Act of Escape

Picking my head up off the desk, I watch the smudged residue fadeaway from the glass tabletop. Blinking a few times, I open my eyes as everyone walking through the door, back to the arena-like common area, again. Pieces of metal, wood, rope and other materials are dropped in front of everyone as the kids swarm it all. Some kids are picking the material up, some are heating and bending red hot metal, and others are just playing on and around it all. I walk up to Jack and Soover, who are just sitting on top of a metal structure beam that's sitting on its side and is higher than my head, as they chat. "Hey, guys."

"Hey, James." They call in unison, their feet dangling and almost kicking me in the head.

"In history class, I had a really good idea for something to build."

Looking down at me, Jack frowns a little and hops down from the metal beam, "What do ya mean?"

"I mean, for a way to escape. You know, we've been learning about the rest of the world before the war. I wanna see it."

"Mate, you're crazy. That'll never work. The guards'll catch you and throw you in the isolation room for the rest of your life. I've heard that none one ever gets out of there. Whatever you're planning, don't, mate. Why would you leave, anyway? We're safe in here. There's nothing out there. Our teacher even told us there's nothing out there, no one, only danger and death. We belong here."

Soover gets down from the top of the metal beam and adds, "You're an idiot, dude."

"Jack, Soover, what if the world isn't what they say? What if it's a beautiful, safe place. And, what's the harm in going out there? That would be much better than being surrounded by these grey walls and watching our classmates almost die every day. I wanna see what's out there. Something tells me it's not just a wasteland, that there's not just death." I say putting my head down. "Come on you too. Get off your..."

Jack sighs, "What's the harm?" He says, confused, "What's the harm? Umm...death, maybe? What if it is all just red sand, dead trees and skeletons out there? What if you never find food or water, or another person? Did you think o' that?"

Soover pipes up, "James, go on, I dare ya. All the more space and food for us. Just send us a message of how great it is."

I quickly strike Soover down with, "Shut up, Soover! Jack, come on, it'll be fun. I mean, all we do anyway is sit, talk, go to class and sleep. It'll be a change, something else to do."

Jack sighs again, "Fine, but we're gonna regret it. I'm telling ya now." Soover just groans. Jack looks around at Soover and turns back to me, "What did you have in mind?"

"If anyone asks, it's not to escape with, just for interest, but I wanna build a catapult-like we saw in history class. I mean, this place has no roof,..." I say, my hands out to the sides, gesturing to the walls, "...so it's the perfect place. So, I need someone that can heat up objects, someone to freeze it, and I need someone strong or someone to just pick up the large metal beams. I need some rope and metal." I turn to Soover, "Are you in too?"

He breathes in deeply and sighs, "Yeah, I guess. I mean if you two are doing this, then I'll have nothing to do if I don't."

Jack runs away, chatting with some of the kids who are playing with bending the metal, Soover sluggishly walks over to someone who is throwing metal up in the air, and I excitedly run over to get some rope and someone who can quickly freeze things.

We meet back at the metal beam that Jack and Soover were sitting on. Leaning back on the beam, I watch and direct everyone, showing them where to move things. Everyone else in the common area just runs over to watch, cheering. The beam I'm leaning on is lifted up and I lose my balance, jumping away. Before my eyes, the beams start taking form on the ground as a base frame. I guide them into place as they move the beams of metal are heated and melted together to create a square on the ground. We look around for more pieces, but we see no more around. Instead, we see the guards stepping through the light, which I hadn't noticed the doors had turned back into. We all lineup, slowly moving towards the lights. Thinking about the world that Jack and Soover described, I start daydreaming, letting my mind wander. I picture other lands like what I read in my E-books, places unearthly. I walk up to the door to see Jimmy and another guard. "Why, g'day again, James." A voice in front says, "What a pleasure it is of mine to see you again." Jimmy says jokingly, scanning my wrist with a small device. "Peter, guess what," He waits, "...It's James's birthday today."

I look to my left and see an identical black suit and helmet, "Well then, happy birthday, birthday boy...thing. I think."

I don't know whether to take that as a joke or not, but I just ask in painful embarrassment, "Can I just go?" They push me through and I walk the stairs, into the tunnel to the next door where I see the next set of guards scanning people's wrists and letting them through into their cells. At the front of the line, I raise my wrist for them to scan, watch the little disk under my skin spin, and walk through the door into my cell. The doors close behind me, the electricity bars turn back on, stopping me from escaping, and with a shunt, my cell is magnetically pulled through the air, down further into the large underground room. Looking around at all the other cells that are magnetically suspended in rows, filling the room, I walk over and sit on my hard bed before laying down. As my head hits the pillow the walls of light shut off and the room is suddenly filled with a blinding darkness only broken by the thin blue glow from each electric bar of each cell. Trying to block out the glow so I can sleep, I clench my eyes close and...

A disturbing, distorted, low pitched buzzing sound wakes me up with a fright. The walls light up and the room is filled with a clean white light. Sitting up, I shuffle to the end of my bed, looking up at the doors, and see two silhouettes. One by one, our cells are lifted up to the exit. As the last cell is dragged back down into its place, mine is pulled out of its place in the row and up to the doors. As the doors slide back into the wall, at the same time, the bars at the front of my cell shut off. Stepping through and past the guards, I look down into the void through the thirty-centimetre gap between the floor of my cell and the step tread of the doorway. I look up at one of the guards. He nods and bends down, dropping something down through the gap. We wait to hear it hit the ground, but after a few seconds, he moves me forward, towards the stairs. The guards follow behind me, through the tunnel as they leave with me. As we emerge from the underground tunnel, I shiver as a gust of cold wind blows across the walkway, rippling my fur. The mass of people in front of me is all waiting at the entrances to the common area, waiting for the doors to change from a solid door, back into the light. Looking around, seeing the moon high in the sky, I hear Jack's voice shaking, "Hey, James!" He yells from the distance. I turn, expecting to see him pushing his way to me, but he can't get through the line of guards standing together to stop the groups of shivering people from merging.

When the entrances to the common area open up, I'm pushed and shoved as everyone floods in through the doors. There's a voice that booms and echos in the arena for everyone to hear, "I'm sure none of you knows why you're out here in the cold of the night. We're here because one of you used their abilities to light a fire in their cell. It's presumably to either warm themselves up or as an escape plan. He's not here amongst you right now. He's being dealt with as I speak. We're going to stay out here for another half an hour, as punishment, and if this sort of disobedience happens again, the magnetic artificial gravity that holds your cells in place will be switched off, leaving you all to free fall. Those who survive will be escorted here. Those of you who don't make it,...well, that's your punishment for disobeying Zenith." Everyone is silent. The wind can be heard whistling through the many doors in the facility. Suddenly, the voice booms over our heads again, "Guards!" It commands shortly and sharply. "Everybody, single file. Line up and get back into your cells." It adds as everyone turns to their nearest exit and lines up. Again, while I'm in line, my mind starts to wander as I think of other places.

In the morning, I'm standing by the metal square from yesterday to meet the others. I climb up on the metal beam and jump and try to grab the top overhanging edge, but I miss and fall back to the ground. I stand and face the small group in front of me. "Okay, do you want to continue to help me build this later?" I hear a united "YES!"

We all move over to the class. Mrs Bernbleton is waiting for us with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. "Boys,..." She turns to the few girls that were helping me build the catapult. She pauses and clears her throat, "...and girls." She turns to the holo-board, tilting her head up a bit and firmly adds, "Take a seat. Now does anyone remember Pythagoras's theorem?"

Kiran answers, "A squared plus B squared equals C squared? Then you find the square root of C to finding the hypotenuse of a triangle?"

"It's good to see that someone in this class actually pays attention." Mrs Bernbleton says, firmly turning her attention to Jet at the back of the class talking to the girls. "JET!"

He quickly snaps around and looks her in the eyes. "YES MISS?" He adds loudly.

"Talking over the teacher I see. Well, not only am I moving you away from the gaggle of misbehaving lasses, I'm moving you closer to me, and splitting them up too."

Laughing, he answers back, "Yes miss." Getting up from his chair and moving closer to the teacher as she points for him to stand next to a boy in the front row.

"Steve, log out of your desk, move to Jet's place and log into his." She commands a boy in the middle of the front row. "Now, Gela and Hannah, you two split up and move away from Phoebe. Gela, go swap places with Kelsey, and Hannah, swap with Dom." She commands. "Dom, Kelsey, I'm sorry, but...wait, no I'm not." She adds, continuing the class.

After the class, the kids and I start putting the vertical beams on the base. I guide one of the beams into place, Jack's on the other side doing the same, and Soover is standing over at the back of the catapult base talking to the kids. From where I am, I can see Soover talking and waving his arms around. I roll my eyes while watching him fool around. The group and I let go of the been and it free stands. Two small pieces are brought over to and carefully placed in the corner where the vertical beams meet the base. These will act as supports. I hear a crash as if something was moved out from under another and the object on the top fell from behind me. There is another metal beam floating through the air towards the structure. It comes to rest between the two vertical beams and there are two more supports brought over and placed underneath. One of the guards comes over. From between the splits in the uniform, I can see little tufts of orange hair from between the uniform. He picks jack up and takes him away. I see Jack kicking and squirming. The odd guard jerks Jack up and tighten his grip, mumbling something in his ear. Through the light doors, I see them disappear. I stare wistfully at the door the guard took Jack through. I try to run after, but my feet don't move. I fall to my knees. With my head in my hands, tears streaming down my face, seeping through my fingers. Someone comes over and puts their hand on my back, "I'm sorry James." They pause and sigh. "He's not coming back. The last person to go through a door like that didn't. We called him De-free because we didn't know if he was free or not."

I sit there crying, then all of a sudden my tears stop, and with a wet face, I get up on my feet and quickly walk over to the others And look at them with an extremely serious face, "Now we need to get this done." A thin piece wire is brought over and bent into a ring. I run over to the pile of metal, wood and rope and pull out a piece of wire mesh. It cuts my hand and a clump of fur is left on the floor. In shock, I jerk my arm away and get a splinter, from a piece of wood behind me, in my elbow. I bring it back to the group. Lloyd puts his hand on the mesh and it turns red. Ashley bends the edges of the mesh around the ring. Sam breathes on it and I watch as the metal goes from a deep red back to its normal grey colour. I go to lift it and drop it because the coldness burns my hands. We all help to attach the netted ring to another piece of metal. We then attach it all to the catapult. As I step back to look at it, Em looks at my elbow and stops me so she can pull out the splinter and heal my skin. I thank her and turn to my friend, "Soover, you've got wings, would you like to fly?"

"No, are you crazy? You know I'm scared of heights."

"Oh, I'm sorry. No, I didn't know, come on mate. It'll be fun."

He groans and whines, "Fine!" He gets up on the netted seat like arm and closes his eyes. I go over to the lever on the side of the catapult. Standing behind it facing the front of the catapult, I push the lever away from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the wheel with rope wrapped around it spin out of control as the rope unravels. The arm flies upright as I glance up enough and see Soover flying through the air before he lands on the top of the floating Shelter on a guarded watchtower.

The guards get him down, bringing him back to us. I turn around and the doors have turned back into the light. From behind the light, I watch the guards come closer to the door. Starting to shake with fear, this is my one chance to escape, my one chance to get out before they actually realise what I've built and taken it away from me. In my panic, I winch the arm of the catapult down closer and closer to the ground, climb into the net, watching the guards get closer and closer. They start running at me. I kick the lever and I'm flung into the air.