The Colony Book 2: Revolution

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Immediately inside the doorway, I stopped helped Kyer close the door. I felt a helplessness rise within me as I watched the light behind us go from a wide, open storeroom down to a sliver of a crack, and then extinguish completely. Blindly, I groped for Kyer’s hand, and took a few shuffling steps forward. I kept my voice low as I called out, “Sinda?”

The reply was loud in my ear. “Right here.”

“Ah!” I jumped back and stepped on Kyer’s foot, eliciting a yelp of surprise from him. Quickly I moved aside, my hand holding his in a death grip. My heart raced wildly. I thought she had left us. The last thing I had expected was to have her standing right there beside me!

I heard something shaking, a rattle like beads on metal, then a cone of light appeared under her face, throwing shadows up into her wild hair. “Boo,” she said with a grin.

“Are you trying to scare us?” Kyer hissed beside me.

Sinda pouted. “I’m trying to have some fun. Were you guys not allowed to laugh on the island?”

“The Colony,” I corrected. “And yes, we were. You’re just not very funny.”

“So you keep saying,” she muttered. “Come on.”

She swung the light around in front of us, illuminating a long, wide hall. At first, the walls looked like fencing, but when I ran a hand over the nearest one, I felt cool ceramic and realized they were covered in tiles. We moved at a slight, downward angle, which I felt in my knees as we walked. The floor sounded like more tile, and from time to time, either Kyer’s or my sneaker would squeak, startling me. I couldn’t stop thinking about rats. Had we closed the door in time?

Finally, when I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer, I asked, “Are there really rats down here?”

Sinda scoffed. “There have been rats in the subway since before the last war. If anything, leaving the door open a bit would let them out, not in.”

But one word snagged in my mind. “Subway?”

She pushed through a door and turned left sharply, her light dipping away out of view. Kyer and I hurried to keep up. Around another series of turns—right then left then right again—and I wondered how she managed to keep the unseen layout around us straight. I tried my question in a different way. “You guys have a train?”

“We have a subway,” she said, as if that explained it.

But wasn’t a subway an underground monorail? The thought of sitting on an upholstered seat and letting the ground roll by beneath my feet was heavenly. “Does it run?”

She stopped and I almost ran into her, but Kyer pulled me back in time. “Yeah, right,” she muttered, clicking off her light. “Everything here runs right on schedule. Hurry up and you might be able to catch the E train to Broadway.”

“Again with the weird-speak,” Kyer whispered to me.

But no, wait… “You mean there’s no train?” I asked.

She turned and glared at me. “What did I just say?”

To be honest, I didn’t know. But I realized her light was off and I could see her faintly, so there was another source of light coming from somewhere around us. After a long moment, she sighed in exasperation and hurried down the hall, and by degrees, the light brightened. “I hope whatever sort of food you have in that purse of yours is worth all your stupid questions,” she groused.

Anger sparked within me, but I bit it back. She was the only person we knew in this world, I reminded myself. We couldn’t afford to fight and argue just yet. So she didn’t like my questions? Fine. I wouldn’t ask any more.

Kyer gasped as he realized we hall around us was growing lighter. “Aine,” he sighed. “Light…”

“And the arm candy speaks,” Sinda mumbled, pulling ahead.

We hurried on. The hallway grew brighter, enough to see the dingy floor beneath our feet, and long streaks of something dark along the walls. “Is this blood?” The moment the words were free, I grimaced. I’d broken my own silent vow not to ask anything else.

“It’s something, all right,” Sinda said. With a sharp glance over her shoulder, she added, “Don’t touch it.”

Like I was going to.

Ahead of us, a long staircase descended even further into the earth. It was fashioned from the same tile as the floor, and not rickety or unsteady like the last stairs we took. I matched my steps to Sinda’s, or as close to them as I could, but by the time we reached the first landing, I was winded. Another flight, and another, each lasting twenty steps or so before evening out to a landing that seemed a little unnecessary to me. But maybe people in the past had needed the break between steps, the same way I did now. How far were we under the city, anyway? Why were we still going down?

Finally, the floor leveled out and I saw what appeared to be a caged-in area up ahead. There were large gaps in the bars, spaced evenly apart, but the grid had obviously been constructed long ago to keep people out. Above, round lights recessed into the low ceiling glowed dully, flickering. “I thought you said you didn’t have power,” I said.

“I never said that.” Sinda led us to one of the gaps. “I said we don’t have kitchens, and whatever thing you used to use on the island to zap your food.”

“Colony,” I corrected absently. As we approached, I saw a waist-high barrier prevented us from going any farther. Some sort of turnstile stood in the way, holding out a bar across the gap to block us. On the other side of the barrier was a long platform that ran to the left and right as far as I could see, and there, beyond the platform, was a dark maw that had to be where the subway train ran.

Or used to run.

“How do we get over there?” I asked.

Sinda shook her head. “Questions, questions.” Then, placing a hand delicately on the turnstile, she leapt cleanly over the bar.

With a smirk, she challenged, “Now you.”

It had looked easy enough when she did it, but as I placed my hand flat on the turnstile, I realized I would have to put all my weight on it and pulled away. I wasn’t that agile. “You’re sure this is the only way over?” I asked, skeptical.

Sinda sighed. “You’re such a wuss!”

Behind me, Kyer leaned closer and murmured, “Don’t listen to her.”

“But if she can do it—” I started.

Kyer pointed under the bar. The space was narrow, but I could tell at a glance I could fit. “Just go under it.”

“Only sissies go under it,” Sinda chided, listening in.

I gave Kyer a beseeching look. We were in a new place, among new people, with new rules we didn’t understand yet. Was it worth losing face to crawl under the bar? Or should I chance breaking my wrist by vaulting over it? “What do you think?”

Kyer placed a comforting hand on my back. The touch ignited my blood, and I wished we were alone. We had left the Colony to be together, but so far we had only managed a few quick kisses in the water before Sinda came along. How much farther was she taking us? When would she give us a few moments to ourselves?

My lips tingled for want of a kiss, and I leaned back into Kyer’s touch, wanting more.

He rubbed my back, then curled his fingers and scratched it playfully. With a slight shrug, he said, “I’ll do whatever you do.”

Emotion swelled in me at his solidarity and I nodded, determined. But when I turned back to the bar, I lost my nerve. It wasn’t Sinda I cared about losing face in front of; it was Kyer. And if he was fine with me taking the easier way, then there was no reason to risk hurting myself. Ducking down, I crawled under the bar.

Sinda blew her tongue out at me. “Wimp.”

Kyer ducked under after me, his hand on my hip to keep me close.

Sinda wasn’t impressed. “You’re both wimps,” she growled.

When I stood, I was about to tell her I didn’t care what she thought, but the words dried up in my throat as I stared at the black pit yawning on the other side of the platform. The low lighting above the platform didn’t reach far into the depths of the pit, but I moved closer, trying to get a better look. In a hushed voice, I asked, “Where’s the train?”

“Crashed.” Sinda started down the left corridor, then stopped when she realized we weren’t following. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Almost where? I wanted to ask, but the sight of rusted rails in the base of the pit silenced me. This must have been a precursor to our monorail. Subterranean instead of elevated, but the idea was the same. Pity no one outside the Colony had bothered repairing the train or its line. Our roundabout way of getting to wherever it was Sinda wanted to take us would have been much easier.

Down the left corridor, where Sinda waited, overhead lights dimly illuminated the path. But down the right corridor, the lights were extinguished. A few yards down from where Kyer and I stood, the darkness was so complete, it looked like a solid door shut on the rest of the tunnel.

Finally, I could stand it no longer. I felt as if I would burst from all the questions unasked within me. Every question raised two more, but I just had to know the answer to this one. “Where’s that side lead to?”

“Don’t you know already?” Sinda crossed her arms in front of her and rolled her eyes.

Kyer gave me a quizzical look. “Why should we? This is the first time we’ve ever been here.”

She told us, “Because that tunnel leads directly to your little Colony.”