The guy doesn’t answer. He throws his head back, barks something guttural and fast. One of the children wedged in overhead shimmies forward on the pole. He almost cracks my knuckles in the process, but I don’t cry out. He reaches up, grabs something white and cup-shaped from the ceiling. He brings it to his mouth quickly, gulping something down. Finds another cup-shaped thing from the ceiling and grabs it. He passes them down to the guy, whose head is thrown back, lips spread wide as the wet hand is outstretched waiting for the cups. When he has them, he flicks them at me.
“Won’t last forever. You better hope it holds out till we get to the Man.”
I nod. I see him staring at me curiously. I tilt my head forward, hold the cup underneath the tip of my nose, let my sweat drip into it.
“Tighten!”
I throw my hand over the pole and yank on it with my wrist. We careen backward this time. I lose all my sweat but I hold on to the cup. It takes me three more tries, but I finally fill the cup.
Something like admiration creeps into the guy’s eyes.
“Pass the empty,” he says.
I pass it. With a flick of his wet fingers, he turns it upside down and holds it out to me. I fit the cup filled with sweat to the empty one. He pinches the edges of the two cups with his tiny hand. I take the cups back and drop them into my pocket.
A ghostly sensation washes through my body. At first I think it’s relief, but then I feel it fluttering in my chest. I look at my guide with new eyes, eyes that are probably now as wet as my skin. I haven’t caught a glimpse of the outside, but I know from my brief time in the bowels of this machine, this world isn’t a pretty place. Surrounded by all these damaged cells, in the middle of this ocean of desperation, my guide suddenly seems holy. Before I can hold it back, reverence and gratitude pour out of my face. My emotions register in his eyes, and he turns away.
After my flush of emotion, “Tighten!” is the only word he says to me for the rest of the trip. In the absence of his gaze, the balancing act becomes routine; I find myself oddly acclimated to periodic peril. Soon I’m dozing off between veers and drops as the drone of the engine soaks through me. By the time the engine room shudders and slows, I have become what everyone else is: a jumpy, sweaty fugitive—frightened, yet determined to survive.
A grinding sound parts the damp heat around us. Everyone begins to chatter in different tones and pitches, and the transport jerks to a sudden halt. I look up just in time to see hundreds of thin metal shafts shoot down from the ceiling. The noise is deafening. I feel the whoosh of wind slap my cheek as one of the spinning metal shafts rips through the air next to me. A dizzy panic whirls through my gut. I grip the pole tighter and pray not to faint. When I regain my balance, I look at my guide for reassurance, but his eyes are closed and his mouth is moving steadily. Is he talking to himself?
A thin drizzle wets my cheek. I touch it—it’s not water. It’s thick and green, and it stings my fingertips. The green gel splatters through the room sounding like footsteps or bloodshed. Then a pounding roar drowns out the splattering. My stomach clenches. What is coming for us?
I glance at my guide again—he’s standing stock still, eyes closed. Some of the others have let go of their poles, but not my guide. As the roaring grows louder, I nervously gnaw on my shoulder. All around me people are leaping from perches and diving from ledges, green goo lashing against their bodies as they plunge.
Just when I think I’m going to bite through my skin, my guide opens his eyes. His mouth moves, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. His mouth moves again, and he pitches his body forward. It looks like he’s saying “Jump.” My muscles tense as I prepare to leap. My guide opens his mouth and extends that small wet hand. He puts one finger up, and I hear a deafening crack. It sounds like the whole room is going to split in two. My guide nods, we leap.
The freefall makes me feel like vomiting. Instead of crashing on the engine, we land on a wave of green gel. It is washing through the engine room in rivers now. Those who did not leap are engulfed by it. Those who leapt too soon lay broken somewhere on the engine below.
The gel hurries forward, carrying me at a frightening speed straight at a wall. I shut my eyes tight, but I don’t but slam into the wall. With a whir, a circular door opens before me, and I surf through it into darkness. My eyes—useless. The gel bobs gently, misleadingly—as it is rocking me, it is searing my skin. People call out names and numbers. Some voices are frantic, others pleading. A crackle that sounds like electricity silences them all. Light flashes, and I see that everyone is looking up. I look around wildly for an exit or a sign—something that can tell me where to go before we are plunged into darkness again.
When next the light flashes, everyone is still looking up. Probes, shiny and bulbous, start to lower from the ceiling. Darkness comes, forcing me to calculate how long the probes will take to get to me, and how far I need to move away so as not to be crushed. I feel a ripple as the probes slide into the gel. Another flash, and I see bodies scrambling up onto the probes. I feel around blindly until I touch something cool and hard. I grab onto the probe. It crackles and a gentle electric current rolls through my body. Before I can climb all the way onto the probe, it starts to lift.
The burning on my skin cools as soon as I am out of the gel. I allow myself a few seconds of relief as the probe lifts through the ceiling into a new room and a floor closes underneath us. The thump of people dropping down from the probes is the first thing I hear. Then feet scattering.
“Run!” people start to yell, “Ruuuuunnnnnn.”
They scatter—hopping, crawling, rushing. No one seems to know which way to go. I can finally use my feet, but I am faltering. I turn around in circles, looking for a door, a window, a hint of light, anything that can show me the way out. But all I see is rows and rows of probes hemming us in; I can’t even figure out the shape of the room we’re in.
I hear a faint sound.
“Ahhhh-lay-lay-lay. Ah-la, lay, lay, lay. Ahhhh-lay-lay-lay. Ah-la, lay, lay, lay.”
You are singing. For a few seconds I am paralyzed with grief, stricken by the certainty that I will never see you again. Then I see it, a purple mist spreading through the room. Your song seems to beckon to me, growing faint then pulsing in one particular corner. I follow your voice from one end of the room to the other. Every time I think you have led me to the way out, the light I am walking toward dissipates.
The mist quickly fills the room, growing so thick that I can no longer see. I hear breathing around me. It sounds heavy and panicked. A suffocating sweetness blossoms in the back of my throat. My limbs begin to tingle. A loud chattering breaks out behind me. The last clear thought I have is that if I can find the voices, I can find the exit. I twist around and run. After a few steps, I bang into a probe, then trip over something large. I’m sure it’s a body, but my mind is too jumbled to process the thought. I ignore my mounting hysteria and latch onto the image of me running. I force my limbs forward, but gravity overtakes me and starts dragging me down. My eyes roll back in my head, and my ears stop registering sound. Before I drop, someone shoves me from behind. I stumble and follow the crush of bodies. Suddenly the air is different—sharp, crisp, no mist. A weak thrill vibrates through me, then I fall face-first onto the ground.
Suddenly I’m lying on a bed of soft green leaves. There’s no noisy, painful time shift, but I’m in a different place. Not home, but my arms are nestled around you. You have flowers tucked behind your ear and gold beads in your braids. You’re holding me with an easy comfort, almost as if you’ve held me many times before, as if you know you’ll be holding me many times again.