Illumination
Chapter Eleven

Within a day, everything was ready to go, except for the luggage. Jack felt as if she was living in some kind of fever dream that she’d imposed upon everyone else. It’s sort of my fault that the solfects are free, she told herself. It makes sense that I should help set things right. 

Surprisingly, everyone took to the change well. The seventy people who were selected had a few hours to say their goodbyes before the buggies left for the cavern.

“Are you sure you want to go through this?” Dana, Jack’s adoptive mother, asked them. All three of them nodded in agreement, having talked about it the night before. Their mom sat in bed, too weak to get up. “Alright, be safe then. Stay at the back of the action and come home as soon as this is done.”

“We will,” Sierra lied. The public hadn’t been informed of the full extent of the mission, now called Project Illumination. For all Dana knew, it was a security checkup to reinforce boundaries that had been weakened by a recent icestorm. The only danger came from Apexes roaming about the mostly empty plains. It didn’t feel good to lie, but the three siblings knew that their parents wouldn’t let them go otherwise, even though they were technically on orders from the General.

As soon as they’d gotten approval, they all went to pack their things. Jack was surprisingly able to fit all the stuff she needed into one case, with a knapsack full of tools on her back, just to make it look more official. Sierra had to get a minor pass because she was under eighteen (how else could they explain why a middle schooler with no credentials was coming on the trip?) and had to do extra screenings of her belongings before she was admitted to the buggy garage.

“Guess what?” Robin asked excitedly, returning from the buggy office where he’d been talking to his coworkers. “I got us this five-seater here so Liam and Bailey can join us. I’ll drive the buggy, Liam will sit up front, and you two and Bailey can ride in back. I know you love your quality time with Bailey.”

“Got that right,” Jack said, loading the suitcases into the trunk of the buggy they were going to use.

A moment later, Bailey arrived, helmet tucked under her arm and her dull, red hair tied up in a white bandana. Liam soon followed, his hair slightly curled and fluffed up in an obnoxiously handsome way. But not that handsome, Jack told herself as the Brit strapped in next to her.

“Greetings, driver. The route will soon be projected onto your map—please wait,” the annoying speaker voice informed. The buggy’s platform was spun so that it faced the closed garage door. The other eight buggies growled and grumbled in anticipation, aching to be out and roaming over the icy plains. “You are ready to go. Enjoy your trip and stay safe!” With a tiny ping the route showed up on the buggy’s map and the garage door slid open without a sound.

“Krkh—move out,” the General commanded from another buggy, which was already leading the pack. Robin put their ride into gear and they rolled out into the brisk afternoon.

The caravan made slow progress over the packed ice, spitting out exhaust fumes into the smoky, dark-grey sky. Robin turned on the radio to drown out the unholy sound of the engine and cranked up the volume. Sierra’s favorite song was playing, so he rolled down the windows and let her sing until the General radioed in with a complaint. Everyone laughed except for Liam and Jack. Liam, because he feared it would get him in trouble. Jack, because she was too busy looking out at the bright beams of white that pierced through the darkness and being afraid. Afraid for the colony, the other colonies, all her friends and family, but mostly for herself.

If this is truly my fault as the General says, then all these people are putting themselves in danger because of me. She felt miserable and like even more of a failure than she was before. But one look at Sierra’s innocent, yet clouded face reminded her that it wasn’t her fault.

Liam and Robin were chattering on about some new model of fighter plane. Sierra fussed with her short, uneven haircut and Bailey flipped through the buggy manual, probably trying to figure out how to dissect it from the inside out. Or maybe she was just bored. Jack was pinned in the middle of the two other girls, unable to lean her head against the window or even rest it in her hands without looking like a depressed maniac. She suddenly felt very awake—almost dangerously so, like the gates to her senses had been swung wide open. She could smell every mordew flower, see every grain of grogginess on Bailey’s eyelashes, and hear every crackle on the radio. It felt good, like a drug high, but then it didn’t. Also like a drug high. Jack took a deep breath, looked around, and then passed out on Sierra’s shoulder.

She woke up a few hours later to the sound of chatter on the radio. Not Robin or the General, but other buggy drivers relaying information back and forth. It sounded like tiny bugs screaming in her ear, even though she was in the backseat. Jack rubbed her ears until the sound distorted words.

“—ETA is in one hour,” one of the buggy captains was saying. Another guy muttered something that was fuzzed by static on Jack’s end, but the other drivers laughed uproariously at. Robin frowned and turned the volume up to seven, rolling up the windows so as not to annoy the General again. “Look to your left everyone and you’ll see our first stop coming up at about 11 IT!”

Jack forced herself to turn and glance out the window, which Robin had to roll down yet again so they could see past the gloom and fog. Through the darkness she could just discern a jagged silhouette that was a striking figure against the sky. Edges of it caught the headlights and reflected pure, sparkling light like a giant Beacon. It’s beautiful. Too bad we’re going to blast it to pieces, she thought morosely, leaning back against the warm, insulated seats.

The General hopped on the radio feed and instructed the buggies to park in a semicircle around the ice formation, leaving plenty of space for it to fall over. Robin shut down the buggy after the doors had swung open with a slight hiss and everyone piled out of the vehicle.

Jack shivered in the sudden cold, wishing that she’d brought a heavier uniform with her. The others weren’t any better off. “Alright, unload the trunk,” Robin ordered, rubbing his arm. Sierra approached the trunk with her palm outstretched. It detected the heat signature of her hand and popped open automatically. She then reached inside and pulled out three light grenades that Ben had given them (along with the rest of the colony).

“Where do we place these?” Liam asked the General, who was standing a short distance away from the buggies, holding up an Illumination lantern and surveying the base of the pillar.

“The scouting team has already marked the ideal placements of the grenades using light chalk,” she informed them. Jack, Liam, and Sierra each took a light grenade and placed it underneath the sparkling Xs, which faded as they did so. “Now bury it.” Jack, a little confused, scooped up the hard snow in her gloves and packed it on top of the grenade. She estimated that there were about twenty light grenades arranged in a semicircle around the pillar, some buried in the ground, some placed right next to the sheets of rigid ice.

“On my count, we blow!” a supervisor called next to her. Don’t we have to pull the tabs? Jack thought to herself. “Everyone step back!” Jack backed away and shielded her eyes for the inevitable blast.

“Now!” the supervisor called in a booming growl. A nearby assistant pressed a button and a series of landmines detonated in the ground, sending showers of ice flying just feet away from Jack. There was a brief moment of silence, then came the real blast. The light grenades, triggered by the intense heat, went off in a series of sudden, ivory flares. Everyone cried out instinctively and turned away as light filled their vision in a blinding haze.

Almost as soon as the glow faded, the pillar began to crumble. The bottom had been whittled away to a fine point and now it teetered back and forth before—thankfully—swinging away from the colonists. The colossal pillar of ice, easily forty feet tall, caught the beam of Jack’s Illuminator as it toppled over and smashed into the ground. A rippling, roaring boom echoed over the empty hills. Snow particles and dust flew out in one, collective cloud, before settling back down again. Ow… Jack bit her lip and shielded her eyes with one hand until the dust cloud was completely gone. Then she unshielded them to see the impact of the pillar.

In falling, it had also split apart into several chunks of debris that now blocked the space between two, rocky plateaus. One entrance down, several more to go. Jack surveyed the work with pride, though she still felt uneasy. “That wasn’t too bad,” she said to the others, then stopped.

The whole clearing had fallen silent as the company turned towards the source of a low, growling sound. Oh no…

Three Apexes stood at the crest of one of the icy ridges, looking down at the toppled pillar with narrowed eyes. Their fur bristled at the sight of the colonists and one of them let out a bitter, rasping howl that its companions soon echoed.

“Everyone, get into formation!” the General ordered, but all of sudden, they were upon the colony. “They” meaning not the Apexes...but the dark brown, leathery creatures that leaped over the ridge and down into the clearing. Solfects, Jack thought with a gasp, turning to run. But it was too late. She felt a blow to her back and fell to the ground as the strange creatures dashed past her, leaving a strange trail of white goo that was pouring from their face.

Amidst the screams that were just beginning to echo across the plateau, Jack gritted her teeth and pressed herself closer to the ground. Maybe if she played dead, the solfects would ignore her. This seemed to work, as the four creatures, accompanied by the Apexes, rushed past her and her friends. They seemed to be aiming for one person alone—the General.

A fiery, white bullet from some colonist’s gun flew over Jack’s head and she stifled a scream. Everything was chaos and yet a strange sort of peace filled her body as she lay there on the frigid ground.

“Protect the General!” someone called, and this command brought Jack back to reality. She jumped up, only slightly winded from the solfect’s blow, and looked around just in time to see one of the solfects lunge towards the General, who was standing up against the ridge helplessly. Jack’s mouth opened in a silent scream, but all of a sudden, the solfect veered off to the right, crashing into the icy wall and staggering back.

Ben was standing in front of the General, feet planted into the ground, eyes flashing with determination. The solfect had leapt away from him and now lay cowering on the ground, looking up at the inflictor of the blow. Ben got down on his hands and knees, crawling towards the creature. What in the world is he doing?

The other colonists were distracted with fighting off the other three solfects and escorting the shaken General to safety. Jack felt utterly alone as, before her eyes, several feet away, Ben began to morph into a small, six-limbed creature. Brown, patchy skin formed and his eyes shrunk until they were mere folds in his face. What in the world is happening?! Is Ben...a solfect??

What used to be Ben grabbed onto its fellow creature and tried to haul it away by the scruff of the neck, making loud, clicking noises. Jack got down on her stomach and watched out of the corner of her vision as the smaller solfect pulled away and squealed. It lashed out with one claw, which seemed to be covered in the same, strange goo as its face was. Ben-the-solfect howled and turned away from Jack for a moment, clutching at its eyes. Something white and spherical dropped to the ground in a messy puddle, where the other solfect picked it up in its jaws and scurried away, over the ridge and out of sight. Now just Ben-the-solfect remained, crouching a few yards away.

Jack sat up and turned to look at the others, who had mostly driven the other solfects and the Apexes off. Their backs were turned and she and Ben-the-solfect were alone. “Hey there,” she said nervously, approaching the creature with one hand outstretched. “Ben, is that you? What’s going on?” Every fiber in her body screamed for her to join her friends and leave the solfect alone. Even now, she could see Sierra glancing around worriedly. But something deep inside her forced her closer, until she was just a couple feet away from the solfect. “What were you doing with that solfect? Are you okay?”

“Stay away!” the creature snapped in Ben’s voice. It leapt towards her with a snarl and Jack gasped, holding up one arm and falling back onto the icy ground with a thud. Something in her side—a muscle, perhaps—pulled, and Jack winced in anticipation of even more pain.

But before the solfect could tear into her, there was a series of quickened footsteps, then a grunt and a flash of red as someone leapt in front of Jack, taking the blow and crashing to the ground. Father? Jack had almost forgotten that he was also on the trip. Her heart pounded and she leapt up to help him, but Ben lashed out at her with the blunt side of his pincers, smacking her in the chest and knocking her back to the ground. The last thing she saw before her face hit the ground was Ben dragging her father away by the pant cuff. No!

After a moment of numb silence, Jack forced herself to get up and run after her father, who was being dragged down what looked like a tunnel that was crudely cut into the side of the ledge. “Father!” she cried, and the other four came running after her as she chased the solfect into the tunnel. None of the colonists seemed to notice the five teens disappear, seemingly into thin air. It was as if they’d never been there in the first place.

***

The five of them travelled down the tunnel for what felt like an eternity. Jack couldn’t shake the growing pit in her stomach that told her that this was a bad decision. Go back and get help before it’s too late!

“I can’t believe it. That Ben guy is a solfect?” Liam puzzled as they walked, shaking his head. The beam of his Illuminator flickered.

“I don’t get it either.” Jack swallowed and kept her eyes trained on the blackness ahead. “Come on, they’re probably not far. Ben was dragging Father, after all.” Still, worry wrapped itself around her heart like a snow snake.

A growling sound stopped them in their tracks. It was coming from a side tunnel that they’d just passed by. This growl wasn’t an ordinary growl. In fact, it didn’t sound like a growl at all, yet somehow, Jack knew it was. It sounded like drawing circles on a chalkboard with a pencil, stagnated over and over again, sometimes sputtering out, other times drawing out into an ethereal hiss. This lasted for a few moments, then all was quiet.

Jack grabbed Sierra and pulled her back against the dirt wall of the tunnel, covering her mouth before she could cry out. The others did the same, flattening themselves against the wall, clenching their teeth together tightly. In the distance, somewhere down the side passage, they could hear animal feet approaching in quick, skittering bursts. It wasn’t an Apex, whatever it was. This thing was faster and lighter. Instinctively, Bailey pulled out her gun.

“What’s going on?” Sierra whispered when Jack let go of her mouth.

“They hunt by sound and movement,” Jack said, not knowing if this was true of the solfects, but hoping it was, because otherwise, they were doomed.

A long, white tongue emerged from the side passage and probed around the air, like it was smelling for them. Just like my nightmare, Jack remembered, closing her eyes and trying her best not to move. There was a moment of terrifying silence, punctuated by the others’ shallow breaths and Jack’s own, sluggish heartbeat. The tongue wrapped around Jack’s leg and tugged gently but firmly. Almost like a warm embrace. It felt like her father—her real father—was grabbing her hand and leading her away, away from her screaming mother. That had happened more than once. Resist, someone told her, and Jack did, opening her eyes and kicking the tongue away.

There was a horrible squeal, then the solfect emerged from the tunnel. It was surprisingly small, about the size of a cat, with a thin, leathery body that could fold up into small pieces, and spider-like pincers. The one thing they have in common with Apexes, Jack thought darkly, watching as the solfect paced by her in agitation.

“Don’t move,” Robin whispered, as if that wasn’t already obvious. The solfect whipped its wrinkled head from side to side, its white tongue lolling on the ground and picking up dirt. It then made a series of rasping whistles, shifting uneasily, then sat down just inches away from Jack’s foot. She had an itch on her ankle and ached to shake it out, but withheld the urge.

Another solfect emerged from the tunnel, this one a bit smaller. It moved with a light delicacy, clicking its pincers together like glasses at a toast, except less intoxicating. This solfect walked past the other one and stopped in front of Liam. It leaned forward and pressed its snout up in his face, wrinkling its nose. Oh, I bet Li regrets wearing such strong deodorant, Jack thought with an almost-smile playing on her face.

After a few moments of bated breath, the first solfect stood up and skittered down the tunnel, making cooing noises for the other to follow.

Jack and the other four waited for the two solfects to disappear before they relaxed.

“That was a little too close for comfort,” Bailey muttered, shouldering her blaster and glancing after the monsters meekly.

“Do ya think we should head back?” Sierra asked nervously, wiping a spot of solfect drool off her boot and grinding it into the dirt.

“We’re too far in to turn back now,” Jack said, peering down the side passage where the solfects had come from. “There don’t seem to be any more solfects coming this way. Or Apexes.”

“Apexes? Only if they were on diets,” Robin said, eying the compact size of the tunnel. Everyone laughed nervously, then fell into an awkward silence. “I vote we head back. We’re in over our heads. We need to get out before those solfects come back or more arrive.” Liam voiced his agreement, as did Sierra.

“Well, as the wise sister, I’m overruling all three of you,” Jack said, stepping into the side passage and glancing back at them. “We’ll just walk for a little while, okay? If we hear or see the slightest indication that a solfect is coming, we turn and run like the Devil himself is on our heels.”

“You’re crazy,” Liam muttered, but he was the first one to step into the tunnel after her. “I think you’re really going off the deep end here.”

“Then why are you coming with me?” Jack challenged as Bailey joined the two of them in the narrow corridor of packed dirt, blaster at the ready.

“Because,” he said pettily, before blushing and adding, “Someone needs to look after you.”

“I see.” Jack held back a nervous smile and turned to look out into the darkness. She could almost feel the soil—which was disturbingly moist here—under her feet. I wish I’d worn my boots instead of my slippers, she thought to herself as the three of them began to inch down the passageway. Robin and Sierra hesitated before drawing their weapons and following Jack.

The tunnel extended out for a while before curving to the left. As Jack rounded the bend, she was swathed in darkness and was forced to turn up her Illuminator to pierce through the blackness that wrapped around her. Her breath fogged her helmet up and she had to feel the side of the passage with her glove to make sure she wouldn’t run into anything. It was one of the darkest spots she’d ever been to, and it frightened her in ways that she couldn’t explain. Every other second came a slight click or drip from above and she would start, hands twitching and breath making circles of mist in the stale air inside her helmet. The only other sound was the crunch of the others’ boots on the ground, which was also littered with dry, flaky objects that Jack remembered as leaves from her Ancient History lessons. She didn’t question why or how they were there. Maybe it was important, maybe not. Ever since that day when the Illumination Project began, she hadn’t really questioned anything since.

After a moment, the tunnel widened out into a larger room. It looked like something out of a book. Jack almost expected there to be roots hanging from the ceiling and giant snow snakes worming around. Or at least human bones. But it was a surprisingly empty space. She swung her head around, looking for the Illumination beam to catch anything suspicious, and found a shiny, spherical object lying on the ground, half-buried underneath the dirt. Jack approached and bent down, brushing aside the dirt gently. The others crowded around her, a little confused until they saw what she had in front of her.

It was a reflective, gold and white sphere that exuded a translucent mist. Jack was able to brush the dirt off of it, but when she tried to pick it up, the sphere suddenly flared up and became red-hot in her hand. She squealed and dropped it onto the ground, where it cooled off almost instantly.

“What was that?” she hissed. Her hand now had an ugly, scarlet bruise that was mottled with spots of white. She touched the wound gingerly with the other hand and was shocked to replace that it didn’t hurt, except for when she clenched her fist.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bailey breathed, getting down on her knees. She opened up her pack and took out a screwdriver, one of the many tools in there. Bailey reached out and prodded it nervously. There was a ferocious sizzle and the tip of the screwdriver dripped off in a mess of charred metal, which clumped into a glob on the dirt. “Yeah, I think we should leave this alone. Seems out of our comfort zone.”

“We shouldn’t just—leave it,” Liam blurted out loud, his lips slightly parted in surprise.

“But how are we supposed to do anything with it? It burns up everything it touches. A ball of fire, basically,” Robin objected, stepping away from the sphere.

It’s like the Sun, Jack realized, but she kept quiet for fear of being wrong. But why—and how—would the solfects be harvesting pieces of the dead Sun?

“I still have some pieces of ythafone from engineering class. We can try using that,” Liam suggested, opening up his pack and pulling out a thick wad of the dark grey, sandpaper-like gauze.

“Alright. Don’t blame me if you burn yourself too,” Jack said, still cradling her hand against her chest.

Liam wrapped some of the ythafone gauze around his hand so that it acted as a second glove. Cautiously, he spread out his fingers, edged closer to what Jack decided was a fragment of the Sun, then grabbed it in his hand. Everyone winced instinctively, but when Liam was able to successfully grab the fragment, they let out a collective sigh of relief. “I need some more gauze,” he requested tersely, clutching the sphere, which was rapidly igniting into brighter flames. The light flickered in his eyes dangerously.

Sierra grabbed the other half of the gauze and held it out in her palm. Liam set the fragment down and together, they wrapped it up in the ythafone until it was completely swaddled up. Then, they placed it at the bottom of the pack and Liam put the backpack on his shoulders again.

“Do we keep moving?” Bailey asked, standing back up again and staring at Liam’s pack like it contained a bomb, which, in all realism, it probably did.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Sierra noted, looking around them. She was right. The walls had closed in on them and there was no way out by the way they’d come.

“That’s not possible,” Jack whispered, her voice cracking slightly on the word not. “He’s got to be here somewhere. They couldn’t have just—” Her voice trailed off.

“That means there’s only one other place he could’ve been taken,” Sierra mused, then silently pointed back down the hall. Everyone trained their Illuminators on the passage, sending ivory shafts of light through the blackness. “Wherever those two solfects were going.” Jack gulped and, for a moment, reconsidered heading back to the surface. “We should head back to the others. Get some help.”

“No, Sie. C’mon, it’s our dad. There’s no right or wrong.”

“But—”

“He could be dying for all we know and you want to go crying back to the General? How are they going to help?!” Jack felt her cheeks flush with a sudden boil that she didn’t know she’d had. “He’s your own father. Why don’t you care?” As soon as she finished saying that, she felt the anger leave her in a sudden rush. She realized her mistake and stepped forward to apologize, but it was too late.

Sierra’s eyes were blazing with fury. She had entered “Kill Jack” mode. “You wanna get us all killed, huh? How would dad feel if we just rushed in and died because we were unprepared! We don’t even know how many solfects there are and we aren’t even ready to fight one. How about you get some sense into your head, because you’re a terrible sister if you think that putting our dad’s life over our own is the right choice!” Sierra hissed, showing her teeth like an Apex behind the visor.

Robin stepped forward to calm them both down. “Woah, the longer we sit here and argue, the more danger Dad’s in. Let’s take a quick vote and get moving, no matter what our choice is. All in favor of jumping straight in after him?”

Jack and Bailey raised their hands.

“And all in favor of heading back to go replace help?”

Liam and Sierra raised their hands. Robin looked between the two groups in slight distress. “Okay, I guess I’ll have to break the tie,” he muttered. “Let’s go after him.”

“I’m surprised,” Jack said with a frown. “I thought you would want to get help first.”

“We can’t always be helped. Just ask my flight school teacher,” her brother answered, not looking her in the eyes. “You first.” He pointed at the tunnel and Jack led the way back into the darkness.

When they came out into the main passage, she looked to the right and saw a pinprick of light in the distance. She shivered and, for a moment, considered heading back and getting help. But an image of her dad’s helpless face flashed into her mind, and she turned away from the exit to face the darkness. Jack almost expected her Illuminator to catch a glimpse of a solfect skittering back out towards them, but it was empty, just like the side passage.

The tunnel narrowed the further they went down, and she kept looking back until she couldn’t see the light anymore. During that exact moment, she realized exactly what she was getting into. What if I die here with my friends? What if my body rots alongside Dad’s and nobody ever replaces me? She licked her chapped lips and forced those thoughts out of her mind. If you think like that, your fears will come true, she told herself, trying to focus on happier thoughts, like I can’t wait to see dad again. But then, it changed to, If he’s still alive and not a gutless husk living in the stomachs of those...monsters.

Two minutes later, Jack was forced to stop as the passage divided into two smaller tunnels. One branched off to the left while the other one, which was much bigger, dipped down in a sudden incline. “Which way now?” she asked nervously, once again looking back. All she could see were the bright beams of the others’ Illuminators shining just inches away from her face, forcing her to turn away.

“Maybe we should split up,” Bailey suggested from the very back of the line.

“Um...no. We’re already weak enough. No need to divide the party,” Liam said, crossing his arms. Everyone else nodded in reluctant agreement, unwilling to argue with him and amp up the tension even more.

“Well then, which way are we supposed to go?” Bailey shot back, shifting restlessly.

“I vote for the one on the left. Going further down is a bad idea,” Robin said. Sierra stayed silent on the issue, still fuming from the argument.

“Wait, listen!” Jack interrupted. She stepped into the mouth of the tunnel on the right and took off her helmet. Cold air rushed around her and she let out a sigh of relief before pressing her ear up against the dirt wall of the passage, just close enough to listen. “There, flowing water!” She could hear a river gurgling beside the dirt wall. “This path is the right one, I’m sure.”

“Let me listen,” Sierra cut in, pushing past the others and taking off her helmet to mimic her older sister. When she was done, she begrudgingly nodded and put it back on, returning to her former spot. “Yeah, Jack’s right, I guess.” The person in question opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it and took a deep breath to keep from engaging with her little sister.

“Then let’s go,” Robin said, and they descended into an even deeper darkness.

The further they went, the slicker the permafrost and dirt became. Jack was forced to brace herself against the wall of the tunnel to keep from sliding onto her back. Eventually most of the ice layers melted away to just plain, stale dirt tightly packed together and dripping muddied water.

“Hello?” Bailey called softly when the steepness of the passage seemed to level off. No answer save the steady, drip drip echoing behind them and the stagnated breathing of their group. But there was a slight echo ahead of them, so Jack continued down the tunnel towards where there was hopefully a larger cavern. She was getting quite claustrophobic, though she didn’t want to admit it. She was more used to the wide, open, yet frigid plains that surrounded her colony. Old colony, she reminded herself, swallowing painfully.

At last, they reached the bottom and the darkness ebbed away at the arrival of a new light. Almost instantly, the tunnel opened up into a tall cavern brightly lit by...Illumination torches? Are the solfects really this civilized? Jack thought before realizing what they’d stumbled upon. “This is where the alpha solfect is kept.” She voiced these fears aloud, which only seemed to confirm them even more. “But I didn’t realize it was this close!”

Just like the simulation room where the Eighth Solfect had been kept, this hall had a giant, oak door. What was most disturbing about the room was two things. One was that there were long, deep claw marks at the base of the door.

The second was that it was open.

Jack nervously stepped forward and touched the fake door, marveling at how 4D illusionary printing had worked its magic. She peered through the crack but couldn’t see anything—a tree, also fake, was blocking her way. “Dad has to be in here,” she muttered, more to Robin and Sierra than the others, who stood awkwardly to one side.

“Maybe the solfects aren’t in there,” Sierra said hopefully, putting her helmet back on and shutting down the Illuminator. Everyone else did the same and soon they were huddled together around the crack of light coming from behind the door, hesitating on whether to enter or not.

Their minds were made up when they heard a muffled scream come from inside. Dad, Jack thought, and before her brain could object, she slipped through the door and into the simulation room.