Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (2 page)

was filled with the buzzing sound of fluorescent tubes.

And something else as well--light! A raging flood of light. Red

Eye and Socket screamed and fell to the floor. It felt to them as if

someone had lifted their eyelids and dropped a burning circle of

lit fuses inside. The feeling intensified even after they closed

their eyes and searched their pockets.

By the time the two men had found their goggles and put them

on, Aggie was already back in bed, eyes closed as she lay still

under a thin blanket. Her goggles dangled from the bedpost.

"You're al wicked little creatures!" howled Socket. "Al of you!"

cried Red Eye. They twisted their necks uncontrollably as if the

effort might shake the sting from their eyes.

With the goggles safely attached, Red Eye and Socket saw the

world as it had been before: dim and shadowy. Their eyes

continued to burn and itch with a growing intensity. They knew

from past experience that their damaged eyes would sizzle with

nauseating pain into the morning. The head aches and the heat

behind their eyes would follow. It was going to be a long,

sleepless night for both of them.

"We'll be back before your shift!" screeched Red Eye, cringing

from the growing agony behind his goggles. "You'd best give up

your own for punishment. Give her up or you'll all get the

bender! Every last one of you!"

"Stupid buzz cuts! Stupid little monsters!" yelled Socket. The

two men made for the door and Socket hastily turned off the

light. Everything was dark again but for the soft glow of the

lanterns. Teagan pulled the blanket down just enough to watch

the shadows of Red Eye and Socket as they removed their

goggles and scratched violently at their eyes, fouling the air

with their angry cursing.

"You'll pay for this, you will!"

"All of you!"

Aggie felt the terrifying shaking of their steps as they moved off.

When she was sure Red Eye and Socket were gone she got up

on one shoulder and looked out over the thirty beds. She

removed a thin nightcap and held it in her hand.
Stupid buzz

cuts!
The cruel words rang in her ears as she felt along the

prickly half inch of hair that remained on her head.

"Is everyone all right?" asked Aggie. "Kate? Ash? Teagan?"

Everyone assured Aggie they were all right. No one had been

harmed.

"I'll tell them it was me in the morning," said Aggie. "They'll calm

down a little by then."

No one protested. All the girls in barracks number three were

glad to see Red Eye and Socket get some of their own

medicine, but they also knew what it felt like to be hit with a

bender.

Aggie put her nightcap back on and lay down, staring up into

the darkness. There was a long silence, then a whisper from

beside her.

"I hate this place," said Teagan. She was in the bed next to

Aggie's, rubbing a long, thin bruise on her arm.

"I know," said Aggie. "I hate it, too."

They heard a faraway sound of something heavy slamming into

the ground, followed by the muffled cry of an angry creature

wailing outside. As hazardous as life was inside the Silo, it was

even more treacherous in the forsaken wood.

"At least we're not out there."

Aggie nodded just a little. She pulled the itchy woolen cover up

close to her face.

The pounding came again, closer now. "What's going to

happen to us?" asked Teagan.

Aggie turned to her best friend and wished she could see

Teagan's blue eyes. But it was pitch-black in barracks number

three.

"I don't know," she answered.

Aggie thought about the morning and the long, thin bruises it

would bring. She thought about the many levels of the Silo in

which she was held prisoner. She imagined the broken world

outside and the curls of blond hair that had once hung about her

shoulders. But mostly she thought of her birthday.

She had a secret on this particular night that she had chosen

not to tell anyone.

In the morning she would be eleven years old.

4017 days.

A very bad thing to be in the perilous world of the Silo.

CHAPTER 1OVER THE EDGE

"What's taking him so long?"

Isabel hated to admit it but she was worried about Edgar, and in

the past this had always been a bad sign. She had a knack for

knowing when Edgar was in terrible danger.

He's climbed to the Highlands and back again.

He's been inside Atherton and lived to tell about it.

He almost never falls.

This last thought turned out to be a bad one, because it

reminded Isabel that even Edgar wasn't totally invincible. He'd

fallen--just the one time--but all the same, he'd let his fingers

slip and it had nearly killed him.

"We should have tried harder to discourage him," said her

friend Samuel.

"It was only a matter of time," Isabel told him. "At least he let us

tie him to a rock."

Isabel and Samuel were lying down on the ground a few feet

away from the far edge of Atherton. Dr. Kincaid and Vincent,

and all of the other adults, had forbidden them to go all the way

out there by themselves. But Edgar had convinced Isabel and

Samuel to come with him, so here they were. Only Edgar wasn't

there anymore. He'd kicked his feet over the edge, turned over,

and climbed down the curved side of Atherton.

A rope made from the twisted bark of the first-year fig trees ran

between Isabel and Samuel. It was tied around a boulder that

sat heavy and immovable twenty feet back.

"At least he's got the moonlight," said Samuel. "It will help."

"I don't know why he insists on doing this," said Isabel. She

knew Samuel would understand her frustration. "With the lake

in the middle, Atherton is
flat.
Why can't he accept it? I realize

it's a lot for Edgar to get used to, but I don't understand why we

can't convince him that Atherton's not made for climbing

anymore."

Isabel touched the rope to see if she could feel Edgar's weight

on the other end. She could not.

"I didn't believe he'd go through with it. I'm beginning to wonder

if he's lost his mind."

"You do know why he's down there, don't you?" asked Samuel.

The mere thought of Edgar hanging on to the bottom of Atherton

made Samuel feel like throwing up. He was the least likely of

the three to take risks that might get him killed.

"Because he loves to climb," Isabel replied, "and it's the only

place left on Atherton where he can do it."

Samuel had been thinking a lot about this very topic.

"I think that's only part of the answer."

"He climbs for the thrill of it," said Isabel. "There's something in

the climbing that makes him feel more... I don't know... alive. He

tells me that all the time."

Isabel had moved forward and was now even closer to the edge

than Samuel. Her head peeked out over the rim of the world.

Samuel had made a point of holding back a few feet, but now

he moved forward on his elbows, careful not to rise up too far

into the watery current of gravity. He came alongside Isabel and

glanced down.

Gazing over the edge, Samuel marveled at what he could see

in the soft grey light. He'd seen it before when they'd come to

look at night, but every time it surprised him. A distant orange

light, the source of which he could not see, cutting through long

chasms of stone on the bottom of Atherton.

"I think Edgar climbs for another reason," said Samuel,

regaining his voice as he held the rope running between them.

"Why else would he do it?"

"I remember the first time I met Edgar," answered Samuel. "He

had climbed all the way up to the Highlands before it collapsed.

I thought he used magic to trick me into believing he'd done the

impossible. But later--when he came back a second time--I

stopped wondering
how
he could climb so high, and began

asking myself
why
he had done it."

"And you've been thinking about it ever since?" asked Isabel.

Samuel nodded. "It's too dangerous to do it just because it's

thrilling or even just because he loves doing it. I think

something else drives him. Maybe Edgar began climbing as a

means to an end. What if it was only ever about finding things,

never about the climbing itself? What if he was always

searching for something?"

Samuel took a deep breath and looked out into the stars.

"What if he's still searching for something?"

Isabel shook her head and sighed. "I just wish he'd find safer

places to search for whatever it is he's looking for."

Isabel thought of how she, Samuel, and Edgar had become

totally inseparable after the fall of Atherton. As the world had

gone from three levels high to three levels deep, it seemed to

have tried to destroy them with falling rocks, fierce quakes, and

a billion gallons of rising water. Somehow the three of them had

not only survived, they'd each played an important role in the

evolution of Atherton.

But Edgar had never stopped feeling restless.

The rope between them moved ever so slightly and Isabel

leaned out, craning her neck down in search of Edgar in the

darkness below. For a while she'd been able to see him clearly,

but he was too far away now.

She noticed that the rope seemed to lie differently than it had

when he'd started. Gravity pulled every thing in toward the

bottom of Atherton, so the rope didn't exactly hang straight

down. It curved inward with a big looping shape. She could not

see its end.

"Edgar?" said Isabel. She couldn't yel his name too loudly. The

village was only a half-hour walk away and voices carried

something fierce on Atherton. What if someone were out

looking for them? She said his name once more, a little louder,

and then she scampered away from the edge and began

hauling in the rope. It was much lighter than it should have

been. The rope was a hundred feet long and as it piled up

beside her she grew more and more afraid.

"Keep pulling!" said Samuel, still lying at the edge of Atherton.

"I don't see him!"

Soon the end of the rope came over the edge with a soft

snapping sound. There was no one tied to the other end.

Edgar was gone.

The rocky terrain of Atherton's outer shell was a perfect place

for Edgar to regain his confidence. Giant rocks and fissures

provided plenty of hand-and footholds. And the surface was

bursting with sharp edges and protruding masses of grey and

brown stone. The gravity on Atherton pushed against his back

so his legs and arms didn't dangle out into the air. And yet, if

he'd let go altogether, he felt certain he would freefall until he

smacked into something hard. The thought of crashing into the

bottom of Atherton made Edgar extra cautious as he continued

down the curved side of the strange world he lived on.

One thing had made the going slow and tedious: the rope tied

around his midsection, which had bothered him from the start. It

kept getting in his way, wrapping around an arm or a leg and

forcing him to rethink his position. And what was worse, the

rope kept snagging on sharp rocks and jerking him to a stop as

he descended. He actually felt unsafe with it tied around him.

He didn't want to scare Isabel and Samuel, so at first he'd

managed to untie the rope and put it between his teeth. But it

kept snagging, pulling his head back, and soon he'd decided to

let go of it altogether. He opened his mouth and let the rope

swing lazily against the rocks.

"It hangs almost like someone's holding on," Edgar said aloud.

"Maybe they'll think I'm still attached to it."

He looked down at the vast space left to be explored.

"Just a little farther..."

Samuel had only been half right when he'd guessed about what

drove Edgar to climb. It was true Edgar had first begun climbing

so long ago because he'd had a distant memory of something

hidden in the stone walls above him and he wanted to find it.

But somewhere along the way the climbing became something

more.

There was something amazing about holding on to Atherton

itself, like he was truly
part
of Atherton. Whenever he reached

the top or the bottom of a climb he felt sadness at having to let

go. It was like cutting himself away from the world.

Tonight Edgar wanted to go far enough to see where the

orange light came from. There were two men Edgar had asked

about this: Dr. Kincaid, the often secretive old man of science,

and Vincent, Dr. Kincaid's protector and companion. Both men

had lived in the Flatlands long before Atherton's violent

collapse. They'd had years and years near the edge without

anyone else around.

When he asked the two men about the light, they re sponded

with what seemed to Edgar like rehearsed shrugs. Either they

didn't know where the light came from or they wouldn't tell.

The light glowed brighter as Edgar traveled down a certain

fissure, but he couldn't guess how much farther it would be to its