“Yeah, it’s always the same place. No idea why. The kid doesn’t know why, either.” He was leading her down a new hall, this one the long stretch with its four different colors encircling them. “Anyway, all of that brings us here.”
He found the door he was seeking and pushed his way into the surveillance room. Inside, he could see her taking it all in next to him—the dozens of monitors laid out across a wide desk, the machinery both on top of and beneath the desk full of overlapping wires and cords, plugs and lights. He could see her eyes catching on the wall of screens on the other side of the room—the hundreds of windows into the rooms and lives scattered all throughout the building.
A runner sat in a chair at the desk, staring intently at one of the monitors. At the sound of their entrance, he turned and scowled at Luca. Or at least, Luca thought it was a scowl. It was always hard to tell with the plastic masks they wore that covered their jaws. And also their faces. They were just the slightest bit off, to the extent where it was hard to tell if their eyes were narrowed or widened, or if they even cared at all, if they had any response to the world around them.
Not for the first time, Luca wondered why they were used here, in the surveillance room. Their eyes always seemed so unseeing to him, so indifferent. Maybe it made them more objective when watching over the screens, but Luca doubted that. He doubted very much that the runners were capable of doing anything at all, besides standing tall and firm in front of the residents and bullying little children into submission.
This runner stared at Luca for a beat with those eyes that could have been angry or frustrated or nothing at all, and then he stood, departing from the room without a word.
Once the man in blue was gone, Luca saw Everly shiver, as though brushed by a frigid, unseen wind, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “There’s something wrong about those people,” she mumbled, eyes cast toward the door the runner had just left through.
Luca sank down into a chair with a noncommittal grunt. He didn’t look up, but after a moment he heard Everly come over and sit down next to him.
“So, what’s all this?” she asked.
Luca brightened slightly. “This,” he said grandly, gesturing at the screens, “is where we’re going to be spending the rest of our day.” He pointed to one of the monitors and watched as she slowly registered exactly what she was looking at.
The people. Dozens and dozens of people, walking around and sitting and eating and sleeping and working. People of all ages, all over the building. Luca heard Everly’s breath catch, and he wondered what she must be thinking, realizing the extent to which they were all watched, every second of every day within that building. He could almost see as it all registered for her—the futility of even thinking about escaping.
And then, without really meaning to, Luca found himself beginning to talk, words building up and then pouring out that he hadn’t fully intended to say.
“I’ve been working with this system for years,” he began, his eyes trained on the screens in front of him. He hunched closer to her, speaking in hushed tones, even though he knew no one was listening. Or at least, he hoped no one was. “It was one of my first assigned jobs here. When I was younger, it turned out I had a knack for working with computers. Jamie was quick to take advantage of that, putting me almost full time on surveillance for a while.”
“That’s . . . incredible,” Everly said.
Luca shook his head slightly. “The thing is, it doesn’t actually take all that much computer savvy to do this job. It’s pretty boring, really. For the most part. You stare at the screens for hours, making sure no one’s doing anything they shouldn’t, ensuring that everything is in order.” He paused, still looking at the screens in front of him. “Jamie—and so the Warden too, by extension—trusted me to do what they asked,” he said quietly. “Like a good little brainwashed child. Besides you, and . . .” He trailed off, then went on. “I’ve never heard of anyone else attempting to deliberately break the rules here—no one likes to go off book. Not when you know what’s at stake. So, you could say that, in light of my incredible boredom spent sitting here alone all day every day for more days than I care to recount, I had to find other things to occupy my mind. See, there are cameras in this room, too.”
At that, Everly’s gaze darted around the ceiling. Luca saw what she was doing and laughed tightly.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “They’re microscopic. Anyway, I’m always monitored, even in here, so there’s only so much I could accomplish without seeming too suspicious. Luckily for me, very few people here know anything about computers. Except Jamie, of course, but he’s usually too busy to bother looking after me. To all the other runners, and residents for that matter, I could do almost anything and it wouldn’t look particularly suspicious. So, I began toying around with the system, experimenting with codes that I learned to navigate myself, and then, slowly, I started to understand the mind of the system, and how to break it.”
“Break it?” Everly sat up straight, looking more closely now at the screens around them as though they might hold the secrets to controlling the Eschatorologic.
Luca turned to face Everly fully, leaning even closer to her. “We can’t leave; I know that. I’m not trying to break out. I just—” He ran a hand absently through his hair. “I just want to protect them—the people here, those who can’t do it for themselves—as much as I can. You know, redirect a camera here, delete a feed there. Hide discrepancies, cover up errors.” He looked down, biting his lip. “They don’t care much for second chances here, and it’s bad enough for all of us as it is.”
Luca knew Everly was staring at him, taking in everything he was saying, maybe even wondering why he was telling her all this. He was wondering that himself—why her? He barely knew her—other than the fact that she was related to one of the head scientists in the building, one of the people who had done this to him. Just because she had risen like a phantom from his dreams didn’t mean he should trust her. If anything, it should make him wary about her, where she came from, why she was there.
And yet.
And yet he couldn’t help wanting to trust her. The more he talked to her, the more he wanted to say. The more he wanted to tell her everything that had ever happened to him in that building, and the more he hoped she would want to listen.
And she was listening. Everly had been observing Luca with rapt attention since he had begun describing his work within the Eschatorologic. He wanted to capture that expression, her wide eyes and curving mouth. Capture it and bottle it up and keep it for himself.
He shook his head. He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. He just wanted her to listen. He wanted her to understand.
“Over the years, I’ve gotten a good enough grasp on the coding here that I can temporarily hack portions of the system. My room, for example. The feed in there hasn’t picked up on an actual recording in years. It plays one of two loops—when I’m supposed to be in there, and when the room is supposed to be empty. It’s how Caleb can come and go without anyone kicking him out, and why you could hide in there that night without being found.”
“This is . . . so unbelievable,” Everly said, wide-eyed. “I mean, the fact that you were able to learn all that on your own? I can’t even imagine how many hours that must have taken.”
Luca huffed out a small laugh. “Trust me, you don’t want to. It’s paid off, though. I can look out for my friends.” Even if it came with the risks. Luca suppressed a shiver at the thought. “Anyway, after you’re done following me around, you’ll get your own assignment somewhere. It probably won’t be here, so there’s not much you need to do or learn in here. You can just watch, if you want.”
What Luca refrained from mentioning was the darker side to what he did. The parts that he didn’t want to tell Everly. Not yet.
Watching the same screens all day every day for as many years as Luca had, he had seen parts of the building that most people never did, and so he had, over the years, been privy to the tail end of what he was sure were many of the secrets the Eschatorologic was trying its hardest to keep hidden.
He had seen, for instance, the people who didn’t make sense.
Not all the rooms in the building had cameras in them (or, at least, not all of the rooms in the building had cameras that Luca had access to). The lowest level of the building. Most of the testing rooms.
And, Luca had noticed, many of the rooms upstairs. There were more bedrooms than there were cameras, and he had always wondered, wondered, wondered . . .
The rooms upstairs he could see all contained the most peculiar assortment of people.
Or maybe assortment wasn’t quite the right word . . .
Luca had his theories. They were words he would never share with anyone—even Everly, this strange girl whom he felt so innately that he could trust. The theories were his most closely kept secrets.
Other than the dreams.
And then there were the secrets that weren’t all that hidden. The kind that everyone in the building knew and endured, but that Luca wasn’t sure Everly had been told about yet.
Almost unconsciously, he rubbed at his arms. He didn’t think anyone had shared with her the truth behind the testing rooms, and he certainly didn’t want to have to be the one to do so.
And maybe they wouldn’t take her there. Maybe she wasn’t here for that reason. Maybe being Richard Dubose’s granddaughter would help her, in this one regard.
Maybe she would be spared that one thing, where all the rest of them would never be so lucky.
“Luca,” Everly said, startling him away from his thoughts. “Have you ever met a man named Jacob Tertium, or seen him on your screens? He would have been tall, broad-chested, with a receding hairline but dark, curly hair.”
