City Center, The (9 page)

“Wait,” Ava called out. “I’m coming with you.”

“I’m right here.” Joseph stood at the edge of the alley.

“You knew I’d come, didn’t you?” Ava ran up to him.

“I saw you digging my new cut.”

“Digging your cut?”

“Admiring my new hairstyle.”

“You do look rather handsome,” Ava laughed.

“Come on, we gotta get to the underground tunnels before they catch on.”

Joseph took her hand and they ran through the alleyways, avoiding surveillance cameras, until they reached a gravel yard containing hundreds of metal pipes rising up from the ground and connecting to the armored wall. Joseph stopped at a giant metal lid in the ground and pried it open with a bar.

“Down this way. It’s going to be dark and cold. But it’s the only way out.” He lowered into the hole. “Are you coming?” Joseph called up.

Ava stood over the opening, looking into the darkness. She could either go into the unknown, or return to the only thing she had ever known. The knot in her throat tightened. She looked around at the armored walls stretching high into the sky. No matter how many visual enhancements were used to conceal the walls, she could still see the solar panels encasing her city. The walls that served as protection from the Outside had been holding her a prisoner. Sure, she’d leave the City Center after graduation, and move away to the Royal Palace, but that would be another form of prison. She knew there was only one right choice. She’d rather live as a free woman running from Morray than live a lie.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” she yelled down the hole.

“I’m right here.”

The Trial

Inside the Arena,
Morray waited in a private room until it was time for Ava’s grand entrance with the Outsider. He watched the audience on his monitors, anticipating their response to Ava’s idea to beautify the Outsider. He predicted it would elicit a thunderous response from the crowd. He was impressed with her ingenuity and looked forward to getting to know her. He checked the time—they were already two minutes behind schedule. Everyone knew this type of conduct was inexcusable. Something was wrong. He checked the time again, wondering if the Outsider had caused any problems. Panic started to pull at his chest. He took some deep breaths to calm himself. The longer they took, the more he second-guessed his decision to let Ava escort the Outsider to trial.

Planner Dickson entered the room. “Chief.”

“Do you realize we’re behind schedule? Where is Miss Rhodes?”

“Well, sir, that’s what I’d like to discuss. Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of the audience. My team will distract them with footage from previous trials, until you’re ready to make your announcements.”

“You haven’t answered my question. Where exactly is Miss Rhodes?”

“Sir, we need to speak in a non-monitored area.”

“We’re fine right here. I have us blocked.”

The Arena darkened and music began streaming. Footage from previous trials, dating decades back, filled the center of the Arena.

“My men have reported some distressing information.”

“What is it, Dickson? Get to the point.”

“Miss Rhodes and the Outsider are missing.”

“It sounded like you just said missing.”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Impossible. No one breaks out of my containment.”

“That’s the thing, sir. They didn’t break out. They walked out. Walked right out.”

“How is this possible?”

“The guards were drugged. Miss Rhodes and the Outsider walked down the hall to the transporter.”

Morray felt like he just got punched. Bile rose to his mouth. Did the Outsider do this? Or was it Ava? He thought of Ava holding onto him in the observation room. Was she pretending the entire time? He couldn’t organize his thoughts. He paced, trying to grab hold of the situation. Dickson stood off to the side in silence. Morray replayed his interaction with Ava—she sparked feelings he hadn’t experienced in decades. But did she play him to help the Outsider escape? No, it couldn’t be true. The Outsider must have come out of sedation and taken her hostage. Morray looked at his trembling hands. He needed to regain some composure.

“I need an injection. Immediately,” he ordered.

Dickson shot him with a dose of neuro-inhibitors. Morray’s breathing slowed down. His hands stopped shaking. “How did the situation get this far out of control?” he asked.

“I wasn’t aware of your decision to allow Miss Rhodes to escort the Outsider to trial, let alone send him through beautification in the same room.”

“Yes, well, looking back, that may have been a slight error in judgment.”

“Slight?”

“Fine, Dickson. It was a bad decision. It’s that, that…” Morray stopped himself. “I believe I’ve been compromised by Miss Rhodes.”

“She is a rather unique individual. Favored by the crowd, sir. I can see why you were compromised.”

“Are you patronizing me?”

“Not at all, sir. Simply justifying your emotional response to her. Most men tend to be compromised by that level of beauty and intelligence.”

“Please tell me we have surveillance footage.”

“We do for the hallway, but the room cameras were blocked.”

“Blocked?” Morray released a long exhale.

“For Miss Rhodes’s privacy during her beautification.”

“And you allowed for this?”

“No, sir. You did.”

“Why would I block my own cameras?”

“You told Miss Rhodes she could have anything she needed. She needed privacy.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“The two of us. The guards. I’ve already taken care of the guards. They’ve been wiped clean.”

“I want them terminated, or better yet, shipped off to Ret-Hav.”

“Done, sir.” Dickson gave commands to his hologram display.

Morray sat in his lounger. He didn’t want to believe Ava had committed an act of treason—the Outsider must have coerced and threatened her. He also needed to come up with a smoke screen for the people in the Arena.

“Okay, Dickson. This is what we’re going to do. And listen like you really mean it because you’re inching your way to the top of my shit-list. I’ll make an announcement regarding this situation. It’s clear that Miss Rhodes was taken against her own will. I’ll tell them I’m putting together a team to bring her back safely. Also, I can’t let them think the Outsider outsmarted my system, so we’ll use the guards as our scapegoats—they were part of the same terrorist cell.”

“I recommend a neuro-lifter be sprayed prior to your announcement. Otherwise they’ll be devastated. She is the favorite.”

“Agreed.” Morray wondered if Ava was the favorite because of her high scores, or if the residents had also been compromised by her allure.

“I suggest we use this misfortune to our advantage. Have the people pull together. A team spirit type of distraction.”

“You just moved down on the shit-list, Dickson.” Morray patted his back and prepared his speech.

Dickson fed instructions into the mainframe to release a blast of high-level neuro-lifters into the audience. Morray waited for their energy levels to elevate. The hologram dissolved into a commercial for Ret-Hav.

“Ret-Haaaaaaav… Ahhhhh… Sooooo relaxing… Where you can breathe in fresh air while you dip your toes in the warm island waters. Eat whatever you want. Sleep till noon. It’s the haven you’ve been waiting for. On Ret-Hav you are free to do whatever you please. You worked hard for it, so sit back and let us work hard for you.”

The crowd cheered and whistled. Morray left the private room and went to his production booth. He synced his index finger into the mainframe and his monumental hologram appeared in the center of the Arena.

“Citizens of the Los Angeles City Center, I address you today with grave news. Something occurred inside our walls that has never happened in the history of our great City Center.” He watched the audience from his grid of monitors. They were entranced as they waited for his next words. They reminded him of children.

“After yesterday’s terrorist attack, we were holding the Outsider in containment until his trial today at noon. As a surprise, I planned for our leading Successor Candidate to escort the savage to his trial box, but there’s been a change in plans, dear citizens.” The crowd looked toward the empty trial box high above the Arena floor. “In addition to yesterday’s terrorist attack, there has also been an act of unspeakable treason conducted by two of our guards.” The crowd gasped.

“Today my perfect plan was thwarted when the Outsider escaped with the help of these two guards. All three had been a part of the same terrorist cell.” Morray paused until the audience quieted. “We were able to track down the two traitors and they’ve been terminated for their act of treachery.” A burst of applause exploded inside the Arena

“But, my dear people, I have more devastating news. The Outsider used our own Ava Rhodes as leverage to escape.” The audience cried out and looked up at the box of Successor Candidates to Ava’s empty chair. “I have put together a team of elite Officers to begin a search. I’m confident we will retrieve Miss Rhodes and bring the Outsider to justice. For now, we must pull together. The best thing to do in this situation is to stay calm and stick together. Planner Dickson has prepared an afternoon of entertainment. Please sit back and enjoy yourselves. We’ll send out reports with updates as soon as we have more information. Thank you.”

Morray’s hologram cleared out. Another commercial boosting Ret-Hav displayed, followed by highlights from previous Graduation Day ceremonies. The audience sat back, mesmerized by the footage while arena workers doled out refreshers and snacks.

Morray returned to Dickson. “I still can’t figure out how the bastard pulled this whole thing off,” he said.

“They’ve advanced. Their technology is catching up.”

“Impossible.”

“Deny it all you want, sir, but this situation proves they’ve advanced. They pose an even bigger threat now. Though you might disagree, I think this has been helpful. Now we have more information. We know their capabilities and we can take the appropriate measures.”

“I’d love to take out every last one of them, but Miss Rhodes is out there, Dickson. I won’t allow any attacks until I have ensured her safety.” Morray paused. “For the people. We need to get her back for them.”

“Chief, have you considered that she might be working with the Outsider?”

“Inconceivable.”

“How can you know for certain? This wouldn’t be the first time you were swayed by a woman.” Dickson looked at Morray.

“That was long ago. In the days before. You’ve done a lot of work on me since then.”

“And I’d like to remind you, human behaviors can be manipulated, but they can’t be entirely obliterated.”

“Just get me the surveillance feed from the hallway. Then I’ll tell you what I know for certain. Until then, hold off.”

“I should at least start tracking her.”

“No, not yet. I want to see the surveillance first so I can develop a strategy.”

“The strategy is simple: capture her and bring her back.”

“Just get me the footage.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Morray wanted to do a thorough investigation of the hallway footage. He needed time to think and figure out next steps. First, he wanted to prove Ava’s innocence—for himself. He refused to think she had betrayed him. He felt a deep connection with her and didn’t want to risk losing it by rushing into anything.

“Dickson, if you or your men jump ahead and start tracking or attacking without my command, or if Miss Rhodes is harmed in any way regardless of how this breach occurred, you can expect an early termination. And I think we both know I don’t mean from your position.”

The Tunnel

Joseph waited for
Ava to reach the bottom of the hole. He held out his hand to guide her through the dark. She stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he told her.

“Be okay? I just abandoned my entire life, I have no idea what I’m walking into, and I don’t have any shoes.”

“Don’t forget about Morray’s trackers.”

“Are you smiling?”

“Maybe.”

“I wasn’t joking about being afraid of the dark.”

“Do you have any light sources in that bag?”

“It’s mostly cosmetic equipment. But there might be something we can use,” Ava said, dumping the contents onto the ground.

“What this?” Joseph picked up a glass tube.

“Shimmer. Hold onto that.”

“And this?” He held out a bottle of fizzling liquid.

“That’s activator.”

“For what?”

“To illuminate.”

“Illuminate what?”

“The hair, or skin. It glows when it’s mixed with certain ingredients. Watch.” Ava found a sheet of tablets and dropped a few into the activator, added the shimmer, and covered the bottle. The liquid fizzed and percolated, then began to illuminate. “We have a couple of hours before it fades.”

“You put this on your face?”

“Only on special occasions.”

Joseph helped Ava to her feet and held the bottle. The soft light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the path, but she could see Joseph and she felt safe again.

“It’s a long trek. Fifteen miles to Malibu,” Joseph said.

“The real Malibu?”

“Opposed to some fake one I don’t know about?”

“Oh, in my unit I use Malibu for my accent walls. I love the sunset.”

“I have a feeling you’ll like the real thing better.”

“Are you going to tell me the rest of the story?” Ava asked.

“I wanna make sure you’re ready.”

“I’m walking barefoot in a cold, dark underground tunnel with a known terrorist who I helped escape. I think I’m ready.”

“Let’s get some tunnel behind us first. Don’t wanna overwhelm you in the first mile.”

The deeper into the tunnel they walked, the damper and colder the air grew. Ava wasn’t used to such harsh conditions. Temperatures in the City Center never dropped below 72 degrees. She rubbed her hands together.

“Do you want your jacket back?” Joseph asked.

“You mean the one without sleeves?”

“You can wrap up your hands.”

“I’m okay. I wish I would’ve grabbed my sandals.”

“It’s hard to think of everything when you’re making a last-minute escape.”

“Not bad for my first one,” Ava laughed. Joseph stopped and reached out to touch her shoulder. Once again, the fluttering returned to her stomach.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you. That took guts.”

“You keep saying guts. It sounds funny.”

“Courage. You know, bravery.” Joseph continued walking.

“I was so worried I’d mess something up. My partner James says I screw up everything.”

“Partner?”

“Oh, no, it’s not like that. Not like in the movies. He’s not a love interest or anything. We were partnered at inception. To compete together.”

“Ah, that’s right. For Royal Court.”

“How do you know about Royal Court?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a terrorist if I didn’t.”

“So you are a terrorist?” Ava stopped.

“No. Well, to Morray I am, but not to you. I promise. I’m the good guy.”

“I certainly hope so, since I just ran away with you.” She wanted to hold his hand like couples did in the movies. They made it look so easy, but she felt like there was a glass barrier she couldn’t break through. She liked Joseph. Not the way she liked Delilah, or sunsets. She liked him in a way she had never experienced.

“What’s your partner gonna say about you running away?”

“Oh, he isn’t very fond of me.”

“He must be an idiot.”

“He says they messed up my DNA. That I have a glitch.”

“Yeah, you have a glitch. You’re real.”

“What do you mean?” Ava asked.

“Think of something you really like. Not something the City Center told you to like.”

“Old movies.”

“What do you like about them?”

“I love in
Roman Holiday
when Princess Anne eats ice cream for the first time and laughs at the simplicity of the experience. I love when she dances on the dock. She’s so happy.”

“That’s what I mean by real. Well, it’s still a movie, but she’s experiencing real life instead of a simulated program.”

“When I walk barefoot in the greenhouse, I like the way the grass feels between my toes.”

“That’s real.”

“I’d like to have more real experiences.”

“You will. On the Outside everything is real. No virtual simulations or holograms.”

“But will I survive out there? What about the toxic air and viruses?” Ava asked.

“It’s not like that. It’s beautiful.”

The glow from the bottle flickered and faded out. They stood in the dark. Ava grabbed Joseph’s arm.

“Sorry,” she said, jumping back.

“You’re allowed to touch me, Ava.” Joseph laughed, pulling her closer to him. He smelled strange—sharp and earthy like the greenhouse. “Anything else in that bag of yours?”

Ava sat down on the cold cement, relieved to stop for a few minutes. The bottoms of her feet were raw. She had dancer’s feet, but walking barefoot on the rough cement for miles was taking a toll. She took her time digging through the bag, afraid to tell Joseph about the pain.

“Better hurry up,” Joseph said. “Morray can’t track your chip down here under all this cement. But he knows about the tunnels. He’ll assume we took them.”

“How does he know about the tunnels?”

“He knows everything about the infrastructure of the L.A. City Center. He watched his father build it from the ground up.”

“How is that possible? It’s been around over two hundred years.”

“We gotta hurry up, Ava. We’re not safe until we get to the checkpoint.”

“Are you saying Morray is centuries old?”

“I’m saying I’ll tell you everything, but we gotta keep moving. Even if that means in the dark.”

Ava didn’t want to be in the dark. She threw together some cosmetics into a jar until the concoction created a soft glow. It wasn’t as bright as the previous light, but better than nothing. She handed the jar to Joseph and stood up. Pain shot up her legs. She tried to play it off, but Joseph noticed.

“Your feet?”

“I’m okay. For now.” Ava feigned composure.

“We need to move faster. Can you manage?”

“Let’s just go.” Ava picked up the bag and walked ahead, fighting through the fiery throbbing of her feet.

“You let me know when it’s too much.” Joseph took the bag from Ava’s shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. But I’m getting suspicious why you’re withholding information. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Joseph stopped and looked at Ava. “You’re here because you knew something wasn’t right on the Inside.” He took her hand and they walked on. “Just trust me, I’ll prove it to you.”

“I have always sensed something was off, but I thought it was my glitch.”

“The fact that you sense anything proves you’re different. We might actually have a chance with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s focus on getting to the first checkpoint. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”

“You say ‘I promise’ quite a bit.”

They moved through the tunnel in silence to conserve energy. The sharp rocks and pebbles started embedding into the soles of Ava’s feet and she began trailing behind, limping along until the pain grew too intense. She sat on the ground to rest.

“I’m in excellent health, but I’m not used to the rocks.”

“Let me see.” Joseph squatted down and held the light up to her feet—they were cut up and bloody. He brushed away some of the pebbles. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed down a sob.

“They’re bad, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. I’m going to wrap them.”

“With what?”

Joseph removed his jacket—Ava’s torn-up tracksuit—and ripped it into long pieces. He wrapped the cloth around her feet and helped her stand back up.

“We’re close. Can you hold out another mile?”

“Since I’d rather not die in this tunnel, yes, I can make it to the end.”

“I hope so. Otherwise I just ruined a perfectly good jacket.”

Ava started walking again. “This is helping a bit.”

“I have faith in you.” Joseph wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her along.

“What’s faith?” she asked

“That’s another long story.”

“We have another long mile.”

Joseph laughed. She liked being close to him and feeling his warm body. She rested her head against his shoulder.

“It’s simple, but hard to explain. Okay, you know how we needed a light source?”

“Yes.”

“What made you search through the bag?”

“I believed I could find something to make light.”

“That’s faith.”

“I think I understand.”

“Where you live I’m sure the word faith is non-existent, but on the Outside it’s the most important thing. It’s what keeps us going.”

“How so?”

“Think about Lillian. You read her first journal, but there are many more. There are handwritten copies circulating in the coastal villages because they’ve been a source of hope for all of us. Generations have been reading the story about what she and her people went through, and how they broke free from the plantations and started over. Those early survivors were brave. They didn’t have anything, but they scraped together what they could and escaped. They built their own armies and by sticking together they fought off the elites. Eventually the plantations died off, as did most of the elite class, while our people kept growing. The remaining elites were still a powerful force, but they decided it was best to make a peace agreement with the villages. And as long as the villages didn’t interfere with the elites, or the City Center, the elites stopped attacking—for the most part.”

“But the reports don’t show peace.”

“I think you already know the reports are bunk. We’re peaceful people. My point is that faith got us through—even in the worst circumstances. Lillian and those who escaped from the plantations not only survived, they created a new civilization. Generations later and we’re still here. The elites didn’t win.”

“But they still have the control.”

“They think they do. Sure, Morray has his men on the Outside to keep an eye on us, but he doesn’t have control over us. He needs the Outsiders as an illusion of threat against your people—to keep you all living in fear. If you’re in fear, you’re easier to control. Nobody questions leaving the City Center. Did you ever think about it before today?”

“Well, actually, I have.”

“Of course you have, Ava. And that’s how I know you were put in my path for a reason. Not by accident or coincidence.”

“But for what? What good does it do for one person on the Inside to know the truth? Especially if I’m running away?”

“All it takes is one seed. You’re that seed.”

Ava thought about Joseph’s words. She felt too weak to do anything important, or change the minds of her people. She just wanted to fix up her feet. “I don’t see how I can be the seed of change, Joseph. My own partner who I trained with for almost eighteen years didn’t even want to serve next to me. I’m defective.”

“Look, I don’t know anything about your partner, other than he’s a fool, but I do know he says these things because he’s threatened by you. You’re different, Ava. That doesn’t make you defective.”

Ava nodded and refocused her attention on trudging alongside Joseph. Images of the City Center flashed in her mind—she longed to be resting inside her sleep pod, or sitting across from Delilah at the café, or walking barefoot in the greenhouse. Every cold, painful step forward into the unknown moved her farther away from her comfortable life. Ava wondered how being different could make a difference.