silent as air.
CHAPTER 27
Unlike our complex, the Labs were lit bright, the hallways clean and fixed up. Like the scientists were so much more important than us and the prisoners and the Opes trying to get clean one last time in the hospital.
“Any idea where they are?” I whispered to Clete. His day job was to work on their tech, and usually that meant the Labs.
He nodded. “Lab K. But hang on.”
Clete took something out of his pocket, pushing back wires and SIM cards and who knows what else. Then, looking to make sure we were alone, he quickly popped the cover off the door alarm, undid some chips, put in another chip of his own, tightened something using his fingernail, and put the cover back on. It had taken literally less than one minute.
“What was that?” I whispered as we continued warily down one hall.
“I just unlocked the doors everywhere in this building,” he whispered back, and my eyes opened wide.
“Awesome!” I murmured, impressed.
“Except for people who hold key cards. Their cards will relock the doors, so they’ll still have to use their card, or a code or whatever. But they’ll be unlocked for everyone else.”
“That is… so amazing,” I said very softly. For years I’d been hearing Clete talk about his coding, his secret projects, and how they were going to change the world. I’d never actually believed him. But this—this was sophisticated, useful stuff. It made me see Clete differently. Like, if he can do something like that, maybe the app he was talking about when we folded laundry isn’t so insane, after all.
As we padded softly down the hall, I tried hard not to think about what might be happening in Labs A through J, or L to Z. Awful stuff that should be criminal, maybe even was criminal. Not that it mattered. These were McCallum’s Labs. His City. He made the laws and decided which ones to enforce. McCallum decided who the criminals were, and he certainly wasn’t going to name himself. If I ever met him in real life, I would kneecap him. Promise.
In this hallway, Clete and I stuck out. We didn’t have white coats, we were obviously kids, and together we were three point eight meters of freak. We couldn’t blend, so we had to not be seen at all.
Which is why when we heard murmured voices, we grabbed the first doorknob we saw and yanked. To my relief, the door opened silently—no lock. We found ourselves in a dimly lit room… of horror. It was quiet, almost peaceful, with nothing but the barely noticeable hum of machines and the constant soft bubbling of water or something. Ten tables were laid out in neat rows, with a person—or what used to be a person—on each. Machines made their chests go up and down, like they were in a coma or something. The burbling sound was all the tubes going in and out of them. Some tubes had clear liquid, some had red, like blood, and some had a weird, milky blue solution.
Here was Science and Progress in McCallum’s world. The same science that had made my friends: had made Clete into an Ope, made Moke blue, made Rain’s skin look like a rain-splashed window, and made Calypso… into Calypso. Superchild.
Clete and I were both so grossed out that we couldn’t look away, couldn’t pay attention to the outside voices. Finally, it occurred to me to open the door a sliver and listen. It was all clear, and I motioned to Clete. He nodded, looking haunted, like he’d had a really bad dream.
I opened the door and we went out, leaving those things behind.
CHAPTER 28
We had to quickly hide one more time before we got to Lab K. Every door opened to us, which in some ways I was sorry for—the more doors we walked through, the more nightmares I was going to have. I’d seen stuff in these labs I’d never forget. It was making me hate all humans. All regular people. The only ones I’d met or seen had been complete assholes.
Other than doors that were usually locked, I didn’t see any alarms or cameras. Like they were certain no intruder would make it this far. This was their clean, white kingdom of experiments. Where they could get away with anything and no one would ever interfere, or try to stop them.
A slow rage was building in me—I tried to shove it down so it didn’t mess with our mission, but