Edge of Extinction. Laura Martin

      I needed to get away from the compound entrance before someone came to investigate my report. As I got to my feet, I eyed my reflection in the glossy surface of the holoscreen. Sweat dripped down my face, my grey eyes looked a bit wild and my curly red hair had broken free from its ponytail. As I battled to get it back under control, I remembered my dad standing behind me, a look of pure bafflement on his face as he tried to force my hair into some sort of order. At times like that, I think both of us had thought about my mum and how, if she hadn’t died giving birth to me, it probably would have been her teaching me about hairstyles. He’d actually got pretty good at it before he’d disappeared, but I’d never developed the knack. Now I scraped it back into its ponytail. It would have to do. I set out at a jog.

      The floor of the tunnel slanted downwards as I wound my way through the cement maze that made up North Compound. Of the four compounds in the United States, North was the smallest. Sometimes I loved that, but most of the time I didn’t. It meant that I knew everyone in the compound and everyone knew me. Which would be fine, if everyone also didn’t hate me.

      I’d played around with the idea of asking for a voluntary transfer to East Compound or West Compound, but I’d never been able to bring myself to do it. The clues to my dad’s disappearance were here. So here was where I had to stay. I turned a corner and ran past countless doors embedded in the tunnel wall but ignored them. They were empty by now anyway – everyone needed to report to work by seven fifteen sharp if they wanted to avoid a late penalty. That thought had me picking up my pace. Goose bumps broke out on my arms as the temperature dropped the further down into the compound I went, the walls alternating between the smooth concrete of man and the rough rock of nature.

      The North Compound, like the other three compounds, had originally been built as a bunker in case of nuclear decimation or something like that. Almost two hundred years ago, engineers had sat around discussing how to turn an abandoned rock quarry into an underground city where people could survive for months or even years. They had no way of knowing that what they built would protect the human race, not from nuclear fallout but from animals that had been extinct for thousands of years. I wondered if they would have designed things differently if they’d known.

      Five minutes later I was out of the habitation sector and entering the main labyrinth. Here the tunnels bustled with activity as men and women, wearing the same faded grey as myself, hurried off to their various occupations. I weaved my way through the crowd, avoiding eye contact. Five years had taken the edge off most of the residents’ general dislike for me but hadn’t dulled it completely. I did my best to stay off their radar, and in return they didn’t go out of their way to give me dirty looks. It wasn’t a foolproof system, but it worked.

      I made it through the crowd and jogged down the side tunnel towards the school sector and my homeroom. Right before I rounded the last turn, a muffled sob brought me to a halt. Not again. I groaned as I backtracked down the tunnel. Stopping outside the third storage door, I lifted the latch and flicked on the light.

      Shamus was sitting in the corner of the small stone room, wedged between two stacks of broken desks, just like I knew he would be. His big blue eyes blinked up at me, and I sighed. Shamus Clark was five and, like me, a social outcast. His father was the allotment manager, the most hated job in the NC. No one liked to be told that their food ration had been cut. Unfortunately, the other kindergarteners in Shamus’s class had inherited their parents’ prejudices. I knew how that felt all too well.

      “Toby again?” I asked, wiping a tear off his chubby cheek with my thumb.

      Shamus nodded, scrubbing at his snotty nose with his sleeve. “He … he pushed me down, and he took my lunch ticket. I scraped my knee. See!” Tears momentarily forgotten, he proudly showed me a small scrape.

      Lunch tickets were given out to each family as part of their weekly allotment and were the first thing taken away if a job was shirked or done poorly. Knowing your child would go hungry was enough to keep people reporting to work every day. It was a harsh system, but it was fair. Although that could be said about every aspect of compound life. I frowned. No matter how good the system was, it hadn’t prevented Shamus from being bullied. Toby’s parents didn’t seem to care that Toby stole Shamus’s lunch tickets because they failed to provide them for him.

      “You are going to have to start standing up for yourself,” I explained gently, pulling Shamus to his feet and brushing dirt off his uniform. He wiped his eyes and looked unconvinced. “You know he only takes it because he’s hungry, right?” I sighed. “Let’s go. We need to get you to class.” Shamus trudged along beside me, his hot little hand grasping mine, and I felt a flash of guilt. If I’d got eaten this morning, who would have found Shamus in the broom closet?

      I knocked on the door of Schoolroom A, and the kindergarten teacher, Mrs Shapiro, answered looking annoyed. With a wide smile I didn’t really mean, I ushered Shamus into the room.

      “I’m sorry he’s late. It’s completely my fault.”

      Mrs Shapiro huffed in exasperation, slamming the door in my face. Lovely.

      Two minutes later, I slid through my classroom door and to my desk in one seamless motion, keeping my eyes down in the hopes that Professor Lloyd wouldn’t see me if I couldn’t see him. Slipping my port out of my backpack, I laid it on my desk and finally looked up. Luckily, his back was to me as he scrawled out an agenda on the board.

      “Not bad,” quipped a familiar voice at my elbow. I flicked my eyes up to see Shawn Reilly grinning at me from across the aisle. I rolled my eyes and bit back a smile.

      “Shamus,” I mouthed in explanation as I turned on my port. Its screen flashed blue and then green.

      Shawn held up three fingers, wordlessly asking if it was the third time in the last few weeks that I’d had to help out Shamus.

      I shook my head and held up four. He nodded. The PA system hissed and crackled, and we all fell silent as we waited for the day’s announcements.

      “Good morning,” barked the voice of our head marine, First General Ron Kennedy. I wrinkled my nose in dislike. Each compound had ten marines stationed to keep the peace and assist in brief forays topside for things like tunnel reinforcements. They were the Noah’s eyes and ears at each of the compounds, reporting back problems that arose. Of those ten, General Kennedy was my least favourite. “Today is Monday, September 1. Day number 54,351 here in North Compound.” Kennedy went on. “Please rise for the pledge.” As one, the class rose and turned to face the black flag with the Noah’s symbol of a golden boat positioned in the corner of the classroom.

      “We pledge obedience to the cause,” the class chanted in unison, “of the survival of the human race. And we give thanks for our Noah, who saved us from extinction. One people, underground, indivisible, with equality and life for all.” We took our seats.

      “Tunnel repairs are continuing,” General Kennedy’s voice went