Follow the Leader

Part 1

      The whirring of large metal blades and wet metal did little to comfort me from the impending fear of falling to my doom at any moment. Crawling slowly along the metal pipe, a pipe much to thin for even a child to attempt safely, and yet it was my duty. I clung to the steady drip of a nearby leaky pipe. If only life were as simple as being a droplet of water in a sea of water. Drifting by, seeing new things, experiencing life from a safe distance. 

     I bit down on the screwdriver in my mouth hard, closed my eyes, and took one steady deep breath before removing one of my hands and slowly putting in front of the other on the pipe. Inching my bruised knees along behind me, I continued with false confidence until I reached the pair of rusty chains hanging from an almost never ending ceiling. I could barely see the chains or anything else for that matter. The only light came through tiny maintenance peepholes every so often in the walls. Just enough not to fall and complete the tasks, if you knew what you were doing, most didn't have the opportunity to learn. 

     Grabbing the chains with one hand I slowly shifted my body so my legs were dangling off the pipe and I was facing the chains, one hand still holding onto the pipe for balance. One good tug of the chains and a quick high pitched whistle sent the message to a technician above. A loud crank echoed through the vast metal room. At first the deep clicking of the crank was slow, it whined and moaned from the movement as if in protest from being woken up, but the clicking got faster and more rhythmic. I let the chains go and they began to crawl up into the darkness. Eventually the cranking stopped and before me was a sad excuse for a swing. Rusted and wet. Atop it sat a headlight and two screws. Easy job. Go to the maintenance site, fix the screws, come back. 

     The headlight was too tight for my head and pinched my skin but without it there would be no way to see in the pitch black room. The screws joined the screwdriver in my mouth and I carefully swung my legs over the swing. Gripping the chains once more I hoisted myself fully onto the rusty metal. I kept my head high, not daring looking down into the void. I had done that once before and almost fell to my death. A familiar deep whistle sounded from above to confirm my position. I allowed myself a smile in the darkness. I held the screwdriver and screws in my hand for just a moment to send back a whistle of my own. With that the swing sputtered to life again and moved ahead. 

                                                                      ╔═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╗

     Twenty minutes. That was how long it took to reach the maintenance room on the swing. There used to be a shuttle. There used to be florescent lights lighting everything in this abyss. That was before, and this was now. Now, the only way back and forth was this swing. The opening to the maintenance room soon became clear thanks to the small light on my head. It was eerie. Just a large black hole at first before filling out into a room. As I got close I held tight to the chains of the swing, held my breath, and pulled my body up so that I was standing on the swing. And then, the hard part, timing my step perfectly. The hole was barely tall enough to accommodate my small frame so I crouched on the swing and took a long step from the nothing beneath me to the crumbling cement floor of the room. 

     Once in, I sat on the solid floor and spit out the screws and screwdriver. I bet they wouldn't even be the correct tools. They never gave me the correct tools. It was like a joke to the other engineers. 

     "Engineers." I scoffed. A hilariously incorrect term for us meant to make us feel important. Maybe some engineers were. But, not me. I was always given the most dangerous or undesirable jobs. And I supposed as some joke I didn't understand the others would frequently give me the wrong tools or forget to put batteries in the headlight. 

     I sighed loudly before stretching out my arms and standing up. The job is supposed to be a loose panel that just needs new screws. I looked around the dingy room. Old panels, far older than me, sat covered in dust barely in use. I walked over to them admiring all of the colorful buttons and switches. I always wondered what they did in their prime use. Now, all they did was turn on and help feed power to the main systems. 

    I glided my hand over the thick layer of dust, even if it was just to make myself feel better. There were scuffs, scratches, and graffiti all over them. Some engineers wrote notes to a secret lover, some wrote slanders against the government, but most were just ugly tags made to try and look edgy in a place where they would never be seen. Only a few buttons lit up anymore and the ones that did were very dim, we all had to memorize which ones we needed to use to turn it back on in case of a power crash. 

     The loose panel was on the side of a machine in the corner of the room. I knelt down beside it and assessed the panel. Four screw holes. I looked at the two rusty screws in my palm and cursed the engineer that sent them. Gently, I set them along with the screwdriver on top of the machine and pulled the old, scuffed up panel sitting limply against its body. But, as I pulled it and the headlight shone into the space under the machine I noticed something. A small slip of paper amongst the endless cords and wires tangled together like a jungle. Curious, I grabbed the paper. It was folded tight, but it was new. This was a new note that one of the engineers had to have left. Nobody else was allowed here. My heart raced at the excitement of what could be written inside. Slowly I pulled apart the delicate folds of the paper unraveling the secrets it held inside. 

     When I got it open there was only an ominous message written inside in what looked like quickly written down chicken scratch. "Escape as soon as you can, you are not safe Emmeline. -M" The note fell to the floor between my knees as soon as I read it. Who was M? And why did they single my name out. Surely it had to be one of the engineers messing with me. This would be a step farther than just leaving out two screws but not unheard of. But what if it hadn't been one of the engineers? What if this was a threat of some kind? 

    I stuffed the note into my pocket and tried to forget about it and just focus on my work. As soon as I got the panel screwed on as best I could I practically ran back to the swing, tugged hard on the chains and whistled twice. I was ready to be out of this dingy place. The familiar deep whistle sounded again and I started my journey back to my civilization.