MisPrints

•Chapter 12•

We had a plan.

It wasn't the most thought out plan in the world, but it was something. We didn't have much to go on, but we used what we knew. It's all we could do, after all.

I couldn't let them take away another of my friends, after all Kat.... She's the only one left.

The next morning, Kat still wasn't back in her cavity. Somewhere in the back of my head, a part of me was hoping that she's just be there and just tell me that they let her off because it was a mistake.

But no.

Her cavity was empty. Of course it was.

The girls in my canton were whispering and talking amongst each other about it, imagining reasons where she had gone, WHY she had gone.

Some thought that maybe she had the 'virus', others said that she'd escaped, which I guess was partially true.

Pri glared at me all morning announcing that I "probably had something to do with it of course" and then went on to state that she would never miss that 'glitch' anyway.

It took everything I had not to slap that pretty little grin off her face.

But no, I can't get in trouble today.

Our overseer came in as usual, to register us and take us to the dining hall. She was a short, smart looking woman, but I have to admit she was almost friendly compared to some of the others.

We lined up in front of the lifts, and I made sure that I was standing next to her. I saw Zak not too far away, in his own line, and we shared a knowing look.

A man came along and hustled us into the lift, the young overseer woman as well. She stood next to me, watching the other girls around her tapping her pen against the lift's hand rail.

As expected, one of the younger girls got sick almost immediately, as the lift rose unimaginably quickly upwards. The overseer pushed her way over to the girl to try and help.

As usual someone pressed the pause button and the lift stopped and hovered in mid air, suspended on the lift rails, whilst the overseer tried to assure the ill girl, who was now crying.

The other Misprints just watched what was happening, a bored expression on their faces. This happens all the time, they're used to it.

However they weren't used to what happened next.

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Last night, before we went back to our cantons, Zak went to look at the lifts. The plan was to get into the lifts and go down. Down to the floors below, where Kat had inevitably been taken.

It's the only place that no one has ever been. No one knows what's below the ground floor, no one has ever been down there, and returned back up again to tell the tale.

"She must be there." Zak explained, "there is no other room above the surface where they could take her!"

I nodded at him uncertainly, "but how do we get.... down there?"

"We use the lifts obviously." Zak rolls his eyes.

"But you can use them! You said specifically that you can't get into them!"

He shrugs and begins to walk away in the direction of the central room, where the lifts and offices are.

"Why do you do that!" I groan, irritatedly, "can't you just TELL ME what you're doing for once!?"

Zak carried on walking. "...apparently not."

Just as Zak had said, it was impossible for him to open the lifts. They needed an entrance card, and that's the kind of thing that you can't change the codes of apparently.