tickles my shivering skin.
I stick my fingers through the wire cover and yank on it as hard as I can. The cage-like fence bends outward before popping free. I let it drop down the shaft. It sends a loud scraping noise echoing through the chamber as it falls past each floor. With a final heave, I manage to wedge my elbows inside the opening and lift the rest of my body inside. My arms and legs melt on to the floor, every muscle accepting my weakness.
“You need to keep moving.”
“I can't,” I say, barely able to catch enough breath to speak.
“Opening your door alerted security.”
“Give me a second.”
“We don't have a second. It will only be a matter of time before they send search drones into the ventilation shafts.”
“Where am I going? What's your plan? I can't go through any checkpoints without them scanning my nanomachines. They'll find me eventually.”
“We need to get you to another tower so you can get aboard a train.”
My eyes blink open. I've never been on a train before. Not in the real world. I've never wanted to go anywhere that would require that kind of transportation.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“What does that mean?”
“You'll be in NextWorld eventually. That's all that matters.”
They're right. Whoever is sending this text is speaking to me in a logical way that I can appreciate. It doesn't leave any room for doubt. I push forward. Like a machine.
The heat of the ventilation shaft is nice at first, but soon my body is sweating. My skin swells. My lips grow chapped and my mouth drys out. I'm scampering through the shaft, trying to get to my destination quicker.
When I see an opening in the floor of the shaft ahead of me, I move faster. I press my face against the metal cage that covers the opening, trying to suck in some of the colder air from outside.
“Back up!” appears in front of my face, but the cool air feels so good that I ignore it.
“It's that politician's kid,” I hear a voice say from directly below me.
I open my eyes and look down on a group of five armed officers from the DgS. The visors that normally shield their faces are casually raised as they talk to each other.
“You mean that twerp that logged-in to that game for all those years?”
“That's the one.”
“You realize they've been paying for that kid to play games all day with our global credit budget?”
“Oh, I know. I've been telling my partner for years that they should just unplug him and see what happens.”
“That'd fry his nanomachines.”
“Who cares? Just because his father is some kind of bigwig in DOTgov, that don't mean he should get any kind of special treatment. What do you think they would do if one of our kids got trapped in there? They'd turn them into a vegetable before we knew what was what.”
“Still don't make it right.”
I'm so lost in the conversation that I don't realize how much of my sweat is dripping through the mesh wire covering. A rather large droplet hangs from the tip of my nose, but before I can wipe it away, it breaks loose and plops on to one of the officer's forehead. She looks startled for a moment and when she peers up to see where the drip came from, I push myself away from the opening. I think I move quickly enough for her not to see me, but the sudden shift of my weight makes the thin metal bend underneath me.
The text changes to: “GO! GO! GO!”
I lunge down the chamber on my hands and knees as I hear one of the officers yell out, “He's in the ventilation shaft!”
01000000
I can hear shouting through the metal walls of the ventilation shaft. Security guards are yelling at each other in the hallway below me. They're trying to follow my movements, trying to figure out where I'm going to end up. It sounds far from organized. Some of them think I'm heading toward higher levels. Some of them think I'm heading toward lower levels. When they decide on their own courses of action, they spread out in multiple
I stick my fingers through the wire cover and yank on it as hard as I can. The cage-like fence bends outward before popping free. I let it drop down the shaft. It sends a loud scraping noise echoing through the chamber as it falls past each floor. With a final heave, I manage to wedge my elbows inside the opening and lift the rest of my body inside. My arms and legs melt on to the floor, every muscle accepting my weakness.
“You need to keep moving.”
“I can't,” I say, barely able to catch enough breath to speak.
“Opening your door alerted security.”
“Give me a second.”
“We don't have a second. It will only be a matter of time before they send search drones into the ventilation shafts.”
“Where am I going? What's your plan? I can't go through any checkpoints without them scanning my nanomachines. They'll find me eventually.”
“We need to get you to another tower so you can get aboard a train.”
My eyes blink open. I've never been on a train before. Not in the real world. I've never wanted to go anywhere that would require that kind of transportation.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“What does that mean?”
“You'll be in NextWorld eventually. That's all that matters.”
They're right. Whoever is sending this text is speaking to me in a logical way that I can appreciate. It doesn't leave any room for doubt. I push forward. Like a machine.
The heat of the ventilation shaft is nice at first, but soon my body is sweating. My skin swells. My lips grow chapped and my mouth drys out. I'm scampering through the shaft, trying to get to my destination quicker.
When I see an opening in the floor of the shaft ahead of me, I move faster. I press my face against the metal cage that covers the opening, trying to suck in some of the colder air from outside.
“Back up!” appears in front of my face, but the cool air feels so good that I ignore it.
“It's that politician's kid,” I hear a voice say from directly below me.
I open my eyes and look down on a group of five armed officers from the DgS. The visors that normally shield their faces are casually raised as they talk to each other.
“You mean that twerp that logged-in to that game for all those years?”
“That's the one.”
“You realize they've been paying for that kid to play games all day with our global credit budget?”
“Oh, I know. I've been telling my partner for years that they should just unplug him and see what happens.”
“That'd fry his nanomachines.”
“Who cares? Just because his father is some kind of bigwig in DOTgov, that don't mean he should get any kind of special treatment. What do you think they would do if one of our kids got trapped in there? They'd turn them into a vegetable before we knew what was what.”
“Still don't make it right.”
I'm so lost in the conversation that I don't realize how much of my sweat is dripping through the mesh wire covering. A rather large droplet hangs from the tip of my nose, but before I can wipe it away, it breaks loose and plops on to one of the officer's forehead. She looks startled for a moment and when she peers up to see where the drip came from, I push myself away from the opening. I think I move quickly enough for her not to see me, but the sudden shift of my weight makes the thin metal bend underneath me.
The text changes to: “GO! GO! GO!”
I lunge down the chamber on my hands and knees as I hear one of the officers yell out, “He's in the ventilation shaft!”
01000000
I can hear shouting through the metal walls of the ventilation shaft. Security guards are yelling at each other in the hallway below me. They're trying to follow my movements, trying to figure out where I'm going to end up. It sounds far from organized. Some of them think I'm heading toward higher levels. Some of them think I'm heading toward lower levels. When they decide on their own courses of action, they spread out in multiple
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