Jagger and I go back to the lounge where we stare out the windows at the imaginary landscape as it passes us by. As night approaches, I go to one of the bedrooms to sleep; Jagger takes the room next to mine. I get very little sleep, but stay under the soft blankets anyway.
The shuttle begins to slow as the evening grows darker. The windows turn off and I can see real stars in the sky. The environment outside is dense forest, and no man-made structures are currently visible. We slow down even more, passing under a metal awning with the letters N.S. 7 painted faintly along the outer rim. The only light being cast onto the platform that glides next to us is emanating from the shuttle’s interior fixtures. We finally come to a stop; a hissing noise breaks the silence.
I exit my room and walk back to the lounge, but no one is there. Heading back down the corridor, I run into Jagger exiting his compartment. We walk towards the back of the shuttle and notice the door we couldn’t get open earlier yawning wide. Voices radiate off the metal interior, growing louder the closer we get. I pass through the opening and into a control room. Large plasma screens hang down from the ceiling along the sides and far back wall. Control panels line the wall to my left.
“Do you have the satellite in position yet?” Braxton asks, as he notices me standing in the doorway.
I walk over to a long glass table in the center of the room where many of the guards and Regulators are standing.
“It’s almost in position,” the man operating the controls answers.
Jagger comes up behind me as I nudge my way to the front, wanting to know what they are all looking at. The table is an enormous display screen, showing a view of what appears to be the forest outside, but from miles above.
“Go two degrees north,” Braxton says, as the motion of the satellite begins to slow. A thin outline begins to appear at the top of the screen, sliding south until it encompasses the entire monitor. “Stop!” Braxton shouts when he has the image in place. From the satellite’s current vantage point, the outline of a large cross is visible among the thin trees.
I notice that the trees there are quite different than the ones outside.
“Magnify twenty percent.” This makes the outline thicker and more defined.
Braxton pushes a button, and the image rises from the table into the air. He presses more buttons and the foliage surrounding the city disappears. A clear picture of Nuceira’s boundaries becomes visible.
The city is surrounded by a twenty-foot-high wall made of limestone, topped with razor wire. A scan is conducted from the satellite, which bounces back an overlay of electrical markers hidden inside the wall every two feet. The picture rotates ninety degrees, laying the city on its side. I hear Braxton talking about their strategy to penetrate the city, but I continue to stare at the image.
There appears to be five miles of forest between the exterior walls, which are also in the cross configuration, and the city itself. In the center is a circular building with a domed roof. On the left arm of the cross there look to be farmland and gardens, on the right arm, wooden structures with smoke stacks, most likely housing. To the south there’s a thin building with a metal roof. A large two-story structure stands farther down, almost at the bottom of the layout.
“Everyone understand what needs to be done?” I hear Braxton say, as I focus back on what is happening around me.
We leave the control room and walk back up the corridor to the shuttle’s entrance in the lounge.
Braxton and his second in command open the door, warm sticky air filtering in from outside. One of the Regulators adjusts the thermostat inside the shuttle, changing the air inside from hot to cool. As the atmosphere changes, condensation begins to build on the outside of the windows. I follow as they step out onto the metal platform that extends the length of the shuttle. There are railings along the farthest edges with a single staircase as the only exit. There’s no structure encasing the station, only the trees and sky for cover. The light from the shuttle doesn’t travel any further than the top two steps of the staircase.
Braxton takes my arm and escorts me back inside. He tells me to sit down on one of the couches in the lounge as he removes the Levin gun from my waist.
“You won’t need this because you are staying here. Jagger will stay with you while the rest of us make our way to Nuceira.”
“Why am I being kept behind?”
“Because, Meg, you’ll be recognized,” Jagger says as he takes a seat next to me, pain etched on his face. “Braxton spoke to me about the plan while you were sleeping.”
I begin to protest, but Jagger takes my hand in his, squeezing it gently.
“If Quin is there, he’ll give you away.”
“I don’t care. I didn’t come all this way just to be kept out of it.”
“Enough,” Braxton says to me. “I was foolish enough to let you on board in the first place, but this is as far as you’re going.”
Moments later, Jagger and I are locked in, stranded in the darkness.
We watch as the troops descend the stairs and disappear into oblivion.
The sun has risen, set, and risen again.
I’m going stir crazy being locked inside this tin can, and Jagger isn’t faring much better. We’ve spent our time rummaging through every bit of the shuttle, looking for something that will open the
