“Syn.” It was Blip’s voice.
She looked around. The two were gone, and she couldn’t hear them either. “Yes?”
“I think we should go back.”
She’s coming. The girl’s dying message was a warning. Maybe she was reading into it, but she had talked to that girl, she was certain of that. It was not a far leap to assume that message had been left for them. Who was coming? What did the warning mean?
She couldn’t abandon it at this point.
“No,” she said to Blip.
“It’s not safe. You saw those things.”
“What were they?”
“I don’t know.”
Syn crawled along the edge toward the Jacob ports. “I want to see this Disc.”
“Syn!” Blip chased behind, “Please.”
“They’re trying to get through anyway. Don’t we need to see who they are? Why are they doing it? Maybe they’re just desperate. Maybe something has gone wrong here, and they’re trying to save their lives. We don’t know anything Blip.” At the mouth of the Jacob lift, Blip jumped out in front of her. “Wait!”
He then took off on a fast rotation, glancing down and then spying carefully down each of the tunnels. He moved so fast. In just a few seconds, he was back. “They’re all clear.”
“Which one do we take?”
“Your choice, Prince—”
He hadn’t finished the word, and she slapped him. “Which one gets us closest to the J settlements?”
“Why that…” he trailed off.
“J1302-99. I’m going there. Maybe he meant a room on this side.”
Blip nodded. “This one.” He popped open a lever and the door irised open. The tunnel out of the Jacob was surprisingly clean. It still smelled, but the smell of smoke was faint. There was something else—something moldy and damp. Syn struggled to place the scent. The smell wasn’t as sharp and debilitating as the one they had encountered in the mirror gate room. She reached the Jacob, popped open the controls, and entered.
“I hope this isn’t loud,” she said, “Is there another way to get a look down below?”
Blip stared up at her. “No, unfortunately.”
But then he stayed quiet. Finally, he spoke, “Maybe we can.”
“How? You can tell when a Jacob is going up and down in our Disc. It’s pretty obvious.” As the carriage went up and down, green light shined out from panels along the tower, noting where the carriage was. It was easy to see how soon a lift would be available just by watching the lights.
“But you’re used to it, aren’t you?”
She thought about it. It was true. The Jacobs moved all the time. Dumb bots moving between the Disc and the needle or the different levels of the Rise on both sides. The constant movement of the massive elevators had been something she had grown accustomed to.
“You said there were no bots on this side.”
“Olorun said there were no bots on this side. I’m beginning to believe Olorun is wrong about a lot.”
16
BURLYS
“The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler.”
Blip and Syn floated before the opening to the Jacob lift, conscious of their location. An inch or so closer and the door would detect their presence and intent and then open. Far below, if this Jacob were like theirs, a green light would indicate the presence of travelers on the Jacob. If there were more people in this Disc and less bots, they could be alerted to Blip and Syn’s presence. They would know that someone had come through from the other side of the gate.
The door to the Jacob was like the ones on their side, except for the thin layer of blackened soot left from a fire layered across most of it. Something dark and thick was smeared across the control panel to the left of the large white and gray doors.
“How big is it?” Syn asked.
Blip gave a mere grunt of question, unsure of what “it” she was referencing.
“This Disc. The other Disc. How big is it?”
“Oh,” Blip said. He waited a beat. “It’s identical to ours.”
Syn gasped. And after a moment, she pushed forward.
Blip blurted out, “Stop!”
She ignored him. The door sensed her. The control panel lit up green and the door slid open to the Jacob lift. Far below, she was certain, a single green indicator light on a thin, vertical display, shone and announced the two.
The Jacob was dark at first, but the running side panel lights flickered to life. They strobed and revealed a figure pressed against the back wall, its arms spread across the view window.
Syn jumped back and gave a startled scream.
At her scream, Blip swung himself into the space between her and the silent figure. “Stop,” he commanded.
The figure gave no indication of response. Its head was lowered, and it wore baggy, ill-fitting clothing. Behind it, the light from the sunstrips blazed away, silhouetting it. As the adrenaline washed away, Syn noticed the figure was not standing there. It had been tied up against the back of the Jacob. Its thin fingers hung limp.
No. Not just thin. There was no skin or muscle on them. They were bone.
Blip moved in close and after a short beep and hum, said, “It is dead.”
Syn inspected the body. The white of its skull peeked through strips of hardened skin and muscle. What features were there had faded as it decayed. She pulled the ball cap off to reveal a shaved head. Its hands were tied with thin cable, knotted quickly and then latched onto rungs across the top of the Jacob. In its hand it gripped a large leaf, now brown from decay, wrapped around a clod of dirt. Its legs splayed without care across the ground.
Around its neck hung a gold chain. Syn latched a finger through it and pulled the chain up, yanking from inside the corpse’s shirt. A tiny pink butterfly made of metal and cheap paint hung from the metal cord. She’d seen something like it in the bedroom of the Pote girls. They had a jewelry rack filled with plastic trinkets and a few metal bits. Several of the bracelets and necklaces that Syn wore herself had been taken from the girls’ room. Syn looked down at her own neck. There were leather necklaces, large chains, plastic straps, dozens of odd knick-knacks she’d gathered from her scavenges, and the most recent addition of the wooden beads and the orange tiger pendant. Clipped on to this array were bottle caps she had found, a metal comm ID badge from an officer she had pulled from his body, little rocks, small things she had painted eyes onto and turned into little dolls. On the base of the Disc, the weight pressed against her thin shirt and lay between her breasts. Here, in the near-zero gravity of the needle, the mass of tangled necklaces drifted up, all together in one collection.
She flipped through the various items hanging around her neck until she found a small gold chain and lifted it up to reveal a pendant of a flower at the far end. It was similar to the butterfly. Same material. Same cheap paint. Hers was done with a yellow pigment that was starting to fade. She held the two close together and made it so the butterfly sat atop the flower as if it was resting after a long flight.
Syn crouched and stared into the empty sockets of the corpse. What was the last thing this body had seen? She. Not a body. Syn was confident it was a she. And her own age, based on the height. Two bodies. Each were girls. Monsters lived in this Disc, of that she was certain.
“She,” Syn said.
“Excuse me?” Blip had moved beyond examining the body, though. He floated near the window, peering down below.