BREAKFAST. THE LAST day.
No one was talking.
Oh, we were all civil on the surface, maintaining the illusion of cordiality. But inside, we were all counting down the seconds until the hatch door opened again. Which should be any minute now. Eating, chewing, waiting for the magical hour that we would be released.
It seemed our last test was one of boredom.
There were no tests today. No instructions sent through the radio or the video screen.
Absolutely nothing to occupy our minds except for the card games and exercise, which we were all sick of.
Hours passed—or so it felt like. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth.
What was taking them so long?
I paced up and down the two tubes. I passed Emilio and Mitsuko holding up cards but not really playing; they were staring at the hatch more than their cards. Anton was doing push-ups while Boris lifted weights. Luka appeared to be packing his clothes, folding them meticulously. Pratima, cleaning a kitchen that was already spotless. Kendra in her bunk, staring at the ceiling.
And then the fire alarm went off.
I met Mitsuko’s gaze and we shared the same incredulous expression. Really? This old trick again? We’d done so many fire drills it was basically routine. This was their last big test?
Still, everyone rushed to the kitchen just as Mission Control opened the radio channel. “SLH, your system is showing a fire in the oxygen garden. I repeat, a fire in the oxygen garden. The fire has been contained but the ventilation system has automatically been shut down. You will need to manually restart the ventilation system within one hour or life support systems will fail. The oxygen garden has been sealed to prevent the fire spreading. You must use the ventilation shafts and the tools in your kit to repair it.”
Now this was more like what I was expecting. The grand finale.
Mitsuko hit the return-call button. “Mission Control, what do you suggest for our plan of action?”
“Stand by for instructions. Over.” The connection went dead.
Tense, we waited, frozen in place. It seemed no more than six rapid-fire heartbeats went by before Mitsuko hit the button again. “Mission Control, do you read me? Over.”
She took her hand off the button and we heard nothing, not even static.
I became very aware of the blood rushing through my ears.
“Houston, do you read me?” Silence.
Her voice took on a higher pitch. “I repeat—do you read me?”
As if in response, a high-pitched wailing shriek began to blare, terrifying as a tornado siren from back home. It wasn’t the fire alarm—by now, everyone knew that one by heart.
Everyone covered their ears. “What is that?” Boris yelled.
I searched the control panel. A tiny red light was blinking above a gauge. The thin white dial was just starting to touch a field of red.
I had the best vantage point. I leaned in close, studying the near-empty dial, and called up my memory. We’d studied the meanings of all the buttons and dials, but I’d assumed the readouts were fake, or at least measured things that didn’t apply to our simulation. I mean, we were on Earth, with food and light and gravity—99 percent of these things didn’t apply to us. I’d never paid much attention to the readings before now.
Tiny white letters below the gauge gave me the answer. Oxygen.
My muscles tensed.
“What?” Boris asked.
I pushed the flashing red light and the siren cut off, leaving an echo ringing in my ears.
“It’s oxygen,” I said, still not totally comprehending. I focused on Mitsuko’s worried eyes. “That’s the low-oxygen alarm.”
“But . . . the alarms go off all the time. They’re simulations,” Anton said.
I pointed to the empty gauge. “I don’t think this is faking.”
Everyone craned in close to see. Then four hands hit the radio call button at once.
Mitsuko glared at the other three and shouted into the mouthpiece. “Houston, this is SLH. We’re showing dangerously low levels of oxygen. Please verify the situation and issue instructions.”
Mitsuko tried again. And again.
There was no one on the other end.
“They cut us off,” Luka said, his face grim.
We looked at one another, all of us wearing the same incredulous expression. Would they really do this to us?
Then almost as one, we looked at the hatch door.
Boris and Anton were closest—they dove toward the door. The red button that was supposed to release the hatch—the red button that had opened the hatch for Giorgia just days before—didn’t respond.
Anton stepped back and gaped at us, stunned. Boris shouted a curse in Russian and kicked the hatch, resulting in nothing but another shout, this time of pain.
“That’s impossible,” Anton said. “This—the hatch—the radio—it’s all . . . it’s impossible!”
My mind flew to the Apollo 1 disaster. Three astronauts, trapped on the launchpad during a simulation, burned to death while surrounded by people who couldn’t get to them in time. Just like us.
My lungs seized up.
“It’s not impossible because it’s happening,” I said, my voice pitching into hysteria. I had to be rational. Force myself to reason it through. “Whether this is a test or not, we have to do something; we can’t just sit here. We might have less than an hour of oxygen left.”
“But how?” Emilio muttered. “How do we not have air? We’re on Earth!”
I knew the how didn’t matter. What mattered was what do we do about it?
My mind raced. What tools did we have? Precious few. There were no windows to break. Only steel between us and the outside. There was another hatch door in the kitchen where our meals arrived three times a day, but it was about three inches high and locked until our meals were ready. Maybe there was a hidden way out that we didn’t know? If we were trapped, our only other option was to do what Mission Control had instructed and climb through the air shafts to turn the vents back on. But in all our tests, there had been no scenario like this. We had no manual, no instructions, nothing. I didn’t even know how to get into the ventilation shafts.
Luka met my gaze. I read in his face the same thing I was feeling: desperation.
“We need schematics,” I said. “We need a map. Who has that packet they gave us the first day, with all the diagrams?”
“That one with a thousand pages?” Emilio said, his black eyebrows creased together. “I—I still might. Let me go look.” He raced to his bunk on long, flying strides.
“Tools,” I said. My breath was coming so fast now it was almost hard to catch it. “Where are those?”
“Somewhere in here,” Luka said. Anton and Pratima were already moving, opening drawers and cabinets.
“Got it,” Pratima said, holding up a black fabric case.
Emilio came flying back to the kitchen, trailing loose papers. He slammed the packet down on the table, a textbook’s worth of technical specs they’d given us as study material. We each dove into the pile, spreading papers around the table, trying to find something, anything.
Then the radio crackled to life. “SLH, this is Mission Control. Do you read me? Over.”
It wasn’t just Mission Control—it was Pierce! Joy surged in my chest. I had never been happier to hear that man’s voice.
Everyone’s hand went to hit the reply button at once but Mitsuko got to it first. “Yes!” we chorused.
“Listen, kids.” Pierce spoke quickly; his voice had an edge. That was what made my skin prickle. He’d never, ever called us kids before. “Something’s gone wrong. A computer glitch or some horseshit, we don’t know exactly yet, but the hatch is sealed tight and we can’t get to you. We’re working on getting you out but it’s going to take longer than you’ve got. The fire was simulated but somehow the computer thinks it’s real. Your oxygen vent has been sealed off from the outside air and we can’t override it. You’ll have to work fast—get to the oxygen garden and to the control panel there.” He paused and added, “This is not a test. I repeat, not a test. You have less than thirty minutes.”
Every inhalation felt suddenly strained. Every lungful of air, not enough. Epinephrine flooded the synapses between cells, skyrocketing my heart rate, blood pressure, breathing. I glanced over my shoulder and locked eyes with Luka. His pupils were dilated, lips pressed together, bloodless and pale.
Pierce continued. “Listen close, I’m gonna go fast. There’s an opening to the ventilation shafts at the rear of the sleeping quarters. Find the toolbox under the meal hatch in the kitchen, unscrew the vent cover, and send some people through the shaft to the mechanical room. The oxygen tanks will be there, and once you restart them you’ll have plenty of air until we can get through the hatch. But you need to do it now and you need to do it fast.”
Survival instincts kicked in.
Orders received, we raced to the end of the sleeping quarters. Anton and Boris together took off the vent cover, revealing a pitch-black opening in the wall about two feet across and three feet high.
“No way am I fitting through there,” Boris said, shaking his head. And he was right: at six feet and some change, neither Boris nor Anton, and definitely not Luka, were going to get very far through that shaft. A quick survey confirmed it: even with my designer genes, at five foot seven I was still the shortest person there.
“I’ll go,” I said quickly. “No one else can fit.”
“I can,” Emilio said, stepping up. He gave me a reckless grin. “I’m about as tall as you, Cass.”
I gave him a dubious look. “It’ll be tight, with both of us.”
He shrugged, the grin never fading. “Can’t always let you have all the fun. I’ll be your backup.” He shot a look to Luka, as though asking if that was a good idea. Luka had been in the lead for so long, I guess it was kind of expected he would know what to do. “Just in case.”
“Fine, just do it fast,” Luka said. To me, quietly, he said, “Don’t let him slow you down.”
Anton scrambled around in the toolbox for a minute before pulling out a handful of items. A screwdriver, a wrench, a crowbar, a flashlight, and finally, a couple of walkie-talkies.
No tool belt in sight, Emilio and I shoved the tools through our belt loops, and Emilio clipped on his walkie-talkie.
“We’ll relay instructions from Pierce through the radio,” Luka said, holding up the other walkie-talkie.
“As long as the connection holds,” Mitsuko said darkly.
Luka stepped close, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Good luck,” he said.
“Don’t need luck,” I said, adjusting the crowbar and screwdriver for maximum portability. “Just need time.”
“Good luck,” he said again, with emphasis.
I crawled in first on my hands and knees, leading the way with the flashlight held in one hand. The light jerked and splayed with each movement, but for now I needed it only so I wouldn’t run headfirst into any sudden stops.
The shaft was hot and airless. I ignored the sweat trickling down my back and the hair falling in my eyes, thinking only of moving forward to the oxygen garden.
By the time Emilio and I were fully ensconced in the dark recesses of the shaft, we’d already used about ten minutes of our thirty-minutes-give-or-take oxygen allowance.
“I know this is a life-or-death situation” came Emilio’s halting, huffing words from behind me, “Which is why I am not going to make any jokes about staring at your ass.”
Only Emilio could make me smile in a situation like this. “Try to get Luka on the radio.”
A few seconds later, the static gave way to Luka’s calm voice. Just hearing it made my heart slow, if only for a few seconds.
“Pierce says the shaft will go slightly uphill until you reach an impasse. At this point you should be directly above the mechanical room.”
Above? But I’d worry about that later.
The slightly uphill section was, in fact, like trying to climb a steep metal slide. After the third attempt ended in me sliding back into Emilio, I made myself stop and take off my shoes—bending like a pretzel to reach them in the narrow confines and then kicking them back past Emilio, despite his protestations.
My bare feet found better purchase than my knees did on the slippery metal, and I shimmied up the incline like a spider. But halfway up, my sweaty hand slipped and dropped the flashlight. It banged and reverberated all the way down until I heard Emilio shout, “Ow!”
After a few seconds of scrambling where I was held hostage by the impenetrable darkness, the flashlight beam found me. “Go on, Cass, I’ll spot you.”
I climbed the rest of the way until I came to a small landing. I was blind without the flashlight, but my bare feet told me that I was crouched over a metal grate. I put a hand out, testing, and made it only a foot or so before hitting another grate. We’d come to the dead end.
Emilio scrambled up behind me with his shoes tied by the laces and dangling around his neck—why hadn’t I thought of that?—and the flashlight in his mouth, rescuing me from the darkness.
The two of us were huffing and puffing now, our breaths commingling. How long had it taken us? I had been too distracted to count the seconds.
I did a quick self-check: a little breathless and light-headed, but whether that was exertion or oxygen deprivation, I couldn’t tell.
In the bobbing light of the flashlight, I could finally see that the wall we’d dead-ended into wasn’t really a wall: behind the grate was an industrial-size fan, about as wide as I was tall, blades still and silent. Over our heads was its twin, also dead.
“Ready?” Emilio asked, a reckless grin spreading across his face. He’d aimed the light straight down, revealing the grate that I’d felt with my bare feet. His brown eyes shone wild in the darkness, his Mohawk a haphazard and sweaty mess. “Only way to go is down.”
The grate was unlocked. All it took was some uncomfortable maneuvering to make enough room to lift it. The dark hole it revealed was even less inviting than the opened grate back in the sleeping quarters: round, pitch-black, and only slightly wider than my own body. I’d have to tuck in my arms and slide down the vent feetfirst.
“Just like a waterslide,” Emilio said. “Like those big loopy ones at water parks. Only without the water. And with a little extra terror.”
“I hate water parks,” I muttered, and, hoping against hope that this would lead to where I needed to be, I clenched my jaw and pushed myself down the rabbit hole.