“Well, unless you’re traveling from dome to dome, son, the tubes are the only way in. Next tube is sixty miles in either direction, but the lines are just as long.”
So this was it. They could put it off for another day or two, study the tube, ask around for information. Make sure this was their best option. But after all this time, Joe wanted in. All along the way, he’d had chances to change his mind, to take another path. He’d already chosen. All he had to do now was follow through. He stepped onto the ramp, its grated metal shifting a bit under his weight.
A few steps forward. A few more. Devin on one side of him. Flix on the other. Peter and Aria right behind.
Joe brushed his knuckles against Devin’s. Took a deep breath. Stepped into the entrance to the Minneapolis dome.
***
Inside the still, muted air of the tube, a phalanx of heavily armed soldiers greeted them. Joe noted the metal VICE-shots peeking out from behind the soldiers’ thick, impact-dispersive bullet shields. The point soldier, his eyes hidden behind solid black tactical goggles, told them to disarm.
Joe and the others laid their guns and knives into a heavy-looking steel longbox. They were each examined, poked and prodded both by hand and with a metal detector. After it seemed the point soldier was satisfied, he motioned to the one who’d been examining them, and that soldier locked the longbox and affixed it to a rail that ran along the ceiling. As soon as the box was attached, it began to vibrate, showering sparks on Joe’s skin, then sped off deeper into the tube.
The point soldier addressed Devin. “Name?”
Devin only glanced Joe’s way for a fraction of a second before answering.
The soldier repeated Devin’s name, followed by a long string of letters and numbers, into a comm fastened to the shoulder of his uniform. “Proceed.”
Joe paused. He had so many questions. “Sir, will our —”
“Control your poc!” the soldier barked at Devin.
Devin’s big hand wrapped tight around Joe’s upper arm, and Joe lurched forward, forced to move whether he wanted to or not.
Devin kept hold as they squeezed through the soldiers, his grip too fierce and so high Joe’s shoulder kept banging his jaw. When they reached the other side of the armed guards, Devin continued on another ten yards before whispering, “I’m sorry,” and letting go.
Joe rubbed his arm. He’d bruise for sure. And they had no idea if they’d get their weapons back or how long they’d be stuck in the tube. He’d been dumb to try to ask, to forget for a minute that here, he wasn’t just an undesirable. He was practically inhuman. He’d coach Devin to ask questions, to look for opportunities to learn more. It’d be fine.
The walls and ceiling of the passageway were the same opaque material that made up the outer walls. Grated metal slats comprised a floor about four feet wide, and underneath it, a stream flowed back toward the mouth of the passage. Narrow gray benches lined the walls, and thirty feet or so deeper into the tube, the line began.
Joe recognized a few of the groups whom he had watched enter earlier, their members standing, looking back toward the guards and the ramp before turning forward again. A woman held hands with two toddlers. Beyond them, another woman, this one with a high, sleek blond ponytail, leaned back against the chest of a towering monster of a man, his dark eyes and harsh mouth both handsome and scary at once. In front of the woman, a stout little man, all bald head and round glasses, spoke animatedly. Whatever he was saying, the woman rolled her eyes.
Farther on, past the other new arrivals, were people Joe figured had been here a while. They sat on the benches, slack-jawed, heads against the wall, and either stared at the newcomers or slept.
Days. It would take days to get through the line. Weeks, maybe. But this was their new beginning. Joe had traveled a thousand miles and walked for the better part of three months; he could sit on his ass for a couple of weeks.
Peter pulled his shirt up over his nose. “It smells like fecal matter in here.”
Joe tapped the grated floor with the toe of his shoe and tried to keep his voice appropriately respectful, the way New America expected a Latino to talk to a white man. “It’s the sewage system running under the floor.”
Peter and Flix both grimaced, and Joe fought back a laugh. Sure, the passageway stank. He’d smelled worse.
Another group of hopeful dome entrants approached from the mouth of the tube. A father and two young teen boys. Joe looked away.
“May we sit, sir?” Flix asked.
It took Joe a moment to realize Flix was talking to Devin.
Devin’s jaw tightened, and he gave a jerky nod. He tried to sit before removing his backpack and almost slid off the shallow bench before he righted himself. A long time ago, Joe would have laughed. Instead, he shrugged out of his backpack and sat across from Devin on the opposite bench. Flix sat next to him, and Aria sat next to Flix. Peter took a seat next to Devin.
They all stared at each other. Joe felt it. He stared at Devin; Devin stared back. The weight of it, the pressure, as they looked across at each other, like a line had been drawn down the middle of the tube, separating one side from the other. Joe extended his leg.
Devin matched the gesture, stretching his long legs wide until his calf rested against Joe’s ankle.
Joe exhaled heavily and laid his head back against the wall. From that position, he could see that the rounded roof was made of the same material as the walls.
“We are lucky. The eastern entrance has no roof.”
Joe lifted his head and searched for the speaker. He found her to his right, the mother with the toddlers. Her lips were too puffy to be natural,
