A Crack in the Sky (29 page)

Clarence only smiled amiably. If Eli didn’t know better, he could almost have believed the kid had never even heard the name.

Eli glanced over at Geraldine again. Her eyes were closed, and she appeared to be in some kind of trance. “Why was she brought here in the first place? What did she do to end up in an InfiniCorp reeducation facility?”

“Oh, I hear she snuck out of her dome without telling anyone. They found her wandering around Outside in the desert.” Clarence took another bite of his pizza. “So anyway, that’s why my advice to you is, don’t try to fight it. Do the right thing and admit you were wrong. You’ll feel better once you let yourself go with the flow. Really, it’s pretty cool here. You’ll see.”

Back at the worktable again, Eli’s hands shook. He was still mulling over what Clarence had said about Geraldine, how after her visit to the fifteenth floor, she’d just
forgotten
about resisting. And yet nobody appeared troubled by this, or by anything else in this cheerless place.

In fact, everyone seemed
happy
. It was weird.

How could this be?

The answer seemed a little clearer a moment later, when the overhead spheres suddenly glowed bright. All at once everyone set their work down and looked up, gazing contentedly at the glimmering orbs. Eli felt the pull of the CloudNet
drawing his own eyes upward. He tried, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking.

The stream in the sphere was short, a series of brief statements from famous celebrities about the high quality of company T-shirts and their importance to the InfiniCorp community. When it was over, Eli went back to his work feeling refreshed and invigorated. He was suddenly eager to meet the challenge of making his daily quota—even
excited
about it.

Then he caught himself.

This sudden feeling of euphoria wasn’t real. He would have to keep reminding himself of that. He had to stay alert to reality if he was ever going to find a way to contact anyone beyond the tower.

It was past eight in the evening when the three hundred seventieth crate was packed. Eli was exhausted. At the sound of a whistle, he followed the other Waywards to the cafeteria where, still caked in sweat, he shoveled down cold spaghetti as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks. After that, everyone split into groups—boys on one side, girls on the other. Eli was told to stick with a group from his table. He followed Clarence down one flight of stairs to a cramped dormitory area with twelve bunk beds along the walls, several broken-down sofas, and yet another CloudNet sphere, floating in the center. Eli was shown to the only empty bunk, the one just below Clarence’s, where a clean uniform was waiting for him.

After an unsatisfying shower where the water came out in a feeble stream, he discovered all the other boys lazing on the sofas, watching the CloudNet.

“Come join us,” Clarence called, his eyes only briefly looking away from the sphere. “This is our Rewards Time. We earned it.”

“Uh … no, thanks.” Inside, Eli was desperate to find a way to avoid watching any more of the CloudNet than he already had, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. In the end he climbed onto his bed and faced the wall. None of the other kids seemed to mind that he was being antisocial.

In fact, nobody said a word, not even to each other.

Much later, after lights-out, he lay awake, listening. Apart from the gentle snoring of the other boys, he thought he could hear the sound of heavy machinery grinding somewhere far below. The clang of metal on metal. A distant
shoosh, shoosh, shoosh
of pistons. He thought about the old man in the sky and the boy on the Bubble tram, and he wondered if what he was hearing was an oil pump, the sound of the last petroleum on earth being sucked from deep under the seabed.

If only his family would contact him. Surely Mother and Father wouldn’t abandon him here. Not Sebastian either. They would come for him eventually. But by now a new set of worries was creeping into his thoughts:

What if they didn’t know where he was?

What if Spider was hiding him from everyone and was planning to keep him here forever?

As his first week on Learning Floor 9-B came to a close, Eli’s hope began to fade. The Guardians watched everything, and nobody seemed willing to help, not even the other Waywards.

Every day was pretty much the same. Work started at
seven a.m. and ended when the quota was completed. Waywards were kept busy all the time, and every few hours the CloudNet spheres would blaze bright. Whenever Eli felt the pleasant numbing effect taking hold of him, he would make an effort to pull his eyes away, but it was hard to block it completely. Each morning he dragged himself to the work line less convinced he would ever get out of this place. He’d spend the rest of his days here, long hours filled with nothing but T-shirts and glowing spheres—a dismal, empty existence, despite the promise of contentment on the signs that were posted everywhere.

But after a few more days, he started to feel a little different.

For one thing, he began to appreciate his job. It was less stressful than his old life of tedious management studies. Compared with that, the mindless busywork of matching shirt parts was a welcome relief. Plus, there was something to be said for the fact that everyone really did seem happy. Eli was getting faster on the production line too. Several times a day Representative Dowd or one of the other Productivity Facilitators would look over his shoulder and comment. “Good work, Representative Papadopoulos,” they would say. “We’re so glad to have you on the team.”

It was nice to finally feel valued.

He still missed Marilyn and worried about what had happened to her, but even those thoughts started to seem distant somehow, as if he were standing outside himself and looking in. More and more, what he felt was regret that he’d let the company down. It seemed that Representative Tinker had been right when she’d promised that productivity would be the best thing for him.

He spent his days working on the Learning Floor, and at night he joined Clarence and the other boys from his group as they trudged down to the glowing sphere in their dormitory bunk room. After just a few days he realized it simply wasn’t possible to block out the spheres completely. In spite of himself, he even began to look forward to CloudNet breaks from the production line. They were always brief. A short infomercial, an inspirational clip about some new InfiniCorp product, perhaps a sneak peek at an upcoming docudrama about how great it was to work for the company.

Whatever it was, as he watched he felt his worries disappear like magic.

“Believe in yourself,”
a smiling boy might whisper as he stood at the edge of a high cliff. Then, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he would let himself fall backward off the edge, and the camera would follow him as he plummeted down, down, down, until finally he would land in the protective arms of a company executive. Then the boy would open his eyes again and whisper the words that appeared in the air above him:

“Trust yourself. Trust InfiniCorp.”

An attractive girl would show off her artificial ears, oversized and blue, which shimmered with light. “DESPERATELY SEEKING GLOW LOBES?” Every Wayward on the production floor would nod. Eli even caught himself doing it. After all, it really
would
be cool to have ears like that. “THEN BE THE FASTEST PRODUCER OF THE WEEK AND WIN A TRIP TO THE EIGHTEENTH FLOOR TO VISIT … THE GLAMOURAMA!”

“Ohhhh!” the Waywards would murmur with excitement
as the spheres dimmed. Everyone including Eli would throw themselves back into their work with renewed energy.

At the back of his mind he realized his enthusiasm for these things came, at least in part, from the influence of the CloudNet, but that thought no longer bothered him as much. After all, what did it matter, really? It wasn’t like life was so horrible here. Everyone was nice, the work made him feel useful, and at night he slept on a comfortable, soft bed. The production area no longer seemed as dreary as it had at first. The air wasn’t as stale and the heat didn’t bother him. Even the fake flower arrangements on the wall seemed less depressing now. In fact, he kind of liked them. Leafy green vines had grown up the walls, along with little white and yellow flowers—many more than he’d noticed at first—and it totally brightened the place up.

How could he have missed that before?

It wasn’t that he no longer thought about contacting his family, it was just that it didn’t seem quite as urgent as it used to. Every morning he woke up more or less resigned to the idea of putting in another full day’s work for the team. And at night when he sank, exhausted, into his bunk, he slept peacefully.

After two weeks of making T-shirts, Eli’s life had taken on an otherworldly quality, as if he were living in a beautiful dream game where smiling, friendly people helped each other by helping the company. The production area practically glowed. It was lush and green, alive with zillions of flowers of countless varieties and colors. They grew on all the walls, up the purple
girders, and even across the ceiling. It was like working in a beautiful jungle. It was amazing. It made him happy.

Deep down he knew this feeling wasn’t real, that it was just the CloudNet messing with his head. He would still remind himself of this, but less often now, and with less conviction. After all, what did it matter if this happy glow wasn’t exactly genuine? Considering everything he’d done—turning his back on his family, betraying the company by meeting with members of a criminal organization with nutty ideas about the end of the world—living this way was better than he deserved.

And the fact was, he was too tired to care anymore.

Eventually he stopped worrying about it at all. He worked through his pile of T-shirt parts, feeling content for the first time in what seemed like forever. He didn’t need to feel inadequate anymore. He was productive, life was okay, and each day that passed seemed better and better.

One morning on the production floor, he was vaguely aware of one of the other Waywards, a Packer, watching him from the other end of the room. A tall, broad-shouldered girl, she had a tangle of frizzy hair that was so long and out of control that she looked deranged, like a wild beast.

This wasn’t the only time Eli had caught her watching him. A recent transfer to his Learning Floor, Eli had first noticed her about a week earlier. From that initial day, she’d seemed to take a special interest in him. Several times he’d looked up and caught her eyeing him, and she’d looked away, her expression returning to that empty, glassy-eyed stare that all the Waywards had. For this reason Eli had been avoiding her all week. Whenever she moved nearer to him in the
cafeteria line, he would pretend to wander in another direction. Before he sat to eat, he would always wait until she’d set her tray down somewhere so he could choose a different table.

There was something about her expression, and how she seemed to track his every move. It made him nervous.

He didn’t want any trouble.

Later that afternoon he had to pee. He raised his hand to alert one of the Productivity Facilitators, who nodded that he had permission to leave the table and go to the bathroom. This was the standard procedure. As he made his way down a short hallway and then around a corner to the bathrooms, his thoughts were on his work, not the frizzy-haired girl.

Which was why, after he finished with the bathroom, he nearly jumped when he found her in the hallway, standing in his path. Her glassy-eyed expression was gone. It was as if she’d been waiting for him.

Eli froze.

“I’ve been watching you,” she whispered. “You’re not like the others. The CloudNet doesn’t have the same hold on you as it has on them. Don’t deny it. You’re like me. You’re stronger.”

A sudden sick feeling gripped Eli’s insides. Whatever this was, he wanted no part of it. But when he tried to step around the girl, she blocked his path.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, keeping his voice low. “Are you crazy? Do you want the Productivity Facilitators on us for slacking off? Let me go! I need to get back to my work!”

But she didn’t budge. Her eyes stayed locked on his. “Listen to me,” she said. “You have the ability to fight the influence of the spheres. I know you already figured out how because I’ve seen you do it.” She stepped even closer, and Eli
found himself backed against the wall. “Ignore the dream things,” she whispered. “Look past them. Concentrate on my eyes. Follow my voice. Resist. You can do it.
Wake. Up
.”

Eli was sweating, and it wasn’t the heat. He glanced over her shoulder. If he craned his neck he could just see around the corner to the hallway. As far as he could tell, it was clear. For now.

“Go away,” he said, barely able to get the words out. “Leave me alone or I’ll call the Guardians.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you leave me no choice but to do this the hard way. Remember, this is for your own good.”

And with that Eli felt her fist slam hard into his stomach. The pain was sharp and sudden. If he could have screamed, he would have, but nothing would come out. He buckled over. He wasn’t hurt, but the wind had been knocked out of him for a moment. When he straightened up, he looked back at the girl, clenched his fists, and got ready to rush at her.

But then he stopped himself.

Because at that instant he realized something had changed. The hallway had lost its glow and had returned to being dreary and gray. For the first time in a long time, his head didn’t feel muddled, and his thoughts and feelings felt like they were really his own.

Except it didn’t feel like such a great thing, because all at once terror gripped him. In a flash, everything he’d all but forgotten came rushing back: The Friends of Gustavo. The end of the world. Eli was a captive somewhere far, far away from home, a prisoner trapped by Spider in some secret tower for brain-dead InfiniCorp slaves. It all seemed too crazy to be true,
and yet here he was. He was having trouble breathing. What was he going to do? He was all alone! He’d lost contact with Marilyn, and Grandfather was sick—or worse. For all Eli knew, he could be dead by now!