Chapter One

“No, no, no!” Esteban Labrada yelled, as the armored men dragged him further along the corridor. Cool gray walls were lit by soft white lights recessed into the concrete. Normally, the familiar scene would be comforting to him, but now they felt claustrophobic and deserted. No one was coming to his aid, no one stopping the armed men who’d been ordered to drag him away.

“Please!” Esteban yelled again at deaf ears. “I’ll never speak up again. I’ll do as I’m told!” His voice took on a terrified whine, and he tried to thrash to get away, but he had no luck breaking the men’s hold on his arms. He watched as the corridor receded behind him. His mind reeled even more as he began to sense warmer, dryer air moving through the corridor. He’d been living in the underground Sanctuary all his life, and he knew this meant they were getting closer to the surface. He dug his heels in wildly and began to plead again.

As they came to the end of the corridor, the two large security men who’d been dragging him came to a stop and roughly tossed Esteban to the far wall. Then they backed away and one of them pushed a button on the back of his armored hand.

Esteban got to his feet and tried to run back to the men. As he did so, he slammed into an invisible force field, holding him in place. He stumbled backwards, bringing his hand up to his bleeding split lip.

“Please don’t do this!” he screamed. “Tell them I’ll behave. Tell them I’m sorry!” As he watched, the armored guard pushed another button on the back of his hand and the floor beneath Esteban moved. With a loud rumble, it began to climb toward the ceiling. A sob caught in the back of his throat as the ceiling opened up, and he fell to the floor. The light from outside was so bright that he screamed and covered his head, sobbing even harder as the small section of floor slowly moved closer and closer to the outside world.

Esteban and his people had been living underground, in their grand, concrete Sanctuary, for generations. Ever since the world above had been destroyed by war and disease. It was impossible to survive above ground. It was nothing but a wasteland. Every school child knew this. And now, he was being banished there for daring to speak out about the living conditions of some of his fellow citizens. He hadn’t meant for it to become a movement, for others to take up his mantel and make demands. He’d only pointed out that things could be better, and sought to find solutions. He’d hadn’t meant to start an uprising. It had happened, though, and now he was being punished for it.

Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the motion of the floor stopped, and locked in place below him. There was no getting back into the Sanctuary. He could feel the heat from the burning white light above him but he was afraid to open his eyes. His thin, gray, utilitarian jumpsuit did little to keep the heat from penetrating to the skin below. He’d lived his entire life in a temperature controlled environment, where the only sun was the artificial UV created by lights in the ceiling. He knew he was going to die, and soon, and saw no reason to move from the spot to which he’d been condemned.

After a while, though, something caught his attention. It was a noise unfamiliar to his ears. He kept his eyes closed but observed the sound, finally realizing that it must be wind because he could feel it swirling around his face and body. Slowly, curiosity overcame his despair and he carefully opened his eyes. It was painful at first and he snapped them shut. After a few minutes, he tried again, shielding his vision as best he could. Dark brown eyes looked out at the horizon and then widened in shock and fear.

Esteban sat at the outer edge of an enormous concrete ruin. Bombed out buildings filled the horizon for as far as the eye could see. This was The City, a place people in the Sanctuary whispered about, told their children horror stories about to make them behave. It was a place full of monsters and diseases and it was the place criminals were sent to die. For a moment, he only sat and stared, then he slowly sat up further. He had no plan, had never been trained for this. He worked in an office, doing supply recycling figures, for goodness sake.

A sense of panic at the size of it overwhelmed him. He clawed at the floor below him, trying to shove the concrete slab back down, but it did no good. Finally, he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. He knew it was only a reaction to having lived inside an enclosed bunker his entire life, and eventually, the logic of it calmed him a bit.

He opened his eyes and glanced around, looking for a place to get out of the heat if nothing else. He didn’t really want to go into The City, but as he turned to look behind him, he saw that there was nothing beyond it except flat, empty land covered in dust. He stood up and the ground beneath his feet was barren and brown. Small wisps of dust kicked up as he walked. As he got closer to the first buildings, strange relics from a bygone era began to appear, mixing with the dirt and brown weeds at his feet. He stopped and looked at what was once a child’s doll. It was missing an eye and half of its hair had been burned away. It made Esteban shudder and he tore his eyes away.

The wind was blocked by the remnants of buildings now, and it gave the world an eerie silence he’d never known before. Even in quiet places in the Sanctuary, there was the background noise of air recyclers and the like. Here, there was nothing, like the place didn’t really exist. It caused his ears to start ringing in protest.

He didn’t have the courage to get past more than a couple of buildings. He knew most of the stories were probably just that, stories, but his mind was still reeling with fear and grief. Everything he knew, everyone he cared about, was lost to him forever. He cautiously made his way past the rubble of fallen concrete, steel and glass, and crawled through an empty window. Inside, the remnants of broken desks and chairs littered the dusty first floor. Esteban was overwhelmed with a feeling of déjà vu, and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Though the decor was from a different age, this easily could have been the office he worked at in the Sanctuary. It was as if something completely alien had suddenly become familiar and his brain couldn’t accept it.

Esteban ran from the building, breathing hard. As he reached the street beyond, a wave of nausea overtook him and he had to stop and put his head between his knees. Once he’d managed to catch his breath, he straightened up and looked around again. It was only then that he noticed that the light seemed to be thinner. Time of day was something else controlled inside the Sanctuary. Lights were turned on and lights were turned off. Here, he could sense it was going to be very different. Generations of Sanctuary dwellers might have produced him but human instinct still told him that, as night time got closer, he needed to find somewhere to shelter.

He crossed the street to another building and made his way inside. This one appeared to have been some kind of market, though its shelves were long since emptied. He searched through them anyway, not even knowing whether anything he found would be safe to eat. The dust was so thick that the shelves looked brown instead of the white plastic they really were. Esteban felt an irrational disgust at touching them and quickly wiped his hand on his jumpsuit. Everything was dirty here and it made his skin crawl.

He abandoned his search for food, not sure he could bring himself to eat anything he found anyway. He made his way further into the building, passing empty, quiet freezers, and machines with bright logos. In his history classes, he’d heard about the Old World, and how much of life had been about selling someone something. Now, he saw first-hand what they’d meant. Everything seemed to scream “Buy Me!” and even after hundreds of years' worth of wear and dust, it was an assault on his senses. At the back of the store was what looked to be an employee break room. It had survived the years a little better, with less mess and less dust, and Esteban looked around before settling into a corner at the back of the room.

There was a small window to the outside that had survived with its glass intact. He didn’t really like the idea and would have preferred it being an interior room but he was grateful that he wasn’t exposed to the elements. So far, he’d felt no ill effects from breathing the air, but he had no idea what the long term outcome would be. All he knew was that no one was supposed to be able to survive exile. As the sun set, Esteban wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. It was still early in the evening, but he was emotionally exhausted. Sleep was sporadic though and filled with strange dreams. Every time he woke, it took him a few seconds of terror to remember where he was. Eventually, he gave up trying at all, and it was only in the wee hours of the morning that he finally drifted off for any length of time.

When Esteban opened his eyes, the sun was already making its way up into the sky. He’d slid down the wall and was resting at an awkward angle that left a kink in his back. More than that, though, he was shivering. He was amazed that a place so hot in the day had managed to grow so cold during the night. With some difficulty, he sat up, and rubbed at his arms to try and warm them. Much of his body felt slightly numb and he was afraid that he might have injured something. As he began to move, though, he slowly warmed up and full feeling returned to him. Though he had no idea what he was going to do or where he was going to go, he got to his feet and went back out into the store.

Though the thought of eating anything there had repulsed him the evening before, after almost a full day without anything, his stomach rumbled angrily. He knew he was going to have to find something to eat soon. The store was just as empty as it had been the day before, though, so he walked back out onto the street. He glanced up at the upper levels of the building, not quite confident enough to try the bombed out stairs. Instead, he turned and made his way further into the city.

Esteban’s disgust with the dirtiness of the outside world was quickly starting to fade. Beyond being hungry, he’d already been introduced to the joy of having to relieve himself in what was once a public bathroom. The toilets had long since stopped holding water or flushing, and they looked and smelled as if quite a few people had had the idea of trying to use them. He’d gagged and almost thrown up as he peed into the bowl. What was worse, he knew that there were probably even more primitive means he was going to have to use the longer he was outside.

What had once seemed awesome and unbelievable quickly grew sad and mundane. Some of the buildings kept a bit of the shape they’d once had in another life, but for the most part the gray desolation all began to run together. There were few distinguishing landmarks, and in no time, he was lost. Not that he’d been trying to remember where he’d been anyway. Along the way, he looked for more markets, some that may have survived the looting and still had some food. It didn’t occur to him that anyone would be there to take it now. The end had come generations ago. He found few though, and they were all empty.

As he scoured one small shop, hours after he’d gotten up that morning, he finally heard something other than his own footsteps. It was a scurrying sound that made his skin crawl. He whipped around and then backpedaled as something small and furry scuttled out of his view. He’d never seen an animal in real life before, though he knew that a few were still raised for meat deep in the bottom layers of the Sanctuary. He knew this had to be one, but he had no idea if it was dangerous. To his horror, a moment later, an even larger furry creature came running into the shop, chasing the smaller one. This one had long, skinny legs, floppy ears, a long nose, and spotted fur. Vaguely, through his terror, Esteban thought that he should have known what it was. He’d seen one like it before in books.

Suddenly, a high pitched whistle filled the air, and the animal ran back outside, the smaller furry thing in its mouth. It was only then that Esteban realized he was hearing the sound of footsteps as well. His heart began to race and he frantically looked for a place to hide. Before anyone could come inside, he made a crazed dash for the door. Unfortunately, the footsteps were closer than he thought, and he literally ran into a small caravan of people. With a screech, he tried to back away, only managing to run into more people, until he was sent flailing to the ground.

He shielded his head, much the same way he had from the sun, waiting for the end. There shouldn’t have been anyone in The City. Everyone knew you couldn’t survive there long. There was no food, nowhere to go, and the air was filled with disease. Yet, here these people were. They must have been the monsters he’d always been warned about. After a few moments, though, he heard whispering. Since they hadn’t killed him yet, he went ahead and lifted his head back up to look at them.

A group of eight stood around him in a semi-circle. It was hard to tell if they were men or women because they all wore similar, layered clothing. Vaguely, Esteban wondered if they weren’t terribly hot under all those layers. The clothing was tattered, and seemed to be made of many different kinds of material. Some also wore hoods and goggles. Tentatively, he sat up, but none of them moved. To his surprise, he could make out that many of them looked very different from him.

Esteban’s ancestors had come from Mexico, the Middle East, and India, giving him dark brown eyes, lush black hair, and skin the color of darkened toast. Most of the people who lived in the Sanctuary came from a mixed race ancestry, though skin colors varied from a light brown to black. While most of the people standing before him looked a lot like him, he could see that a few of the people were lighter skinned than that. They had a golden look about them but it was tan from the sun and not from their ethnic background. He had no idea what to make of it or what would happen next.

“What’s your name?” a voice finally asked. A short but stout woman stepped forward from the others and lifted her goggles. Her tanned face was weathered with deep lines yet her eyes were young and sharp. Though she wore the same style of drab gray and brown layers, Esteban noticed that her hood was actually an elaborately beaded scarf and her knotted vest was of a soft yarn. He realized with a start that the small attempt at something personalized and beautiful was more than anyone in the Sanctuary would think to do.

For a moment, he didn’t actually process what she’d said. Then he realized that she’d said something, something in a language he understood. Her accent was a little different than his, like perhaps English Standard wasn’t her first language. Many people underground spoke other languages, but English Standard was the one they learned first, the one used in everyday life.

He sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. “Esteban,” he said quietly.

The woman squinted, as if considering whether she believed him, and then looked him over for a moment. “You’ve come from below.” It wasn’t a question, and she nodded at him before turning and gesturing at the rest of her people. Two men came forward, took a panicking Esteban by the arms, and pulled him to his feet. Then they pushed him forward as the small group started walking further into the city.

“Wait a minute,” he called out to the woman. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

When no one answered, Esteban resigned himself to following them to whatever fate they had in store.