The Forsaken

you were dead.”
    “I guess I thought I was too.”
    I help him up. The suit is on. I help pull the spare helmet over his head. I can see frostbite on his ears, but other than that, it looks like he’s okay. I realize the liquid in the pod probably had some kind of insulating effect to prevent damage.
    “Wow.” I can hear his voice loudly now over the radio in my helmet, crackling in my ears. Liam is taking in the massive scale of the cavernous chamber, eyes filled with horrified wonder as he scans the seemingly infinite rows of pods. “What are these things?”
    “Hibernation pods,” I tell him. “Whoever runs this island freezes the kids who get taken by feelers, and puts them inside these pods to dissect later in the UNA. They call us their specimens, and they call this place their archive.”
    I’m suddenly interrupted by Clara, whom I’d nearly forgotten about. “You are in violation of the terms of the Silver Shore facility.”
    “Ignore her,” I tell Liam. “It’s a computerized system that controls this place and keeps things running. There’s only computers here—no people anymore.”
    The voice keeps talking, but Liam and I only have eyes for each other, standing there in our helmets and zone suits. “You saved my life,” Liam says.
    “And you saved mine.”
    Then another voice bursts through the static: “Alenna! Liam! Hurry up.”
    It’s Gadya. Liam looks surprised.
    “Gadya’s here too,” I explain, “but she broke her ankle. She’s in the observation deck.” I point up at the curved glass window that seems to hover a mile above us.
    “Gadya, is that you?” Liam says into his helmet’s microphone.
    “Yeah,” her voice comes back weakly. “So get your butts back here, okay? The time on Liam’s pod is almost up, and it’s going to leave the archive soon. I don’t really know what’ll happen next. Stop messing around.”
    “Same old Gadya,” Liam says. I hear the smile in his voice.
    Then Gadya speaks again, and this time her voice sounds even more concerned. “Guys? We’ve got another problem.”
    “What?” I ask.
    “I just heard a noise.”
    I try not to panic. “What kind?”
    “Something metal. Scraping. Like a feeler’s trying to get in. I can’t tell if it’s at the door or if I’m hearing it over the radio.”
    Liam and I stare up at the glass windows of the observation deck. “We better get up there.” He’s still recovering, but eager to start moving.
    Right then, I hear a terrified scream over the radio.
    “No!” Gadya starts yelling. “Not now!”
    My blood goes cold and shivery. I’ve never heard her sound like this. I know we can’t get to her fast enough to help. Not if something’s already in the observation deck with her.
    “What’s going on?” I call out, staring up at the lighted windows far above us. I can’t see anything clearly up there.
    “It’s a feeler!” her distorted voice screams back. “A miniature one! Some kind of robot!”
    “Find a place to hide!” Liam yells.
    “In the room where we found the suits!” I add. “Climb in there. Lock the door!”
    “No!” Gadya’s voice comes back. “You don’t understand! It’s not up here with me. It’s down there with you and Liam! In the specimen archive!”
    And then I hear the horrifying whisking of thin metal limbs on the catwalk, and I realize that Liam and I are about to get attacked.

ESCAPE
    LIAM GRABS MY ARM , trying to put himself between me and whatever’s headed in our direction.
    “What do we do?” I yell.
    “I can hear it, but I can’t see it!” Liam says, staring into the blackness of this terrible void. “Use your ears.”
    I spin around, trying to locate the increasingly loud whisking sounds. The visor makes it hard to see and hear. My breath grows faster and more ragged. I’m starting to hyperventilate, and I can’t stop.
    The miniature feeler must have been summoned by Clara after I tampered with Liam’s pod. I forgot that they appeared each time we crossed a zone or boundary. What could be more of a boundary than the line between life and death? It just never occurred to me there could be smaller indoor variants.
    “On your left!” Gadya yells in our headphones. Liam and I both turn in that direction just as a thin tentacle flashes through the darkness, barely missing my helmet. Liam tries to reach out and swat it away, but it evades him in the darkness.
    What will happen if this robot gets us? It might not kill us, but it might