Page 32 of Sparktopia
I look at Mitch and shrug. “Who needs a key? Just break the door.”
He laughs. It’s actually more of a scoff.
“What?” I ask. “It’s my palace now. Who’s gonna care? And anyway, it’s literally Extraction Day. If there’s information in there that I need, then get me in.”
Mitch huffs out a breath, then snaps me a mock salute. “Yes, sir, Extraction Master.”
It takes four good kicks to break the frame and pop the door open, but all in all, it was a pretty easy thing to do.
He waves a hand, inviting me to go first. “After you, Master.”
“Shut up.” But I do go first.
It’s a dark room, so I stop once inside and feel along the walls for a switch. But the walls have a dramatic curve to them and they are exceptionally smooth, like glass. “I don’t know?—”
But then Mitch barks out, “Lights!” And the lights come on.
I look over my shoulder at him. “What the hell was that?”
“Voice commands. Rumor is—in school, at least—that there were rooms in the Extraction District with voice-activated spark power.” Then he shrugs. “It felt appropriate.”
When I look up, then around, I understand. This is not a room, it’s a… sphere. It’s like being inside a ball.
“Get out of the way.” Mitch pushes me aside and closes the door. Then he takes a step back so we’re standing shoulder to shoulder. “Ho-lee shit. What the fuck is this room, Finn?”
I’m as astonished and perplexed as he is. “I have no idea.” We turn and walk over to a kind of desk in the center of the room. It’s round with a cut-out in the middle. The actual desk part is flat with a slight curve upward on the outer edge. It’s made of glass and clearly it is some kind of control panel. “Do you stand in the center?” I ask Mitch. “How do you get in? There isn’t an opening.”
Mitch runs a finger along the smooth glass top and then pauses. He looks up to smile at me as he lifts a portion of the desk up, creating an opening. “Your throne, my king.” He waves a hand at me, inviting me inside the circle.
“You’re stupid.” But I do accept the invitation to walk in. Mitch joins me, crowding me, because clearly this space was made for one person, not two. “What are you doing?”
“I wanna see.” And then his fingers are sliding along the glass. Like he’s looking for something. But after we’ve turned in a complete circle, tapping every part of the surface he possibly can, nothing happens.
A pounding on the door makes us both jump, then laugh. Mitch lifts the glass up, goes to the door, and opens just a crack so he can speak, but not enough that anyone can see inside.
I make out Jeyk’s voice telling us time is short. So I look around the room, step out, and decide whatever this is—Looking Glass or not—the mystery will have to wait.
Because I’ve got a woman to Extract.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Attending the funeral is a drag. It takes up so much of the day. We had to board the large boat before dawn so that everyone would be in place by the time Finn Scott, the new Extraction Master, arrived, so we had to wait around for hours, then again after the ceremony was over. Which tooksooooolong.
Everyone was complaining about the smell. Which, of course, turned into a whole tirade about how gross down-city people are because they breathe the air of dead bodies every night.
The five of us got a lot of side-eye attention after that little comment.
It wouldn’t have been such a bad experience if the boat was something nice. But there are seventy-five of us. The only boat big enough to transport all the Little Sisters at once was a mid-sized barge and we were packed in the cabin like canned fish for the ride down and back, so squished together I thought I was gonna suffocate.
Back in our little section of the dorm, everyone is feeling tired, and frustrated, and not the least bit beautiful because we’ve been wearing these dresses for two entire days now. Not to mention feeling dirty. Though, as down-city girls, we would not admit the last part. We grew up in the ash. It’s a part of us now. But being up-city full-time for couple of days is enough to make us question the practice of burning bodies like that so close to people.
“Look at me!” Britley is pointing to her sweat-stained dress. “My dress is a mess!”
“Look at mine!” Ceela points down to her feet. “Rosalit Bayner stepped on my hem getting out of the boat.”
All four of us look down at Ceela’s torn hem and gasp.
I walk over and put an arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Ceela. I’m so sorry. But it can be fixed.”
