Page 23 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

“How did you know a Recorder showed me the blueprints?”

Doc snorts, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “You couldn’t have found that on your own. ”

“Hello!” the man on the porch calls out as the path takes us closer to the Recorder Hall. His deep voice confirms that it’s Orion.

“Hi!” I call back.

“It’s a bit cold out tonight, isn’t it?” Orion says, but I’m not sure why he’d point that out. Usually, the temperature is lowered by ten degrees after dark-time starts, but it’s still too soon to feel it.

Doc, however, has stopped in his tracks, his face whitewashed. “Are you sure that’s just a Recorder?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Orion. ”

Doc sags in relief. “His voice reminds me of someone I used to know. I can’t even remember the last time I was in the Recorder Hall. Hey, Orion!” Doc calls. “Think you could let us into the Hall?”

But Orion doesn’t step out of the shadows.

Aroo! Aroo!

“The cryo level alarm,” Doc mutters, spinning around toward the Hospital, from which a deep siren is screaming its warning into the dark. “Something’s wrong!”

I tear down the path as if the void of space is at my heels, skidding on the plastic mulch that paves the trail. A pounding sound punctuated by cursing tells me that Doc is following close behind. The nurses in the lobby are looking around, panicked, unsure of where the siren is coming from, but Doc and I both ignore their shouted questions and dive for the elevator.

Doc wheezes as the elevator rises slowly. As it dings past the third floor, Doc raises his hand to his left ear.

“Wait,” I say, pulling his hand away from his wi-com button. “Let’s see what’s going on before we com Eldest. Maybe it’s nothing serious. ”

In the silence that greets my statement, I can still hear the muffled sounds of the alarm growing louder as we rise.

Doc shakes my hand away. The elevat

or dings, and the doors slide apart.

The door at the end of the hall is hanging open.

Doc breaks into a run down the hall, barreling into the room and going straight to the desk. He rolls his thumb over the biometric scanner on the metal box in the center of the desk. Nothing happens.

“Frex,” he growls. “Scan in,” he tells me, pushing the metal box toward me.

“But—”

“That box will only open with an Elder or Eldest security clearance. If the alarm’s not turned off, the Hospital will go into lockdown. Scan. In. ”

I roll my thumb over the biometric scanner. The top of the box lifts and folds in on itself, revealing a control panel with a series of numbered buttons and a blinking red light. Doc punches in a code, and the aroo! aroo! fades into silence.

Doc turns to the elevator, scans in his access, rushes inside, and pushes the button for the cryo level before I even get all the way into the elevator. He’s out of breath and tapping the floor of the elevator with his foot as we sink down, down. Doc doesn’t talk the entire time we’re descending. He clenches and unclenches his fists, as if he’s keeping time with his heart. His face is tense.

The elevator stops, bouncing a bit as it rests on the cryo level floor. The doors slide open. We both stay in the elevator a moment, waiting to see who or what is on the other side.

The lights are all on. Doc steps out of the elevator, wary. His hands ball into fists.

“Nonono,” Doc says all in a rush. He takes one step, pauses, then bursts into a run. I chase after him. Doc skids to a halt at the row of numbered doors in the forties.

Number 42 has been pulled out of her freezer in the wall; her glass box lies on the table in the center of the aisle.

The girl with sunset hair is inside. Her eyes are open—pale, bright green like blades of new grass—and panicked. She is thrashing in the water flecked with blue crystals. The box is too small for her now that she is awake and moving; her knees and elbows are beating against the glass. Her body bucks up—her stomach flattens against the top of the box; her head and feet slam to the bottom. She brings her hands to her face, and, for a moment, I think she is clawing at herself, but then I see she is yanking the tubes from her mouth, gagging and choking on them as she goes.

“Hurry up!” Doc shouts. “We’ve got to get the lid off before she pulls the tubes out!”