The Forsaken

inside,” David conjectures. “I don’t know for what. Maybe they need it so their machines don’t overheat.” He crosses his arms, trying to stay warm against the biting cold. Trying to figure things out.
    I’m just surprised this place is so dilapidated. I expected anything but this.
    Gadya’s blister is already fading from a white pustule into angry redness. “We can’t break inside this place. It’s too cold. We’ll die.”
    “Then let’s keep walking,” Rika says dully.
    Markus nods. James just stares at the ground.
    I’m looking around, suddenly realizing there could be cameras anywhere on these buildings. I should have thought of that sooner. “You think we’re being watched?” I ask out loud.
    “Probably,” David says. “The UNA loves to watch people, so it can control them.”
    “Then why’s no one stopping us?”
    “We’re either lucky or it’s a trap,” Gadya guesses.
    Markus is still scanning the silver building. “This way,” he says. “We need to find a door, or some kind of way inside. Rika, you got any more information that we need to know?”
    “I wish I did.”
    We start heading east, along the curved edge of the building. It’s incredibly cold here, as if the building itself emanates the frigid air permeating the gray zone. I’m glad for the numbness, or else I’d probably be in more pain. I don’t care anymore if I get frostbite. I just want to get off the wheel.
    So I walk. Occasionally we pass holes in the building that are as large as my fist, and I try to sneak glances inside, dodging streams of icy air. I can’t really see inside because it’s so dark, but I hear the distant rumble of machinery and occasionally catch glimpses of large metallic shapes moving around.
    It reminds me of video footage of a factory that we were forced to watch in New History class a year ago. The footage was about the UNA’s military prowess, of course, and how we were the greatest superpower the world had ever known. It showed tanks and airplanes being constructed in massive hangars, and rows of gleaming war machinery that kept our enemies frightened of us. That’s what this place looks like to me—some kind of military installation.
    I glance inside another jagged hole as we pass. But when I try to see more, I suddenly get a blast of cold air straight to my eyeballs.
    “Crap!” I twist away, blinking madly, temporarily blinded.
    “You okay?” Gadya asks.
    “Fine,” I tell her, rubbing my stinging eyes. My sight comes back, blurry at first but then slowly clearing. I keep blinking, breathing warm air into my gloved hands and cupping them over my face.
    “You gotta be careful,” David says. “We don’t know what we’re up against. This city might be a testing ground for new weapons, or the place where new weapons get built. Either one is possible, and equally dangerous.”
    We keep walking, our feet crunching on the icy broken pavement. Our journey has become an endurance test. There’s no end to this building, or so it seems. It looks the same no matter how far we walk. I glance back and see it stretching endlessly behind us, like a mechanical wave constructed from steel and brick, frozen in space and time right here at the edge of the wheel.
    “Up ahead!” Gadya suddenly calls out.
    I stop walking and squint.
    In the distance, I see a break in the monotony. We’ve come upon a thicket of the large white plastic pipes, each one taller than a person. Each one covered in ice. They stick out the side of the building and run directly across our concrete path in a thick mazelike tangle.
    David comes to a halt too and stares into the distance. “Some kind of venting system?” he guesses. Here and there, steam rises from small gasket holes in the pipes. “What are they trying to keep so cold in this place?”
    Rika looks despondent. “More important, how are we going to get through these pipes?”
    “We might have to backtrack,” Markus replies. “I don’t know if people are meant to be here. It looks too industrial. Like it’s only meant for machines or something.”
    “It’s too cold to go back,” Gadya says. “We have to go forward.”
    “Then we’ll have to go over and under the pipes,” I say. “Like it’s a jungle gym.”
    David nods in agreement.
    We all walk closer. It takes another fifteen minutes to even reach the tangle of pipes, which looms large ahead of us. At least sixty pipes extend out of the wall at different heights, leading away