A Crack in the Sky (41 page)

I’m sorry I can’t take down the CloudNet for you, my darling. I would if I could
.

I know
, he answered, even though he realized instinctively that it never would have been possible. Even if she were at her strongest, her chip was no match against the power of an entire CloudNet, and the effort of trying to shut it down might even have killed her.
Don’t worry, Marilyn. You’ve done plenty
.

He’d waited long enough. The corridor was clear, so he leapt from the alcove and ran to the door. It unlocked just as he reached for it, and after he stepped through, it slammed shut behind him.

It was the steep drop in temperature that startled him most.

Right away the sweat on his scalp and back started to grow clammy, and he could see his breath in puffy clouds. In his entire time in the tower, he’d never felt air this cool. He was in a long room cluttered with shiny equipment and flashing lights. There was a musty smell and a deep electronic hum he could hear even over the howl of the wind. Shadows flitted across the low ceiling as the tower creaked again. The place reminded him of where he had met the old Outsider, and he realized this was another sky chamber. He was inside the shell of the tower’s little dome.

He glanced around at the equipment. Most of it was large and unfamiliar to him. He wondered why nothing appeared damaged or upended from the storm, but then he noticed that everything was bolted to the floor. He stepped deeper inside, following the sound of the electronic hum. Soon he found what he was looking for: near the center of the room stood a gigantic enclosed tank filled with translucent pink liquid, and floating inside was a mass of grayish goo with lights and glowing fibers that jutted in all directions.

The CloudNet brain.

He hurried to the tank and began searching for a control panel—any buttons, keypads, or whatever looked like it might help him shut it down. There wasn’t much, just a small, shimmering plate at one side of the base. It had a knob and a couple of switches, so he flipped the switches. Nothing seemed to happen. He spun the knob, and the light in the tank grew a little brighter, but otherwise the brain continued to hum and throb just the same as before.

How do I do this?

Marilyn didn’t answer. Eli realized she was unconscious. He was on his own.

But there had to be a way! The wind rose, and the floor pitched to the side again. Eli gripped the edge of the tank until his knuckles went white. He was so close and yet he was going to fail! He wanted to scream—at Representative Shine and Representative Tinker, at Spider, at every one of his uncles and aunts. Even Grandfather had been so warped with age and disease that he hadn’t helped him. He slammed his fist against the glass.

And it was then, with his eyes fixed on the throbbing mass of electronics in the tank, that a curious new thought occurred to him. What was it Grandfather had said when he gave him the riddle? Something about how music wasn’t the only key to quieting a troubled mind? At the time, Eli had assumed he meant that the riddle was a diversion to make him feel better, but now, as he watched a cloud of pink bubbles rise around the artificial brain, a different possibility dawned on him: What if it wasn’t
Eli’s
mind Grandfather had been talking about? What if, like with Grandfather’s music box, the original designers of the domes had built in a Master Key, a secret phrase that could
control a dome’s entire CloudNet system? What if, despite the fact that their conversation had been monitored, Grandfather had been trying to help him after all?

He leaned closer to the glass and said, “Good night, folks. Time to go back to sleep.”

Nothing happened.

But of course not, he thought. The Master Key to the CloudNet, if there really
was
such a thing, wouldn’t be the same as the shutdown words for the music box. It would have something to do with the riddle, or else why would Grandfather have given it to him? Perhaps the question itself was the key. He tried it, careful to speak in a loud, clear voice: “When backward is forward, Alice looks through a mirror. What does she see?”

Again, nothing. It was no use.

His thoughts were interrupted. Two figures appeared out of the shadows, one on each side. He spun to look. To his left a hulking boy with an oversized jaw and long yellow teeth was moving toward him. On his right, another large kid, this one missing an ear. Eli’s stomach sank. They were Outsiders, the same two savages who’d first brought him to the facility.

“It’s all right. Keep your distance, gentlemen,” whispered a listless voice. Eli wasn’t sure where it had come from, but then he noticed something happening inside the tank. A holographic image seemed to be forming in the pink liquid all around the brain. At first he could make out only a giant mouth—two rows of teeth and thin lips forming a wide smirk. But then above it two gray eyes appeared, followed by white hair and the rest of a pale, familiar face.

Spider.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said the enormous, grinning head. “It seems I was alerted to your escape attempt just in time.” On his order the savages had halted in their tracks, but Eli could still hear their raspy breathing and impatient movements, as if they were itching to pounce on him the moment Spider gave permission.

“Spider, please don’t do this! You don’t understand!”

“Oh, but I do. I’m told our dear, unfortunate grandfather regained consciousness for a while and that you and he had a little chat. Naughty, naughty, little cousin.” Pockets of gas bubbled up through the goo, and his grin widened. “But I think you’ll find I’m going to be surprisingly reasonable with you. You see, after reviewing your illicit conversation with the old fossil, my father has the outlandish idea that—now that you better understand our state of affairs, not to mention your own hopeless situation at the moment—you might be more open to reason. With the right incentive, of course. My father was never comfortable with my decision to cleanse you from the organization in the first place, I’m afraid. It turns out your uncle Hector is a sentimental man.
Foolishly
sentimental, if you ask me. Still, there it is. Against my better judgment, I’ve been instructed to offer you a deal.”

Eli’s muscles went tight. A deal? What was this?

“Cooperate with the company,” Spider continued. “Agree to come back without causing any more trouble, and my father has agreed to overlook your indiscretions. He’ll ask the Leadership Council to assign you to a position you don’t deserve, something respectable in middle management where you can’t do much damage but you’ll live a comfortable life befitting a Papadopoulos.”

“What are you talking about? What life? Don’t you hear the storm Outside? The tower could collapse any second! The whole world is falling apart!”

Spider seemed to shrug. “I suppose there’s no denying that the clock is ticking on the planet. But don’t let this passing Gulf drizzle fool you. The company’s scientists believe we still have time before the curtain closes, time enough for some of us to enjoy the many pleasures InfiniCorp can still provide. And while it’s unfortunate that we can’t shield
everyone
from the discomfort of the days ahead, the company can arrange it for
you
, at least for a while, and starting sooner than you think. As we speak, a pod is on its way to fly you from harm. You’ll be safe from the hurricane, I assure you.” Even as Spider made this offer, his expression made it clear that he didn’t approve of it. Still, his tone was rational. Reasonable. “Now, what do you say? Are you ready to return to the family fold?”

Eli stood there, frozen. Was he serious? After all his time in the tower, InfiniCorp was going to take him back? They were offering him everything he’d always wanted: a life in the city domes, a good position in the company, the respect of his family. And yet even as he tried to take it all in, he couldn’t help thinking of Tabitha, and of his parents. The floor rocked and the walls trembled. There was another crashing wave, and as the tower groaned he pictured all the Waywards, asleep in their bunk rooms. He thought of Clarence and even Geraldine, so lost in their dreams that they would remain unconscious even while the tower sank into the sea.

It didn’t take him long to make up his mind.

“You monster! How do you sleep at night?”

Spider’s expression darkened. “I can’t say I’m surprised by
your attitude. I told my father that trying to reason with you was a waste of effort. I think his judgment was thrown by the impressive way you managed to contact the old geezer on his deathbed despite the CloudNet restraints. But not me. I always suspected that you and Grandfather were up to something, plotting ways to overthrow my father and me from authority.” At this he raised an eyebrow. “Which leads me to one last piece of business. Tell me, where is that little furry abomination of yours? Marilyn is her name, right?”

Eli’s face flushed. “Don’t you dare! You’ll never get your hands on her!”

The holographic head seemed amused. “Oh, but of course we will. Surely you realize that. Now that InfiniCorp understands what she is, we can’t allow her to remain a threat to our systems. Yes, we’ll find her. Even now she must be somewhere nearby, perhaps hiding in this very room, listening to everything we’re saying.”

The savages took another step closer.

Eli felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ve put up with you for long enough, troublesome cousin. Now I’m arranging for you to have an accident. Quite unfortunate. Everyone will be so, so sad. But take heart. The Great Savior will be joining you soon, and once you and Grandfather are both dead, you’ll have an eternity of quality time together. In the meantime, don’t worry, InfiniCorp is taking care of everything.” His gigantic, near-transparent face formed a sneer. “All right, boys. He’s all yours.”

The Outsiders leered at him now, their eyes yellow and cruel. They started creeping in his direction. Eli took a step
backward and almost fell. And yet his mind was still scrambling for any way he might be able to shut down the CloudNet. All he had was the vague hope that Grandfather’s riddle meant something. He was desperate to reason it through, to find some hidden meaning he might have missed. After all, the Master Key could be anything, any series of syllables.

When backward is forward, Alice looks through a mirror. What does she see?

By then the savages were closing in on him, so he made a dash toward the far wall, squeezing through a passage in the jungle of bulky equipment in hopes it would buy him some time. His thoughts raced. The first part of the riddle surely referred to when Alice was in the looking-glass world, but he’d already guessed that, so now he ran through the things he remembered her seeing there. In the very first room, he recalled, there were pictures that moved, a clock with a human face, chess pieces that talked, and a book of nonsense poetry. After that she came to a staircase, a winding path that didn’t lead anywhere, and—oh, it was no use! The list was too long, and the savages were almost on him. Plus, Eli realized, Alice wasn’t looking
through
a mirror to see any of these things, because she herself was
inside
the mirror!

But then he caught himself.

No, that was wrong. In a flash he remembered there
was
one thing she’d seen through a mirror, even in the looking-glass world.

He reached the far wall, where the curved metal girders that shaped the dome’s exterior met with the shimmering electromagnetic field that was the dome’s outermost layer of protection. In the gloom it looked like a grid of glowing
rectangles, a concave wall of high, tinted windows that curved inward as they went up. He could almost feel the rain pounding and the wind blasting on the other side. But there was nowhere left to run. Heart in his throat, he spun around and saw the two freakish boys rushing at him, squeezing their large frames through the narrow rows of blinking generators and vibrating neurofiber systems. Seeing Eli trapped, the savage with the missing ear slowed just a little. He licked his lips. In the tank behind them, Spider’s giant head grinned.

And that’s when the answer came to Eli at last.

It was the book of poetry. Since everything in the looking-glass world was reversed, all the words Alice saw in the book were printed backward, which meant she had to hold it up to a
second
mirror to read it. What she saw was a poem—a backward image of a backward image. The riddle wasn’t a riddle at all. It was simply directions to a particular passage in the story. As it happened, the poem Alice found was one of Eli’s favorite parts of the whole book. He knew it by heart. But was it the Master Key?

There was only one way to find out.

“Wait!” he called, holding up his hand just as taloned fingers reached out at him. For the briefest of moments, the Outsiders stopped. Perhaps the tone of Eli’s voice startled them. Perhaps they were just curious. In any case, Eli began calling out the first verse of the poem:

The lights started to blink. The head in the tank began to dim. Even the Outsiders took notice. They turned to watch.

Spider’s eyes grew furious. “What’s happening?
Stop him!
”

But Eli didn’t miss a beat. He called out the next verse as fast and loud as he could:

There was a thunderous groan like the sound of a giant engine winding down. The lights flickered, and Eli heard a series of sharp, echoing bursts—
crack! crack! crack!
—that seemed to grow closer as the tower powered down one floor at a time. Even in the dim light, he could feel the energy of the spheres diminish. The Outsiders must have felt the change too. Their eyes went wide, and they looked around in terror. One of them had a hold on Eli’s uniform, but now he loosened his grip.