Chapter 12 - Riggs

CHAPTER 12 - RIGGS

W hen I point my flashlight at Clover, her face is pale and her eyes are wide as she stares at the steel door I've stopped in front of. There's an awkward pause here, then she turns her gaze up at me and starts shaking her head.

"What? Why are you shaking your head at me?"

"This can't be real." She looks around the dark tunnel, peering back the way we came. "How the hell?" She looks at me again. "Am I dreaming? Did I hit my head? Did someone drug me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean… it makes no sense. Don't you see? The world doesn't work this way. There are no secret underground tunnels. It doesn't exist. This is just… I dunno. A dream. It's gotta be a dream."

"Ya know"—I blow out an exasperated breath—"I'm surprised that it took you this long to catch up."

"What?"

"It's shock, Clover. Well, this isn't." I knock on the steel door. "This is real. The fact that you have been pretty much ignoring everything I've been telling you—or, at the very least, sweeping it under some metaphorical rug up inside your brain—is just instinct."

Her eyes narrow down. "I can't tell if that was an insult or not, but I'm not crazy."

"I never said you were. I'm just trying to explain your inappropriate reaction right now."

"Inappropriate?" She huffs at me with blinking eyes, then pans her hands wide at the dark tunnel all around us. "I'm in a tunnel, under the woods behind my house, and I'm about to enter the fucking Emerald City or something. Nothing about my reaction is inappropriate."

"Exactly. We're here , about to go inside a secret city, and you're freaking out on me. That's the part that's inappropriate. You've had days to think about what I've been telling you and come to terms with it, but no. You had to pretend none of this was happening and wait until we're literally on the doorstep of top-secret shit before throwing your little princess tantrum."

She scoffs and blinks at me again, but I keep going.

"It's fine, OK?" I hold up a hand, palm out, trying to keep her calm. "It's fine if you're confused, or whatever it is you're feeling. I understand that part because once upon a time I was on the other side of a door like this one feeling just like you are about a world up top that I never knew about. But we're here, Clover. I'm putting a lot on the line for you. I'm saving your life. And if you go in there and freak the fuck out, and get me caught, I will throw you under the bus so fast, your fucking head will spin. Do you understand me?"

She recoils back in the middle of my threat, but now she scoffs and crosses her arms. "Well, it's good to see that my first impression of you still stands. Because I was starting to think you were a decent guy or something. But obviously, that's not true. You're just a bully, Mr. Riggs."

I laugh. Loud enough for it to echo down the tunnel. "A bully?"

"Yeah. You enjoy threatening me, don't you?" She steps forward and pokes me in the chest with a manicured fingernail. "That's how you get through life, isn't it? Threatening people with gruesome acts of retaliation if they don't act the way you tell them to."

"I'm trying to save your life, Clover. I'm sorry my delivery is a bit terse for your standards of care, but I'm all you've got. So if you're done throwing your little tantrum, princess"—I wave my hand at the door—"can we please proceed? Because the sooner I get rid of you, the sooner I can get on with my life."

She clenches her jaw, narrows her eyes, and presses her lips together. Like she wants to explode right now, but doing so would just prove my point that she's a spoiled brat.

And she's not.

Even I know she's not.

All I wanted to say to her just now was that I understand how weird it is. I get it. But she was too wound up to hear that, let alone appreciate it, so I reverted back to threats. She responds well to threats, so it's just the quickest, easiest way to snap her back in line.

Because there's a significant part of this plan that is dangerous. Everything about her being here with me is dangerous. If they catch us, she's done. If she's not killed outright, if she's allowed to live, then she will be a prisoner down here. And not my prisoner, either. A Colony prisoner. They won't send her to the tunnels, but she'll never have a carefree day again for the rest of her life.

I just don't want to tell her that part. It'll stress her out and high stress leads to mistakes. I'd rather have her angry with me than locked up in a cold, dark cage like a lab rat in one of our military laboratories. Because that's where they'd send her. A nice up-top girl like her with all those outside genes to poke through? Yeah, the Colony scientists would love to have a guinea pig like Clover to test their shit on.

"Fine," she finally says. "I'm ready."

"You're not, but it's OK. Just let me do all the talking and don't look around like a goddamned tourist, all right?"

Clover makes a face. "Why would I? It's a dirty, underground city. It probably smells like a sewer."

I just chuckle. "Whatever you say, Your Highness. Just stick to the plan."

She blows out a breath, but our conversation is over.

I exhale loudly too, then turn my attention and flashlight to the security panel to the left of the door. I open it up, key in the code to open the door, and then the locks disengage with a low rumble. I crank the long handle to disengage the seal, and the door opens with a hiss of stale air.

When I look over my shoulder, Clover is all wide-eyed again, trying her best to see past the dark.

"Ready?"

She looks up at me and nods, all traces of her little freak-out gone now, fear taking its place.

"It's gonna be fine, Clover."

"I dunno, Riggs." She sighs. It's a much softer, nicer way of expressing her doubts than the huffs and scoffs. "You might be right. I'm maybe not up to this."

I smile. Not just because she's calm now, but because she doesn't really think I'm a bully. Somewhere inside that head of hers she understands that I'm sincerely trying to help her. "Just follow my lead. And don't act all impressed and shit over the city. That's the big thing."

"I don't understand why I would be impressed by a dirty, dark, underground city." She puts up a hand. "So no worries there."

"Yep. You've got this, my queen."

She wants to be mad about my royalty jabs, and she tries. For a moment. But then she gives in and smiles. "Fine. You're right. I'll be great."

"That's the spirit. Put on the brave face. Let's go."

The moment I point my flashlight into the next room, Clover grabs at the back of my shirt, then hooks her fingers around the belt loop underneath it.

I look down at her from over my shoulder. "Are you coming on to me?"

Her face scrunches up in confusion. "What? No. I just…" She peeks around me, like maybe there's monsters in this tunnel. "I'm just a little bit afraid, OK? But if you're going to make a big deal about me holding on to you for moral support, then?—"

"I'm fucking with you. I don't mind at all. Ready?"

She sucks in a big breath, then nods. "I'm ready."

I walk forward as Clover shadows so close behind me, I can't turn around to close the door until she gets out of my way. But I don't say anything else about this little act of vulnerability she's displaying. She can cling all she wants. It kinda turns me on to think she needs my protection.

"Fuck's sake," I mutter. Focus, Riggs! This woman is gonna get you sent back to the tunnels if you're not careful.

"What?" Clover whispers.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself. Come on, the next door is just right up here."

She doesn't ask any questions at this door, just waits for me to unlock it, then calmly steps through. We do this several more times before entering an elevator that drops us a thousand feet in just under a minute. When we stop, the doors do not open automatically. Yet another code is required. So before I punch that in, I say, "This is it. Are you ready?"

She's still holding on to me, but now, as she waits for me to key in the code to unlock the door, she presses herself right up against me, peering past my shoulder. "I guess."

I key in the code, open the door, and we walk through.

It takes a second for the bustle of the city to overtake the absolute silence we just came out of, but then… there it is. While Blackberry Hill only houses two thousand people these days, it's big enough for twenty thousand. Which, relatively speaking, makes it empty, so the city sounds have an echoing quality that makes it a different kind of loud than a city filled to capacity like Kingfisher Flats.

I reach around, prying Clover's fingers off me, and then direct her to step out from behind my back. We're in an alley and while there are people walking past up ahead, there's no one in here with us. So it's a safe place for her to take a look around and collect herself.

When I look down at her, she's squinting, her hand partially covering her eyes like a visor. "Why is it so bright?" She looks around, then up at me. "You're tricking me. This isn't underground. This is outside. There's a sun!"

"Artificial. It's just lights, Clover. We're definitely underground. You know this. We got in the elevator. We went down a hundred floors. And it goes much deeper than that."

"It was a trick. I'm dreaming?—"

I turn and grab her shoulders, shaking her a little. "That's enough now. You need to be calm. When we get to our room, you can ask all the questions you want, but right now I need you to stop. OK? Here. Take my hand." I offer it to her, fully expecting a fight. But a fight is better than panic.

She looks at it for a moment, but then puts her hand in mine and lets out a breath.

I give it a squeeze. "It's only a five-minute walk to the room we're gonna stay in and there's no one in the consulate here. We haven't kept full-time ambassadors here in Blackberry Hill for nearly a decade. It's a big city, area wise, but not many people live here these days, so most of it is very quiet and empty. Honestly, Collin Creed is the most interesting thing to happen to Blackberry Hill in a long time. So you don't have to talk to anyone. There's almost no way you fuck this up. Just as long as you don't talk, don't gawk, and keep a hold of my hand." I hold up our joined hands and give her a smile.

Her face is all kinds of confused, but this seems to settle her. For now. So she nods. "OK."

"All right. Let's go." I lead her out of the alley and immediately, she's gawking and gasping. I squeeze her again, but this time far less gently. "Knock it off, Clover. Ignore everything until we get back inside."

"But it's so big!"

"Shhh." I tug her a little to make her keep up with the new, fast pace I've set, and focus on the door to the consulate just a little way down the street.

When we arrive, I key in the code, open the door, and close it behind us. The lights come on automatically, illuminating the three-story lobby. I quickly turn to Clover and shake my head, cautioning her. "Wait." Then I point up.

Her eyes follow my pointing finger, taking in the massive wooden staircase, and she nods.

We climb the stairs all the way up to the top of the building, because I figure that since I'm the only one here, I might as well take the penthouse.

When we finally reach the top, I open the door to the apartment and wave her in. Again, the lights come on automatically. But only because the curtains are drawn across the massive bank of floor-to-ceiling windows on the far end of the main living room.

"Oh… wow." Clover steps inside, looking around the room. "I wasn't expecting this."

"It's nice," I say, closing the door behind us. "But here's the best part." I walk over to the windows, grab the curtains, and throw them aside. Sunlight—well, fake, of course—comes streaming into the room, giving the whole place a nice, warm glow. "The view," I say. "I've always liked this view."

Clover joins me at the window, saying nothing.

In the early days, when the underground cities were first being drilled, the men in charge tried to make them fit in with the esthetic and geography above. So Blackberry Hill has all the characteristics of Charleston circa 1956. The buildings are various shades of buff and red brick with some of the same ornamental features of their up-top counterparts. There are cars and a trolley system—all electric. Shops line the street below us. A corner store, a tailor, and a diner are visible from up here. Most of them are probably abandoned these days, but they don't look derelict. And if you only look down and not across, you could almost believe you were up top. But there's no endless expanse of sky that ends in a horizon down here, obviously. Just a fake sun shining through a massive hole in the rock walls.

"Speechless?" I ask.

She points at the cityscape outside the window. "Is that a river?"

"That is a river. You have rivers above, so there must be rivers below."

An incredulous huff escapes with her words. "I… don't know what to think about this. It's a city." She looks up at me. "Like a normal city."

I shrug. "If it makes you feel any better, I felt the same way about the up-top cities when I first saw them. I had never imagined that something could exist on the surface. To go up there and see… civilizations, well, it was jarring."

Clover points at the sky. "What is that?"

"An artificial sun. I know they have really good ones up top now, but this one is old. It's UV, but it's not nearly as strong as the one where I come from."

"But it looks like a sky up there. It looks like a bright sunny day."

"It's a hologram. Again, kind of a substandard one compared to other, better cities down here. But it's a nice touch, I think."

"A hologram. I feel like I just fell into a science fiction movie. Do the people down here know they live underground?"

"Yes. Of course they know."

"But what do they think is up there on the surface?"

"What do you think is up in space?"

Her face screws up for a moment before answering. "Stars."

"But you don't know there are stars out in space. You were told there are stars out in space."

"Yes. But I can look up at the stars myself. I can use a telescope and see them up close. The people down here, they go their whole lives never seeing the top?"

"First of all"—I hold up a finger—"you don't know what those tiny pinpricks of light up in the sky are. You only know what you've been told. It's the same with everyone down here. They are born here, told that this is all there is of the world, and most of the time there's no reason to question it. It's the same with the stars above."

"But it's not the same. I was told the truth. You're lying to these people."

"Second of all"—I hold up my second finger—"you have no idea if you've been told the truth. You were told something . And everyone around you was told the very same something. Common knowledge is a hard thing to fight."

Clover side-eyes me. "If you've got something to say about space, just say it."

"I don't. I have no clue what the stars are beyond what I've been told as well. It's a very difficult thing to question the narrative. I mean, where would I even start? Assuming I was living up top. Where would I start to study the stars?"

"College?"

"A logical option. But colleges and universities are filled with people who all think the same way. Why should they question mysteries that have been solved? These things are… facts ."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Because come on, Clover. Facts? Think about it. There are very few facts in this world. Very few. Not even the laws of physics are facts. They are presumptions based on equations, which is based in the idea that the universe runs on math."

"But the universe does run on math."

"Says you."

Clover shrugs. "Fine. I don't know then. Where would you study stars?"

"Well, I wouldn't. Because I don't care if the stars are true or not. But there's almost no way to get past the… consensus ." Now it's my turn to shrug. "So why bother. But anyway, my point is that the people who live down here think the surface is like space. Unreachable and unknowable except through the lens of science and textbooks. So why should they spend one moment of their lives questioning the narrative?"

"Surely you have curious, imaginative children who dream big? I mean, I can see the adults falling into line, but kids? They don't know what they don't know. They don't know it's pointless to fight the narrative and seek a new one."

"We do have our fair share of those kids. Myself included. But at the first sign of ‘curiosity,' as you call it, they remove us from the general population and conscript us into the Future Founders."

"What's that? Like the Boy Scouts?"

"Yeah. Sure. It's just like the fucking Boy Scouts."

"I'm serious. I want to know what it is. Especially if you were in it."

"Why would that make a difference?"

Clover sighs. "I dunno. I just… think it's all very interesting. So, what is this Future Founders thing? An ROTC?"

"Kind of. I mean, sure. Yeah. It's ROTC. My father is a general."

Her eyes go wide. "Oh. That's significant."

"Yeah. So, when my curiosity started causing problems, I was sent into Future Founders."

"Is it like a stayaway camp?" She's grinning at me.

"Sure. It's exactly like a stayaway camp."

Now she frowns and huffs. "So that means it was horrible."

"How do you get to that conclusion?"

"Because I hear it in your voice. You hated it."

"No. I didn't hate it. It's hard to hate being in the Founders."

Clover turns to look at me, scrunching up her nose. "Why?"

"Because we're the elites. We get all the privileges. We can even go up top on vacation—I mean, eventually. You have to earn that and it takes most of your career. But at least it's a possibility. As a twelve-year-old kid, being conscripted was… well, fuckin' amazing. I got to leave home, for one. There's an academy in the Lumina Basin, right on the lake, and that's where I lived all my teenage years. So it's not a stretch of the imagination to say it was a stayaway camp."

Clover turns, sitting on the edge on the window sill. "Lumina Basin. What's that?"

"A huge underground crystal cavern attached to a massive salt lake. It's…" I pause here, conjuring up images of Founder Academy and the surrounding area. "It's the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. And maybe I haven't seen everything up top, but Lumina Basin is like something out of a storybook. The crystals are a dozen feet in length."

"Shut up."

"I'm not joking. That's just the average length. There are a few that are sixty feet or more. They're as wide as a house. It's almost not even possible to understand that it's a crystal, because when you're right up close, it looks like a wall of milky luminous glass. They're all like that, because they are lit up with lights, of course. They don't illuminate on their own."

"Hmm. It doesn't sound real."

"There are caves like that in the up-top. There's one in Mexico, but that one doesn't have the salt lake like Lumina does. It's the water that keeps Lumina Basin habitable. It even rains there. So… no. I didn't hate the academy. I loved it, actually. And I was a captain of my year the whole time I was there."

"What did you want to do when you were a kid that caused you to be diagnosed with ‘curiosity?'"

"I found a book in my father's study called Journey to the Center of the Earth ."

"Jules Verne."

"You've read it?"

"Skimmed. It was boring."

I actually laugh out loud. "You're crazy. That book was the best thing I had ever read. Still is, maybe."

"What a strange book to find though."

My eyebrows go up. "Right? I mean, it was a book about surface people who journey underground and find a new world."

She laughs. "That is kinda funny. It would be like me reading a book about a girl underground who comes up top to find my world. So it's interesting, I guess. But I would not obsess over that. It's just another story in a sea of stories, if you ask me."

"That's because you're allowed to read whatever you want up there. Authors are allowed to write whatever stories they want. This book was not on any of the approved reading lists and I immediately knew that because the idea that there could be a whole other world on the surface never occurred to me until that very moment and it felt… very… forbidden ."

Her eyes are locked with mine for many long seconds. Then she lets out a small breath, and with it comes a chuckle. "You ran."

"What?"

"When you were sent on your mission, or whatever. You never told me what you did to mess it up and get sent to prison, but this is what you did. You ran when you got up here."

There's no point in lying about this. Clover already knows so much more than she should, she'd probably be executed for that fact alone if we get caught. So it hardly matters what I did to get sent to the tunnels. I walk over to a chair, sit down, and kick my legs out. "Yep. I ran. I only made it one year, though." Then I smile and tip my chin up a little. "It was the best worst decision I ever made."

Clover studies me for a few moments, then gives me a little nod. "Curiosity is a bitch, isn't it?"

"An ancient crone of a bitch."

"What about me?"

I shrug. "What about you?"

"How do I rank in terms of the best worst decision you've ever made?"

My grin isn't immediate. It takes a couple moments to form. But once it does, it's big. "Clover, you are tippy-top bad for me. You're number one on my long list of reckless, traitorous decisions."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"Because…" I fully intend on lying here. I fully intend on insisting that I'm some kind of good guy in this deception that's going on all around us. But I can't seem to do it, even though it's a better answer than the truth. "Because there's a part of me that knows there's no coming back from this one. Bringing you here is a death sentence for me if I get caught. But I'm angry at my father. I guess I just didn't realize it until now. I'm pissed, actually. That he would send me to those tunnels. That looking for truth is a punishable offense. And there's a part of me that wants to get caught and embarrass him a second time. Two chances, two fuck-ups." I pause here to smile. "I would die happy to see the look on his face if he ever found you here."