# Edge of Extinction

Laura Martin

The beasts are back…Dinosaurs have reclaimed the earth, driving humans underground and only a band of teens can save the world. JURASSIC PARK meets INDIANA JONES In this thrilling new action-adventure series.Two hundred years ago, the first dinosaur was successfully cloned. Soon after, the human race realized they’d made a colossal mistake…The dregs of humanity have been driven into hiding, living in underground Compounds.Thirteen year old Sky Mundy’s father was part of the inner circle of Compound leaders until five years ago he mysteriously disappeared. Now the time has come for Sky to try and track him down. Along with her best friend Shawn, she steps out into the world above, a world of rampaging dinosaurs, but also a full of surprises, where Sky is about to learn that just about everything she’s been taught has been a lie, and the dinosaurs might not be the most dangerous predators out thereNow Sky not only has to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance – she also has to save the world.

## Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

EDGE OF EXTINCTION

Text copyright © Laura Martin 2016

Cover illustration © Fred Gambino

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Laura Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008152895

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008152901

Version: 2016-04-13

For all the kids with their nose in a book.

You are my favourite kind of dreamer.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Coming soon

About the Publisher

I needed two minutes. Just enough time to get to the maildrop and back, but I had to time it perfectly. Dying wasn’t an option today, just like it hadn’t been an option the last ten times I’d done this. I’d thought it would get easier after the first time. It hadn’t.

I gritted my teeth and scanned the holoscreen again. The mail was due to arrive in less than a minute, and although the forest above me looked harmless, I knew better. The shadows between the trees were too silent, too watchful. I hit the refresh button. The drill was simple – refresh the screen, scan for a full minute, refresh again and scan the opposite direction. I imagined it was similar to what parents used to teach their kids about crossing the street, back when there were still streets to cross and cars to drive on them.

The thumping whirr of the plane crackled out of the holoscreen’s speakers and I glanced at my watch. 6:59 a.m. Right on time. My nerves tingled with a dizzying mix of excitement and terror as I watched the small black aeroplane come into view on the holoscreen. It whipped the surrounding forest into a frenzy as it glided just above tree level. I bounced on the balls of my feet, rolling my head back and forth to stretch out my neck as I gave myself a mental pep talk. Be smart. Be aware. Be fast, I commanded myself. Every second counted. A small hatch at the bottom of the plane opened and a large bundle fell the remaining thirty feet to the maildrop’s landing pad. The plane quickly regained altitude and zipped away over the trees towards the other side of the compound, where it would pick up the outgoing mail.

With one last look to confirm the coast was clear, I clambered up the ladder, unlatched the thick metal plate that served as the compound’s entrance, and launched myself from the hatch. It was like entering another world. After the silence of the tunnel, the buzz of insects was almost deafening. My feet dug into soft, damp earth as I ran, and the humidity made the air heavy in my lungs. I felt alive. I felt exposed.

The maildrop was located one hundred yards to my left and I reached it just as the lid was starting to close. The maildrops had been designed back when our founding fathers had believed that the human race would be able to live at least part of their lives topside. They’d been wrong. The drops had all been re-engineered over fifty years ago so that no one had to risk their life venturing aboveground. But there was a thirty-second delay before the mail shot underground to be sorted and searched. Thirty seconds was all that I needed.

There were at least forty packages and letters, and I pawed through them looking for the marines’ official seal. My breath caught in my throat when I finally spotted a large bundle with the black circle and golden ark on the side. Jackpot. I grabbed the package by each end and ripped it right down the middle, hoping the marines would think it had broken open when the plane dropped it. Inside I found a jumble of uniforms, regulation grey socks and port-screen batteries. I was starting to worry that this whole trip was going to be a bust when I saw the small black box. I scooped it up, feeling an almost painful surge of hope in my chest.

The tiny devices were used to pass information and messages between the compounds. This one’s rubberised case was roughly the size of a deck of cards and was made to protect the data plugs on the inside from the jarring airdrop. I was already pushing it on time, but I jerked the scan plug out of my pocket and jammed it into the side of the box anyway. Maybe this time the box would have something.

Five seconds later, I’d downloaded everything the information box could tell me. Pulling out my plug, I wiped the box on my grey uniform to remove any traces of my fingerprints before pushing it back inside the half-open package. In a community where resources meant the difference between life and death, theft was not tolerated. Although, I reasoned, I hadn’t really stolen the information. I’d just made a copy of it. Still, if the marines even suspected the information box had been breached, there would be an investigation. I double-checked the package to make sure I’d left no trace of my tampering. My double-checking nearly cost me my hands, but I managed to yank them out before the steel lid of the drop clicked shut. Seconds later the packages plummeted down the three storeys to the mailroom below.

I heard the sound of a tree branch snap and I jerked my head up, scanning the surrounding trees. My feeling of elated hope from just moments before fizzled in my chest, replaced with a cold familiar knot of fear. I’d been above for only a minute, but that was more than enough time for them to get my scent. I’d taken too long at the maildrop. Double-checking the package had been a stupid mistake. And my survival depended on not making stupid mistakes.

Turning on my heel, I sprinted for the compound entrance. I spotted the disturbance to my left when I was still fifty yards from safety. The ground began to tremble under my feet, and I willed myself not to panic. Panicking could happen later, when I was safely underground with two feet of concrete above my head.

I spotted the first one out of the corner of my eye as it burst from the trees. Blood-red scales winked in the dawn light as its opaque eyes focussed on me. It was just over ten feet and moved with the quick, sharp movements of a striking snake.

My stomach lurched sickeningly as I recognised the sharp, arrow-shaped head, powerful hindquarters and massive back claw of this particular dinosaur. It was a deinonychus. Those monsters hunted in packs. Sure enough, I heard a screech to my left, but I didn’t bother to look. Looking took time I didn’t have. I hit the twenty-yard mark with my heart trying to claw its way up my throat. The deinonychus was gaining on me.

Fifteen yards.

Ten yards.

Five.

Two.

Like a baseball player sliding into home base, I dropped neatly down the compound hatch and locked it in one practised movement before plummeting the remaining few feet to the floor. Two seconds later, too close for comfort, I heard its claws tear at the metal lid. A heartbeat after that, the rest of its hunting mates joined it in an attempt to flush me out of my hole. I was lucky I was fast, but then again, you didn’t last long topside if you weren’t.

I leaned over the small holoscreen monitor on the wall and typed in the anonymous user code my best friend, Shawn, had shown me when I was seven. Almost five years later and it still worked. The screen beeped and chirped happily at me, completely at odds with the crunching, scratching and mewling screams coming from five feet above.

The creatures would dig around the concrete-enforced entrance for another ten minutes or so before they moved on, and I didn’t want anyone else to run into them. Not that many people ventured topside besides me. It wasn’t exactly legal. The compound marines would be furious if they knew that an eleven-year-old girl had dared to stick her head above the ground. I bit my lip and typed in the message that would be delivered across North Compound. “Pack of deinonychus at entrance C. 7:01 a.m. – Anonymous User.” I had my own code, but there would be too many questions if I used it. Questions I had no intention of answering.

I glanced up at the only security camera in this tunnel. It had been disabled for exactly two days and eleven hours. They weren’t as hard to break as you’d think. The fact that it was still broken was a little amazing, though. I’d thought I’d have to break it again this morning. Compound security must be slipping with all of the extra manpower they’d been throwing at tunnel reinforcements.

I sank down against the wall and took a deep breath, readjusting my lungs to the filtered, weightless air of the compound. I always felt like my senses were somehow dulled and muted after surviving a trip topside. Things down here just weren’t as bright, smells weren’t as strong, and sounds weren’t as crisp. Not that I could really complain. The topside world was amazing, but the compound had one thing going for it the topside world never could. It was safe.

I pulled the scan plug out of my pocket and stared at it for a second, wondering what information I’d managed to copy this time. It was probably nothing, I warned myself. Just the same old messages about supply drops and regulation enforcements. But a stubbornly hopeful part of me couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this time it would have information on it about my dad. I tucked the plug into my bag, careful to conceal it inside the lining. I would hide it properly later, but this would have to do for now. Getting the information almost made up for the fact that I was going to be late to class. Again. But at that moment, after almost becoming a dinosaur’s breakfast, I couldn’t make myself care.

Deciding that I was going to be late no matter what I did, I reached in my pack and pulled out my journal. Its leather cover was soft and familiar under my hands as I opened it to the entry I’d made about Deinonychus. I looked at my rough sketch of the dinosaur that still screeched above me and shook my head in disgust. The dusty volume I’d found on this particular dinosaur had apparently been riddled with errors. For one, that back claw was way longer than I had drawn it, and I’d had no idea just how fast they really were. I quickly sketched in the claw and added in the few facts I’d been able to gather while running for my life. Satisfied, I put it away to work on at another time. Even though the camera in this tunnel was disabled, it made me nervous having my journal out in the open. It wasn’t exactly legal either.

As I shut my pack, I realised that my hands were still trembling and I flexed my fingers in irritation. I was safe, but my hammering heart and tingling nerves hadn’t got the message yet. Nothing like a good dinosaur attack to wake you up in the morning, I thought wryly.

My dad used to tell me stories about life before the dinosaurs, before the Ark Plan had been enacted, but it was hard to believe them. I couldn’t imagine a world where people lived with all that sun and sky and freedom, three things sadly lacking in North Compound. I glanced up and felt a reluctant gratitude for the thick concrete above my head. Without it, the human race wouldn’t exist. And I guess when you thought of it that way, sun, sky and freedom weren’t that high a price to pay.

The holoscreen beside me chirped, and I squinted at it. Someone had responded to my alert. It flashed twice and then a message scrolled across the screen. “Sector 24 reinforcements postponed due to deinonychus report. Reminder – no resident in North Compound is authorised to have an anonymous account.” I rolled my eyes. Our government’s quest to abolish the anonymous accounts had failed time and time again. But I was glad to see that tunnel reinforcements had been moved. The compound’s marines occasionally had to go topside to check that the reinforcements were being installed properly, and even with their stun guns, it was often deadly. My anonymous account had potentially saved someone from getting eaten today.

One of the deinonychus’s claws screeched across the metal hatch that separated their world from mine, forcing me to clap my hands over my ears. The creatures were still scrabbling and roaring, furious at their lost meal. And I wished, for the millionth time, that I could feed them the idiot scientists who had brought them out of extinction in the first place. Although being ripped to pieces might be too kind for the people who had almost wiped out the entire human race.

I needed to get away from the compound entrance before someone came to investigate my report. As I got to my feet, I eyed my reflection in the glossy surface of the holoscreen. Sweat dripped down my face, my grey eyes looked a bit wild and my curly red hair had broken free from its ponytail. As I battled to get it back under control, I remembered my dad standing behind me, a look of pure bafflement on his face as he tried to force my hair into some sort of order. At times like that, I think both of us had thought about my mum and how, if she hadn’t died giving birth to me, it probably would have been her teaching me about hairstyles. He’d actually got pretty good at it before he’d disappeared, but I’d never developed the knack. Now I scraped it back into its ponytail. It would have to do. I set out at a jog.

The floor of the tunnel slanted downwards as I wound my way through the cement maze that made up North Compound. Of the four compounds in the United States, North was the smallest. Sometimes I loved that, but most of the time I didn’t. It meant that I knew everyone in the compound and everyone knew me. Which would be fine, if everyone also didn’t hate me.

I’d played around with the idea of asking for a voluntary transfer to East Compound or West Compound, but I’d never been able to bring myself to do it. The clues to my dad’s disappearance were here. So here was where I had to stay. I turned a corner and ran past countless doors embedded in the tunnel wall but ignored them. They were empty by now anyway – everyone needed to report to work by seven fifteen sharp if they wanted to avoid a late penalty. That thought had me picking up my pace. Goose bumps broke out on my arms as the temperature dropped the further down into the compound I went, the walls alternating between the smooth concrete of man and the rough rock of nature.

The North Compound, like the other three compounds, had originally been built as a bunker in case of nuclear decimation or something like that. Almost two hundred years ago, engineers had sat around discussing how to turn an abandoned rock quarry into an underground city where people could survive for months or even years. They had no way of knowing that what they built would protect the human race, not from nuclear fallout but from animals that had been extinct for thousands of years. I wondered if they would have designed things differently if they’d known.

Five minutes later I was out of the habitation sector and entering the main labyrinth. Here the tunnels bustled with activity as men and women, wearing the same faded grey as myself, hurried off to their various occupations. I weaved my way through the crowd, avoiding eye contact. Five years had taken the edge off most of the residents’ general dislike for me but hadn’t dulled it completely. I did my best to stay off their radar, and in return they didn’t go out of their way to give me dirty looks. It wasn’t a foolproof system, but it worked.

I made it through the crowd and jogged down the side tunnel towards the school sector and my homeroom. Right before I rounded the last turn, a muffled sob brought me to a halt. Not again. I groaned as I backtracked down the tunnel. Stopping outside the third storage door, I lifted the latch and flicked on the light.

Shamus was sitting in the corner of the small stone room, wedged between two stacks of broken desks, just like I knew he would be. His big blue eyes blinked up at me, and I sighed. Shamus Clark was five and, like me, a social outcast. His father was the allotment manager, the most hated job in the NC. No one liked to be told that their food ration had been cut. Unfortunately, the other kindergarteners in Shamus’s class had inherited their parents’ prejudices. I knew how that felt all too well.

“Toby again?” I asked, wiping a tear off his chubby cheek with my thumb.

Shamus nodded, scrubbing at his snotty nose with his sleeve. “He … he pushed me down, and he took my lunch ticket. I scraped my knee. See!” Tears momentarily forgotten, he proudly showed me a small scrape.

Lunch tickets were given out to each family as part of their weekly allotment and were the first thing taken away if a job was shirked or done poorly. Knowing your child would go hungry was enough to keep people reporting to work every day. It was a harsh system, but it was fair. Although that could be said about every aspect of compound life. I frowned. No matter how good the system was, it hadn’t prevented Shamus from being bullied. Toby’s parents didn’t seem to care that Toby stole Shamus’s lunch tickets because they failed to provide them for him.

“You are going to have to start standing up for yourself,” I explained gently, pulling Shamus to his feet and brushing dirt off his uniform. He wiped his eyes and looked unconvinced. “You know he only takes it because he’s hungry, right?” I sighed. “Let’s go. We need to get you to class.” Shamus trudged along beside me, his hot little hand grasping mine, and I felt a flash of guilt. If I’d got eaten this morning, who would have found Shamus in the broom closet?

I knocked on the door of Schoolroom A, and the kindergarten teacher, Mrs Shapiro, answered looking annoyed. With a wide smile I didn’t really mean, I ushered Shamus into the room.

“I’m sorry he’s late. It’s completely my fault.”

Mrs Shapiro huffed in exasperation, slamming the door in my face. Lovely.

Two minutes later, I slid through my classroom door and to my desk in one seamless motion, keeping my eyes down in the hopes that Professor Lloyd wouldn’t see me if I couldn’t see him. Slipping my port out of my backpack, I laid it on my desk and finally looked up. Luckily, his back was to me as he scrawled out an agenda on the board.

“Not bad,” quipped a familiar voice at my elbow. I flicked my eyes up to see Shawn Reilly grinning at me from across the aisle. I rolled my eyes and bit back a smile.

“Shamus,” I mouthed in explanation as I turned on my port. Its screen flashed blue and then green.

Shawn held up three fingers, wordlessly asking if it was the third time in the last few weeks that I’d had to help out Shamus.

I shook my head and held up four. He nodded. The PA system hissed and crackled, and we all fell silent as we waited for the day’s announcements.

“Good morning,” barked the voice of our head marine, First General Ron Kennedy. I wrinkled my nose in dislike. Each compound had ten marines stationed to keep the peace and assist in brief forays topside for things like tunnel reinforcements. They were the Noah’s eyes and ears at each of the compounds, reporting back problems that arose. Of those ten, General Kennedy was my least favourite. “Today is Monday, September 1. Day number 54,351 here in North Compound.” Kennedy went on. “Please rise for the pledge.” As one, the class rose and turned to face the black flag with the Noah’s symbol of a golden boat positioned in the corner of the classroom.

“We pledge obedience to the cause,” the class chanted in unison, “of the survival of the human race. And we give thanks for our Noah, who saved us from extinction. One people, underground, indivisible, with equality and life for all.” We took our seats.

“Tunnel repairs are continuing,” General Kennedy’s voice went on, “so please avoid using the southern tunnels in sections twenty-nine to thirty-four unless absolutely necessary. Mail was delivered today,” he said, and then he paused as though he could hear the excited murmur that had greeted this news. Mail was delivered only four times a year between compounds, and sometimes less than that due to the danger of sharing the skies with the flying dinosaurs. Although I was pretty sure the ones that flew and swam weren’t technically considered dinosaurs. I remembered a science lesson where we’d learned they were really just flying and swimming reptiles, but I didn’t see what the difference was.

“As always, the mail will be searched and sorted before being delivered. We appreciate your patience as we work to ensure the safety of all citizens here in North.”

When I glanced up, Shawn was studying me suspiciously, his brow furrowed over dark blue eyes.

I tried to keep my face blank, like the mail being delivered and my being late had absolutely nothing to do with each other. But I was a horrible liar.

“It wasn’t just Shamus, was it?” Shawn hissed, pointing an accusing finger at me. “You were checking the maildrop again.”

“Shhhh,” I hissed back, as General Kennedy went on to discuss the upcoming compound-wide assembly scheduled for later this week.

“You are going to get killed,” Shawn frowned. “And all for some stupid hunch.”

“I won’t.” I huffed into my still-wet fringe in exasperation, wishing that I’d chosen a best friend who wasn’t so nosey. “And it isn’t a hunch.”

Shawn raised an eyebrow at me. “OK,” I conceded. “It’s a hunch.” But just because year after year there’d been no mention of the disappearance of the compound’s lead scientist didn’t mean there never would be, I thought stubbornly. How could I explain to Shawn the pull I felt to find out what had happened to my dad? I imagined it was similar to what it felt like to lose a limb, a constant nagging sense of something missing, a dull ache that wouldn’t go away.

“It’s been almost five years,” Shawn pointed out. “The odds that you are going to find out anything at this point are low.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to see the information I got?” I asked, trying hard to keep a straight face.

“I didn’t say that,” he grumbled, and I grinned, knowing I’d won.

“You should have at least told me you were going topside so I knew to send the marines’ body crew out for you if you didn’t make it back,” Shawn grouched. I made a face at him. The marines’ body crew was a standing joke between us. There was no such thing as a body crew in North Compound, because what lived above us didn’t leave bodies behind. The crackling of the PA system signalled that announcements were over and I turned my attention back to the front of the classroom.

“Miss Mundy,” Professor Lloyd called out, and I jumped. “I can only assume you were late because you were spending your time studying for our literary analysis today. Please stand,” he said, not bothering to look up from his port.

“Busted,” Shawn hissed.

“You too, Mr Reilly,” Professor Lloyd said. Someone sniggered, and my face turned bright red as I stood. Shawn grumbled something incoherent, but he stood as well.

“All right, Miss Mundy,” Professor Lloyd said, glancing down at the port screen in front of him. “If you wouldn’t mind giving the class an explanation of the similarities between the events that transpired in Michael Crichton’s ancient classic Jurassic Park and the events that have transpired in our own history.”

“Similarities?” I asked, swallowing hard. I’d just finished reading the novel the night before, so I knew the answer, but I hated speaking in public. Facing the pack of deinonychus again would have been preferable. I wasn’t sure what that said about me.

“Yes,” Professor Lloyd said, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. “Quickly, please. We are wasting time that I’m sure your classmates would appreciate having to work on their analyses.”

“Well,” I said, keeping my eyes on my desk, “in Mr Crichton’s book, the dinosaurs were also brought out of extinction.” I glanced up to see Professor Lloyd staring at me pointedly. He wasn’t going to let me get away with just that. Clenching sweaty hands, I ploughed ahead. “The scientists in the book used dinosaur DNA, just like our scientists did a hundred and fifty years ago. And just like in the book, our ancestors initially thought dinosaurs were amazing. So once they had mastered the technology involved, they started bringing back as many species as they could get their hands on.”

“Thank you, Miss Mundy,” Professor Lloyd said. He turned to Shawn, who had propped one hip on his desk while he was listening to me, the picture of unconcerned boredom. Professor Lloyd noticed too and frowned. “Mr Reilly, if you wouldn’t mind explaining the differences between Crichton’s fiction and our own reality?”

“Sure,” Shawn said, with a wide grin. “Well, the obvious one is the size of the dinosaurs, right? I mean, ours are gigantic. Almost twice the size of the ones that Crichton guy talks about.”

“That’s correct,” Professor Lloyd said, addressing the room. “As Mr Reilly so eloquently put it, that Crichton guy based his dinosaurs on the bones displayed in museums and pictured in Old World biology books. What Crichton didn’t take into account was how different our world was compared with the dinosaurs’ original harsh habitat. Chemically enhanced crops, gentler climate and steroid-riddled livestock made them grow much larger than their ancient counterparts.”

“You can say that again,” Shawn said, and the class chuckled. I didn’t laugh. The memory of my close call with the pack of deinonychus was still too fresh. They’d seemed massive, and they weren’t even one of the bigger dinosaurs. The compound entrances were set in a small clearing bordered by fairly thick forest, which made it impossible for the larger dinosaurs to get too close.

“Anything else, Mr Reilly?” Professor Lloyd asked, a hint of annoyance back in his voice.

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “The people in the book didn’t have them as pets, on farms, in zoos, or in wildlife preserves like we did before the pandemic hit. They were mostly kept to that island amusement park thing.”

“And why is that important?” Professor Lloyd prompted.

Shawn rolled his eyes. “Because when the Dinosauria Pandemic hit our world and wiped out 99.9 per cent of the human population, it was really easy for the dinosaurs to take over. Which is why we now live in underground compounds, and they live up there.” He pointed at the ceiling.

“For now,” Professor Lloyd corrected. “Our esteemed Noah assures us that we will be migrating aboveground as soon as the dinosaur issue has been resolved.”

“They’ve been saying that for the last hundred and fifty years,” I muttered under my breath, just loud enough for Shawn to hear. He flashed a quick grin at me. The different plans to move humanity back aboveground had spanned from the overly complicated to the downright ridiculous, but each time a new plan was brought up, the danger of the dinosaurs was always too great to risk it.

“So in summary,” Professor Lloyd said, motioning for us to have a seat, “the scientists of a hundred and fifty years ago were unaware that by bringing back the dinosaurs, they were also bringing back the bacteria and viruses that died with them. And as you all know about the disastrous devastation of the Dinosauria Pandemic, I will stop talking to give you as much time as possible to complete your literary analysis. You may access the original text on your port screens.”

I glanced down at my port screen, where the text had just appeared. Professor Lloyd was right – we all did know about the disastrous effects of the Dinosauria Pandemic; we lived with them every day. I tried to imagine what it had been like back then. The excitement as scientists brought back new dinosaur species daily. The age of the dinosaur had seemed like such a brilliant advance for mankind. How shocked everyone must have been when it all fell apart so horribly and so quickly.

The Dinosauria Pandemic had hit hard, killing its victims in hours instead of days like other pandemics. It had spread at lightning speed, not discriminating against any race, age or gender. I could just imagine how shell-shocked the few survivors must have been, those who’d been blessed with immunity to a disease that should have been extinct for millions of years. They must have thought the world was ending. And I guess, to some degree, it was.

One by one, the countries of the world had gone dark as news stations went off air and communication broke down in the panic that followed. I wondered if anywhere else had fared better than the United States. Were there underground compounds sprinkled throughout Europe? Asia? Africa? Were people thousands of miles away huddled together thinking they were the last of the human race just like us? I hoped so, but I doubted it.

The United States had got lucky to avoid extinction. With no formal government left standing, one man had stepped up to rally what was left of humanity. He’d called himself the Noah after some biblical story about a man saving the human race in a big boat called an ark. He’d arranged for the survivors to flee into the four underground nuclear bomb shelters located in each corner of the United States. And once we were out of the way, the dinosaurs quickly reclaimed the world, and we’d never been able to get it back.

I pulled up my copy of Jurassic Park on my port and flipped through the pages, looking for something I could use in my analysis. I’d hated reading Crichton’s book, and I doubly hated having to write about it. His descriptions of life topside made my insides burn with jealousy. It wasn’t fair that one generation’s colossal mistake could ruin things for every generation to come.

I was the first one to finish the analysis. I was always the first one to finish an analysis. Poor Shawn was sweating, his tongue protruding from compressed lips as he scribbled furiously. When the bell rang ten minutes later, he finally walked up to plug in his port and I could tell from the look on his face that it hadn’t gone well.

“Miss Mundy,” Professor Lloyd called out just as I was slinging my bag over my shoulder to leave, “a moment, please.”

My heart sank, but I dutifully filed up to wait by the side of his desk as the last few students plugged in their ports and left. He gazed at his own port, moving his finger down the list of students, ensuring that all of our assignments had been uploaded for him to grade before turning to me with a frown.

“It didn’t go unnoticed that this was your third tardy in three weeks, Sky.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I hung my head.

“I believe you know what to do with this,” he said, pressing a button on his port screen. Immediately my own port vibrated and I glanced down to see a work detail form filling my screen. There was a place at the bottom for a parent’s digital signature, but Professor Lloyd had crossed out the word Parent and instead typed the word Guardian.

“Yes, sir.” I slipped the paper into my pocket. It would get signed for the following day, but I would be the one doing the signing.

I bolted for the door, and almost ran headfirst into Shawn.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, catching my port screen deftly before it could hit the concrete and shatter, again. “Where’s the fire?”

“No fire,” I scowled, taking back my port. “Just another stupid work detail.”

“Work detail is a character-building experience,” he said sarcastically.

“Then why don’t you serve it for me if they’re so great?” I asked.

“Because my character is already flawless,” he grinned. “It would be a waste of our compound’s precious resources.”

I gave him an elbow to the ribs as we headed towards science class. We paused in the hallway to let the kindergarteners totter past us on their way back from the library. Shamus waved at us shyly and I noticed Toby Lant slumped at the back of the line, his head down. He had the greasy, unwashed appearance of a kid whose parents didn’t keep track of how often he bathed and a hollow look that I’d seen in the mirror a bit too often. My heart hurt for him, even if he had been bullying Shamus.

“Do you have a lunch ticket?” I asked Shawn as we watched the kids’ progress down the hall.

“I have my pack for the whole week. Why?” I snatched the entire pack from him before he had them halfway out of his pocket and hurried over to crouch by Shamus. Tucking the lunch tickets into his hand, I whispered in his ear. He smiled nervously at me but nodded. After a quick ruffle of his hair, I hustled back to join Shawn.

“Why did you just give Shamus my lunch tickets? Not that I’m complaining, but I was planning on eating at some point this week.”

“I don’t think you’ll starve to death,” I grinned. When Shawn had stopped growing at five feet one inch, he’d decided that what he lacked in height he could make up for in bulky muscle. I doubted that a few missed meals would affect him. “Besides, you know your aunt could get you more. Just tell her you lost them. Shamus needed to buy lunch for his new friend, Toby.”

“Does Toby know he’s Shamus’s new friend?” Shawn asked. I shrugged. I would have given Shamus my lunch tickets, but I had lost those last week for not reporting to work detail on time.

Shawn must have understood, because he didn’t say anything else about it as we ducked into our science classroom. This was my favourite class of the day because the room had a domed skylight ceiling. Of course, the Plexiglas of the skylight had been patched, repaired, barred over and reinforced in so many places that it didn’t really afford much of a view of the outside world any more, but the natural light still managed to filter through, and it was a relief after the harsh fluorescents. Humans weren’t meant to live their lives underground, and sometimes my skin practically itched for the sunlight.

Soon, though, even this little piece of the outside world would be taken away when the workers began concreting over the glass. Noah had insisted that we fortify all topside surfaces. This new decree seemed silly to me. The dinosaurs had never penetrated the barrier that separated our world from theirs, so why waste the resources? Unfortunately, no one asked my opinion on the matter, especially not the most powerful man in the world.

I glanced around at the rows of plants lining the walls and frowned. They would all be dead soon unless we brought some grow lights up from the farming plots. The rest of my class filed in, all eight of them. Professor Murphy moved to the front of the room to begin trimming back a fern whose leaves reminded me of Shawn’s hair – floppy and out of control. Shawn sat down beside me and slid a bag of crackers on to my desk. He knew that I’d have skipped breakfast in order to make it out to the maildrop. When I went to thank him, I saw that he was working furiously on the homework from the day before. The crackers had the slightly chemical taste that most compound food had, but I savoured every one, especially now that Shawn’s lunch tickets were gone. As the class began, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have resorted to stealing lunch tickets if I hadn’t had a best friend who was willing to share.

Shawn and I once joked that the entirety of our education in North Compound could be summed up into two lessons. Lesson one was some variation of a history lesson about how the human race had found itself living in underground compounds. Today’s English lesson with Professor Lloyd had fallen under that heading. Lesson two was how to actually survive in the compound. Professor Murphy’s lecture landed squarely in the second category. She started discussing the finer points of artificial turnip germination and I zoned out immediately. Since the majority of the supplies and food for the compound were generated within the compound, lessons like this were common, but I just couldn’t get excited about turnips. From the way Professor Murphy kept stifling yawns, I had a feeling that she felt the same way.

Seven hours later, when the last bell of the day finally rang, I made my way through the crowded south tunnel to find Shawn. Being crowded was a good thing. North Compound had started off with just twenty survivors. Luckily the immunity that had saved those original twenty from the Dinosauria Pandemic seemed to pass on genetically in most cases, so our population levels were slowly climbing. I think we were at ninety-five last I’d heard. After years of teetering on the edge of extinction, the human race was making a slow but steady comeback.

I tried to ignore the fact that none of my classmates felt the need to include me in their easygoing conversations. I was an island in a sea of chatter and laughter that I wasn’t allowed to be a part of. Some of these kids’ parents had written petitions to have me banned from attending school altogether. Luckily for me, all those petitions failed. In a community grounded on principles of collaboration and equality, even the daughter of a traitor was owed an education. I wouldn’t want to be part of their stupid conversation anyway, I thought as I ducked my head and made my way into the library to find Shawn.

A library hadn’t been on the original engineer’s design plans for the compound, although they’d thought of almost everything else. There were huge spaces on the bottom level equipped with water lines and grow lights to cultivate plants, a water and electrical system that could function without any outside power or input, and even a livestock area for animals like cows or pigs. But those stalls had long ago been turned into offices and storage units since, in the chaos of fleeing the topside world, no one had thought to grab any. Now the poor creatures were extinct. A cow didn’t stand a chance against a dinosaur. Which wasn’t saying much. Most things didn’t stand a chance against a dinosaur.

I found Shawn near the back of the library. A bench seat had been chiselled out of the concrete, and he sat in the nook, his port screen in hand, brow furrowed in concentration.

Sitting down beside him, I peered over his shoulder. “What are you working on?”

“My written analysis from this morning.” Shawn grimaced. “It was apparently so terrible that Professor Lloyd said he’d let me take it home to fix.”

“He posted the grades already?” I pulled out my own port screen, but before I could access the grade account, Shawn was shaking his head.

“Not yet,” he said, his face flushing a little.

“Oh.” I nodded, understanding. Shawn lived with his aunt, who was a council member in North Compound. And even though the law stated that no citizen should have more than another, that we share every resource available, somehow government officials still ended up with the best apartments, extra allotment tickets for food, and the most opportunities.

“I didn’t ask him to.” Shawn shrugged sheepishly.

“But he wants to get on your aunt’s good side, right?”

“Pretty much,” Shawn said. “I think he’s petitioning for funding for the library or something at the next council meeting.”

I leaned my head back against the cool concrete of the wall and stared up at the ceiling of the tunnel.

“I wouldn’t take the help,” Shawn said, “but if I don’t get my grades up, I’m going to be stuck with a work assignment in sewer detail.” He was right. Our grades weighed heavily in the final decision on work assignments when we turned fifteen. It wasn’t like better jobs got better pay. We all worked for free because it was our responsibility to do so, and because if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. But the better your grades, the better the job you were likely to be assigned. Shawn really had nothing to worry about. With an aunt as high up the chain as his was, I doubted sewer detail was in his future. However, even with my good grades, I was disliked enough that it was a possibility for mine.

“It’s fine,” I said, turning to smile at him. “It’s not your fault everyone likes to suck up to your aunt.”

“I wish your aunt had transferred to North Compound instead of mine.”

“Shawn Reilly,” I said, “stop wishing fictional relatives on me. I’m fine.”

“I asked her again last night about getting you out of there, but she brushed me off and gave me the same old story about rules and regulations. It’s not fair.” I agreed, but telling Shawn that would just make him feel worse than he already did.

“It’s OK,” I said. “You deserve good things.” I’d never met anyone with a bigger heart than Shawn Reilly, and without his friendship my life in the compound would be worse than miserable.

“So do you,” he scowled, and the way it wrinkled his forehead and made his mouth pull down at the corners was so familiar that I had to smile.

“I can think of a way you could make it up to me,” I said slyly, glancing at him from the corner of my eye, “if the guilt is really eating you up inside.”

“So I take it your mail run this morning was a success?” he asked drily, putting his port screen away. Shawn knew the purpose of my mail runs, and he knew full well what I needed him to do for me. But he liked to be asked. It was small payment for asking him to break the law for me on a routine basis.

I grinned wickedly. “My best friend gave me this great scan plug, and I put it to good use.”

“How long did it take to upload?” Shawn asked.

“About five seconds,” I said.

He nodded. “Not bad.”

“Any longer and you might have had to send the body crew out after me,” I admitted.

Shawn froze. “What happened?”

“A deinonychus pack.”

“What kind are those again?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

I groaned in exasperation. For someone who lived in an underground compound because of the millions of dinosaurs stomping around overhead, Shawn knew next to nothing about them. He preferred to spend his time tinkering with anything and everything mechanical.

“They travel in packs, and have huge claws on their hind feet for ripping their prey open.”

“They sound like loads of fun,” Shawn drawled. “I can see why you’d want to go running around with them.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“No,” Shawn countered, “I’m just not obsessive about researching the ugly things like some people I know. Let me guess, you already updated your journal?”

I kicked him hard in the shin, glancing around the library shelves to make sure they were deserted.

“Youch,” he grimaced, rubbing his shin. “That wasn’t really necessary.”

“I disagree,” I snapped. Shawn knew I had a strict rule about never mentioning my journal where we could be overheard. “Now are you going to help me or not?”

“Of course,” he grumbled, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I can’t come tonight, though; my aunt needs my help with the new baby while she goes to a meeting.”

“Tomorrow, then?” I asked.

“Sure.” He nodded. “We’d better get going. Your work detail starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Right,” I said. Shawn turned towards the tunnel that would take me home, even though it was out of his way. After leaving the library, we turned left and walked for about five minutes before we came to a hub tunnel that split off in five different directions. Once upon a time there had been signs marking which way things were, but they had long ago broken and worn away and no one had bothered to fix them. These tunnels were our entire world, and we knew them well.

“See you tomorrow,” Shawn said, heading down the tunnel second to the left, while I took the tunnel straight ahead. “Be on time!” he called over his shoulder.

I broke into a jog and didn’t slow down until I hit the entryway to the Guardian Wing. Unlike the habitation sector, the Guardian Wing was built in the part of the compound that had originally been the rock quarry; its walls and rooms were cut out of granite instead of crafted out of smooth, man-made concrete. I still remembered that scary night five years ago when I’d first seen this section of the compound.

“This is your new home,” General Kennedy had told my seven-year-old self after escorting me past the guardian on duty to a tiny room where a small bed and mattress sat along the back wall. “Lights go off at nine o’clock sharp, and you will be locked in at night.”

“Locked in?” I’d asked.

“The Guardian Wing is for those who don’t have a place with the rest of the community. The doors are locked for safety purposes. Show some gratitude that the Noah allows you to stay here. You are a burden on our society.” He’d turned and walked out, locking the door behind him. I’d looked around the tiny room and my chest had ached with homesickness for the little apartment in the seventh sector my dad and I had shared. And then the lights had gone out. I’d sat down on the icy floor, too exhausted to attempt to find the bed, and cried myself to sleep.

The sound of something scratching at my door had woken me, and I’d sat bolt upright in a panic. Before I could scream, my door had opened, and a short, stocky boy had been silhouetted in my doorway, an odd flashlight clutched in his hand. Holding a finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he’d eased the door shut behind him. He’d tiptoed over and looked down at me, sitting among the meagre supplies Kennedy had given me.

“How did you get in?” I asked, blinking tear-swollen eyes.

“Lock picks,” he said, holding up two small metal sticks. “I’m Shawn.”

“I’m Sky,” I said, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my grey compound jumpsuit. “Why are you here?” I’d meant my room, but he misunderstood, dropping down to sit opposite me on the cold stone floor.

“Same reason you are,” he said. “Orphaned when my parents died in the tunnel collapse two months ago.”

I’d wrapped my arms protectively around myself and felt my chin jut out defiantly. “My dad isn’t dead.”

“Is so,” Shawn argued. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be in the Guardian Wing.”

“Is not,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. “There is going to be a mandatory assembly about it tomorrow.”

That assembly had been awful.

His picture had been projected up on the wall while government officials explained how one person’s selfishness could jeopardise the entire compound’s survival. They’d itemised the things my dad had apparently stolen from the marines’ barracks before he fled, explaining how the loss of those items put the survival of every inhabitant of North Compound at risk. They’d called him a traitor to the human race, worse than a criminal. There had been rewards offered for information leading to his capture. I’d watched the entire thing from the front row, feeling the disapproving glare of every citizen of North Compound digging into my back. Guilt and confusion had gnawed at my guts, almost overshadowing the feeling of loss and betrayal that made it hard to breathe. Needless to say, after that assembly, sympathies for the recently orphaned Sky Mundy had hit a record low for everyone – everyone except Shawn Reilly.

“It’s not so bad here,” Shawn promised. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I hate it here.” I sniffed.

“Well,” Shawn said, holding out a hand to pull me to my feet, “that’s probably because you’re sleeping on the floor.” And he’d helped me make my bed by the light of the flashlight. A flashlight I found out he’d made from broken pieces of machinery he’d found sorting trash during work details.

Shawn had made life bearable. For two years, we lived in the Guardian Wing, breaking into each other’s rooms to talk and laugh. I told him about how I was determined to find out what really happened to my dad, and he told me how he felt guilty that his parents had died in that cave-in. Apparently he’d made them late that day, putting them in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes I thought he saw looking out for me as his way of making up for that, but I didn’t mind. I needed a friend desperately.

I’d been almost happy. But then Shawn’s aunt had been transferred to North Compound, and she’d insisted that he come to live with her. He’d wanted to refuse the offer, too worried about leaving me behind. But in the end he’d gone, while I remained with the handful of unwanted misfits our society didn’t quite know what to do with.

Now I slowed my jog to a walk as River, the guardian on duty, narrowed her eyes at me in warning before going back to tapping on her port.

“Five minutes until work detail,” she said without looking up. “General Kennedy is on duty tonight.”

“He would be,” I muttered before hurrying back to my room. I threw open my door and let it slam behind me before peeling off the grey starch of my school uniform and pulling on loose grey overalls. Everything in the compound was grey. The walls, the clothing, even the people were starting to look a little grey after so many years without sunlight. I yanked my hair out of its ponytail and jammed my hard hat on my head. I was about to bolt out of my door when I spotted my schoolbag. My heart squeezed painfully as I realised what I’d almost just done.

Grabbing it, I pulled out the scan plug and my journal. The metal springs of my bed groaned and creaked as I climbed on to it. Standing on my tiptoes, I stretched to reach the large recessed light in my ceiling. I usually avoided doing this when the lights were on, but I didn’t have a choice. Using the sleeve of my jumpsuit to protect my skin from the hot bulb, I unscrewed the entire thing from the ceiling. The light canister hung down by its wires as I shoved my plug and journal inside. Shawn had shown me this trick shortly after I’d moved in. It had been too time-consuming for the compound engineers to drill through the solid rock of the original rock quarry to install lights, so they had created false ceilings instead to run their wires behind. It was the perfect hiding spot for things you didn’t want found. I replaced the light and jumped off my bed just as the whistle blew to let me know I was late. I groaned and ran for the door.

I dashed out of the Guardian Wing. Two minutes later I rounded the last corner and ploughed full force into a body. My feet went out from under me and I landed hard on my butt. I gazed up into the disapproving eyes of General Ron Kennedy.

“Late again?” he asked, pulling out his port to make a quick notation. “That makes the fourth time in three weeks.” He glanced down at his port and then raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Maybe a full week of work detail will make you be more punctual.”

I just stood up silently and brushed myself off. The six other people standing behind Kennedy wore overalls that matched mine and were studiously ignoring me, although I saw one woman smirk. Most of the time, I was proud of being a member of North Compound. Even though I was held at arm’s length by almost everyone, it didn’t change the fact that we were survivors – the scrappiest and toughest of the human race. But at times like this, I wished there was somewhere else I could be. My mind flashed to the few minutes I’d spent topside just that morning: the way the sun had felt on my skin, the smell of earth and pine in the air. A traitorous part of me wondered what it would be like to leave the grey compound tunnels behind. But I shook off the thought. Life topside might seem wonderful, but I knew all too well that it was deadly. I wiped a hand across my face and discovered I’d got a bloody nose from the impact.

“Don’t get blood on your overalls,” Kennedy snapped. “Or you’ll have work detail for the rest of the month.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. As he turned and walked up the tunnel, it took everything in me not to make a face at him. Instead, I followed as he led us towards our work assignment for that evening. During the day, all the adults in North Compound reported to their various day tasks – tending the farming plots, fortifying the tunnels, cleaning the public areas, or teaching. In the evenings, those who had the misfortune of earning work detail reported for duty.

Work detail could be assigned for anything – being late, not putting enough effort into your job, offending a government official, being found with contraband in your apartment, not taking care of the compound resources. It usually lasted around three hours and was led by one of the compound’s marines. The job could be something simple, like searching one of your fellow citizen’s quarters, or something harder, like moving rock or chiselling out a new bench for public use. Everything was done for the common good. It was one of the things that Shawn and I both valued about compound life. It could be brutally hard, but everything was done to ensure that the human race survived another day.

For the last two weeks, my work detail had been rock removal. There had been a tunnel collapse in the southern corner of the compound and all of the fallen rock needed to be carried up the tunnels to a removal site. I usually didn’t mind work detail. It gave me time to think, to use my muscles, and I liked the feeling of accomplishment that came from a job well done. But I knew that with General Kennedy overseeing us this particular detail would be anything but enjoyable.

I grabbed one of the wheelbarrows leaning against the wall and made my way over to the mound of rock and rubble blocking the tunnel. Luckily, this one had been empty when it collapsed. Without the ceiling above, I was able to look up through three levels of tunnels. It was an eerie sight. This tunnel had been one of the newest additions to North Compound, built to create a shortcut from the business section to the residential tunnels. Unfortunately, many of the engineering skills for constructing tunnels like this had been lost over the years. Grabbing a rock the size of my fist, I threw it into my wheelbarrow. It rang hollowly against the metal, sending echoes up and down the tunnel. Mine was the first one filled, and I turned it around, careful not to bump into anyone, and began the arduous task of pushing it back up the tunnel.

“Hold it,” General Kennedy said, coming over to inspect the contents of my wheelbarrow. “That’s only half full. Fill it the rest of the way before you head up to the drop site.”

I thought about telling him that if I filled it any more it would be too heavy to push. But I knew a hopeless case when I saw one. So instead, I rolled it back around and headed down to retrieve more rocks. I felt his eyes on me as I worked. General Kennedy had been the one who led the search of our apartment on the night my dad disappeared. I was the daughter of a traitor, and he wasn’t going to let me forget it.

When I returned to my room two hours later, my muscles burned and my hands were covered in blisters. I was about to flop down on my bed when I noticed that it wasn’t made. A prickle of unease raced up my spine as I looked around my room. My school uniform was no longer in a pile by the foot of my bed but rather shoved haphazardly into the corner. My dresser drawers stood open, their contents spilling out. Thankfully my light was still screwed tightly into the ceiling. Sighing in relief, I sank down on to my bed. I’d been searched, again. Just then the lights blinked out and the lock on my door clicked.

“Well,” I grumbled. “That’s just perfect.” I spent the next half hour struggling to put my things back where they belonged. Compound searches were done randomly, but I got the feeling my room was searched more often than most. No one trusted the offspring of a traitor. I finally climbed into bed, too exhausted to even change out of my work overalls, and fell asleep almost instantly.

When I woke up the next morning, I stared at the ceiling of my room, trying to ignore the fact that every movement sent pain radiating down my arms and legs. I stood up and unscrewed my light. I pulled out my journal and plunked back down on my bed. It was time to finish updating my information on Deinonychus.

The journal had been a gift from my dad for my seventh birthday, three days before he had disappeared. I’d woken up that morning to the sound of him singing. He had this big booming voice that always seemed at odds with his tall, slim build. That morning, it had been a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ in French. I’d smiled and rolled over, pretending to be asleep as he switched to singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in Russian. My dad collected languages. In a society where we owned nothing and shared everything, knowledge was one of the few things left to collect. He spent all his free time away from the lab, where he worked as a technology expert, studying any language he could get his hands on. He was fluent in ten of them and knew five others well enough to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. A fact he demonstrated as he switched from Russian to Chinese. This was too much, and I giggled.

“Is the birthday girl awake?” he’d asked, and I felt the soft bristle of his beard brush my cheek as he bent to give me a kiss. I giggled, and he flung my covers on to the floor, laughing when I squealed in protest. “She can’t sleep the day away! Up! Up! Or you won’t have time to open your birthday present.” He started another round of ‘Happy Birthday’ in German, and handed me a small package wrapped in one of his grey lab coats.

“What is it?” I asked, sitting up.

“A gigantic spider,” he teased. “I found it wandering around the lab, and thought, I know who’d love this. Sky!”

I rolled my eyes. My dad knew how much I hated bugs. “What is it really?”

“Open it and find out,” he laughed.

I carefully unfolded each of the corners of the lab coat, revealing the soft leather cover of a book.

“But, Dad,” I said, stroking the cover reverently, “we aren’t allowed to own books.”

“Which is why it’s not a book,” he smiled, and lifted the cover to reveal thick ivory pages, each one blank. “It’s a journal.”

“A journal.” I’d repeated the unfamiliar word, trying to hide my disappointment. I’d hoped it was a book. There was nothing better than the feel of a real book. It was so much better than a port screen, but North Compound had strict rules requiring that all books stay in the library for safekeeping. It made sense: just like everything else in the compound, we had no way to replace them, so we had to preserve and protect them.

“You must never show anyone that you have this,” my dad cautioned. “It’s very valuable, and just like the books, individual citizens aren’t allowed to own them.”

“Is it like your compass?” I asked.

“It’s exactly like my compass,” my dad said, pulling it out of its hiding place inside his jacket. “We don’t show anyone or tell anyone that we have it.” I looked down at the journal with newfound appreciation. I’d always been a little jealous of my dad’s compass. It was broken, but it was his. Now I had something that was mine. I liked the feeling.

“How did you get it?” I asked.

“I have my ways.” He winked. “And it’s even more valuable than a book in our library.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because it’s going to contain the great and wonderful thoughts of Sky Mundy,” he smiled.

I studied it for a moment, flipping through its blank pages as though they might shatter if handled too roughly. “Thank you,” I said.

“Anything for you, my dear,” my dad said, hugging my shoulders. “Anything for you.”

Three days later, my dad disappeared. He’d tucked me into bed, and the next thing I knew I was waking up to the marines searching our apartment. One of them had taken my compound-issued backpack and stuffed some of my clothes into it before making me sit outside in the tunnel. I must have been a sorry sight: seven years old, terrified and crying so hard my eyes had practically swollen shut as everything in our apartment was confiscated. No one searched my bag, though. It went unnoticed in the chaos. If they had, they’d have found the journal, cleverly concealed within the lining at the bottom of the bag. My dad had managed to hide it for me in the one place the marines wouldn’t think to look. It had been so well hidden that I hadn’t found it until weeks later when I noticed that my bag was heavier than it should be. I could still remember how excited I’d been.

I’d opened the journal eagerly, expecting a letter from my dad explaining why he’d left the way he had, and when he was going to come back for me. But as I paged through and found it blank, my heart sank. He had left me nothing.

It wasn’t until I reached the back half of the journal that I discovered its secret, and I gasped at what my dad had done to my birthday present. A rough circle had been cut out of the back half-inch of pages, creating the perfect hiding spot for his worn brass compass. I gingerly pulled it out of its paper nest, rubbing my fingers across the worn brass. The lid of the compass had long ago broken off and the small dial inside that was supposed to point north was stuck halfway between south and west. I’d flipped through the remaining pages, each with a gaping hole in its centre, but every single one was blank. No note. No explanation. What good were hundreds of blank pages if he couldn’t even fill one?

I felt like someone had punched me in the gut, and for a moment I almost believed the marines. Maybe my dad really was just a selfish criminal. Maybe he didn’t have a reason for leaving the compound, and me, behind. I’d squeezed my eyes shut and let the pain and anger roar through me until all that was left was a hollow pinched feeling in my chest.

But then I’d opened my eyes, set the compass back inside the journal for safekeeping and pushed away my doubts. Although I’d still been bitter that he’d had time to hide his precious compass but not to write even one word to me, I knew my dad. He wouldn’t have left me unless he absolutely had to.

After that day, I’d begun researching dinosaurs and putting my findings on to those empty pages. We knew about the dinosaurs of a hundred and fifty years ago, but no one was brave enough to do any kind of extended study on the dinosaurs that roamed our world now. So I read the few books we had in our library, trying to understand what my dad might have faced when he left the compound to survive topside.

Surviving topside. The statement alone was one of those oxymorons, like friendly takeover or loud whisper. No one could survive topside. The human race was no longer at the top of the food chain. In fact, we were somewhere near the bottom these days. And after centuries of being the predator, we weren’t very good at being the prey. The thought of what my dad had encountered up there terrified me. If I was brutally honest with myself, I knew the odds were against him surviving very long, but part of me was unwilling to give up the hope that he was out there somewhere. So while I waited underground, desperate for answers, I researched the creatures that made the topside world so deadly.

I opened my journal to the beginning and looked at my early sketches. I couldn’t help but notice that my drawing skills had really improved. The first dinosaur I’d drawn was weirdly disproportional, and a little froglike. The compound buzzer sounded, and I jumped guiltily. School, I’d forgotten all about school. I ran a hand through my dishevelled curls, making them stand up and frizz out alarmingly. I was still wearing my grimy overalls from the night before, and I looked awful and smelled worse. A shower was not optional this morning. Grabbing my towel, I threw open my door, and yelped in surprise to find Shawn standing there, his hand poised to knock.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, putting my hand to my pounding heart.

“Hello to you too,” Shawn said. He looked me up and down, an eyebrow raised. “Although I have to admit, you’ve looked better. Trying out a new unshowered-crazy-person look I should know about?”

“I was just heading to the shower,” I said.

“I thought you said that you needed my help?” He glanced up and down the tunnel to make sure it was clear and then leaned in conspiratorially. “A certain scan plug you wanted looked at?”

“Right!” I said, feeling excitement bubble up in my chest. “Did you bring it with you?”

Shawn nodded and came inside holding up the port screen. Unlike our standard-issue port screen, his was one of the bigger, older models that had been retired years ago. I jumped on my bed to retrieve the scan plug, but no sooner had I unscrewed my light than it flickered and died. Sending us into darkness.

“Not again,” I groaned, reaching for the flashlight by my bed.

Shawn looked up at my light and shrugged. “It’s probably just one of the wires coming loose. It wasn’t really meant to have someone pulling it out of the ceiling every day.”

“Says the boy who showed me how to do it,” I said, feeling indignant.

“That wasn’t my point,” Shawn said, climbing on my bed to remove the metal panel on the side of the light. “All I’m saying is that none of the compound systems was built to last as long as they have. It’s really pretty impressive when you think about it.”

“What I don’t get,” I grumbled, interrupting him before he could get any momentum in his admiration of the Noah’s ingenuity in shared resources or compound sustainability, two of his favourite topics, “is how we get new port screens and holoscreens every few years, but we can’t get new lights?”

“Well,” Shawn said, inspecting the guts of the light, “our government values port screens and holoscreens. They are small, and West Compound has the equipment to manufacture them. The Noah’s plane can deliver them. They are what you call portable.” He began pawing through the inside of the light, twisting here and tightening there. “Industrial-sized lights,” he went on, “aren’t exactly portable. And since updating them isn’t vital to our survival, no one is spending precious time and energy making new ones.”

He was right. I hated the technology disconnect in North Compound. So many of the things we used were just patched-up versions of what the original survivors had brought with them.

Shawn twisted something inside the light and it flashed back to life. Grinning broadly, he jumped off my bed and took the massive port screen from my hand. Shawn had found it during one of his work details sorting for recyclable materials in the compound’s trash heap and, after months of work and scavenging parts, had managed to get it up and running. I hadn’t really understood the point when we each had working ports, but I’d quickly changed my tune when I realised that, unlike our ports, his was off the grid.

I handed the scan plug to Shawn.

“Can you get it uploaded while I shower?” I asked.

He grunted absentmindedly, perching on my bed to tap at the screen. Shawn loved these behind-the-scenes glimpses of the inner working of the compounds, the coming and going of supplies, the nitty-gritty details that went into keeping the remains of the human race alive. After I’d had a chance to look it over for any information about my dad, he would spend days poring over the files. I could picture him as a top compound official someday, or maybe even the Noah. The thought filled me with pride.

Trying not to get my hopes up, I grabbed my towel and dashed out of the door for the bathroom. Three minutes later I was back, and I found Shawn frowning at the screen of his makeshift port.

“Found anything?” I asked, plopping down beside him. I ran my fingers through my wet curls, and he made a face at me as the motion sent droplets of water over his screen. He gingerly wiped them away with his sleeve.

“It looks like the mandatory assembly in a couple of days will be about the compound entrances.”

I waved my hand impatiently. “I meant anything about my dad.”

“Nope,” Shawn said.

I sagged in disappointment. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he nodded, shutting down the port. He glanced at me, taking in the disappointment on my face, and frowned. “Don’t look so down,” he said.

“But I am,” I whined, flopping backwards on the bed to stare glumly at the ceiling. “It’s been five years. I’m never going to know what happened to him. He left me a stupid blank journal and a stupid broken compass, and I was stupid for thinking I could find out anything from the compound’s stupid information boxes.”

“That’s a whole lot of stupid you’re slinging around,” Shawn quipped.

“I feel like a whole lot of stupid.”

Shawn reached over to snatch my journal off my bed. He opened it and paged through as I stared moodily at my ceiling. My rusted light still hung garishly from it, like an eyeball loose in its socket. Shawn had known about my journal for years. I’d thought my journal was so special, but he’d informed me that most people in the compound owned at least one thing. He had his recycled port and an old music box from his mum, and I’d been shocked to hear that even his aunt had a silver wristwatch. I guess it was human nature to want something to be yours and no one else’s. When I finally sat up and peered over Shawn’s shoulder, he was looking at a drawing of Stegosaurus I’d done a few weeks ago. It was one of my better drawings. I’d even drawn a person standing next to it for scale.

“Is that me?” Shawn asked, pointing at the tiny figure.

“No,” I said, but then I paused. There was something about the nonchalant way the figure was standing, with the shaggy hair and arm positioning that was vaguely Shawn.

“Oh,” Shawn said. “It looked a little like me.”

“I should just throw it away,” I groaned, throwing myself back on my bed.

“Let me guess,” Shawn laughed. “Because it’s stupid?”

“Yes,” I frowned, as the bell rang, signalling we needed to be on our way to school.

“Well,” Shawn said, “let’s get going to that stupid school of ours.”

“You aren’t funny,” I grumbled.

He stuffed my journal, the scan plug and the flashlight back into their hiding spot before screwing the light back in place. “I am, actually,” he countered. “You’re just in a bad mood.”

“You can say that again,” I said, sighing as I followed him out of the door for another day in North Compound.

I woke up a few days later to the sound of a lock pick working at my door.

I got out of bed and shivered in the damp chill of the room as I hurried to let Shawn in.

“Go away,” I moaned, when I opened the door to see him standing on my doorstep, way too alert and happy for this time of the morning. “I’m going to tell the guardians I’m sick today and skip school.”

“And give up spending your birthday with me?” he asked, pretending to be hurt. “Never. Besides, we don’t even have first period this morning.” When I just stared at him blankly, he sighed in exasperation. “Why are you giving me that look? Because you forgot it was your birthday or because you forgot about the compound-wide assembly?”

I smacked my head.

“So both,” Shawn said. “Impressive. Even for you.”

“You are the only one who cares about birthdays,” I grumbled. “I do my best to forget about mine.”

Shawn grinned crookedly. “Congratulations. You succeeded.”

“But I can’t believe I forgot about the assembly,” I groaned as I hunted around my room for my towel and soap. “They’ve been announcing it for days!”

I bolted for the bathroom. Five minutes later I was showered and dressed and back in my room. Shawn sat on my bed staring at his feet like they were the most interesting things in the world, and I paused for a second in my doorway, studying him. There was something off about his expression, and in my fog of sleepy shock over the forgotten assembly I hadn’t noticed before. Shawn had always been horrible at secrets, and it was obvious in the worried lines of his forehead and crooked set of his mouth that he was hiding something.

“OK, spill it,” I commanded. “You’re hiding something. What is it?” He looked back down, nervously pulling at the fraying edge of his grey uniform sleeve. Finally he sighed and looked up at me with worried blue eyes. “It’s big.” He glanced back down at his sleeve, and I gritted my teeth impatiently, wishing I could yank the truth from him. “I just wanted to do something nice for your birthday, and then I found something.”

Hope surged in my chest. “Did you find something about my dad on the scan plug after all?”

He shook his head. “No.” A frown twisted his lips, and I knew he was lying. When I just stared at him, he looked down at his hands guiltily. “And yes,” he mumbled.

“Yes?” My heart slammed to a startled stop in my chest. Had he really just said yes?

“But it wasn’t on the scan plug,” Shawn added quickly. “It was in this.” He held up my dad’s compass, and I snatched it from his hands.

“How did you get this?” I searched my memory, trying to remember the last time I’d looked at it. I’d assumed it was resting in its hiding place above my head, safe and sound in my journal.

“Remember when I was looking at your journal the other day? Well, I kind of borrowed it. I had this idea that I would fix it for your birthday.”

I glanced down at the face of the compass and gaped in surprise to see that the little arm was no longer stuck; now it swung back and forth, finally settling to point north.

“Shawn,” I gasped, “this is incredible.” I looked up at him in confusion. “But I don’t understand. Why did you think you could fix it? You’ve tried before. Remember? Right after I moved into the Guardian Wing.”

He nodded in agreement. “Right. But I’ve learned a lot since then. So I thought I’d take another crack at it. And, well, I managed to get the back off it this time. That’s what stopped me the last time, remember?”

I nodded, recalling a seven-year-old Shawn sweating as he tried to unscrew the back of the compass. I’d finally stopped him, afraid he would break it.

“You said you found information about my dad?” I prompted.

“I did.” He sighed. “And to be honest, I kind of thought about throwing it away and not showing you.”

“Shawn!”

He held up his hands in defence. “I didn’t throw it away.”

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw popped. “You need to explain, and explain quickly.”

“I got the back off, and this was inside,” Shawn said, pulling two small pieces of folded paper out of his pocket. My hands shook as I took them from him. Not really believing that this was happening, I unfolded the first one to reveal my dad’s handwriting.

Sky,

It is my greatest hope that you never find what I’ve hidden inside my compass. That I will have fixed things and returned to North Compound to be with you long before your eleventh birthday, which is when I’ve programmed the port plug to reveal itself. Even at eleven, you will be young to do what I need you to do. But time is running out, and there is no one else I can trust.

If you are reading this, I’ve failed, and you need to deliver the port plug I’ve hidden in my compass to another member of the Colombe. Ivan is the closest to you, but I don’t know where he is these days. The other member is further away, but I know his location. I have marked it for you on the map. The plug is an exact copy of the one I carry with me. The Noah’s people haven’t yet discovered the security breach that allowed me to steal the information contained on these plugs. Information that could forever change the fate of the human race. When they do, I’m going to have to flee, and it will be too dangerous to take you with me. I always thought that I wouldn’t put you in danger for the world, but it turns out that, for the world, I will. Good luck, Sky. Know that I will love you always.

Dad

I put the paper down and stared at Shawn for a second, feeling numb. Then I lurched to my feet, ran for the waste bin in the corner, and puked. My head pounded as I emptied what little I had in my stomach. When I was done, I wiped my mouth and walked over to pick the paper back up. It was circular, its edges roughly cut, and I would bet anything that it fit perfectly into the missing circle of my journal.

Shawn looked at me in concern. “Well,” he said after a minute, “that wasn’t exactly the reaction I expected. Are you OK?” I didn’t say anything as tears started sliding silently down my cheeks.

“Hey,” Shawn said, sounding a little alarmed as he put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “It’s OK.” And then I punched him. Hard.

“You were going to throw this away?” I cried. “How could you even think about doing something like that to me?” He alone knew how many hours I’d dedicated to discovering just what had happened to my dad.

Shawn winced and rubbed the shoulder I’d punched. “There it is.”

“There what is?” I snapped.

“The reaction I expected. Actually –” he rolled his shoulder – “I thought you’d go for my face.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I muttered as I reread the letter. I was confused. After five years, I’d hoped for more than a few hastily scrawled sentences. I read it a third time. And then a fourth. My dad had put some kind of timed mechanism inside the compass, but the mechanism hadn’t sprung open on my eleventh birthday like he intended it to. And today was my twelfth birthday. If Shawn hadn’t decided to tinker with my compass, I wouldn’t have found the letter at all.

“Why didn’t the timer work?” I asked, looking up at Shawn.

He shrugged. “Something had to have come unlatched on the inside for me to be able to open it now.”

I glanced back at the note and then up at Shawn. “Who do you think the they is he talks about? Who was after him?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. He didn’t make them sound very friendly.”

I nodded, considering. Then I waved the piece of paper in his face. “Do you know what this means?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me,” Shawn said, and there was something odd about his expression. I ignored it as a heavy weight eased off my aching heart.

“It means he left for a reason,” I whispered, brushing away the tears that clouded my vision. “He had to leave me behind.”

“You thought he wanted to leave you behind?” Shawn asked.

I shrugged. After five years of thinking and rethinking, dissecting every memory of my dad I could recall, of sitting through an assembly where he’d been declared a traitor, I wasn’t sure what I had thought any more.

I carefully unfolded the map. My dad had drawn a meandering path from the compound up to a small red circle located in the middle of Lake Michigan. North Compound was located in what used to be Indiana. I studied the route curiously. I knew the places on the map by name only. There had been a few history lessons in school on the surrounding topside landscape, but they were nothing but fuzzy memories now. What was the Colombe he’d mentioned? And what was a member of it doing in the middle of Lake Michigan? The note created way more questions than it answered, and I felt a surge of frustration.

I glanced at Shawn. “What port plug is he talking about?” Shawn took the working compass off the bed where I’d dropped it in my haste to read the notes. Pulling out a small screwdriver, he opened the back. I watched in amazement. I’d tried that same manoeuvre about a hundred times with no success. He handed me the back of the compass, and I looked inside.

My dad had used a piece of waterproof tape to adhere a port plug to the inside. Info plugs were used to store data outside of a port, and most of them were cylindrical, much like old-fashioned pills used to be. But this one was exceptionally tiny, no bigger than my thumbnail, and much too small to fit in a regular port screen. It seemed so fragile I was afraid to pry it off the cover.

After I examined the plug, I turned my attention back to Shawn. His face was pale and drawn.

“He wants me to leave North Compound,” I said, feeling stunned as this piece of information finally got past the pure adrenaline of reading my dad’s note.

Shawn shook his head. “You can’t do that. No way, no how.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to show it to me?” I realised. “Because you knew I’d want to leave?”

“No,” Shawn said carefully, as though he were explaining this to someone Shamus’s age, “because I didn’t want my best friend to get eaten alive. No one survives topside, Sky. You know that. What your dad asked you to do is crazy.”

I didn’t want to admit it to Shawn, but I thought it was crazy too. I picked the note back up and read it again. Why couldn’t he have included more details? Would it have killed him to tell me what I was up against?

I looked at Shawn. “Whether I go topside or not really isn’t your decision.”

A strange expression crossed his face, and he stared at the wall, deliberately avoiding eye contact. “You can’t leave.”

“I can.” I was already thinking of all the supplies I’d need to get my hands on in order to survive topside. There it was, that oxymoron again: surviving topside. I swallowed hard. Could I really leave the safety of North? I glanced back down at my dad’s familiar handwriting and squared my shoulders stubbornly. I’d spent the last five years of my life wishing for answers to my dad’s disappearance. Now that I had them, there was no way I was going to let my dad down just because I was scared of living without two feet of concrete above my head.

“Your dad’s not there, you know,” Shawn said, and I snapped my head up to look at him.

“What?”

“You think your dad’s there,” Shawn accused. “In the middle of Lake Michigan.” I stared at him a moment, stunned. I’d almost given up on the idea of ever seeing my dad again, and had told myself that I would be content if I just found out why he’d left. I realised now that I’d been lying to myself. Shawn had just called me out on a hope so deeply rooted in my soul that even I hadn’t realised it was there.

“It’s possible,” I whispered.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Shawn snatched my dad’s letter from my hands. “If he’d made it, he’d have come back for you. It says so right here,” he said pointing.

“Even if my dad’s not there, whoever is there might have answers or an explanation for why he left.” I snatched the map and the note back from him. “If you want me to admit that my dad’s probably dead, you’re wasting your time,” I muttered.

“No,” Shawn said slowly, “I’m not trying to do that. You’ve been in orphan denial since the day we met. It’s just that, if he couldn’t do it, what makes you think you can?”

“Because I’m not going to let him down. Whatever is on that plug was worth abandoning me for, and I want to know – I need to know,” I corrected, “what’s on there.” When he didn’t say anything, I folded up the map and note and placed them in the back compartment of the compass, using my fingernail to screw it shut again. Realising that there was no way I was going to let this thing ride around in my journal any more, I looped one of my old shoelaces through the small ring at the top of the compass, creating a makeshift necklace.

“What you are suggesting is insane,” Shawn said, sounding a little defeated.

I slipped my compass over my head and tucked it in the front of my shirt. “I’m going, Shawn.”

“We’ll see,” Shawn said, and there was something about his tone that made me look at him sharply.

“Shawn, what do you know that I don’t?” Just then the bell rang, signalling that we were going to be late if we didn’t hurry.

“We need to go,” Shawn said, grabbing his bag and standing up. Everything in me wanted to skip the assembly. To stay back and reread my dad’s note again, to plan out how I was going to get my hands on the supplies I would need. It was going to take weeks of careful planning, a thought that made me itch with impatience. According to my dad’s note, I was already a year late delivering whatever was on that plug. But I dutifully picked up my own bag and followed Shawn out of the door. If I wasn’t at the assembly, a marine would investigate to find out why. And the last thing I needed right now was an investigation. As we hurried towards the assembly, I couldn’t help but replay Shawn’s words in my head. No one survived topside. I could only hope that I was about to prove him wrong.

If you cut North Compound right down the middle and pulled it apart so you could see its guts, I think it would look a lot like an anthill. At least, that’s how it had looked when I’d sketched it in my journal. Tunnels and small rooms made up most of the structure, but in the centre of North Compound was the assembly hall. A small stage stood at one end of the room, but instead of chairs, the floor sloped upwards so that the citizens could stand and still see the platform. Shawn and I made it to the assembly doorway just as the last and final bell rang out throughout the compound. The marine at the door, Sergeant Novak, gave us a disapproving look, but I saw that he checked us in as present on his port. We flashed him grateful smiles and slipped inside to stand at the back of the crowd.

“If that had been Kennedy,” Shawn whispered, “we would have had work detail for a month.”

I nodded, my mind still preoccupied with my dad’s note. Everyone fell silent as the microphone at the front crackled and screeched.

The five compound council members filed on to the podium and sat down on the low metal bench. Shawn’s aunt was one of three women on the council, and I saw her scanning the crowd. She smiled when she saw Shawn, but that smile slipped a little when she spotted me standing next to him. Council member Wilkins, a short, compact man with greying hair and a wide, soft face, stood up and walked to the microphone, his port screen in hand.

“Good morning, citizens,” he said.

Everyone chorused back their own ‘good morning’ and he smiled at us like we were a pet that had just performed a trick perfectly. “We have gathered you all together to pass on the latest news from our esteemed Noah.” I watched him talk, wishing I was anywhere else. This Noah was just like the other three Noahs that had come before him, and at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less what he wanted us to know. Besides, all the information he was going to tell us had been uploaded to Shawn’s port a few days ago. If there had been anything important, he would have told me.

I tuned back in to council member Wilkins as he smiled broadly in my direction.

“Our Noah believes that it is his duty to ensure our safety no matter what the cost or inconvenience. As such, he is requiring that all four compounds begin the process of laying up extra supplies in the coming months.” This news was met by a nervous murmur. “No need to be alarmed. We have had supply shortages in the past when the plane hasn’t been able to make it, and our Noah believes it’s vital to our continued survival for each of the compounds to be capable of functioning independently for periods lasting up to a year.” The decree made sense. I could still remember a few winters ago when the supply plane had missed two drops in a row. We’d lost half our crop because the key valve replacement we’d needed for the watering system hadn’t been delivered, and everyone had developed a lean look as we shared and conserved what little we had until the plane finally made it through.

“Here at North, we plan to do our part to help in this endeavour. As we are the primary producers of grow lights, our Noah has asked that we step up production. He has given us two months to complete this task. I am sure that none of our loyal citizens will mind putting in the extra hours in support of mankind’s continued survival.” This was met with more muttering, but no one protested. No one ever did. If the Noah said it, it was law.

I glanced over at Shawn to see his reaction to this, but he was studiously ignoring me. It made me feel uneasy. Shawn never ignored me, and he had an almost guilty look on his face. I made a note to pin him to a tunnel wall and force the rest of the story out of him as soon as this meeting was over. I wasn’t done being mad at him for not showing me my dad’s note as soon as he’d found it, but I understood why he hadn’t. The compound was all he knew or ever wanted to know. Going topside was almost equal to suicide in his book. He’d been trying to protect me, just like he’d done so long ago on my first night in the Guardian Wing.

I thought again about the note. Despite Shawn’s arguments against it, I hadn’t given up on the idea that my dad was at Lake Michigan. Maybe he’d made it there but something had happened to keep him from coming back for me. At the very least, someone there would know what had happened to him. Answers, I thought, almost giddily. I was finally going to get my answers.

“Our Noah also has concerns for our safety,” Wilkins went on. “He believes that compound entrance hatches present a weakness.” My head snapped up, and for the first time, I really paid attention to what he was saying, feeling uneasy. “In order to ensure our compound’s continued safety, we are going to be installing lock mechanisms on all compound exit hatches. General Kennedy assures me that this can be accomplished within the next day or so.” Icy dread washed over me, and I turned tortured eyes to Shawn. He gazed down at his feet, guilt written all over his features. He had known this was happening. It was why he’d given me my dad’s note instead of throwing it away. He knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave anyway. A cold sense of betrayal slid down my spine as I stared at my friend.

“This brings our assembly to a close,” Wilkins said. “Those of you involved in grow light production, please remain so we can discuss your altered work schedules.”

I followed Shawn and the rest of the crowd out of the assembly hall and into the tunnels.

I knew my face was a thundercloud, but I didn’t care. Shawn Reilly was going to get a piece of my mind, and possibly a black eye. They were locking the compound entrances. I hadn’t even had time to wrap my head around this mission my dad had given me, let alone collect supplies I needed. I was out of time before I’d even begun. If I wanted to leave the compound, I should have done it a year ago. Now I might be trapped. I grabbed Shawn’s arm to pull him down a side tunnel. From the resigned look on his face, he knew he was in for it.

“Shawn.” A voice rang out through the tunnels, and we both turned to see Shawn’s aunt weaving her way through the crowd. She had white-blonde hair like Shawn’s, pulled back in a neat bun at the base of her neck. Her compound uniform was perfectly pressed, and she glanced at my frizzy hair and rumpled appearance with disapproval.

She turned to Shawn. “I need your help for a moment.”

“Is everything OK?” Shawn asked.

“Fine,” she smiled. “One of the microphones is malfunctioning and I volunteered you to take a look at it. I’ve already alerted your teachers, so don’t worry about being late.” I shot Shawn a look that made it clear that we were going to be having a very serious discussion in the near future before he turned and followed his aunt back through the crowd.

I whirled and strode down the south tunnel towards school. I wanted to skip it with every fibre of my being, but my absence would be investigated and a work detail handed out as punishment. I would get through the day, I told myself, feeling my resolve solidify, then I would get ready to leave. If I had less than twenty-four hours to prepare myself, then I would just have to make it work. I was still going to make a run for it, taking my chances that the locks hadn’t been installed yet. I sat down in my first class of the day and swallowed hard. I was going topside.

Shawn’s words echoed in my head: no one survives topside.

I spent the first few minutes of class thinking up the many ways I was going to make Shawn pay for what he’d done, but he never showed. By fourth period, I’d given up, assuming his aunt had let him take the rest of the day off for being so helpful. She had the power to do that. It wasn’t until I was walking home from school alone that I realised that I might never see him again. I was still angry enough that the thought didn’t bother me.

When I got back to my room, I shoved my chair under the doorknob and climbed on to my bed to empty out my hiding spot. I spread my meagre belongings out on my bed. There wasn’t much. The flashlight Sean had made me sat forlornly next to my journal, scan plug and my set of lock picks. I carefully placed each item into my backpack. Opening my journal, I flipped to one of the damaged pages at the back. I had to write small and squish my words around the hole, but I made a list of supplies I would need to survive topside. It was a long list and the only place to get everything on it was the marines’ barracks. My stomach flopped sickeningly at the thought. Turning a few pages, I found my meticulous accounting of the marines’ schedule. I’d written it down ages ago when I first started my runs to the maildrop.