Ben:
I awoke, dripping as always, and stretched to get my blood moving around again. Being in a coma for a week can do that to you. I look around and see my seven other bunkmates getting up as well; Jonah, Nick, Riley, Sam, Eric, and the only girl Ivory. We all look like smurfs; our skin blue from the lack of oxygen, but this always goes away after an hour or so. Almost in sync, we get out of our pods and close them, put on our clothes, and hurry to the Cafeteria for first dibs on breakfast.
Breakfast, as always, is a glass of water with all of vitamins and minerals we need in them, a nutrition pill about the size of a kidney bean that supplies us with all the energy we need for the day, and a luxury food of our choice. I always choose a bowl of chocolate pudding so I can wash out the taste of the nutrition pill, which tastes like burnt cardboard.
I grab my plate from the breakfast machine and head over to my designated seat at Table 14, where the rest of my bunkmates reside. When I sit down I am greeted by my best friend Riley who is already glued to his ECD (Electronic Connections Device), "Did you hear, three people were iced this morning!" he exclaims. "That is the most we have ever had in a day, and none of them made it out either."
Being iced is the worst thing that could happen to you in the waking morning, if the sleeping pods don't keep the temperatures just right then ice will build up around you, since you are on oxygen while you are asleep, you will not be aware of what is happening, but when you wake, you are surrounded by ice, unable to get up or breath. Some guards wake up early to make sure no one is iced in, but they don't get around to checking everyone in the morning, and even if they do find you iced in they might not be able to crack you out in time, and you would just be lying, freezing and suffocating in your pod. In my book that is the worst way to go, knowing that you are going to die but being unable to do anything to stop it.
"This will cause more people to pester the Overseer to upgrade or fix those pods, nobody wants to die like that," Riley said. "And the worst part is, we will be affected by this soon."
"Crap, he's right, "Nick muttered. "We are being moved next year."
While a year seems to be far away for anyone living in the Above, in this Vault we are awake for 14 hours, just like a normal day, but we go into a non-aging pod for a seven-day period, the longest we can go before it starts to hurt you instead of help. So, we are only awake for 52 days of the year, the rest of the time is spent in suspended animation. In about a year's time, we will all turn sixteen, therefore putting us as an option for relocation into the adult pods, the ones that can ice you in.
"I wonder how many generations have lived down here?" inquired Jonah. "Are we going to be living here our entire lives?"
"Hopefully not, but that damned Overseer never tells us anything," Nick muttered. "I wanna get outta here, screw this Vault, it's more like a prison anyway, and when have we last heard a report on what the Above is like, Never! Even if I don't get to leave I just want to see what has become of the Earth. who wants to join?"
As I look around I can see that everyone is wearing the same skeptical face I am, but curiosity wins over and we all nod our heads in unison and promise to meet that night to sketch out our plan.
Many weeks later, just 2 sleeping periods until our 16th birthdays, our plan was ready to go. We had everything covered, pod body replacements, ways to get past the guards, even a way to open the Vault Door; we just had to hope nothing went wrong. The pods scan and make sure that there is organic matter in the pod before closing, so we ordered and collected about 250 potatoes as our Luxury food to take the place of one of us, the replaced person will wait until the pods close then release the rest of us. Sam had volunteered to hide until we could be let out after all the guards had taken off to go to sleep. We would then make our way to the top of the Vault and silence the Vault door alarm. Jonah would hack the door controls and opened the doors. We would all look outside and then pop back into our pods for the week's sleep.
The first half went all as planned, we got out of our pods and made our way to the Vault Door room, but there were two guards stationed there.
"Ivory can you distract them, while Eric and Sam, you guys, silently find a way to deal with them, like knocking them out with a fire extinguisher," I directed. "Jonah you will make your way to the controls, and Nick… you will keep watch, while I will find the alarm controls."
Ivory walks calmly around the corner and I hear the guards immediately yelled at her, "Hey get back to your pod, you are not allowed up here!"
She acts like she can't hear them and I signal for Eric and Sam to make their move to get behind the guards, they run; gradually make their way to the back of the Vault Door Control room by hiding behind some equipment along the way. One of the guards starts advancing on Ivory with the intent to forcefully remove her from the room, Eric finds the closest heavy object, ironically being a fire extinguisher, and sneaks up on the guard that had not moved and hit him over the head. The resulting sound of the fire extinguisher rings across the room. This greatly surprises the second guard, as he turns to find that there was more than one person here. He pulls his radio out of his belt and starts talking frantically into it, as Eric had started to advance on his position.
"This is Vault Door, I need backup! There are…" the guard yelled into the mic before a satisfying bang silenced his calls for help.
"Shit, we need to get going now," Nick calls from the hallway. "I can hear boots coming up the stairs." Sure enough, we all heard the dreaded clang of guard boots running up the stairs.
"Jonah how close are you to opening the Door," I yell. "We have maybe two minutes before the guards get here."
"I'm almost done, see if the guards have a password or anything that could help me out," Jonah said typing code onto a keyboard.
I put my hand in one of the guard's back pockets and produce a small piece of paper that says: Vault Door Password: 082377. I run to Jonah and show read the password to him as he types it into the computer and hits enter. "I hope this works," I say. "We don't have any more time."
A rumbling shakes the room and a large pole comes out of the ceiling, spreading dust across the room, and inserts itself into the center of the Vault Door; a loud screech gives way to the sound of rumbling as the Vault Door is pulled out and rolled away from the wall. A bright light floods the room, unlike any artificial light we had lived within the Vault.
"Holy crap, what is that," Nick said.
"Who cares, let's get going. Before the other guards get here - hurry up Jonah," Eric adds.
We run blindly into the Above with nothing but the footsteps and shouts of the guards to keep us moving.
