A Crack in the Sky Read Free Page B

employees through the city’s subway system, running somewhere not far below them. The rumble lasted only a few seconds, but in that moment the savage stopped crawling and seemed to look up. Eli was almost certain it saw him, but it didn’t come after him. It kept still, watching him.
    At first Eli only gaped back at it, too terrified to move. Then, with a rush of adrenaline, he began scrambling away, tearing back through the tunnel on all fours. At one point he cut his hand on the edge of a piece of broken pipe, but he didn’t slow down. Soon the ceiling was high enough that he could pull himself to his feet again. He gasped for breath as he ran.
    Eli had already reached the street before he allowed himself to look behind him and see that he was alone. As far as he could tell, the Outsider wasn’t chasing him. Still, with every step he imagined he could hear the sound of a wild thing breathing at his back, closing in behind him.
    “An Outsider?” Mother asked, peering over her neon-framed glasses at Eli from her Senate office in New Washington. “You’re certain?”
    “Yes! He had red, blotchy skin—I’m sure!”
    Eli was still catching his breath after sprinting all the way home. The moment he burst into the house, he’d pingedMother, and now a hologram of her head floated inside the CloudNet sphere in the living room. Like a translucent beach ball, the sphere hovered near the center of the ceiling, sending milky waves of light across the mahogany cabinets and along the walls. He’d interrupted her in the middle of a meeting. Just over Mother’s shoulder floated another three-dimensional head, bald and mustached, in another sphere—a hologram inside a hologram. It was Uncle Hector, Father’s eldest brother. Part of Mother’s official role in the Senate was to provide assistance to high-ranking InfiniCorp officials, including Uncle Hector, who was InfiniCorp’s chief operating officer and Grandfather’s right-hand man.
    “Anyone with you, boy?” Eli’s uncle asked, removing the cigar from his mouth. “Anybody who might be able to confirm this? Did you alert the Guardians or anyone else?”
    “No, I ran straight here as soon as it happened. Nobody was with me.”
    Mother looked tired. Her pink wig held stiffly in place, but there were bags under her eyes. “What on earth possessed you to crawl through the underworks of the city? Dr. Toffler sent word that you made a false excuse and walked out in the middle of a lesson. I’ve never heard it sound so annoyed.”
    Eli’s face went warm, but he wasn’t going to lie. “Dr. Toffler wouldn’t believe me about the sky explosion, and I had to check it out. I was scared of what it might mean for the dome.” He looked down at the floor. “Anyway, after that, things just sort of … happened.”
    “I’ll have the Guardians keep an eye out for the Outsider,” Uncle Hector said, “but if he saw you, then he knows we’ll be looking for him. I’m sure he’s long gone by now, slipped backinto the wasteland. I’ll send word to the chiefs over at Power Systems and Plumbing to find the tunnel and close it off.” He put the cigar back in his mouth and took a long puff, momentarily filling the sphere with smoke. “The important thing is, you’re okay.”
    “And the sparks in the sky? It was real, I’m telling you, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen things going wrong up there. Shouldn’t we send out an alert, in case it happens again?”
    Uncle Hector shook his head. “Not necessary. The dome isn’t breaking down, son. We’re aware of the problem, and we know why it happened: this Outsider of yours must have been meddling with the system. Besides, the sky software checks every pixel every five seconds. I’m sure the reason you didn’t find any debris on the site was because by the time you got there, the Sky Department already had the issue cleared up.”
    “You’ve been letting your imagination run away with you again,” Mother added