Glitch. Part 21

A vibration start in the rock, a buzz like the oscillations of a hummingbird wing. My head hurt from contact with the rock. I tried to lift it but it was so heavy now. I tried to move my hand, but it weighed a hundred pounds.

The hummingbird became a sparrow. My head rattled on the floor. My body shook and all I could see was bursts of light in a dark cave.

And then the vibrations became like no living creature. Great, gigantic thumps that slapped the earth.

Rock squealed. Momentum rushed through my chest and I, blind, wondered what it meant. The sound built, and behind it the earth knocked a steady, growing beat.

Thump.

"s.h.i.+t!" Josh screamed.

Thump.

The back of my heat was matted and sticky and warm. I tried to breath. No more air. Just fire in in my veins. No room to scream.

THUMP.

The last thump ended everything. I wondered if I'd died. For a while, my ears sang deaf-tones to my head.

The air was hot now, but I could breathe it. My skin p.r.i.c.kled and I flexed my fingers. I could control myself again.

Josh hissed, and he sounded very close again.

Lena's voice said. "Josh."

"I'm checking."

Something tapped the ground.

"s.h.i.+t," Josh whispered.

A quick sc.r.a.pe hissed in the silence. A dot of light lanced up.

"Is it Level Zero?" Lena asked.

The flame dropped to a smooth, black floor. The light didn't waver. I waited for the flame to creep along the matchstick, turning the wood to black, but it didn't. It just burned.

Now that I looked at it, the flame looked almost crystalline-not like a real fire, but like an out-of-focus light in a photograph.

"Feel for doors." Josh murmured.

Before either of us could move, a slow, crunching sound pierced the blackness. It sounded like rocks grinding.

I'd heard that sound before-at the construction pit.

"s.h.i.+t," another matchstick hiss punctuated Josh's swearing. Three more tiny flames dropped in line at his feet. Maybe because of Level Zero's strange brand of physics, or maybe because my eyes were so used to the dark, the matches illuminated a lot more than they should. I could see Josh and Lena, the details of their clothes, the expressions on their faces all drawn long and thin by the flames.

Josh held a plastic cylinder of matches in one hand. The top end was screwed off, and rolled around his feet.

Josh grimaced, and lit another match. He threw it. It landed a good six feet away from us.

The grinding grew stronger.

"s.h.i.+t," Josh hissed. He threw out more matches. The small, lonely lights drew constellations on the ground, and then an entire starscape.

As more and more matches hissed to life and flew to the ground, I realized something.

This room was much bigger than the chambers in Level Zero.

Josh gave up on the matches. He reached into his hoodie and pulled out a pocket knife. The handle was long and curved like the hilt of a sword.

Josh pulled open the blade and dropped to the ground. The blade stabbed the ground. Blue sparks flew up "We're blocked." Josh whispered. "The thing f.u.c.king blocked us."

Lena scanned the darkness. "There has to be an exit. They can't get rid of them."

"But they can stretch the rooms so far it won't matter." Josh said. "It couldn't have known we were here. They're not this smart. No one knows about the alpha gate."

The noises were louder now. They came from everywhere. The grinding sounded like the wheels of a tank, coming closer and closer.

"Earring?" Lena asked.

"Earring." Josh said.

Lena undid one of the many gold hoops on her left ear. The flames below us turned it into molten gold.

She tossed it at Josh. He caught it, took the knife, and sc.r.a.ped a line across the gold.

The gold turned white, burning-magnesium white. Josh s.h.i.+elded his eyes and grinned.

The noises stopped.

"Take that motherf.u.c.ker!" Josh shouted.

"He can't see us now," Lena said.

"d.a.m.n straight. Didn't think we'd have a cloaking program did you!" Josh bellowed. "Oh Christ in Heaven."

The white turned bright and brighter until I couldn't see anything. My vision whited out.

"Ah s.h.i.+t!"

The white vanished. Bright blue sparks burst from the earring. It tumbled to the ground and fizzled out.

"No," Josh whispered. "They can't do that."

The sounds came back. It sounded like groaning now. Like whale-song fed through an electric guitar.

At the far reaches of the match-flames, a single mote of light glimmered.

"s.h.i.+t." Josh seethed.

It rose into the air like a soap bubble.

The other lights began to glimmer as well. At my feet, the fire slowly took on the shape of a pyramid. The edges of the light flattened out, and it became a translucent triangle of pure light-like the origami violets.

The lights bobbed against the ground, then rose. They floated past my head, and vanished into the big dark of the room.

The lights left, one by one. Their flight illuminated the faces of Josh and Lena: arms twisted, legs bent for flight, hands grabbing at tools that no longer worked.

Darkness now.

Level Zero had its own life cycle. It had its own fauna.

And, I now realized, it had predators.

Far away, two s.h.i.+ning blue eyes flashed open.

CHAPTER EIGHT: PREDATOR.

"What happened?" Josh asked.

I thought I was kneeling. I was too dizzy to care. My senses ran in circles; I smelled darkness, heard blood, and tasted the vast, roaring silence of Level Zero.

"Where'd it go?"

Starbursts swam along my eyes. I threw out my hands. I felt for the ground, and it was there, just upside down. I was lying down. Why was I lying down?

"Sam?" Josh called. "Lena?"

"Here," I croaked. My voice sounded strange to me. What just happened?

Pins and needles brushed over my skin. Blood rushed to my head. Slowly my sparking brain calmed down.

We were in Level Zero. I'd bitten my tongue. The blood I tasted came from the bite.

"Guys?" Josh called again. By his voice, I could tell he was standing, moving.

"Here," I said.

I heard faint footsteps. Something pointy nudged my ribs.

"Sam?" I heard Josh ask.

"Josh?" I answered.

"What happened to the Stalker Man?"

What Stalker Man?

"Where are you?" I asked.

"f.u.c.k. Hang on."

Sssssch. The scratch of a lighting match. A tiny star of lemon-coloured light flickered above me. It flickered along the lines of Josh's grim face.

I found my balance and pushed myself up. My head swam, but the dizziness evaporated when I focused on the light.

Just like before, the light illuminated more than a simple flame should; instead of just showing Josh's hands, the light cast a circle around us.

Josh grinned. "You know these are programs right? There's like no oxygen in Level Zero."

Josh held the light up to me. It looked like a crystal sunflower.

"Cool huh?" He asked. And for the first time I realized he did think it was cool. In near total darkness, Josh*s voice and gestures turned fluid and smooth, like a real human. "They work outside of Level Zero too-a little bit. If we can improve on it then it means free, no-emission light. Gonna win a f.u.c.king n.o.bel."

"What happened?" Lena shouted.

Lena came in from the darkness. We turned to look. Unlike Josh, the darkness muted Lena. Daylight-Lena moved strong and capable; she stepped over park benches and moved through crowds like they belonged to her. But now, she shuffled forward towards the light, stunned.

"The cloaking program must've kicked in late," Josh said. "Makes sense. The Stalker Man probably interfered with it."

Lena s.h.i.+vered. She joined us around the light.

Josh handed me the match.

"Let me check..." He backed away and patted at his pockets. He hit something, and pulled it out.

I held the match as close as I could to my face without eating it. It could have been my imagination, but when I breathed, the light seemed to swell.

Once, through some random Wikipedia-ing, I'd seen a painting by the Spanish painter El Greco. The painting showed a boy, lighting a candle between the still, solemn faces of an old man and a monkey. It was an allegory for something, but all I cared about was the beauty of the light. The way it shaped and softened the three figures, together in that lonely darkness.

The old man was a fool; the monkey was a monkey. They could see the flame, but they could not control it. Only the boy, cheeks puffed, cradling the flame within his fingers, could create and destroy the fire that revealed them to each other.

I held my breath. The yellow light dimmed. I held it for longer, and its centre darkened to a sunset orange.

I breathed out. The light came back.

"I hope Amrith's okay," Lena mumbled.

"We're the ones that nearly died." Josh said absently. "f.u.c.king lucky we had the cloaking program."