There Once Were Stars (20 page)

I crawl out of bed, my feet silently moving across the cool tiled floor. I reach for my open door frame, just as a girl with long blond hair
swooshes
past the opening, down the hallway toward the elevators.

“Wait!” I try to call out. But no sound leaves my mouth.

I run out of my room, toward the elevator. Its doors slide shut, giving me a glimpse of the girl’s face. It’s the face of the missing girl, from the poster I received at the Hall of Records.

“Stop!” I scream in my head.

I bang on the elevator doors, until they open, revealing the Director’s office. My head spins, and I know this isn’t right but I still step inside. The blond girl sits in the Director’s lap, wide-eyed and innocent, mouthing words to me I cannot hear. The Director pushes her down on the desk, and slams a fist against the button. A loud grinding noise fills the air, so loud it makes my ears ring. I fall to my knees, clutching my head, and look up just in time to see the blonde girl swallowed into a giant hole in the floor where the Director’s desk once sat.

I reach out, screaming ‘no’, but it’s too late. The Director stands, laughing a deep laugh that shakes the room.

He points a finger at me and growls, “You’re next, Nat.” His body grows larger and larger until his finger is close to my nose. I try to run, but the ground is shaking so bad, I can barely move.

“Nat, wake up.”

I slowly open my eyes, and as the dark room comes into focus, I can make out Evan’s outline sitting on the edge of my bed. He’s gently shaking my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I am half asleep with memories of the Director’s laugh still reverberating in my head.

“Shhh.” He holds his finger to his lips. “I have something to show you.”

“What time is it?”

“Really early. Come on,” he whispers.

I groan and force my muscles to climb out of bed and follow Evan into the hallway. I cautiously glance at the elevator doors, half expecting the blond girl to be standing there. Of course she isn’t. I shake her face from my thoughts. I look down and see I’m still in my comfy clothes and Evan’s still wearing his clothes from earlier. Had he stayed with me all this time? We slip into the elevator and he hits the button for Floor 30.

“Stay in the corner of the elevator and keep your face down. That way, they can’t tell who you are.”

My pulse speeds up, and I breathe a sigh of relief as the doors slide open, revealing the plain box of the elevator. “Who are they?”

“The computer operators,” Evan explains. “They monitor all the cameras in the dome as well as the banners. I’ve got a friend working up there tonight, but we still need to take precautions.”

So that’s who watches me dress every day—the computer operators. I tuck my chin against my chest. Why would they care if we’re going to the cafeteria?

The doors slide open on Floor 30. It’s creepy up here in the dark. The light from the stars sneaks through the windows, casting long shadows across the floor from the empty tables and chairs that are usually filled with people. The silence adds to the effect. Evan climbs behind the counter, and motions for me to follow. Where are we going? He walks through the kitchen, and knocks a sequence on a door on the back wall. I catch up and wait behind him.

As the door clicks open, he grabs my hand and entwines his fingers with mine. He pulls me into a room lined with shelves of food from the gardens. I feel like we’re sneaking a midnight snack. In the middle of the room is a long table with a number of people sitting at it, prepping food for the day. It takes me a moment before I realize they are people I recognize.

Sophie, the woman who runs the cafeteria, sits at the head of the table. To her right is Mrs. Watson, head of maintenance. I haven’t seen her since my last day working on her crew. I didn’t know she worked in the kitchen, too.

“Come, sit.” Sophie motions to empty seats. “There’s lots of work to get done. I’m glad you brought a friend to help.”

“Hello, Natalia,” Mrs. Watson smiles. “You may not remember, but your mother used to bring you here. Ah, you were just a little one back then.”

I shake my head. I have no recollection of being in the Axis before my eighteenth birthday. What would my mother have been doing up here?

Evan sits next to Sophie, and I take the seat beside him. Across from me is the girl who works the front desk in the lobby. “I’m Leta.” She extends her hand.

I reach out to shake her hand. “I’m confused. I thought you all worked in other areas.”

Sophie laughs. “We’re waiting for a couple more before we begin.” Evan gives me a reassuring nod. As if on cue, a quiet knock comes from the other side of the door—the pattern matches Evan’s. Three short knocks, then a pause, and one more knock. Sophie opens the door, and Mr. & Mrs. Richards walk into the room and sit at the end of the table next to Leta and me.

“Sorry we’re late,” Mr. Richards explains. “There were complications.”

“Were you followed?” Mrs. Watson jerks her head up.

“No. We got delayed in our corridor,” Mrs. Richards says.

“Good,” Sophie says. “Let’s begin.”

“Where are the others?” Evan asks.

“Extenuating circumstances,” Mrs. Watson replies.

“Status updates, please.” Sophie rests her hands on the table, looking around the room.

Leta pipes up across from me. “I have a working copy of a Computer Operator ID card. That gives us two areas now: Detainment and Systems.”

“We still need Engineering.” Sophie taps her fingers on the table. “That and Genetics, and Microbiology.”

“Add the Director’s office to that mix,” Evan speaks up.

“Really?” Mrs. Watson asks raising her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Nat was in there last night, and got a peek at a button on the side of his desk labelled ‘B3’,” he explains. “I think we may have our final step.”

“How did you get into the Director’s office?” Sophie narrows her eyes at me.

Everyone’s eyes fall on me. I force a swallow to try to clear the lump in my throat. “I was invited to the Delegate party last night.”

Sophie stares at me long and hard, until Mrs. Watson breaks the silence. “That will not be a problem. I clean his office.”

“I need a couple of days to make that copy,” Leta explains. “That’s the next time I’m on nights, so I can make copies in private.”

“Don’t they still monitor your work at night?” I ask.

“Absolutely,” she explains. “That’s why it takes me so long to make one copy. I have to wait for the perfect time. At shift change, we reboot the system. I have only thirty seconds to get a copy entered and printed through the old manual system before the computers boot back up.”

“We might be able to get you a Microbiology card by then,” Evan says. “As for Engineering, let me see if I can sort that out.”

“How about the maps?” Mrs. Watson probes. “Do you have the location of Kaitlin’s files yet?”

I jerk my head up at the mention of my mother’s name.

“Not yet,” Evan says. “It’s in the works.”

“What’s this about my mother?”

“She buried some files outside the dome. Alec is unsure where, but they hold the evidence needed to bring down the Director.”

“Your mother always told me that if anything happened to her, her notebook would lead us to what we needed.” Sophie says, “Do you have it with you?”

“Not here, it’s back in my room. What do you mean my mother always told you? I don’t understand—how did you know her?”

“She was the one who started these meetings, dearie,” Mrs. Watson speaks up. “Kaitlin was investigating the Axis. She was a Geneticist before she was on the Expedition team. In fact, she was demoted to the Expedition program after she made some complaints about things going on in Genetics. She continued to investigate, even after they took away her access.”

“She found us along the way,” Sophie explained. “We have all lost loved ones who just up and disappeared one day.”

“No one can go missing in the dome. Everyone knows people have a choice to move to another part of the dome if they want to start a new life.” I find myself repeating the same rhetoric I’ve heard spouted from the telescreens.

“My son would have never left his young wife and baby,” Mrs. Watson explains.

“My husband and I were celebrating our fortieth anniversary,” Sophie says.

“My brother was only five,” Leta says sadly.

“Our parents wouldn’t have left us alone as teenagers,” the Richards speak up.

They’ve all lost people, like I have, only theirs didn’t turn up dead. They went missing, ending up on posters plastered around the dome, without any answers. If my mother really did form this group, it was because she truly believed something terrible was happening in our dome.

“Who did my mother lose?” I ask.

“Her parents,” Sophie says quietly.

I had always been told my grandparents died shortly after I was born. Why should I be shocked? My parents kept so much from me. But really, what would they have said to a nine-year-old?

“What are you trying to do here, with all these keycards, and secret meetings?”

“Evan hasn’t told you?” Sophie asks, narrowing her gaze on him. “He really should have before bringing you into our inner circle.”

I look at Evan, but he only stares down at the table in front of him. I look back at Sophie, shaking my head.

“We’re carrying on with your mother’s wishes.” she explains. “By the end of the month, we’re bringing down the Axis, and exposing the corrupt offices of the Director and the Delegates.”

“Where’s your proof?” I ask Evan when we get back to his room. Seeing as Tassie is still sleeping in mine, I thought it would be best to go to his room, as I am determined to get answers.

“All the missing people, to start with. It’s a little suspicious, don’t you think? And now the fact that B3 exists.”

“That’s just a theory, Evan.”

“Don’t forget, your mother was investigating this long before now. If we can find her files, then I can show you. All the proof we need will be there.”

“What if there are no files? What if they were found when the scientists were discovered?”

“Don’t you get it, Nat?” Evan asks. “There was no radiation poisoning. Your parents and the rest of that group were on to something. That’s why they were murdered.”

“Murder?” I say slowly, the word foreign as it rolls off my tongue. “No one is ever murdered in the dome. Taken away, sure. But killed in cold-blood—that is unheard of. It seems too evil, even for the Director.”

“Believe what you want to believe, but I know there’s more going on in this dome than you can accept.” The frustration in his voice is unmistakable.

“Don’t be short with me.” Heat rises to my face with each word that leaves my mouth. “I get it, Evan. Don’t forget, you just brought me into your secret circle. There’s a lot of information I need to process. I didn’t realize you had so much going on here.”

“You’re always processing information.” He throws his hands up in the air.

“That’s because no one tells me anything,” I yell.

He turns to me, staring with hard gray eyes, but mine fire right back. A smile creeps across his lips, and he steps toward me, close enough I can feel the heat off his body. “You’re one of a kind, Greyes.” He pulls me into his arms, down to his bed. “I’m under so much pressure to get to the bottom of this. Plus, I have no contact with the outside, so I’m worried about Alec, and I think about home all the time. I wish you could see it; see what a society out in the open can really be like.”

It is hard to comprehend what being free would be like. Until I turned eighteen, I thought I was free. I never thought my world was “bad”. We have rules, but rules are needed everywhere. But when those rules aren’t transparent, and they’re made to keep us in the dark, that is “bad”. I nuzzle into Evan’s neck, warm and soft against my cheek. I open my eyes and see his pulse beating and remember the first time, months ago, on the elevator when we first were alone together.

We lie together, not kissing, just being close. It’s a connection that’s needed right now, to ground us from all that’s going on. The most important thing we need to do is focus on finding my mother’s proof. Without that, everything is speculation.

I understand that people need to be in charge of governments, that’s the point of elections. But people need to be in charge of their own lives as well, don’t they? Was I in charge of mine? I didn’t get to choose my contribution, it was assigned to me. My grandparents didn’t get to choose the area of the dome they live in; they were restricted to the apartment district by their status. Add in my mother’s theories, and the dome seems more like a prison than a home.

Evan nudges my shoulder. I must have fallen asleep, my head resting on his chest, in the crook of his arm. “Hungry?”

“Yes.” All this thinking sure works up an appetite.

In the cafeteria, I see my world in a different light. I’m on the outside edges of the conversations, listening in as an observer. I sit here wondering, is this person aware of B3? Whose side is that person on? Does this person know what’s really going on in the dome?

Waldorf sits next to me, his glasses sliding to the end of his nose as he leans over. “Our box came! I can’t believe it. We just put that request in.”

That is odd. Carleton said he was going to pack it personally. He must have run to the Hall straight from the party last night. The idea of his slimy hands touching my mother’s things makes me shiver in disgust.

Roe sits down across from Waldorf. “Late night, Greyes?”

“No, why?” I ask. Paranoia sinks in my stomach.

“Relax.” She laughs. “I thought maybe you had a hot date. I saw you getting on the elevator with that Manning boy. You still have curls in your hair and makeup on your face.”

I grasp at my hair and face and realize she’s right. Tassie walks past our table and lets out a whistle. She leans in beside Roe. “Late night?” She winks.

I roll my eyes. Do I have to be the center of attention?

“Oh no, Nat,” Tassie says, fluttering her eyelashes and lowering her voice. “I meant the visitor you had in your room last night when I got back.”