Read Online The Chamber in the Sky by M. T. Anderson - Free Book Online Page A

another. The dinghy slid on grooves until it was locked in place. Gregory shut off the engine.
    â€œAm I amazing at steering or what?” said Gregory. “I could be the star of a submarine cop show.”
    Gwynyfer and Brian were already stooping by the dinghy’s hatch. Gwynyfer said, “Bri-Bri wants space to scream in, and I have to find a little room where an up-and-coming duchess can do the necessary.”
    They fumbled excitedly with cranks. They figured out how to work a small hand-pump that forced out the watery flux from between the two hulls.
    They threw open the dinghy’s hatch. With some difficulty, they reached around it and swung wide the hatch into the factory.
    They stumbled out into a docking bay, ready for welcome.
    But something was very, very wrong.

T he docking bay was lit with a dim, bare bulb. The iron walls were scarred and discolored. Someone had spray-painted a Norumbegan rune again and again on all the doors. The rune read: Closed.
    â€œNo,” said Gwynyfer. “A girl doesn’t take closed for an answer. My bladder is going to burst like a Christmas cracker.”
    Gregory asked playfully, “Do future duchesses talk about their bladders?”
    Gwynyfer went over and tugged the door handles. “If they don’t, they explode into shreds, and then they never get to be duchesses at all.”
    The kids were unhappy to find two of the doors locked.
    But they were even more unhappy, somehow, when the third door was ajar.
    It seemed like the place might have been abandoned in a hurry.
    The hallway beyond was dark. A faint, clammy breeze blew out of the shadows. Gwynyfer flicked a toggle switch.
    There was a long, brown metal corridor. It was lit by one single bulb, halfway down. The other bulbs had been removed.
    They no longer joked or talked. They carefully stepped through the portal and made their way down the hallway. Their footfalls made the metal ring dully. It was the only sound they heard.
    â€œShould we keep going?” asked Brian in a voice that suggested he did not think that they should.
    The huge edifice was silent, save for the occasional creak.
    They walked down hallways and through abandoned offices.
    â€œYou know what I just thought of?” whispered Brian. “This place was run by mannequins. I bet they left it behind when they all banded together to attack New Norumbega.”
    â€œYou know what I just thought of?” whispered Gwynyfer. “Mannequins don’t have toilets.”
    And with that, she disappeared.
    Gregory gasped and turned.
    She was gone.
    She’d swerved into a side room. Or had been pulled.
    They were worried until they heard her voice. She continued, echoing, “So any little place will do.”
    She slammed the door shut.
    They waited for her to come out.
    They stared at each other, leaning against oppositewalls of the metal corridor. They could faintly feel the station turning in the murk.
    The sounds from within the side room were very faint. They could hear Gwynyfer walk a few steps.
    Then everything fell silent.
    Gregory crossed his legs. He and Brian looked nervously up and down the corridor.
    Brian was suddenly worried about Gwynyfer. He watched the door. He wondered how long it took girls to pee.
    And then, far away, there were footsteps.
    They were lonely, slow footsteps, heard through stairwells and control rooms and cold furnaces. Walking slowly, deliberately, toward the kids. The kind of footsteps that might be made by a corpse forced to wander through an endless underworld of empty metal rooms.
    Gregory and Brian looked wildly at each other.
    â€œOf course there’s someone,” hissed Brian. “We knew that. Whoever shined the spotlight on us.”
    â€œI don’t like this,” said Gregory.
    Brian shook his head. “I don’t, either.”
    The footsteps had picked up their pace. Now they were jogging down circular metal stairs.
    Gregory tapped on the door.