea where she was going, she shot behind him into what looked like another dark, narrow passageway. Just as three Guardians came into view in the corridor, the door slid shut again. There was shouting, followed by the sounds of the frustrated Guardians pounding at the door.

Eli waved for her to keep moving. “Don’t worry. They won’t be able to get it open right away. The unlock mechanism is blocked from them for now. It should hold at least a minute or two.”

Tabitha was still shocked. After a few steps she stopped. “H-how did you do that?”

“It’s Marilyn,” he said, gesturing at the rat in his pocket. “She’s a friend. She’s going to help us find our way.” When Tabitha only gaped at him, he stepped back to her and grabbed her hand. “Come on, there’s no time to explain. Trust me. Let’s go!”

She staggered after him. Wherever they were, it was hot and damp and smelled vaguely of sewage. Thick metal pipes ran along the length of the passageway, and in and out of the walls and ceiling—so many, there was little room to move. As they scrambled through the tight space, the tower continued to rock and the echo of rain and wind against the nearby dome was so loud it hurt Tabitha’s ears. She couldn’t help wondering if this was the end—if, despite their inexplicable escape, the tower was about to crumble into the sea, making everything meaningless. But no. She couldn’t think about that possibility.

She couldn’t allow herself to.

Soon they came to a low opening near the floor, and they squeezed through. It was even darker on the other side. Just as Tabitha was about to take a step into the gloom, Eli grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. An instant later she saw why. When her eyes adjusted, she realized they were on a short ledge over a steep drop. It went down perhaps fifty feet, all the way to the water. If it weren’t for the storm crashing all around them, she would have heard the waves.

She screamed. She had to hold tight to the wall as the tower dipped and swayed.

“What are we doing here?” she said, forcing herself not to look down. Straight ahead she noticed something else. Perhaps six feet across the gap stood an ancient structure of metal girders that began somewhere below and got narrower as it rose high into the darkness above.

Eli had to shout to be heard over the noise. “Marilyn says this is part of a utility crane they used to use back when this tower was only for drilling oil! It’s inactive now, but it looks like we can climb it!”

“But what about the Guardians?” she called back.

“This whole section is blocked off for now! With luck, it’ll be a few more seconds before they can unjam the locks, and then they’ll have to figure out what level we’re on! Let’s go!”

Only then did it fully sink in what Eli had in mind. He wanted her to jump across the gap and then scale the metal structure, use it like a ladder. Just the idea sent her stomach into her throat. Despite herself, she looked down again at the drop, and her knees went weak.

“What’s the matter?”

“I—I’m scared …,” she admitted, taking deep breaths. “I’m no good with heights.”

His eyes were on her now, and for a moment she was ashamed. But his expression was calm, and when he finally spoke, his voice was gentle, even over the noise. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Tabitha, you can do this. Think of all the months you spent here in the tower, fully aware of what was going on. You are one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. You’ll be okay. I’m right here with you.”

His words calmed her a little. Besides, she didn’t have
much choice except to do this. She bit her lower lip and took another deep breath.

“Don’t think about it,” he said. “Just jump.”

She summoned all her courage and leapt into the air, stretching her arms toward the nearest girder. When she felt metal she held tight, let her body slam into it, and then wrapped her legs around it for dear life. She’d made it! She was on the crane!

An instant later Eli was hanging on to the girder beside her, the strange animal still partly visible, clinging inside his jacket. Somehow Tabitha knew what was coming next. She could see it in the direction of his gaze. He was looking up, not down.

“You’re not going back to the pods, are you?” she said. It wasn’t really a question.

He shook his head. “You were right about shutting down the CloudNet,” he answered as the tower groaned again. “That’s what I have to do. But it doesn’t mean you have to come. You can climb down and try to find a path back to the pods. I wouldn’t blame you, and you might even make it. But I can’t do that. I’m a Papadopoulos. My family is responsible for so many mistakes, and I feel like I have to at least try to do something right. I know it must sound crazy, but I’ve made my decision. Now you have to make yours.”

He started climbing up the crane. Tabitha could hardly believe what was happening. From the moment she’d first found out the kid was a Papadopoulos, she thought she understood everything about him that mattered. She thought he would be arrogant. She was sure he’d be self-centered and tyrannical. But she’d misjudged him. Here he was, ready to sacrifice himself for the Waywards. He was making her question everything
she thought she knew. Now she felt awful for the selfish way she’d behaved toward him, and for all the secret thoughts she’d held from him. Suddenly she wanted to tell him everything, to let him know she realized now how wrong she’d been.

By then he’d reached the girder just above her. She pulled herself a little higher, toward him. “Eli, I don’t think you’d want me along with you,” she said, “not if you realized the truth. Because you’re a Papadopoulos, I was ready to abandon you down at the pods while I got away. Even if we’d made it to the desert, I was thinking of leaving you alone there too.” She paused. “I wouldn’t do any of those things now. And I’m sorry.”

This seemed to take a moment to sink in. He stopped and looked back. His eyebrows pulled together. “It’s okay,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

When his eyes met hers, she felt a rush of something she didn’t understand, a dizzy feeling as though she were part of something much bigger than herself. The boy, the animal protector, the storm—was it possible it could all be a coincidence? Maybe the Friends were right after all. Maybe she, like everyone else, had always been a single, tiny cog in a complex system far larger than she’d ever imagined. All at once, with the tower rocking and the sound of waves crashing and wind howling, she had the idea that perhaps there really was a plan, a grand design with a special role she was meant to play.

She made her decision.

“Wait!” she called. “I’m coming with you!”

Trying not to look down, she followed Eli up the crane. It went for quite a distance. Every now and then they could hear
the alarm blaring through the walls. Occasionally they even heard shouting.

“How far do we go?” she asked. “Where are we headed?”

“Every dome has a CloudNet brain—that’s what we’re looking for,” he called back. “Marilyn says there’s an orange door on the top floor. We have to find it!”

Tabitha was in a daze now, concentrating on keeping a steady footing on each girder and holding on tight as she moved upward. The top of the crane leaned against a metal rail that wrapped around a steel enclosure. Climbing off was easier than jumping on, as long as she didn’t look down. She followed Eli across a short passage that led to another vent. There were Guardians on the other side of the wall. She could hear them. And yet somehow she wasn’t as worried as she might have been. Eli had already led her this far, with doors that locked and unlocked for them, through dark passageways in hidden recesses of the facility. It was as if his animal companion knew exactly where to go, as if it somehow had the blueprints of the tower and access to the hidden cameras.

They crawled on their stomachs through the vent. This was the twenty-fourth level, the top floor of the facility. The sound of driving rain filled the air, and the cramped space shook with thunder. Soon the three of them were looking out at a small alcove with a tiled floor. With the animal’s assurance that the passage was clear, they climbed out. Tabitha’s heart was pounding. Just ahead, somebody was shouting orders as waves continued to crash against the dome and rock the tower. The floor listed to one side. Clinging to the wall so they
wouldn’t lose footing, she and Eli crept to the end of the alcove. They peered around the corner.

There it was, just as Eli had said.

A corridor with a stairwell and a single orange door.

It was guarded by three beefy kids in white uniforms. From the hint of unease in their expressions, Tabitha guessed the Guardians were as concerned by the storm as she was, but she also knew that, like the Waywards, they were under the spell of the spheres. In the meantime, finding a way past them was the only way to get to the door. It wasn’t going to be easy.

“What do we do now?”

Eli was still trying to catch his breath from the climb. “I don’t know. I’m out of ideas.”

But an idea was beginning to occur to
her
, and it hit her once again that the Friends had turned out to be right. Everything happened for a reason. All of a sudden she knew what she had to do, though the thought terrified her.

“Tell me something about the man in the sky,” she whispered in Eli’s ear, although she already knew what he was going to say. “He had a tattoo, didn’t he?”

He looked surprised at the question, but he seemed to consider. “He did. An orange sun—it was on the palm of his hand. How did you know?”

Before she realized she was going to say it, she heard herself whisper, “A single thread of reality can be hard to distinguish in a complex fabric of illusion.”

He must have seen the transformation on her face. “It doesn’t mean anything, Tabitha. Anybody could have a tattoo.”

But she no longer doubted. In a rush she understood why she was here in the tower, why she’d had to endure all those
months on the Learning Floors. This was it. This was her moment. As she started to move toward the Guardians, Eli grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing? You’ll get caught! Don’t be stupid!”

“There’s no time to discuss it. You have to shut down the CloudNet.” She turned to gaze into his face, probably for the last time. “I do this for you, el Guía. Everything depends on you. Wait ten seconds and then go.”

With that she shook off his hand and stepped into the corridor.

25
the brain room

Eli watched Tabitha race toward the Guardians, calling out to them. The moment they saw her, they left their posts. She disappeared down the stairwell and they dashed after her. Eli struggled to stay where he was. There was little chance she could make it far before they caught her. If only there was something he could do!

Let her go, Eli. It’s too late
.

Marilyn’s voice was so weak, it was barely there anymore. The mental exertion of accessing the tower’s systems had left her gasping for breath, and now Eli worried about losing her too. Why was everything he cared about slipping from him? He put his hand in his pocket and stroked her fur. She was safe—for now, at least. Tabitha had cleared the path to the orange door, and that was all he could allow himself to think about.