The other person coughed, a deep voice ringing metallic in the small space, hurting her ears. April tried to brace herself with the low ceiling to scoot away from the coughing form, when the crack of light widened. She pushed up more, grunting with the strain, and even more light came in. The ceiling hinged back. The flood of harsh light nearly blinded her. Blinking, eyes watering, ears thrumming from the sound of that noisy pump running somewhere nearby, April woke with all the violence and newness of birth. Shielding her eyes—squinting out against the assault of light—she saw in her blurry vision a man lying still by her feet. It was her husband, Remy.
April wept in relief and confusion. The hoses made it hard to move, but she worked her way closer to him, hands on his shins, thighs, clambering up his body until her head was against Remy’s chest. His arms feebly encircled her. Husband and wife trembled from the cold, teeth clattering. April had no idea where in the world they were or how they got there; she just knew they were together.
“Hey,” Remy whispered. His lips were blue. He mouthed her name, eyes closed, holding her.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”
The warmth continued to seep in. Some came from their naked bodies pressed together; some came directly through her veins. April felt the urge to pee, and her body—almost of its own volition, of some long-learned habit—simply relieved itself. Fluid snaked away from her through one of the tubes. If it weren’t for the too-real press of Remy’s flesh against her own, she would think this was all a dream.
“What’s happening?” Remy asked. He rubbed his eyes with one hand.
“I don’t know.” April’s voice was hoarse. A whisper. “Someone did this to us.” Even as she said this, she realized it was obvious, that it didn’t need saying. Because she had no memory of being put in that metal canister.
“My eyes are adjusting,” she told Remy. “I’m going to open this up some more.”
Remy nodded slowly.
Peering up, April saw a curved half-cylinder of gleaming steel hanging over them, a third of the way open. She lifted a quivering leg, got a foot against the hinged lid, and shoved. Their small confines flew open the rest of the way, letting in more light. Flickering bulbs shone down from overhead. The lamps dangled amid a tangle of industrial pipes, traces of wire, air ducts, and one object so out of place that it took a moment to piece together what she was seeing. Suspended from the ceiling, hanging down over their heads, was a large yellow bin: a heavy-duty storage trunk.
“What does that say?” Remy asked. They both squinted up at the object, blinking away cold tears.
April studied the marks of black paint on the yellow tub. She could tell it was a word, but it felt like forever since she’d read anything real, anything not fragmented amid her dreams. When the word crystallized, she saw that it was simply her name.
“April,” she whispered. That’s all it said.
Before they could get the bin down, she and Remy had to extricate themselves from the steel canister. Why had they been put there? As punishment? But what had they done? The IVs and catheters were terrible clues that they’d been out for more than a mere night, and the stiffness in April’s joints and the odor of death in the air—perhaps coming from their very flesh—hinted at it having been more than a week. It was impossible to tell.
“Careful,” Remy said, as April peeled away the band that encircled her arm, the band that held the tube in place. It tore like Velcro, not like tape. Were they put away for longer than adhesive would last? The thought was fleeting, too impossible to consider.
“What’s that around your neck?” Remy asked.
April patted her chest. She looked down at the fine thread around her neck and saw a key dangling from it. She had sensed it before, but in a daze. Looking back up at the bin, she saw a dull silver lock hanging bat-like from the lip of the bin.
“It’s a message,” April said, understanding in a haze how the key and the bin and her name were supposed to go together. “Help me out.”
Her first hope was that there was food in that bin. Her stomach was in knots, cramped from so deep a hunger. Remy helped her pull her IV out and extract her catheter, and then she helped with his. A spot of purple blood welled up on her arm, and a dribble of fluid leaked from the catheter. Using the lid of the metal pod for balance, April hoisted herself to her feet, stood there for a swaying, unsteady moment, then reached up and touched the large plastic trunk.
It’d been suspended directly over their heads, where they would see it upon waking. A chill ran down April’s spine. Whoever had placed them there had known they would wake up on their own, that there wouldn’t be anyone around to help them, to explain things, to hand them a key or tell them to look inside the chest. That explained the paint, the thread, the pod cracking open on its own. Had she and Remy been abandoned? Had they been punished? Somehow, she knew her sister had been involved. Her sister who had brought them into the mountain had locked them away yet again, in tighter and tighter confines.
Remy struggled to his feet, grunting from the exertion of simply standing. He surveyed the room. “Looks like junk storage,” he whispered, his voice like sandpaper.
“Or a workshop,” April said. Or a laboratory, she thought to herself. “I think this knot frees the bin. We can lower it down.”
“So thirsty,” Remy said. “Feels like I’ve been out for days.”
Months, April stopped herself from suggesting. “Help me steady this. I think… I have a feeling this is from Tracy.”
“Your sister?” Remy held on to April, reached a hand up to steady the swaying bin. “Why do you think that? What have they done to us?”
“I don’t know,” April said, as she got the knot free. She held the end of the line, which looped up over a paint-flecked pipe above. The line had been wrapped twice, so there was enough friction that even her weak grip could bear the weight of the bin. Lowering the large trunk, she wondered what her sister had done this time. Running away from home to join the army, getting involved with the CIA or FBI or NSA—April could never keep them straight—and now this, whatever this was. Locking thousands of people away inside a mountain, putting her and Remy in a box.
The bin hit the metal pod with a heavy thunk, pirouetted on one corner for a moment, then settled until the hoisting rope went slack. April touched the lock. She reached for the key around her neck. The loop was too small to get over her head.
“No clasp,” Remy said, his fingertips brushing the back of her neck.
April wrapped a weak fist around the key and tugged with the futile strength of overslept mornings.
The thread popped. April used the key to work the lock loose. Unlatching the trunk, there was a hiss of air and a deep sigh from the plastic container, followed by the perfume scent of life—or maybe just a spot of vacuum to stir away the stale odor of death.
There were folded clothes inside. Nestled on top of the clothes were tins labeled “water” with vials of blue powder taped to each. Remy picked up the small note between the tins, and April recognized the writing. It was her sister’s. The note said: “Drink me.”
A dreamlike association flitted through April’s mind, an image of a white rabbit. She was Alice, tumbling through a hole and into a world both surreal and puzzling. Remy had less hesitation. He popped the tins with the pull tab, took a sip of the water, then studied the vial of powder.
“You think your sister is out to help us?” Remy asked. “Or kill us?”
“Probably thinks she’s helping,” April said. “And’ll probably get us killed.” She uncorked one of the vials, dumped it into Remy’s tin of water, and stirred with her finger. Her sister wasn’t there to argue with, so April skipped to the part where she lost the argument and took a sip.