The Typhon Project

Chapter 11: Alone is Not the Same as Lonely

I pinched the quarter sized piece of paper that dropped out of the back of my watch between my fingers. It had to be Dad's writing—the way one curve of the S came to a point so it almost looked like the number five. Dad had sketched a compass in pencil and labeled each direction with the corresponding letter. He drew the compass wrong though. The arrow pointed south. Strange. Why did Dad hide a scrap of paper in his watch?

I stared at the paper. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and a hollow ache settled into my stomach. Dad. What I wouldn't give for one more hour with him. Or with Mom. Or Lindsay.

I swallowed my tears. They were all gone now.

After setting the scarp aside, I dug the battery out of the inner workings of the timepiece, noted its size and tucked it back inside.

I picked up the paper morsel and kissed it. "Miss you, Dad." Carefully, I folded it just the way Dad had, placed it over the mechanism and replaced the backing. I strapped the watch to my wrist. The second hand motored around the face once again. I guess I didn't need a new battery after all. I reset the time and then forced myself to crack my calculus text book.

* * *

The days slipped into a rhythm and weeks passed. My days were swallowed up by school, homework, and work duty in the coil, which I always dreaded. If it weren't for Dean, I probably would have intentionally botched the coffee. Jock strap duty would've been more fun.

My relationships with the other girls in my family group remained shallow. Parminder didn't seem to have time for anyone but Drake. Sarah rarely talked to anyone, her nose always in a book. Taylor hung out with people from the athletic quadrant. I got the feeling she didn't appreciate being placed with the geeks.

Courtney and Roger were attached at the lip. As time crept by, it became obvious she was pregnant. At my high school, it would have caused a scandal, but no one here seemed to give it a second thought. What would a Typhon newborn would look like? All slimy and scaly? Horror movie imagines of the Typhon spawn eating its way out of Courtney's belly sprang to mind.

Dean became my only friend, and I may have been his only friend too. His incessant begging for me to play that stupid game made me want to slap him sometimes, but I tolerated it. Friends were hard to come by.

The ache in my chest grew unbearable. I cried myself to sleep every night.

I didn't belong here.

I zoned out in class. Sometimes I didn't do my homework. I'd sit in my room and stare at it, but never do it. I got called into Dr. Rail's office where she accosted me about my poor performance.

One Thursday, my physics teacher droned on about the motion of charges in a velocity selector. I traced my finger around and around my watch face. The lights flickered, then cut out. Sunlight poured through the large windows. Why did they need the lights on anyway?

I looked back to my watch. The compass needle swung and locked into the southerly position. I tapped the crystal, but it continued to point south. The lights flashed on and then the needle drifted again. Strange.

After school, I took the long way back to the dorm. I wanted to be alone. Alone was different than lonely. When I was in the dorm with all those people, but had no one to talk to, that's when the loneliness hit.

It was easier to be by myself. No Parminder making out with Drake. No Dean begging me to play Zombie Epoch. No Typhon faces to deal with.

I strolled all the way to the chain-link fence that stood about ten feet from the dome's edge. Wrapping my fingers around the wires, I leaned against the barrier. I peered through dome, straining my eyes to get a glimpse of the outside world. The haze of the dome obscured whatever lay on the other side. All I could see were blobs in various shades of brown.

I followed the fence around the compound to the back of the Tesla coil. Slipping off my shoes, I plunged my toes into the soft, cool grass and sat down in the shadow of the towering Tesla coil building.

I lay back and smacked my head on something hard. I sat up, rubbing the back of my head. I peered over my shoulder. What did I hit my head on?

I crawled closer. A circular metal plate sat flush to the ground, nearly hidden by the thick grass growing all around it. Four thumb sized holes penetrated the rough, dark metal. On hands and knees, I peeked through one of the holes and cool air drifted through it and brushed my cheek.

Dim light lit a shaft. Ladder rungs descended down concrete walls. What was down there? A tunnel?

I wriggled my finger into one of the holes.

The bell rang. Uggh. Dinner. Dinner with a bunch of scaly strangers.

But if I didn't show up for dinner, I'd probably get called into Dr. Rail's office again.

I stood, brushed the grass off my backside and strode toward my dormitory. Several paces away, I glanced back to place the shaft in relation to the Tesla coil so that I could find it again.

I hurried to our family group table in the cafeteria and dropped into the chair beside Dean. I plopped food onto my plate then shoveled it into my mouth.

"Where'd you go?"

I swallowed a mouthful of potatoes. "Me?"

Dean stabbed his fork into a chunk of steak. "Yeah, you disappeared after class."

"I just went for a walk."

His shoulders drooped. "Oh. Like by yourself?"

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"No, I just thought . . . ," His shoulders bounce up and down in a half-dozen mini shrugs. "Nothing. Nevermind."

"Not the game, Dean. Never the game."

He sighed and stuffed the steak in his mouth.

"Hey, you know lot more about this place than I do." I studied my corn for a moment. "Do you know if there are any . . . like . . . stuff underground? Like say tunnels."

He laughed. "Tunnels? Here? Tunnels would be exciting. This place doesn't know what that word means." He took a drink of water. "But if you like secret passageways . . . ."

I rolled my eyes. All conversations with Dean led to Zombie Epoch.

In my room, I opened my laptop, clicked the Tynet icon and pulled up a Typhon Project Campus map. No tunnels were marked. Maybe it was just a maintenance shaft. I slammed the computer's lid shut then sprawled on my bed.

It was probably nothing. Just wires and pipes.

I picked up a book and read an entire page without comprehending a word. It's like the tunnel was begging, "Leah explore me. Please!"

I shouldn't. Nope. Bad idea.

What if it was a tunnel, and what if it led out of here?

The walls seemed to close in around me. Dean's words the first time I met him rang in my thoughts. He'd said The Farm was "too perfect."

I was trapped in paradise.

Shouldn't that have been a good thing?

Did a broken world still exist outside of the dome? The sun scorched world outside seemed more real than anything inside.

I flung off my blankets and pulled on a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt.

I needed to know where that shaft led.