Cathedral of Dreams (8 page)

But that wasn't it either. What was that about? Nellie suggested that the system had control of some sort, of him, of his chip. But that couldn't be true. He never felt as though he was being controlled. Someone made a turn in front of him and he almost ran into him. Keith shook his head. He didn't want a repeat of the day before.

He was thinking way too much that morning. He needed to keep focused on the project at hand. He had promised to help Nellie with the puzzle of the boy's entrance and exit. He could do that.

When he reached the office that morning he found that Maria was not there. She had been replaced. Another woman sat behind the counter as Keith entered. The girl was similar in build to Maria, but had wispy blonde hair and bright, blue eyes. Her smile appeared pleasant and her demeanor gracious and friendly. “Would you like to deliver the reports today?” she asked when Keith approached her.

“How did you know?”

She pointed to her terminal. “I have a note here on your profile. It came up when you walked in.”

“I hadn't planned on it, but I suppose I could,” he said. “I could use the exercise.”

“I'll buzz you when they're ready,” she said.

Keith began to step away, then turned and went back to the counter. “What happened to Maria?”

“Nothing that I know of. Reassigned, I would think. How long was she here?”

“I don't know. About as long as I have been,” he said.

“Are you staying?”

He tapped the counter with his hand and walked away. The conversation didn't feel real. Something strange appeared to be going on, but he had no idea why he felt that way.

He poked his head into Carl's office on his way back to his own. “Good morning,” he said.

Carl turned around from his terminal. “Good to see you. Ready for a long day? I see that a lot has gone on the last few hours,” he said while pointing at his terminal.

“I'm ready,” Keith said. When he darted back into the hall, a strange sensation came over him. What was it? Was there something different about Carl's office? He stepped into his office and switched on his terminal before sitting down. He closed his eyes for a moment to recall his short time with Carl and realized what bothered him. Carl's terminal had displayed a security report. Was he checking up on Keith?

It didn't matter. Not now.

Keith rushed through a handful of maintenance reports, standard ones, plumbing and electrical. A number of the electrical reports were from the same area, which usually meant that a section would have to be evacuated so that a rewiring could be done. The whole idea had him wondering how old Newcity was. The complex, as Nellie called it, could have been named Newcity many years ago. Were there other complexes? Newer ones?

Keith shook his head. He worked slowly, reading the reports more closely as he passed from one to another. He wasn't even half-way through the electrical service reports when he switched to the security reports. His hand shook as he read through the first two. Hours ago, long before his alarm woke him, an exit three-quarters of the way across the complex went down. It was near the place where the electrical system was failing. He went back several reports. The electrical problems actually started near the exit and moved vertically several stories, then stopped being an issue.

He rolled through more security reports until he found one near where the electrical reports had quit showing up. This time, it was a mechanical problem with one of the doors. No wonder it was hard to figure out how the boy got in.

Keith checked the time each occurrence was reported and felt that he could tell how fast the boy moved through the maze. What he didn't know was why the boy came into the complex at all. What purpose could he possibly have for hiding in an alcove?

Reading the reports more closely caused time to slow for Keith. Like a dream, time appeared to wait until he was ready for it to go forward. The differences between the times the reports were entered and the real time it was in his office began to shorten. Keith read and watched. He could imagine the boy with the bullet hole in his forehead as he moved through the maze of stairwells and hallways – how could he be among people and not be recognized? The entire process shifted his sense of reality until finally, and without expecting it, a fresh report came through for the door connected to the alcove that he had seen the boy sitting in just yesterday, and as soon as he recognized the location, he was buzzed.

Keith jumped.

“The reports are ready,” the new girl said.

“I…I…ah, okay. I'll be right out.” This time Keith flipped through a few more reports, glancing to be sure that they were standard service requests. He let the terminal stand at a waste receptacle problem somewhere across the complex. He got up and headed toward the front for the reports, knowing what he would find when he reached the stairwell.

He grabbed the folders without even looking at the new girl. “Thank you,” he said while pivoting on his heels and stepping through the front doors. In the hall he wondered what Carl would think if he really was checking Keith's work. After planning to check reports in groups, he had actually checked them in what might appear as a random pattern, as he followed the boy's progress. Would his work appear erratic? Would it garner suspicion?

Keith, just like the day before, shoved the metal door open and stepped into the stairwell. Letting the door close, he put his back against it and closed his eyes, waiting for his breathing to lengthen and relax. The boy would be waiting for him on the next level down. He had no doubts.

Keith stepped into the open. He headed toward the stairs and took them one at a time, one hand on the railing and the other holding the reports tightly under his arm. At the next landing, he looked into the alcove. This time, the boy was standing. He looked to be about ten years old, wearing clean, but rumpled, clothes, well worn but not yet tattered. His pants hung from his waist, a dark green color matched by the boy's shirt, like a uniform of some kind.

Keith kept his distance. “I know how you got in.”

“Have you ever wanted to leave here?” the boy whispered.

That was exactly what he said before. Keith closed his eyes and let the boy's voice sink in. He shook his head. “I don't think so,” he said.

“I do think so,” the boy whispered. He had a wee, small voice that was hardly audible.

Keith leaned toward him and opened his eyes. He bent down slightly. “What? How would you know what I want?”

The boy smiled. He turned toward the door and pried it open using his fingers instead of the handle. “We have to go now,” he said.

“I don't,” Keith said. “Wait. Just tell me what you're doing here?”

“You let me in,” the boy said. “You listened.”

Keith turned around to leave, then turned back.

By now the boy had the door open and held it that way, apparently with some effort. “Now. I won't come back,” he said in a tone that should not have been audible. Then his foot stepped out, into the darkness.

Keith dropped the reports and dived for the door, his fingers barely catching it before it closed. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know how he'd ever return. But he yanked on the door enough for him to slip through and follow the boy beyond the exit. He slid into a dimly lit area he hadn't known existed until recently.

His first thought was to wonder about Nellie. He had dropped the reports and had disappeared. There was no way he could return to his office if he followed the boy. They'd be waiting for him if he came back using the same route. How could he help Nellie find the way out if he couldn't return? He recalled her dark skin and her erratic nature. She would not like his decision any more than Carl, the police, the system.

The boy appeared to float as much as walk and advanced much faster than Keith would have thought possible. Before long, there was a ladder made of a black gnarled material that hurt Keith's hands as he descended.

He had to continue moving to keep up, but had time to notice that the farther along they got, the poorer the condition of the space. At one point, water dripped from the ceiling and along the walls, which were stained with a green-colored slime he had never seen before. A black sludge had settled in the corners.

He kept his hands close to his body, not wanting to touch anything. He didn't want to get his clothes dirty, either.

The narrow chasm twisted and turned. Keith could imagine the path through the reports he'd gone through that morning. They reentered the complex several times, and at one point Keith found that they were in the halls of a section he had never visited. Again, the condition of the section was dingy and run down. Even the people they passed in that section appeared to dress in grayer colors. And it was like being invisible. Neither he nor the boy was noticed. The people walked slower than what he expected, blank and drone-like. He followed the boy in and out of small groups of the walking dead without effect. Then, it was into another stairwell, through another exit door, and down another ladder.

Keith had to follow closely so as not to get left behind, which meant that he didn't have time to become concerned about how he felt. And when he saw a rat, his heart skipped a beat with fear, then returned to the task at hand, rushing through the next doorway, down the next passage.

As Keith became tired, the boy slowed, but only until Keith could catch his breath and speed up again. The emotional connection between them seemed to get stronger as they maneuvered through the complex. And the deeper they went, the more run-down and shabby the space became, the darker the areas they traveled through.

Keith had never been in the dark before, so when the overhead lights were out or so dirty that they hardly lighted the area, his nervousness increased. His eyes adjusted slowly. The boy became a dark shadow in front of him. He was happiest when they'd turn a corner and the ceiling lights would be bright.

After a while, he realized that he didn't know where they were. He had stopped following the reports in his head. There had been too many turns, too many trips up and down ladders. As he tried to think back, it occurred to him that the boy most likely took a different path on his return. Why not? That made sense.

Keith glanced at his watch. They had been traveling for over two hours. “Where are you taking me? How much farther are we going?”

The boy said nothing. He continued forward.

Keith reached out and grabbed the boy's shoulder and instantly regretted it. The boy felt frail and weak, cold to the touch. When turned, Keith saw that blood had run down the boy's face from the wound in his forehead, and had smeared.

The boy wiped a hand across his forehead and the blood stopped momentarily, then a bead began to form.

Keith snatched his hand away and stumbled backward. He caught himself before he fell by reaching out and letting his hand slide along one wall. The rough material hurt his grasping fingers, but he was able to stop from falling. He wiped his hand on his pants.

The boy turned back around and continued on, walking faster than they had been traveling.

Keith stepped into longer strides. He had begun to cry and wiped a hand across his face. He looked at the back of his hand, half expecting to see blood, but there were only tears. He couldn't remember the last time he cried. Had he ever?

They climbed down a long ladder, longer than any so far, as though these floors were three times the height of the rest of the floors. During the descent, the odor changed. Keith recognized it as dirt, just like what he'd smelled at the flower shop. Was that the outside? It must be. He jumped down from the ladder and landed beside the boy.

They went through a doorway and into some sort of storage area where crates sat one on top of another, high into the air.

The boy crouched as he walked and Keith followed suit. They came to a door. The boy turned around, pointed, and spoke. “You first.”

Chapter 6

K
eith stood in front of a heavy metal door, his face so close to the metal he could smell it; his hands perched chest high, ready to shove. He hesitated. He had only a moment to consider what he had done.

Before he could change his mind, he heard voices approaching from a few rows of crates over. He glanced over his shoulder at the boy.

The boy appeared nervous and leaned toward him. “Go.” It was an urgent whisper.