grinned wickedly. “My best friend gave me this great scan plug, and I put it to good use.”
“How long did it take to upload?” Shawn asked.
“About five seconds,” I said.
He nodded. “Not bad.”
“Any longer and you might have had to send the body crew out after me,” I admitted.
Shawn froze. “What happened?”
“A deinonychus pack.”
“What kind are those again?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
I groaned in exasperation. For someone who lived in an underground compound because of the millions of dinosaurs stomping around overhead, Shawn knew next to nothing about them. He preferred to spend his time tinkering with anything and everything mechanical.
“They travel in packs, and have huge claws on their hind feet for ripping their prey open.”
“They sound like loads of fun,” Shawn drawled. “I can see why you’d want to go running around with them.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“No,” Shawn countered, “I’m just not obsessive about researching the ugly things like some people I know. Let me guess, you already updated your journal?”
I kicked him hard in the shin, glancing around the library shelves to make sure they were deserted.
“Youch,” he grimaced, rubbing his shin. “That wasn’t really necessary.”
“I disagree,” I snapped. Shawn knew I had a strict rule about never mentioning my journal where we could be overheard. “Now are you going to help me or not?”
“Of course,” he grumbled, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I can’t come tonight, though; my aunt needs my help with the new baby while she goes to a meeting.”
“Tomorrow, then?” I asked.
“Sure.” He nodded. “We’d better get going. Your work detail starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Right,” I said. Shawn turned towards the tunnel that would take me home, even though it was out of his way. After leaving the library, we turned left and walked for about five minutes before we came to a hub tunnel that split off in five different directions. Once upon a time there had been signs marking which way things were, but they had long ago broken and worn away and no one had bothered to fix them. These tunnels were our entire world, and we knew them well.
“See you tomorrow,” Shawn said, heading down the tunnel second to the left, while I took the tunnel straight ahead. “Be on time!” he called over his shoulder.
I broke into a jog and didn’t slow down until I hit the entryway to the Guardian Wing. Unlike the habitation sector, the Guardian Wing was built in the part of the compound that had originally been the rock quarry; its walls and rooms were cut out of granite instead of crafted out of smooth, man-made concrete. I still remembered that scary night five years ago when I’d first seen this section of the compound.
“This is your new home,” General Kennedy had told my seven-year-old self after escorting me past the guardian on duty to a tiny room where a small bed and mattress sat along the back wall. “Lights go off at nine o’clock sharp, and you will be locked in at night.”
“Locked in?” I’d asked.
“The Guardian Wing is for those who don’t have a place with the rest of the community. The doors are locked for safety purposes. Show some gratitude that the Noah allows you to stay here. You are a burden on our society.” He’d turned and walked out, locking the door behind him. I’d looked around the tiny room and my chest had ached with homesickness for the little apartment in the seventh sector my dad and I had shared. And then the lights had gone out. I’d sat down on the icy floor, too exhausted to attempt to find the bed, and cried myself to sleep.
The sound of something scratching at my door had woken me, and I’d sat bolt upright in a panic. Before I could scream, my door had opened, and a short, stocky boy had been silhouetted in my doorway, an odd flashlight clutched in his hand. Holding a finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he’d eased the door shut behind him. He’d tiptoed over and looked down at me, sitting among the meagre supplies Kennedy had given me.
“How did you get in?” I asked, blinking tear-swollen eyes.
“Lock picks,” he said, holding up two small metal sticks. “I’m Shawn.”
“I’m Sky,” I said, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my grey compound jumpsuit. “Why are you here?” I’d meant my room, but he misunderstood, dropping down to sit opposite me on the cold stone floor.
“Same reason you are,” he said. “Orphaned when my parents died in the tunnel collapse two months ago.”
I’d wrapped my arms protectively around myself and felt my chin jut out defiantly. “My dad isn’t dead.”
“Is so,” Shawn argued. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be in the Guardian Wing.”
“Is not,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. “There is going to be a mandatory assembly about it tomorrow.”
That assembly had been awful.
His picture had been projected up on the wall while government officials explained how one person’s selfishness could jeopardise the entire compound’s survival. They’d itemised the things my dad had apparently stolen from the marines’ barracks before he fled, explaining how the loss of those items put the survival of every inhabitant of North Compound at risk. They’d called him a traitor to the human race, worse than a criminal. There had been rewards offered for information leading to his capture. I’d watched the entire thing from the front row, feeling the disapproving glare of every citizen of North Compound digging into my back. Guilt and confusion had gnawed at my guts, almost overshadowing the feeling of loss and betrayal that made it hard to breathe. Needless to say, after that assembly, sympathies for the recently orphaned Sky Mundy had hit a record low for everyone – everyone except Shawn Reilly.
“It’s not so bad here,” Shawn promised. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I hate it here.” I sniffed.
“Well,” Shawn said, holding out a hand to pull me to my feet, “that’s probably because you’re sleeping on the floor.” And he’d helped me make my bed by the light of the flashlight. A flashlight I found out he’d made from broken pieces of machinery he’d found sorting trash during work details.
Shawn had made life bearable. For two years, we lived in the Guardian Wing, breaking into each other’s rooms to talk and laugh. I told him about how I was determined to find out what really happened to my dad, and he told me how he felt guilty that his parents had died in that cave-in. Apparently he’d made them late that day, putting them in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes I thought he saw looking out for me as his way of making up for that, but I didn’t mind. I needed a friend desperately.
I’d been almost happy. But then Shawn’s aunt had been transferred to North Compound, and she’d
