Nick James - Skyship Academy

Flashes of green light illuminate the small circular window at the top of the lab doorway, coupled with muffled explosions from inside. Thunder and lightning. Flash. Bang.

I dig my heels into the ground, pulling back on the woman’s hand. She leans down and whispers something in my ear that convinces me to keep walking. The flashes grow more intense. The banging gets louder.

We slip through the doorway and arrive inside the laboratory. I pull away from the woman, covering my ears.

A tall man in a lab coat turns to face us. He says something to her, but his voice is too soft to be heard beyond the muted explosions through my fingers. Behind him, a computer devours the entire wall. To me it looks like a monster-all shiny knobs and coils.

The woman runs over to him and the two embrace, leaving me in the center of the room. A glowing tube crackles and hisses in the corner, filling almost a quarter of the small laboratory. Dark green flames quiver in a transparent box on top, surrounded by swirls of mist that spill out from inside and fog up the ceiling. It’s like an out-of-commission elevator, plopped down with nowhere to go. Instead of moving up or down it just sits there, grumbling like it’s hungry for something.

The man whispers into the woman’s ear. I look up at her and realize that she’s crying. She’s been crying the entire time. I step forward to comfort her. The man breaks away, stumbling back to the computer and opening a drawer behind him.

I watch as he removes a vial of clear liquid from inside. Giving it a shake, he pulls a syringe from another drawer and fills it with the liquid. For the first time, he looks at me.

I grab onto the woman’s leg, but the man’s fast. He’s at my side before I can do anything to stop him.

Suddenly we hear footsteps echoing in the hallway beyond the door. The man frowns, preparing to insert the needle into my arm.

The woman grabs his shoulder, stopping him. The footsteps grow louder-closer.

She digs in her pocket and removes a chain, spinning me around and looping it over my neck. I look down at the silver key resting on top of my white shirt. While I’m distracted, the man jabs the needle into my arm. “This won’t hurt a bit,” he promises. But it does.

The liquid enters my bloodstream and I start to go numb. First my arm, then my chest, and finally my legs. My body gives up.

The man tosses the syringe aside and reaches down to catch me before I collapse to the floor. He cradles me in his arms and carries me toward the machine. At first I want to shout, to run as far away from the banging and hissing as I can. But my fear disappears, like somebody pressed an off switch deep inside of me.

The laboratory door bursts open and three soldiers barge through, guns at the ready. Before they can get to me, the man lays my body inside the tube-shaped machine and everything fades to green. The whirring energy around me obscures my vision of the laboratory. I think I hear screams-shouting-but it’s impossible to tell.

Numbness is replaced by incredible warmth, awareness replaced with nothing.

I am nothing.

Avery smacks my shoulder and I bolt up, awake. It was a dream. Lifelike, sure, but just a dream.

I feel my face for a blindfold, but nothing’s there. My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness and I begin to make out the stars outside our slit of a window. The two of us are crammed into a cell that would make a dog kennel seem luxurious. A beam of meager light streams in from outside. It’s not enough to see by.

The one upside to our current predicament? It forces Avery and me to squeeze together.

“I’ve been jabbing you for fifteen minutes now,” she says. “Took you long enough to wake up.”

I reach around to the back of my neck. The shocker device is gone. No silver key, either. No laboratory. No soldiers. It felt so real.

Also gone are the fragments of shrapnel from our crash landing. A thick bandage wraps around my shoulder. They fixed us up before chucking us in here. Makes me wonder what else they did.

“Where are we?” I rub my eyes, hoping that things will become clearer.

Nope. Still dark.

“I don’t know for sure,” she replies, “but I can guess.”

“Security Center?”

“Yep.”

I sigh. “We almost made it, too.”

“I guess this is what we get for crashing a shuttle into a residential building.”

I lean back against the wall. “How long have you been awake?”

“About twenty minutes. Were you dreaming?”

“Why?”

She moves closer, pressing against me. “You were just making funny noises, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I turn away from her. I should be mass worried about being locked up in a cell in the middle of a Chosen City right now, but having Avery Wicksen hear me make funny dreaming noises is even worse. “Yeah,” I start. “It was weird. I was a kid, maybe three years old at the most. There was this machine… this light coming from inside. And there were soldiers.”

“Soldiers?”

“There was a key around my neck, too.”

Her head darts up. “Like the one Mrs. Dembo mentioned at the meeting?”

I nod. “It isn’t the first time, either. There was another dream, a couple of days ago after Bunker Ball. I was in a city. Seattle, I think. The key was around my neck.”

“I knew it! We’re definitely going now,” she says.

“It was only a dream.”

Her eyes narrow. “Do you normally dream about demolished cities?”

I sigh. “No, I guess not. Not until after the rooftop.”

“Exactly.”

I fall silent, eager to change the subject. “How are we gonna get out of here?”

“Beats me.” She kicks the wall. “Honestly, I don’t even know which side’s the door.”

I glance around from wall to wall, trying to get my bearings but finding it next to impossible. My breathing tightens. The thought that I’m stuck in here, with no way out, is almost too much. Confinement. Never been a fan, even when I was a kid. I try to suppress my reaction, but Avery notices.

“What’s the matter?”

“You know,” I mutter through labored breaths, “I’m just not a fan of tight spaces.”

She puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer until my head touches her cheek. “You’re quite the hero, you know that?”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

“Not really. You know, I wouldn’t have crashed into a Chosen City for just anybody.”

Her skin presses against mine and suddenly I forget where I am. I block out the whole horrible situation until it’s just the two of us, sitting alone together in the dark. I consider leaning over and kissing her, but just as I’m about to work up the nerve, she pulls away, hugging her knees.

“You trust me, right Jesse?”

I smirk. It’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Of course.”

She sighs. “You shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean? You saved me back at the Academy.”

“Yeah,” she replies, “Right place at the right time, huh? It’s almost like I knew Cassius was up there.”

“Sixth sense, I guess.”

“I knew Cassius was up there, Jesse.” She turns, analyzing my expression in the darkness.

Her words don’t settle with me at first. Instead they whiz right by. My ears refuse to let them in. “Very funny, Avery.”

She lays the back of her head on the wall, eyes drifting to the ceiling. “God, I didn’t want to tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“But we’re stuck in a cage,” she mutters to herself. “It’s not like you could go anywhere.”

I stare at her for a second. She’s serious. A lot of people don’t get Avery, but I can always tell when she’s being funny. I swallow. My voice comes out a whisper. “Avery-”