Chapter 19
NINETEEN
The shuttle deposited me onto a spacious platform paved with white stone.
It was far more glamorous than any station I’d visited so far.
A marble fountain spouting crystalline water stood tall in the center, bordered by a circular bench that was carved out of the same pale marble and engraved with swirling motifs of sharks.
Straight ahead, a broad staircase beckoned.
As I approached, delicate script caught my eye—etched into the stark white walls on either side, the letters almost shimmering in the light: Veni Vidi Vici.
The words repeated over and over, spanning the entire length of the walls that bordered the platform.
I made a mental note to finally ask what that meant when I next got the chance.
This place had intrigued me ever since I’d arrived, and now I was finally visiting it, much sooner than expected.
A mix of anticipation and apprehension filled me as I crossed the wide strip of pavement that ran the circumference of the fortress, and stopped outside of the gate.
I was momentarily confused by the lack of handles, until I spotted a small control board fixed into the wall on the left.
I approached it, eyeing its two components: a round green button and a ring scanner.
I pressed the button, then held my breath and waited.
A speaker crackled to life a moment later. “Name and purpose, please,” a smooth female voice asked.
“Tanisha Lockwood, here to see Ms. Annabelle Springs. I have a meeting with her at Level 7, Chamber 30.”
There was a split-second pause, before the voice replied, “Please scan your ring.”
I scanned the ring, and a soft hissing sound came from the edges of the gate.
It glided open, revealing a large, oval reception area with sleek, pristine white floors and light gray walls.
A handful of large abstract paintings of muted coloring hung at even intervals, which looked similar to the style of Martha, though I couldn’t make out the initials from this distance to be sure.
A desk stood directly opposite me, in the center of the room, behind which sat three women in white uniforms.
I slowly moved toward them, my eyes still drinking in my surroundings. When I approached within three feet of the desk, one of the women looked up at me—a petite female with a shock of white-blonde hair fashioned into a pixie cut. She wore a silver ring.
“Follow me, please, Ms. Lockwood,” she said, before I could open my mouth.
She strode off across the room, her low heels clacking against the glossy floor. I quickly followed, catching up to her as she led me through a set of double doors on the left side of the desk.
We entered a gently curving hallway, with the same pale gray and white color scheme, though the walls were bare of paintings and instead lined with arched white doors.
We walked for less than a minute, following the curve of the corridor, and then stopped in front of a door that was different from the rest—dark brown and rectangular. An elevator, I quickly realized. My escort pressed a button on a discreet control panel.
The door slid open and we stepped into the metal cubicle, where my eyes fell on another control board. It held row upon row of small buttons, a number affixed to each of them, all the way from 1 to 200. When the woman pressed number seven, I realized they must be all the levels of the fortress.
200 levels. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, given its massive exterior. But still, that sounded like a lot.
The doors closed and, to my confusion, my stomach dropped. The elevator was descending. I’d assumed the level we’d just been on had been the ground-floor—number one.
I glanced back at the control board to see the number 30 light up, then the number 29, then 28…
Holy crap. Judging by the speed at which the numbers lit up, what I’d thought was the ground-floor had been Level 31.
Which meant there was a lot more to this building than met the eye. Thirty extra levels hidden beneath it, bored into the mountain itself.
“Woah,” I said softly, unable to contain my awe.
The blonde woman glanced at me with a polite smile. “I take it this is your first visit to the fortress?”
“Yes,” I murmured, my eyes tracking the flashing numbers as we continued to descend. When we reached Level 7, the doors reopened automatically.
We stepped out into another curving corridor, identical to the one we’d just left, except the doors were farther apart from one another.
We walked for longer, this time, following its perpetual curve.
The feeling quickly became off-putting, never being able to see an end in sight or what was around the bend until you reached it—only to be faced with another stretch of corridor.
It was like being stuck in a weird, winding dream state.
I welcomed the break to the monotony when a white door opened to our right, a few feet ahead of us, and two young men stepped out.
They wore deep red uniforms and golden rings, and pairs of black goggles dangled from their hands.
They were chuckling about something as they headed in the direction we had come from, and I managed to catch the briefest glimpse of the room they had exited before the door closed.
It was a large hall filled with rows of similarly clad men and women wearing black goggles and sitting in front of wide monitors.
I remembered Anna mentioning that Fairwell’s banking system was located within the fortress and consisted of lots of computers, so I wondered if that room was part of it. Though I wasn’t sure how that’d explain the goggles.
“This way please,” my escort said, a touch sharply as she realized I’d hung back, and I quickly followed.
I glanced up at the numbers that glowed a soft blue above each doorway. We’d almost reached 21, when three more men emerged in the corridor up ahead, heading toward us.
Two of the men wore black uniforms and walked on either side of a man wearing a dirty brown uniform, guns tucked into holsters at their waists.
They angled toward a set of elevator doors on the left.
As we passed each other, I got a close-up of the man in between them.
His face was pale, his lips a thin line, and as he raised his eyes briefly to meet mine, my throat tightened at the dread I saw there.
“Those are correction officers,” my escort explained, noticing where I’d been staring. “Black uniforms—you must have seen those around somewhere already.”
I tried to think, then remembered that I had, during the first week, noticed a couple of black-uniformed men approach someone who’d deposited their trash in the wrong place on our island.
I hadn’t realized at the time they were correction officers.
But it made sense. They dealt with the people who broke the rules.
I glanced over my shoulder to watch the officers escort the brown-uniformed man into the elevator, and I wondered what he’d done. Then the doors obscured them from view—the glowing symbol on the wall indicating they were heading downward. Downward.
“What happens to criminals here?” I asked, increasing my pace slightly to walk level with my escort once more. “Do you have a prison?”
“Of sorts,” she replied, casting me a sideways glance. “We call them holding rooms. They take up Level 1 of the fortress.”
I frowned. “Holding rooms?”
“Yes. They’re our version of a prison. Anyone who commits, or is suspected of committing, a serious crime is held there while on trial.”
“And what happens if they’re found guilty?” I asked.
The woman shrugged. “Then they are banished.”
“Banished?” I echoed. “What do you mean?”
“Deported. Shipped off. Typically back to where Fairwell found them.”
I stared at her. “So, it’s basically a death sentence?”
The woman gave another shrug. “If that’s how you want to see it.
It’s not Fairwell’s fault if someone refuses to follow the rules.
We’re a generous people and extend our facilities without discrimination, but that doesn’t mean we owe anyone anything.
We’re free to withdraw our courtesy, just as they feel free to disrespect our laws. ”
“Do founders get the same punishment?” I couldn’t help but wonder.
“Mmhmm. Yes. Banishment is the punishment for all major crimes. There’s no place for criminals on Fairwell. Minor infractions involve fees, mostly.”
I swallowed, my heart rate increasing just at the thought of being dumped back where we had come from. I made a mental note to inform my friends and family about this, just so they would stay extra aware of the rules.
Speaking of mental notes…
“What do those words on your ring mean?” I asked, gesturing to the silver band on her thumb.
“Ah.” She smiled, glancing down at it. “Veni, vidi, vici is Latin for ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. It’s a saying that was attributed to Julius Caesar, if you’ve heard of him.”
I nodded. We had some ancient history books back home and though I didn’t know a lot about him, I’d come across his name before.
“It basically signifies what we’ve managed to do here,” the woman went on. “Conquer the ocean, so to speak.”
I nodded slowly, remembering Anna had described it as something like that. “Claiming the ocean,” was the expression she’d used. It struck me as pompous, to be honest. Our Founders never would’ve thought to describe their settlement as “claiming the jungle.”
“And why do only the silver, gold and platinum rings have the words?” I asked.
“Well, I guess it’s just a little perk that comes with climbing higher in our society,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “Makes the achievement feel that bit more special.”
She then stopped walking, and I looked up to see we had reached Number 30. She touched her ring against a small scanner beneath the door handle and the door clicked open.