I pull myself forward with my flashlight guiding the way. It gives off this circle of light that eats into the darkness and lets me move on. In the distance I can see the end of the tunnel, but it just looks like a dead end. Since I have enough experience to know that’s not the case, I squirm my way along, wiggling through the vent. As I do I start to hear something, and it just gets closer and closer with every inch I move.
Whatever it is, it’s pretty steady. Every couple of seconds, I hear this heavy doom noise that masks the sound of my movement. That lets me relax a bit. I feel like I’ve been holding in my breath for a half hour, worried about whether anyone is hearing me crawl around or not. I take one shuffle forward, and doom. I take another shuffle forward, and doom. The noise is a real, deep bass that rattles the metal surface around me and puts a shiver in my teeth.
I’m closing in on the end of the tunnel, and everything around me is shaking with every dooming sound coming from above. The vent turns suddenly upward, so I flip onto my back to see what’s making all the racket. As I point my light upward, I barely make out the sight of a massive blade as it passes across my vision. This happens a couple of times like a constantly turning clock hand. My ears are filling up with the sound of them as they pass in a slow rotation above me.
For a moment I have to stop and wonder about these things. They’re obviously part of the circulation system, but they’re moving super-slow and they don’t seem to be particularly sharp. I kinda wonder to myself if I could just, you know, hold a hand up and catch one. Make it stop. Thing is, I’m really not sure what sort of mechanics are spinning this piece of junk. Maybe it can’t slice me in half, but if I get caught in it, I might get my chest crushed in or something. I mean, at the very least.
Then I look down at my wrench and get to thinking. Okay, so, muscle doesn’t do really well against metal. That’s cool; I get that. On the other hand, maybe this wrench might be able to help out. I’m kinda against the idea of leaving it behind, since I don’t know how I’ll get around without it. Then again, maybe I won’t have to. Maybe I can use it to bust the fan, then keep it. If not, well, I guess I’ll just have to find other ways of getting out of the vents. I just really, really don’t want to end up trapped in here. My options in that case aren’t good: scream for help and get taken to Reinforcement, or die in here and stink up the joint.
Mom always did say I was a pessimist.
At this point I’m just stalling, so I flash my light upward and examine the blades. There’s about five seconds between each spin. This fan isn’t even that big, so how could something this small be such a huge problem for me? Whatever. It’s kinda a pain in my butt, but I manage to prop myself up and get my back against the vent. I don’t think about this plan backfiring too much as I shove the wrench into the recession in the wall, then snatch my hand back before it gets the execution treatment. The next blade passes overhead, its edge sliding into the recession and grinding into the wrench.
God. It sounds like a dying mechanical unicorn. If there’s a heaven, our robotic overlords there are weeping.
The fan keeps wrestling with the wrench like an old fighter trying to pull out a victory, but the wrench holds. This is what happens when you strike the immovable object. What I don’t anticipate is the sudden snap from somewhere deep in the bowels of the tower and a hissing as smoke starts to fizzle into the vent.
Damn. Too much of that, and someone’s going to smell it.
I yank the wrench out of the recession and then somehow manage to bend my body so that I’m upright. Want to guess what happens next?
Right. More vents.
Recording Twenty-Eight
I’m rich. Have I talked about that?
I mean, comparatively. I have the biggest apartment, I get the most food, I don’t have to worry about going into a bad job. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I don’t talk about myself that way much. I mean, why would I? Nobody likes the chick that can’t stop talking about how much better her life is than everyone else’s, am I right?
Still, it’s good to remember I’m rich… for the Tower. Some of those Blu-Ray movies we watch have people living in big freaking houses. With yards full of trees. We’ve got trees in the Tower, but they’re kinda pathetic. They took the short end of the genetic lottery.
What I’m telling you is that they suck.
I mean, it’s nice to have some, but they’re all kinda limp and short. You don’t use adjectives like “towering” or “majestic” to describe them. Anyway, my floor has more trees than any other in the Tower. And you know what? My floor still doesn’t look good. Because the trees don’t look good. Because the hallways are the color of concrete and rust. Because my clothes were still handed down to me from whoever wore them first; they just happen to be made from a nicer material. For all I know, they got snatched up during a Scavenging.
Life in the Tower is still life in the Tower, even if you’re a stuck-up rich chick. Which, for the record, I’m not. I’m just well-off compared to everyone else.
At least, that’s what I thought until today.
Have you ever seen heaven?
I think I might have.
It took a while to work my way farther up the ventilation system, but for all of the Security that Floor 1 has guarding its doors, I think I forgot that we’re still living in a pretty crappy tower that got left over from God knows what.
So, what’s the point, Jackie? The point is I finally got to Floor 1. It wasn’t like arriving into the afterlife or suddenly bursting into a new world. Nope. It was better.
I haul myself up into the level one vents and start pulling myself along. Down the tunnel I can see light coming up from alongside me, which, I mean, wouldn’t you get excited? I… start… to… freak. This has been a dream of mine for, like, years. I’d rather be going down into the Creep, maybe ’cause I’m just a little bit wrong in the head, but Floor 1’s a pretty big deal. I don’t know anyone but Scavengers and some people from Security that get here.
The light I’m seeing is bright, too. Big time. It’s practically flooding the vents, but I know I have to be careful. I’ve got no idea who might be outside, and I don’t want to make so much noise that I set off some alarms. So, I crawl, slowly, my legs pushing me along a few inches at a time. I can see the vent grate coming closer and closer until I’m seconds away from getting a clear view of Floor 1.
Each inch I move makes the world just a bit brighter. Then, I stop. I’m there, and my eyes are staring out of the darkness and into the light.
Oh… my… God.
It’s… it’s beautiful, man.
Have you ever found yourself, like, getting emotional for no reason? Like, you just want to cry, and you don’t even get why you feel like that? I don’t know how else to say what I was feeling. There were white walls. There was warm light. I felt like my whole life had been painted in blacks and grays, and suddenly it had color in it.