“I expect it was very boring, but at least you got to sit down until the bulkhead doors opened.”
“The lecture was so boring that I nearly fell asleep, but then the activity leader gave me a gold card for advanced sessions in engineering.”
Atticus gave me a startled look and then smiled. “Amber, that’s wonderful. Congratulations!”
“It isn’t wonderful at all,” I said glumly. “I was happily dozing when the activity leader called on me to answer a question. I’d no idea what he’d asked, so I picked a random label off a diagram, and it turned out to be right.”
I waved my hands in despair. “After four years of hard work, I’ve earned one gold card for my swimming. Now I get handed a gold card for guessing an answer at random. I must be truly useless if I do better when I ignore lectures and guess answers.”
Atticus pulled a sympathetic face. “You shouldn’t worry so much about the Teen Level activity sessions, Amber. I go along to most of them because they can be interesting, but the reality is they’ll have no effect on our futures at all.”
I stared at him. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true. We get the occasional activity session about things like engineering or hydroponics, but the overwhelming majority are about creative arts and sports. I worked out years ago that there’s a good reason for that. Imprinted knowledge isn’t enough for people who go on to work in those areas. Athletes need to do actual physical training, and artists need to develop their own individual creative style.”
Atticus shrugged. “There may be other factors involved as well. It may be harder for Lottery to test for creative talents than other things, and the Hive wouldn’t want to accidentally allocate a great artist or musician to work scrubbing slime vats. Anyway, my point is that you and I don’t have an outstanding talent for creative arts or sports.”
I sighed. “That’s certainly true in my case.”
“The activity sessions are set up to help the exceptional teens like Forge and Shanna. For the rest of us, they’re just a way to keep us occupied and give us the comforting illusion that we have some control over our lives. The truth is that we don’t.”
Atticus pulled a grim face. “Nothing we do on Teen Level will make any difference to our future lives, Amber. Everything depends on what happens in Lottery. It will test our basic skills, and allocate us to whatever profession is most suitable for us and important to the Hive.”
His expression abruptly changed to one of amusement. “If you think about it, there are some advantages in not having any particular talent. As everyone keeps telling us, the verdicts of Lottery are unpredictable. Shanna will be disappointed if she doesn’t end up as a designer, and Forge has his heart set on becoming a professional athlete, but we’ll enter Lottery with no preconceptions and be blissfully happy with whatever work it assigns us.”
“Unless Lottery makes me a Level 99 Sewage Technician,” I said gloomily.
Atticus made a choking noise. “I really don’t think that’s likely, Amber. You’re a bright, articulate girl. Lottery is bound to find a more vital profession than Sewage Technician for you.”
“I hope you’re right about that, because …” I broke off and tensed. I could hear the distant sound of chanted numbers.
“Two ones are two.”
“Two twos are four.”
The sound was coming from ahead of us. There was a tall man in front of me, so I moved sideways to get a clear view. Yes, a telepath squad was standing further down the corridor, watching the people riding by on the belts.
“Two threes are six.” I joined in the chanting. It was supposed to help stop the nosy from reading your thoughts. I didn’t have anything to hide but … No, I did have something to hide. Forge was stuck in the vent system!
“Two fours are eight!” The people on the belt were shouting it now. I mustn’t think about Forge. I tried to focus on the numbers. “Two fives are ten!”
The telepath squad was next to me now. The four hasties didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me, but I was sure the nosy was looking right at me.
“Two sixes are twelve.”
“Two sevens are fourteen.”
I was past the telepath squad. Nobody was calling my name or chasing after me. Chanting tables had worked. At least, I hoped it had worked. It was still possible that the telepath squad would turn up outside my room this evening.
Atticus was frowning at me. “I hadn’t realized you were so terrified of nosies.”
“Of course I’m terrified of nosies,” I said. “Why weren’t you chanting tables too?”
“Because there’s nothing in my head that a nosy would care about,” said Atticus. “I’ve probably got the most boring mind of all the five million teens on this level.”
He gave me a teasing look. “Why are you so worried about a telepath reading your mind, Amber? Are you planning some horrific crime?”
I could feel myself flushing guiltily. “I just think nosies are horrible, creepy things. My parents and brother hate them too.”
I wanted to escape from this conversation. I glanced at the overhead location signs. “I have to stop at the community centre to buy sandwiches.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“There’s no need for that.”
Atticus grimaced. “Does that mean you don’t want to go out with me again?”
“No, it means that seeing nosies upsets me, and I want to spend some time on my own to calm down.” I sighed. “I’m scared of heights, the Truesun, and nosies. You must think me a total coward.”
Atticus shook his head. “Nosies don’t worry me, but they scare most people. Even Forge is a bit wary of them. There’s nothing unusual in being scared of the Truesun either. I’m scared of it myself, but I’m even more scared of the dark and the hunter of souls, while those things don’t seem to worry you at all.”
He paused. “We’ll be having another date then? Tomorrow perhaps?”
“Yes. I promised to help Shanna make Carnival streamers tomorrow morning, but we could go to the park in the afternoon. Linnette will be visiting her parents, and Casper will be at his learning support group, so we’ll be able to spend some time with just the two of us.”
“I’d like that,” said Atticus.
I moved across to join the medium belt, and then the slow, before finally stepping off onto the corridor floor. Atticus turned to wave at me, and then the express belt carried him off into the distance.
I walked on down the corridor until I reached the community centre, and went inside to buy sandwiches for myself. As an afterthought, I bought extra sandwiches for Forge. I hadn’t had any more messages from him, so he must still be in the vent system and getting hungry by now.
I knew I should be insisting that we called Emergency Services to rescue Forge, rather than encouraging him to stay in the vent system by buying him sandwiches. The problem was that I knew Forge just had to ask me to wait a little longer, and I’d give in as usual.
I walked back to my home corridor, let myself into Forge’s room to put his sandwiches inside the air vent, and then headed back to my own room. As I reached my door, Shanna came walking down the corridor. I jumped nervously, hoping she hadn’t seen me come out of Forge’s room again. It would be hard to come up with an excuse for going in there a second time.
“Did your date with Atticus go well?” she asked.
“Reasonably.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
I sighed. “That’s because we met a telepath squad on the way back. You know how much I hate them.”
Shanna wrinkled her elegant nose. “I suppose that ruined your mood so Atticus didn’t get the chance to kiss you goodbye. Are you having another date?”
“Yes. I’m seeing Atticus tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good. Atticus is an attractive boy despite his low level parents.” Shanna vanished back into her room.
I stared after her for a moment, stunned by that c
asual remark about Atticus’s parents, then turned to punch in my door code. I tried to open the door, failed, and remembered I’d changed the code. Twice.
I punched in the correct 23232, went into my room, sat down, and frowned at the wall. How did Shanna know that Atticus had low level parents? I was sure that Atticus wouldn’t have told her about them. He might have told Forge, since the two of them were best friends, but I didn’t think that Forge would have passed on his friend’s secret to Shanna.
I remembered Atticus saying it had been obvious who had high level parents when we first arrived on Teen Level. He’d noticed clues like the food and drink that we mentioned. Had Shanna noticed things as well? I could imagine her studying every detail of our parents’ clothes and hair styles.
I’d often wondered why Shanna had chosen someone as insignificant as me to be her best friend. Atticus had said that Shanna’s parents were elite, and I was the girl with the next highest level parents, while Forge had the highest level parents of the boys.
I had a sick feeling. Was this the reason Shanna had chosen me to be her best friend and Forge to be her boyfriend? No, of course not. It was horrible of me to consider the possibility. Shanna had chosen Forge to be her boyfriend because he was the most handsome boy on our corridor. She’d chosen me to be her best friend because she had a generous nature and could see I was feeling lonely and unhappy.
I dismissed my ridiculous suspicions, and took out my dataview. I sent a message to Forge, telling him I’d left some sandwiches inside the air vent, and asking if he’d found any inspection hatches yet.
Two minutes later, my dataview chimed with a message from Forge, thanking me for the sandwiches and saying he was going to collect them right away. He didn’t mention anything about inspection hatches. I assumed that meant he either hadn’t found any, or had found one but couldn’t work out its location.
I could understand it was hard for Forge to tell where he was if he couldn’t see anything through the grilles. He’d be dependent on sounds to give him clues. I was worried about letting him spend another night in the vent system though.
A possible solution occurred to me. I could tell Atticus about Forge being stuck in the vent system. I knew Atticus wouldn’t wait around doing nothing for days when his best friend was in trouble. He’d either think of a clever way to rescue Forge or insist on calling Emergency Services.
The problem with involving Atticus was that I might get him in trouble as well. I sighed, munched my way through my sandwiches, and decided to lie down and listen to music.
I’d just turned on my sleep field, and stretched lazily out on it, when the lights went out. The cushion of warm air beneath me abruptly vanished, and I fell downwards, landing on my carpeted floor with a nasty thump.
Chapter Thirteen
I was lucky that my right elbow and hip took the brunt of my fall, so I didn’t hit my injured head. I lay where I was for a moment, expecting the lights to come back on, but they didn’t. I got to my feet, groped around to find my dataview, and used its glow to guide my way out to the corridor. That was pitch dark as well, except for the lights of other dataviews emerging from rooms.
I heard Margot’s voice making the obvious remark. “It’s not just the lights in my room then.”
“Why did the lights go out?” asked the nervous voice of Casper.
“It’s a power cut.” Linnette was clearly trying to reassure Casper, but she sounded even more nervous than he did. “Don’t you remember that we had a power cut three years ago? The lights were out for at least two minutes, and then suddenly came back on again. They’ll do the same thing this time.”
“Good,” said Casper. “I don’t like it being so dark.”
Everyone gathered into a group, and waited restlessly for the power to return.
“Power Services usually fix things faster than this,” muttered Preeja, from somewhere behind me. “Don’t they know that our power is out? Should we call someone and tell them?”
“Power services have lots of monitoring systems,” said Atticus. “They’ll know we have a problem.”
“I expect they’ve started their Carnival parties early and can’t be bothered to help us,” said Reece.
“They have to help us.” Linnette’s voice held a trembling note of panic now. “The Hive can’t leave us in total darkness like this.”
“Power Services will already be working to fix the problem,” I said. “Ignore Reece. He’s just trying to frighten us.”
“I’ve no idea why you’re all so scared of the dark,” said Reece. “I like it. I suppose that’s because I’m a naturally brave person and you’re all cowards.”
I heard a groan that I thought was from Atticus.
“The power could stay out for hours,” added Reece. “Maybe even …”
“Shut up!” half a dozen voices shouted in unison.
“I’m just being realistic about … Ow! Who kicked me?”
There was another massed shout. “Shut up!”
Reece reluctantly went quiet. Several more minutes went by, with the tension steadily mounting. I wasn’t scared of the darkness, but I was getting increasingly worried by the length of this power cut.
Three years ago, the power had gone off for two minutes. We found out afterwards that the power failure was caused by a teen in corridor 15. He’d been attending advanced sessions in electrical systems, did a little experimenting with the systems in his corridor, and took out all the power across corridors 1 to 20. That triggered an alarm in Power Services, and they rapidly got the power back on, though it took two days to stop the lights flickering in corridor 15.
I didn’t dare to say it when Reece had already frightened everyone, but such a slow response from Power Services must mean something serious had happened. I was wondering if I should volunteer to go and see how many of the other corridors were without power, when Atticus spoke in a faintly embarrassed voice.
“The lights have been off for ten minutes now, and we haven’t received any messages from Emergency Services telling us what to do, so I’m taking charge of the situation.”
“You’re taking charge of the situation?” Shanna sounded both scared and angry. “Who do you think you are?”
“I think I’m this corridor’s emergency warden.”
“No, you aren’t,” said Shanna. “Forge is our corridor’s emergency warden. Since he isn’t here, I’d better take charge myself.”
“Forge is our corridor’s emergency warden,” snapped Atticus. “I’m his deputy. Since Forge isn’t here, I’m taking charge, and I am officially requesting you to stop arguing, Shanna. Forge and I have been on the warden training courses. I know what to do. You don’t.”
“I didn’t know that you’d been on the warden training course with Forge,” said Shanna ungraciously. “You should have said that to start with. Carry on then.”
“Thank you, Shanna,” said Atticus bitterly. “Now, listen carefully everyone. Hive protocols state that after ten minutes without power, in the absence of other instructions from Emergency Services, the local emergency warden should take charge of the situation and initiate first response protocols.”
He paused. “First response step one is to secure our lighting. Will Amber and Margot please follow me to our emergency store room?”
“I’d be happy to follow you,” said Margot, “but which dataview are you?”
One of the dataviews was held higher up and waved in the air. “I’m this one.”
The dataview headed off down the corridor. Margot and I elbowed our way through the crowd to follow it. By the time we caught up with Atticus, he was punching a code into the store room door. He opened it, went inside, there was a clanking sound, and a light came on. It was only a lantern rather than a proper room light, but it seemed shockingly bright after the darkness.
Atticus came out, and I saw the lantern was a more functional version of the ones people carried when they were in Halloween costumes. Atticus handed the lantern to Margot,
went into the room again, and started passing out more lanterns to us.
“You wind the small handle on the side ten times to start the lanterns working. There should be enough for one each.”
Everyone else had followed us down the corridor by now, attracted by the lights. “Why do we have to wind the handles?” asked Casper, studying his lantern in fascination. “We don’t do that with Halloween lanterns.”
“These lanterns don’t have power cells like the Halloween ones,” said Atticus.
Casper started enthusiastically winding up his lantern.
“That’s enough, Casper,” Atticus hastily intervened. “It only needs ten turns. After that, you wait until the light starts flickering, and then wind the handle another ten times.”
“These lanterns are primitive,” complained Reece.
“Using our dataviews as lights will drain their charge fast, and we’ve no way to recharge them,” said Atticus. “These lanterns may seem primitive, but they’ll keep working indefinitely. I suggest we all set our dataviews to power conservation mode now.”
Everyone adjusted their dataviews.
“First response step two is a roll call.” Atticus started calling out names.
The roll call showed everyone in our corridor group was here except Forge. He must still be stuck in the vent system. I hoped he was far enough away for the vent system lights to still be working.
“First response step three is to secure our water supply,” said Atticus. “Margot and Linnette, I’m putting you in charge of doing that. The big box on the store room floor contains twenty-four collapsible water storage bottles. The …”
He was interrupted by a chorus of chimes from dataviews. I grabbed mine from my pocket and saw a message from Emergency Services. Several voices read it aloud.
“Your area is currently experiencing a power outage. Power Services are aware of the situation and are working to restore power. You should obey the instructions of your nearest emergency wardens and report any problems to them. Do not make any calls or send messages, as the communication system in your area must be kept clear for Emergency Services. People trapped in lifts should call Emergency Services and be prepared to give their lift number, the approximate floor number where it stopped, and the number of people in the lift.”