The Dome Chronicles: Lies

Five

The three of us are practically drooling by the time we get to the yogurt place. We all simultaneously dive for the larger cups sitting near the self-serve area, and start looking at all the flavors. I grab about five sample cups, because I have a feeling I’m going to use them all. 

I browse around for a little bit, trying to make up my mind about which flavors I want. There are so many, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to choose just one or two. 

“Which flavors are you getting?” Peyton comes up next to me, drumming her fingers on the side of her cup, which is still empty. “I can’t decide.”

“I’m still trying to decide between three: pina colada, blueberry blast, and choco-chunk. They all sound so good to me. I just can’t choose,” I bite my lip as I scan all of the flavors they have. It doesn’t seem like a hard decision, but I’m a terrible decision-maker, so evidently this is impossible.

I glance away from the semi-circle wall with all the yogurt dispensers to find Toby piling toppings onto his yogurt. I guess he must assume because Nicholas is buying that we get to go crazy. He’s not wrong...except if we go too crazy, we won’t have any change to give mom, who made it clear that she wanted change back. 

In other words, we have to give mom some leftover money, because when mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

“He’s already on the toppings? How?” Peyton looks genuinely confused. Seems like we’re both in the same boat.

Feeling my phone buzz in my pocket, I yank it out and glance at the text I assume is from one of my parents. 

It’s from Nicholas. It reads: are you guys almost finished with your yogurt? The kids are getting restless. Hurry! 

I scoff. He’s kidding, right? They can’t spend the rest of their lives relying on me. I’m tempted to text back, how about you don’t rely on ur oldest daughter to take care of your kids and try parenting for once?, but I realize that I could get in trouble for that. I turn my phone off and make a decision on the yogurt, then head to get some toppings. I inform Peyton that Nicholas and mom need our help, to which she responds with a very sassy eye roll, and we all head to the checkout with our yogurt to pay. The total ends up being about $15, which I’m pleasantly surprised about, because Toby put about a pound of toppings on his, like you would expect a typical teenage boy to.

The three of us saunter out to the parking lot, not really saying much of anything. Any of us could have predicted that our taste of freedom would be cut short, but I thought we might at least be able to sit down and have a couple bites of our yogurt first.

As we approach the minibus, I debate whether sending that text could be worth the punishment that would await me once we get back to the hospital. They’re not my kids. Nicholas is capable of watching them for a half an hour. Or, at least, he would be if he spent enough time around them to know how. He coops himself up in his office a lot, probably because if he worked anywhere else, there would be kids around to distract him.

Toby sighs as he grabs the keys from my outstretched hand and unlocks the minibus. “Why do we always have to answer to Nicholas? He can’t take care of his own kids for a half an hour? This is kind of ridiculous if you ask me.” 

“You’re not the one that’s basically the primary caretaker 24/7,” I scoff, giving him a look that says, ‘seriously?’ 

“No, I know, but I help out a lot, because you can’t take care of them all...so I know your pain.” He ascends the stairs of the bus and plops down in a seat near the front. 

“I believe the saying is ‘I feel your pain,” Peyton corrects him as she sits in the seat across from him. “And also, I help too! Don’t forget about me!” 

“Okay, all of us take care of the kids. We’ve established that it’s a multiple person job.” I sink into the drivers’ seat and take a bite of my frozen yogurt.

“So...what now?” Toby pipes up after an awkward few seconds of silence. 

“We sit here, eat our yogurt, and go back when we’re done,” I reply curtly, deciding that Nicholas can wait twenty minutes for us to come back. He’ll just have to deal with us being gone for a while. I turn to face my siblings, both seemingly enticed by their yogurt.

“But what about-” Peyton starts, grabbing an oreo off the top of her pile.

“What about what? Nicholas? Oh, boo-hoo. He can take care of his own children for a half an hour. He’s legally required to, as their father.” I respond, nodding confidently. I’ve been watching these kids for a day; while that may not seem like a long time, it is. Each minute feels like an eternity. I think it’s more than fair to say I deserve a break.

Toby picks a gummy worm out of his cup. “But won’t Nicholas get mad? He asked you to come back right away.” He throws his head back and holds the worm in the air, just inches above his nose. He drops the gummy in his mouth, and smiles gleefully.

“I’m like a baby bird,” he mumbles through a mouth full of candy. 

Peyton rolls her eyes. “I feel like he’ll be disappointed, but ultimately he’ll understand that we deserve a break.”

I narrow my eyebrows. “Are we talking about the same Nicholas?”

She shakes her head. “No, we’ll definitely be in serious trouble.”

I take another big bite, realizing that Peyton’s probably right. If we take too much longer, I’ll probably never be allowed to watch the kids again.

The three of us sit in silence for a while longer, finishing our yogurt, not knowing what to say. We’re all too invested in the creamy, frozen treat in front of us to say a single word. Eventually, we’re all finished with our snack and on our way back to the hospital, where chaos awaits.

"Race you back inside!" Peyton calls as she yanks the bus doors open and bounds down the steps, jumping up and down in anticipation. 

"Slow your role, there, missy. Wait for us!” I grab the keys to the bus, slide my phone into my pocket, and quickly follow her. “If this is about the hallway, it’s not going anywhere, so just...slow down.” Maybe we should have just gotten the regular-sized fro-yo cups, because this seems to be a little too much sugar for Peyton to handle.

“But if we don’t go quickly, we won’t be able to explore it!” She bounces up and down on the pavement, her curly brown pigtails flying wildly behind her. 

“Peyton, listen.” I grab her shoulders and practically push her back down to the ground. “We are all going to walk inside the building like civilized human beings, and you’re going to like it.”

She groans, throwing her head back in frustration. “Fine.” 

I hear Toby giggling behind us. “Way to put her in her place, Freaya.” 

As soon as we get back inside the hospital, Greta, the receptionist, greets us with the same smile we recieved when we walked in here the first time. We get that kind of sympathetic, ‘I feel bad for you’ look more often than not. We’re basically regulars at this hospital, and all of the staff knows who we are.

They’re quite fond of our giant, dysfunctional family.

“Alright, we need some sort of plan,” I say once we get past the reception area. “When we get upstairs, one of us needs to create some kind of diversion so nobody pays attention to the other two trying to get into the hallway.” I promptly put my finger to my nose. “One, two, three, not it.”

“Not it,” Peyton yells a little too loudly. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Toby complains. “Why am I always the one that has to do all the dirty work?” 

“Really? You’re the one doing the dirty work? Who’s been changing diapers for the past two days when mom and Nicholas were gone?” I shoot back, annoyed.

“Sorry, I’m just bad at creating diversions.” 

“Well, you’ll just have to deal with it.” I press the up button for the elevator, and drum my fingers on the side of my leg in anticipation. This had better work.

In the twenty second elevator ride, I have enough time to brainstorm an idea so crazy that it just might work. I think I remember seeing a fire extinguisher to the right of the doors…maybe we could use that to smash the glass? 

I shake my head. Nah, that’d be too attention-grabbing. Plus, we might get in trouble since there’s no real emergency.

Toby sees me shake my head and glances at me suspiciously. “You good?” 

“Yeah, just trying to figure out how we’re going to get in.”

“That’s easy,” Peyton pipes up as the elevator dings and opens onto the third floor. “We just use this fire extinguisher,” she runs over to the red box on the wall, gesturing at it like it’s being auctioned off, “to break the glass on the door.”

“That’s what I thought at first, too, but how are we going to do that without drawing attention to ourselves?” I reply, giving her a skeptical look.

“I don’t know,” She rubs her chin as if she’s deep in thought. “Have we checked to see if it’s even open?”

“I did on our way out, and it was open.” I jiggle the handle, but it’s locked again. 

That’s weird. It was literally open forty-five minutes ago.

“Well, I, for one, have an idea that could save us from drawing any attention to ourselves whatsoever...that is, if the price is right.” A smug look covers his face, and he puts his hand out as if to say he wants money.

“We’re not giving you money,” Peyton states bluntly. “What’s your idea?”

Toby throws his head back in frustration. “Ugh, fine. Well, on the ride to the yogurt shop, I found this on the floor of the bus,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a small, multi-purpose tool, “and I got an idea. This multi-purpose tool has a lock picker!”

Peyton and I look at each other, smiles forming on both our faces. “Well, isn’t that an incredible stroke of luck! Can I see it?” I ask, as Toby places the tool in my outstretched hand. 

My brother’s right. This is definitely a tool that people use to pick locks. But why would there be one on the floor of our minibus?

I shrug off the thought, overwhelmed with excitement. Something tells me that what’s in that hallway is important.

“Now,” I start, fumbling with the tool in my hand, “since we have this handy dandy little...thing, there should be two people distracting and one person lock picking.” I pause, then raise my finger to my nose again. 

“Not it!”

“NOT IT! Haha! I didn’t lose this time! Take that, Peyton!” Toby smiles mischeviously.

“You’re still going to be the one creating the diversion, you doofus, I’m just joining you.” She reaches out and swiftly punches him in the arm. 

Toby looks at her. “Ow, that hurt. Both emotionally and physically.”

Peyton rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.” She leans in to whisper something to him, and I can see him nodding. 

“You guys ready?” I fumble with the multi-purpose tool in my hand. This had better work.

“Yep,” Peyton responds confidently, “We’ve got a plan.”

I raise my eyebrows. I’m suddenly very skeptical of what their plan is.

“Good.” I nod in their direction to signal that I’m about to start picking the lock, and glance in both directions to see if there are any bystanders that’ll notice me breaking into this hallway. There aren’t any, for now.

As I start working on the lock, I hear Peyton starting to sing, and Toby attempting to harmonize with her. 

“The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun!” 

I’ve never really heard Peyton sing before, but she has a great voice. I wonder why she never sings in front of us.

“Just thinking about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow, so there’s none…” Peyton turns to look back at me, and I can see her cheeks are getting pink with embarrassment. 

While they’re singing, it occurs to me that I’ve never actually picked a lock before. 

Two more minutes of attempted lock-picking, musical numbers, and strange looks from passerby, I’m finally able to get the door open. I motion for the two of them to come back, and they look to the left and right to make sure nobody is walking through the hallway before coming my direction.

“Did you get it?” Toby shrieks with anticipation.

“Yep, I got it. Let’s try and sneak in inconspicuously, without anybody seeing,” I suggest, and my siblings nod in agreement.

 “We’ll sneak inside on three, ready? One...”

“Two…”

“Three!”

I push the door open, and we all quickly scramble inside, almost tripping over each other in the process. I shut the door carefully, not wanting to draw any attention to ourselves, and breathe a sigh of relief.

“Wow, it’s really dark in here,” Toby observes.

“Really? I didn’t notice.” Peyton shoots back, punching him in the arm.

“Owww,” he complains. “That hurt!”

“Yeah, that was the point, dimwit.”

My attention is drawn to an object glowing neon green in the corner of the room. I carefully creep over to look at it. 

As I get closer, I notice that the object closely resembles a teaching tool that schools used in the early 2000’s-- so basically, the stone age. I’ve read about these things in books before; they’re called projectors. The teacher would place the material they wanted the class to see on top of the box-shaped contraption, and then the arm hanging overhead would project it onto the wall. 

I quickly realize that this isn’t a normal projector, though. First of all, it appears much bigger than what I’ve seen in pictures. This one is probably five times the size of the ones teachers used in the olden days. Second, I don’t think they usually glow neon green.

“Hey, losers, stop hitting each other and get over here,” I interrupt Toby and Peyton’s squabbling and motion for them to come over to where I’m standing.

“What is it?” I hear Toby ask, making his way over to me. 

“I don’t know. It looks like a bigger version of a projector, but what’s confusing me is they don’t glow that color.”

“A what now?” Peyton asks quizzically, as if I’m not speaking English.

“A projector. Teachers used them in the early 2000’s to show materials to their class,” I respond, giving her a ‘how do you not know what a projector is’ look. 

She shrugs. “Haven’t heard of them before. Are they like SmartBoards?”

“What’s a SmartBoard?” Toby asks, wandering over to a cabinet filled with test tubes.

“Kind of,” I reply hesitantly. “Hey, I wonder what all these buttons do.” I finger over a panel with a bunch of oddly shaped buttons and switches, trying to decide whether I should push one of them.

I hear a noise coming from Toby’s direction, and I’m not sure if I want to know what he’s doing over there. He could be eating the stuff in the test tubes, for all I know.

“So, what do you think all of this is for?” Peyton asks, inching closer to the panel on the projector-like device. 

I shrug. “Beats me. I just find it so odd that this stuff would all be in a random hallway in a hospital. Just try not to touch anything and try not to get yourselves killes,” I reply. “We’re too valuable of a resource to die.”

I turn my phone flashlight on and point it in Toby’s direction. He’s got a test tube in his hand filled with purple liquid. 

A sort of slurping noise comes from his direction, clearly indicating that he didn’t listen to what I just said;. I swear sometimes everything I say goes in one ear and out the other.

“What do you mean by that?” Peyton shoots me a sideways glance before going back to messing with the control panel. “Hey, what’s this button do?” she reaches out and presses a round, red button in the middle of the panel.

The giant projector suddenly comes to life, making a loud whirring sound. 

“Peyton, what did you do?” I hiss, trying to turn it back off in fear that somebody will see it glowing and come in to investigate. 

“Woooahhh. Guys, look at this!” Toby inches closer to us, staring at the wall opposite the projector. 

“Freaya, look!” Peyton exclaims, tapping me on the shoulder vigorously. 

“What could you possibly want me to look at?” I huff, frustrated that we might get caught because of my sister’s carelessness. “I’m trying to turn this off so we don’t get killed by whoever is storing all this stuff in here!”

“Freaya, stop messing with that and look!” Peyton grips my shoulders and spins me around to look at the other wall. My jaw drops as I look at the projection and realize what it is. 

It’s a blueprint, but not just any blueprint. 

It’s Nikotopia.

“You guys,” I breathe, a million questions running through my mind. “Don’t you realize what this is? This is the original blueprint that Nicholas and his dad drew by hand when they were in the planning stages!”

Peyton nods slowly. “Oh, yeah. I know what it is.”

A giant, goofy smile forms on Toby’s face. “So, does this mean that this hallway belongs to…”

“Nicholas!” Peyton and I exclaim at the same time. 

“But why would he hide all this stuff out here? There’s plenty of room at our house.” Toby wonders aloud.

“Probably because he didn’t want his stepkids to find it,” I joke sarcsatically, “And we come here pretty often, so it’s easy to keep an eye on it.” 

The three of us stay planted in our spots, staring at the blueprint on the wall for about another two minutes. I notice that there are many differences from the blueprint to the way Nikotopia actually turned out, which really intrigues me. It makes me wonder why there were so many changes.

Suddenly, I hear what sounds like a jiggling of the door handle, and it makes the hair on my arms stand straight up.

“Did you guys hear that?” My voice is shaking. This is what I feared would happen.

“Hear what?” Toby asks, clearly not paying attention to anything besides the map on the wall.

“I- I thought I just heard something. It sounded like the jiggling of the door handle.”  I peer around the corner at the doors we came through, trying to decide if I’m going crazy.

“It was probably nothing,” Peyton reassures me. “Hey, I wonder if this will do anything.” She squishes her face up against the giant projector-like device, and it appears on the opposite wall. 

Toby laughs and points at Peyton’s squished face. “That’s funny!”

Then I hear it again. I spin around on my heel and peer back at the doors.“Okay, tell me you heard it that time.” 

“Still didn’t hear it,” Peyton says, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “You’re probably just hearing things, Freaya.” She pauses, and looks at Toby. 

“Hey, let me try!” Toby runs over to the projector, opens his mouth, and presses his tongue flat on the screen. Peyton giggles, obviously amused. 

I, however, am far from it.

“Ewww,” I say, disgustedly, shaking my head. “You guys, stop messing around. We don’t want anybody to know that we’re here, and putting your DNA all over the equipment definitely will not help our case if Nicholas finds out somebody came into his hallway!”

Apparently, my siblings don't know the meaning of  “don't touch anything and don't get yourselves killed.”

The sound of the handle being turned catches my attention. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I’m 100% sure I heard it that time. 

Everybody is silent. I think they heard it this time.

“Guys, get behind the projector! Quickly!” The three of us scramble to the left of the giant machine, trying to hold our breath and hoping that whoever opened the door doesn’t turn on the lights.

If they do, we’re screwed.

“That was definitely the door handle,” I whisper. “You guys believe me now?”

Despite the only light in the room being the giant projector, I can see Toby nodding vigorously. “What do we do?”

“The way I see it, we have two options,” Peyton mutters. “We can wait and see if this person leaves, or--” 

She pauses, looks up, and gulps. I glance up to see a figure standing right in front of us. We’ve blown our cover!

“How about we just run?” I ask, crawling to the right of the figure, scrambling to my feet, and sprinting towards the entrance of the hallway. I dart out the doors to the left and don’t stop until I’m out of breath. I look back and see Toby and Peyton right behind me. Unfortunately, so is the guy that found us!

“What are you doing? Run!” Peyton shouts, glancing behind her to see if the man is still chasing them.

I take off sprinting to the end of the corridor and come across a T intersection. I veer to the right, hoping my siblings will take this hallway too. Darting down the hallway, which I realize now is a pediatric ward, I take a couple of hard rights and lefts, and eventually come to a waiting room. I bend over, heaving, realizing that this is why I don’t normally run for leisure. Silently, I open the door and slip in unnoticed, plopping down in a chair. I feel the drops of sweat running down my forehead and reach up to wipe them off. I get a few confused looks from parents, and the receptionist asks if I have an appointment, to which I respond that I’m just waiting for somebody. 

I feel my phone buzz, and immediately answer it when I see it’s Peyton calling. 

“Peyton! Where are you guys?”

“Freaya! Thank goodness, we thought the guy got you! Me and Toby took refuge in some random janitor’s closet. We think that we lost him. Where are you?” I can tell that she’s panting, probably just as exhausted as I am.

“I’m in the pediatric waiting room. I took a bunch of right and left turns to throw him off,” I respond, my breathing still shallow. “Hey, uh, let’s just go back to mom’s room and talk about this later, okay?”

“Sounds good. We’ll meet you there.”

“Cool. Bye.” I hang up the phone and make my way towards the door to the pediatric waiting room, then head down the hall where I came from. I hope I can remember my way back-- I was running so fast that everything I passed on the way here was a little foggy.

After a couple of wrong turns and some backtracking, I finally make it back to mom’s hospital room. Toby and Peyton are standing outside the door, smirking.

“Look who found her way back after,” Toby glances at his watch, “fifteen minutes.”

“Shut up,” I tell him. “Let’s just go inside.”

We barge in the room, trying to pretend that we haven’t already been at the hospital for a half-hour.

“Where were you guys? I asked you to come back over a half an hour ago!” Nicholas approaches us, swaddling his newborn son in his arms. 

“Nicholas, be careful! He’s fragile,” My mom warns from the bed, struggling to balance holding two newborns. Meanwhile, Devyn is attempting to climb the bed and sit on mom’s lap and the boys are playing tag again. Mom sees me looking over and her eyes plead, “Freaya, help!”

I rush over there, ignoring Nicholas’ question, and scoop Devyn up from the bed. “Mom needs some quiet time right now, girly,” I tell my sister, setting her back down on the floor.

“Answer the question. Where were you?” Our step dad isn’t letting up. He seems irritated, angry almost. 

I wonder if it was us leaving or him actually having to be a parent for a half hour that set him off.

My mom looks over at us, probably wondering the same thing. Toby and Peyton give me worried glances as if to say, “what do we tell them?”

“Relax, everybody! There’s nothing to worry about. We just kind of… got caught up in our fro-yo, that’s all!” I surprise myself at how good of an actor I am.

I look back at my siblings and wink.

Nicholas looks unconvinced, but fakes a slight smile and nods before returning his attention to our baby brother.

“Oh, and by the way, here's your change,” I hand the miniscule amount of cash left over from our yogurt run to my stepdad.

He nods, and pockets the change. Frankly, I’m surprised he doesn’t make a snarky comment about how much the three of us spent on yogurt.

Throughout the rest of the day, and even when we got back home, all I kept thinking about was that hallway. What had the projector been used for? Why did it appear that Nicholas had a room full of secrets hidden inside the hospital in an abandoned hallway?

And probably the most demanding question of all, who was the guy that chased us out of it?

I go through the rest of the day on autopilot, all of these questions swirling around in my mind. After I plop down in bed, exhausted from chasing the little kids around and trying to get them to cooperate, I fall asleep almost immediately.

I can’t just let something like this go, I think to myself as my eyelids start to close. There might be secrets in that hallway that could change the course of history. We’ve gotta get to the bottom of this.