Unspeakable, Part 12

The chute was a bit of a squeeze but she slid through like water through a pipe. She just kept moving, hand foot hand foot, eyes turned upward. She thought of Miles calling her Spider-man and smiled. It wasn’t like that at all.

It was really more like a tree frog, smooth and wet with enhanced sticky grip. Her limbs and joints were fluid and never got sore or stiff. Her bright eyes were good in the dark.

The light was actually a shock as she got nearer the top. She must’ve been down longer than she’d thought. Her heart began to beat faster. The real world!

She forced herself to stop, to not just burst out, to pause and listen. As Miles had predicted, all was silent, the silence of desertion. She dared to peek her eyes over the edge of the opening.

There was no one at all, and she raised herself further. She was at the end of a corridor, the hole tucked in the corner of a ledge cut into the wall, like a bench, at the end where no one would sit.

There were no rooms nearby, and a thick layer of dull dust lay on the bench, and danced in whatever sunlight could come through a tall, neglected window.

Sally’s feet touched down, displacing the dust, and she felt a thrill of triumph. She was finally back. And, if she did well, maybe back to stay. Eventually. But first, work to do.

She stepped cautiously down the hallway away from the chute. Supplies. Resources. A way out. I won’t let you down, guys, she whispered. She hoped Shylock was okay.

As she moved through the halls it all came flooding back. The halls themselves were wide and high, completely composed of large, brown stones. Sound echoed, but it was warm.

Occasionally there were windows, very tall and wide and made from heavy glass. They were meant to swing open but the locks were heavy and sealed in place. Some had bars.

She paused, still out of sight, when the hallway she was in was about to intersect another. The ceiling here was even higher, the space flooded with light. Opposite her hallway, the arch led into a chamber, a classroom or lecture hall maybe, she couldn’t remember.

She had never been on this side of the Academy. It was a huge place, after all, a world in itself. She had started out in the Hatchery like everyone else, down in the basement, as deep as it went.

Or so she’d thought. When they’d outgrown the Hatchery, she’d moved with a group of others about the same age, into a dormitory one floor up. No more warm, nest-like dens to sleep in.

No, then they’d started living like soldiers. Rigid timetables, high emphasis on fitness. It wasn’t until they’d gotten used to that that academics had become just as strictly enforced.

Then there’d been testing. After the testing they’d been moved out of the dormitory into different barracks, and Sally had lost friends to the “high achieving” barracks in one of the towers.

She’d been kept with an odd, mixed group of various ages, called collectively “oddies”. Several, she knew, weren’t right in the head, or couldn’t breathe when they ran. She began, then, to see her hair the way others did, to fear what the future would bring.

Occasionally she’d glimpse the future operatives (FOs) from the high achieving barracks and advanced training classes as they passed, so fine and shining, with a bright future.

That was when she started climbing walls during training and simulations. She thought it was her special talent, that would get her a place of belonging with the FOs. But it didn’t.

She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the old feelings, and blended in with the crowd. No one raised a hue and a cry, so she went with the flow, keeping herself on  high alert.

Thinking about it now, she remembered seeing Miles then. He was an FO, no question about it. But he was different, frightening. He drew people in, but he had an edge to him.

She would’ve never thought she’d have anything in common with him. He walked so tall and haughty, and she sat up nights so lonely she thought she’d explode. He was exactly where he should be, and Sally always just knew she was meant to be...somewhere else.

She glanced around her and felt it, more strongly than ever. All these kids around her drew solace from each other, but she had never been more excluded than this.

Then she saw someone she knew, and lowered her eyes. She mustn’t lose focus. Shylock was counting on her. And besides, this was her only chance to get out, to find her real home.

She’d been so excited to pass another phase of testing, because it came with restricted network privileges. She’d drunk in any knowledge she could get, looking for answers.

But that was when everything had started to go bad. Her searches into parental origins, parental contact, started to be blocked. Instructors and guardians had started to be curt with her.

Then she’d come up for evaluation. It was the pivotal moment in a Hatchling’s life, the ultimate determinant of your future at the Academy. It determined whether you went into the operative track, or were rerouted into “assistive” or “maintenance” functions.

She didn’t know, still, what she’d expected, but she still had nightmares about standing in the council chamber, dwarfed by an enormous stone circle around which the council sat.

Their voices had rung with doom as they pronounced her “rejected”. No operative track. No track at all. She was not to be trained any more, and certainly not to be free.

The others had been moved to new lodgings, in the tower dormitories or in permanent rooms around the main floor, and she had been directed down to the dungeons. And there she’d stayed. 

But that was about to change, she told herself, slipping through the crowd to catch an off-shooting hallway. If she was right, medical was this way.

She kept her head down, and tried not to walk too fast, reminding herself what Miles had said. Blankness. Dirt. Fatigue. Disillusionment. Never her strong suit. She’s always had hope.

Luckily that hope dimmed when she got to medical. There were people everywhere. How was she going to get what she needed without being questioned? She spotted a back door.

She crept in, keeping a close eye on everyone bustling about, and edged her way to the supply room doorway. Some were doing things that looked less than humane, and her heart was in her mouth. But she made it to the supply room.

She was digging through a cabinet, stuffing bandages and pots of liquids and goops into a makeshift sling of fabric, when someone touched her shoulder.