The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

is. And of course it’s an ancient one, all those pulleys and—”

“Come on.”

“What about—” He gestured at my phone, still loading the files, and now flashing low storage.

“It’s no use. Forget it.” I heaved the gate open and got on. Lock grabbed my phone and came after me, the platform juddering under his weight.

“There’s just the one lever,” he said. “We don’t know where it—”

I grabbed the lever and pulled. The wall slid shut behind us, and we descended into darkness.

Chapter Nineteen

Down and down and down we plunged, into thick, cloying darkness. It was hot in the shaft and smelled strongly of motor oil. I felt dizzy with it, disoriented, a strange pressure building in my head. The hairs rose on my arms and down the back of my neck. My skin prickled all over, like bugs under my dress.

“There’s something—”

Lock shifted next to me. “What?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” I felt for the railing and clung to it, fighting panic. That pressure was building, like voices in my head. I could hear them now, murmuring, indistinct—gossip through a thin wall, fragments of thoughts. I swallowed and tasted copper. “Don’t you hear that?”

“That thumping? We’re in the Dirt.”

I licked my lips. Lock was right. I could hear the hydraulic hammer over the murmurings in my head, the high whine of generators and the scurrying of feet.

“Not that. Don’t you hear, like a...” I pressed my hands to my ears, trying to hold back the pressure. Something prickled under my skin, at the base of my skull. I slapped at it, but it was in me, a strange phantom buzzing, like a beehive in my thoughts. “Something’s here with us. In my head.”

“Myla?” Lock’s face swam into focus as the gate rattled open. “What are you talking about? Are you all right?”

“I—I’m—” I stumbled off the elevator, squinting in the light. “My head’s full of static,” I said. “Feels like...” I swiveled in a daze as the buzzing coalesced, a compass in my brainpan, pulling me to the west. “Something’s here,” I repeated. “I don’t know how to describe it, but I can feel it, like a magnet. Pulling me. Calling. Don’t you feel it?”

Lock tugged at his collar. “I’m a little warm, but other than that...” He peered past me, eyes narrowed. “What is this place?”

“You’re asking me?” I shook my head to clear it. My vision fogged, then sharpened, and I saw white all around us, white walls and white floors, white lights overhead. Long counters stood along three walls, with glass shelves above them, laden with strange, gleaming instruments. A drain in the floor gurgled softly, and I shuddered at the sound.

“Looks like some kind of lab,” I said. The bees buzzed in my head, as though in agreement.

“Some kind—I’ll say.” Lock made a sick sound, a sort of throaty grunt. “Come look at this.”

I followed him in a daze through a set of glass doors, down a hall lined with... “Water heaters?”

“Look closer.”

I slowly marched up to one of them. A lump had risen in my throat. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see through its thick porthole, but something in Lock’s expression told me I didn’t want to know. He looked angry, more than anything, primed for a fight.

“What...?” I rose on tiptoe, heart pounding. I saw water first, deep green and swampy—then a shape in the water, then eyes, then a mouth. The mouth opened, black gummed, and formed a word. I flung myself backward, a scream caught in my throat. “It’s alive. It’s alive in there—”

“Shh.” Lock caught me and steadied me, leading me from the tanks. I reeled dizzily, swallowing vomit.

“Why would she have that? A mutant? What—?”

“Maybe she’s experimenting on them. Maybe they’re her cure. Maybe—”

“Her cure? No. They can’t be.” I recoiled from him, from the idea. If that were true—I didn’t want to think about it. Ona’s cure couldn’t be that. Couldn’t be misery and death. It made no sense, anyway. Mutants didn’t have nanobots, and they didn’t survive long once the mutation took hold.

I pushed away from them, through a second set of doors, into a room full of screens. Lock brushed his fingers across the closest one, and it flared to life. It displayed towers in wireframe, sketching out a city, and the mountains beyond, a jagged line along the horizon.

“Is that here?” Lock touched the screen one more time, zooming in on the skyline. I squinted through the static, focusing with difficulty.

“No. That’s not Sky. No library, see? And where’s the river?”

Lock tried another screen, called up another city. This time, he zoomed out, reducing it to a point on a map. Mountains rose to the south, and a river to the east. I followed the river down the mountains, through the grasslands, to the Spire. Lock’s brows drew together.

“What are these? Outsider camps?”

“With towers like that?” I shook my head. “They must be her plans. More Domes she wants to build.”

“Way out there? Past the mountains?” Lock zoomed back in and tapped a green, flashing dot. The picture cut to a camera feed, grainy and gray. I saw a street shot from an odd angle, through what looked like a sewer grate. The sky was black overhead and pouring rain. Figures moved through it, heads down, some sheltering under umbrellas, some soaked to the skin. Towers rose behind them, indistinct in the wet.

“It’s not raining here,” said Lock. I snorted laughter.

“That’s ‘cause that’s not here. Look at those signs.” I pointed down the street at a huddle of storefronts. “Boulangerie—what language is that? Le Château?”

“Other cities...” Lock moved to the next screen and tapped on a camera. This one, shot through a lace curtain, showed a dry street—a line of low houses, bright lanterns strung between them. Kids were playing outside, tossing a ball in the moonlight. Lock zoomed in on the sky, on the faint shimmer of purple. “A Dome. How’s that possible? We’re the only ones—only Echelon...”

“Obviously, we’re not.” I tapped on an