Chapter 9

Yeah, here it is. Sorry for taking so long. I promise I will finish... In fact, I'll finish by New Years. Deal? (I have up to Chapter 14 written... I just have issues finding time to post.) It isn't terribly interesting, but it's words!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patrick pried his fingers under the knot and pulled it open to reveal some kind of key pad.
“Synthetic tree? I’m surprised at you. Isn’t that a little progressive for you?”
“I don’t know, it was convenient! You can take it up with the Sergeant when we talk to him. I’m just a cadet.”
The Sergeant. She remembered the static-ridden voice that had proceeded from the walkie-talkie just hours before, and a shiver ran down her spine.
Before she was even quite sure what was happening, Patrick had punched a few numbers into the keypad and yet another panel of the knot had opened, revealing a wider hole in the tree. It ran down into the depths of the tree in an almost frightening manner, giving her the same feeling as the black holes she’d watched clips of in Current Events.
“You care to go first, or shall I?”
She gave him a terrified look. Surely he didn’t slide into the tree’s mouth, to descend into the belly of the beast?
“It’s perfectly safe. I’ve done it hundreds of times. If it makes you feel better I’ll go first, though.”
Speechless, she merely nodded.
“It’s not far down, I promise,” he added as he slid into the tube and disappeared into the darkness.
She peered down the pipe after him for a good minute, unwilling to follow him into this unknown menace. Slowly, gripping the top edge of the tube with all the strength her fingers could muster, she slid into the tube. Lincoln, with a mischievous look in his yellow eyes, pranced up on his back legs and placed his paws on her back, as if to tell her to get on with it.
“Oh, fine,” she muttered. “Stupid cat.” Releasing all her fear, she let go, allowing her body to slide down into the dark. Within seconds her feet met hard, solid ground. Bright lights nearly blinded her eyes. She wasn’t sure she was in the right place until she saw Patrick’s face, and suddenly felt safer.
“Who’s the girl, Blue?” She tensed and whirled around, reminded sharply of the soldier on the road just a night before. She turned to see a lanky, but handsome Memorist soldier with brown hair and grey eyes that looked almost like Nana’s.
“A friend,” Patrick replied, not looking worried. She felt a sigh of relief leaving her lungs; if Patrick could trust him not to hurt her, she probably could too.
“Oh,” the other soldier said, holding out his hand. “Trey Putnam at your service.” She noticed an accent in his speech that wasn’t present in Patrick’s, a sort of twang in his words.
She took it, and he cranked it up and down firmly. “Piper Conrad.”
He stopped shaking her hand abruptly. “Did you say Conrad?”
She nodded. He and Patrick exchanged a pointed look, and the latter merely shook his head.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Nothing,” they both said at the same time. She opened her mouth to give them a piece of her mind when they heard marching coming from the corridor. She made her instinctive move to hide behind Patrick, but he pulled Trey in front of her. “Listen, I need you to hide her for a minute, okay? Just don’t let anybody see her. I’ll be back in a minute. And if anything happens to her… I blame you.”
Trey raised a cupped hand to his forehead and swept it out toward the air in some sort of Backwinder salute. Before Piper could object or even ask what was going on, Patrick was gone, and Trey was hurrying her into a corner of the room. Lockers covered most of her from sight, and Trey, tall as he was, kept the passing soldiers from noticing her presence.
“So whatcha hear for, ma’am?”
“I’m not a ma’am just yet, you can call me Piper. And…” She stretched for something to say. “I guess I kind of got lost.”
“Aw man, that happened to me once. My first day on patrol, I got separated from the rest of the troops and had to sleep in a tree. Scariest night of my life. Saw a bar.”
“A bar?”
“You know, the things with the fur and the teeth. Big as three men and brown all over. She was scratchin’ at the tree stump”—he made scratching motions with his hands—“and growlin’ at me, and I just knew I was gonna die right then and there. So I threw my canteen out over her head, ya know, to distract her, and then I scrambled outta that tree faster than I ever moved before in my life. Got back to camp in less’n ten minutes, and it was three miles away.” He held up three fingers to prove his point. She had just started to laugh when Patrick came back.
“What’re you thinking, making her laugh? Someone could have heard you, or seen her, or…” He trailed off and rubbed his hand across his face in his usual nervous habit.
“Relax, Patrick, I’m fine,” she said. “And I thought you said it would be fine for me to be here.”
“It is, but I had to make sure with the Sergeant. He wants to see you in his office alone.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah, he says it’s procedure.”
“I’m not going to do it, I won’t, he’ll kill me on sight—“
“No, he won’t. That’s ridiculous. You’re going to be just fine, and I’ll be right outside the door the entire time, alright? It’ll be fine. I promise.”
His chocolate brown eyes were screaming at her to trust him again, and she couldn’t deny them.
“What’s wrong with her?” Trey whispered loudly.
“Nothing, Putnam, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“No.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“She just needs help, alright? Give her some air.”
Trey backed off with a reserved expression on his face, and Patrick moved towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder and guiding her down the hallway. The harsh concrete walls, lined with green lockers, made her feel as if she was in prison rather than an army camp. The lights, still blinding, reminded her vaguely of the dentist’s office. She’d never liked the dentist.
They came to a gigantic metal door that slid open to give them admittance. The room seemed pitch black at first, but as Piper’s eyes adjusted from the bright light, she found herself in a room bearing a striking resemblance to the Lex car station in Iretum. Green posts settled themselves over more metal doors, with windows that seemed to open into an underground tunnel. Suddenly a loud feminine voice blasted through the speaker above Piper’s head, startling her. The voice very calmly announced, “Now approaching Concourse B. Concourse B.” Lights flashed from down the tunnel, and she could hear an ominous rattling coming their way.
“What’s a concourse?” she asked Patrick.
“This used to be an airport back when traveling was commercial.”
“Airport?”
“Like the helicopter pads in the cities, but anybody could fly. Go on vacations and stuff.”
Piper nodded calmly until a frightening thought entered her mind, causing her to grip his arm in a panic. “We’re not flying, are we?”
He laughed. “No. We’re hundreds of feet underground now. But the train to get the passengers to their planes still worked when we found this place, so we decided to keep using it. No sense wasting the time and money trying to get a new one. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
In a blur of white and gray some sort of vehicle pulled into the station. The doors in front of them slid open, revealing a well-lit cabin. Metal poles, not quite thin enough for her to wrap one hand around, rose from the floor to the ceiling.
“Might want to grab one of those,” Patrick said. Eyeing the boy suspiciously, she took one of the poles between both hands, almost unwilling to comply with his unusual suggestion.
“Next stop: Concourse C. Concourse C.”
The rickety train jerked forward suddenly, jolting Piper backward. Her hands caught her just in the nick of time, and she moved forward as fast as she could, hugging the pole for dear life. This thing, whatever it was, was nothing like the Lex cars she remembered from home. Lex cars were levitated by static electricity high about a foot above its track, but the sharp jerks and turns of this vehicle betrayed its primitive nature. Even though the cars moved much faster than this train, the same static kept the passengers standing upright through the friction between their shoes and the floor, with no need for these silly poles. This had to be ancient. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“You alright?” Patrick asked calmly, as though he had been through this process a thousand times. He probably had. He had even dared to let go of his pole, and was standing up right as though he was strolling through the park on a holiday.
“Fine,” she said, more loudly than was probably necessary. She hated showing weakness in front of him. He had helped her enough. However, she could hear him chuckling quietly over her shoulder, and she knew he saw right through her. He nevertheless had the tact to keep his mouth shut, and both of them remained silent for the rest of the ride.
“Now approaching Concourse C. Concourse C,” the cool feminine voice announced. The vehicle began to rattle noisily to a stop. Just as Piper thought it was safe to let go, the train’s brakes sent her flying forward toward the pole again. She could hear Patrick laughing aloud at her.
“Hey!” she said in genuine annoyance. “I’m trying, okay? Just because you’re good at everything around here doesn’t mean—“
He rested a hand firmly on her shoulder and looked her dead in the eye. “Piper. Relax. We’re friends, remember?”
“Says the guy carting me off to my doom,” she retorted.
“How many times do I have to tell you? You’re going to be fine.”
“At least one more time. As always.”
The doors slid open and she found herself in a spacious room with white concrete walls much like the hallway they’d come from. Smack in front of her was a dull metal door with a window at eye level. It reminded her of a prison cell.
“That’s it,” Patrick said, tightening his grip on her shoulder and pushing her forward.
“You’re going to be right here?”
“Right here. You just have to scream.” His voice sounded tired and exasperated.
“Alright, then.” Her every limb was trembling as she took a step forward, then another, then another. The door might as well have been miles away at the pace she was going, but Patrick did nothing to speed her up or scold her. At last she reached the entryway and wrapped her fingers around the cold handle. She took one final look at Patrick, who was sending her a thumbs up sign. Nodding in affirmation, she turned the handle, and again was blinded by the lights.