Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne Read Free Book Online Page B

panels, built into the wall. One controlled the solar harvest system on the roof. The function lights were steady green, which confirmed what we already knew: We had power.
    One was about the gates. A flashing override message read, “Remote Trigger—Riot Gates.” And one had to do with water pressure. That seemed fine.
    And there was the one we needed: AC.
    We all scanned the panel.
    It was all numbers and zones. Percentages and lots of icons that were impossible to decipher. One looked like a lightning bolt. Another looked like an upside-down smiley face. One looked like someone mooning you, I’m not kidding. It was a totally indecipherable.
    “Oh man,” Alex said anxiously.
    Brayden started pressing elements on the flat screen randomly.
    “Don’t—” Alex started, but Brayden cut him off.
    “One of these buttons will turn it off!”
    “But you can’t just press them all like that,” Niko objected. “You could just be—”
    As if on cue, the AC picked up intensity, blasting us with cold air.
    “Making it worse.”
    Brayden threw up his hands.
    “We’re going to have to find the unit and shut it off manually,” Niko said. “That’s the fastest way.”
    “It’s probably on the roof,” Alex said.
    We all looked at him blankly for a moment.
    “I’ll go,” Niko said.
    “Me, too,” Alex added.
    I couldn’t let my little brother go and not go myself.
    “Me, too,” I said.
    “I’ll be right back,” Jake said. “Wait!” He ran off into the store for something.
    “How do we get on the roof?” Alex asked.
    “Up there,” Niko said, pointing.
    A perforated metal staircase ran up a wall and led to a hatch in the ceiling.
    The hatch was open and yellowish sky shone through.
    “What the—?” I stammered.
    “Sahalia,” Niko answered. “She must have found the hatch.”
    I was about halfway up the stairs when Jake came bounding toward me.
    “Here,” he said, handing me three industrial-strength air masks. He’d gotten them from the Home Improvement Department.
    “Thanks,” I said and looped their straps over my shoulder.
    “I guess you better get some for you guys,” I suggested. “Just in case.”
    Jake raised an eyebrow at me giving him a direction, no matter how gently put.
    “Already on it, man,” he said.
    *   *   *
    I stepped through the hatch, up onto the roof.
    How can I describe what I saw?
    First off, the roof was covered in hail and the surface had huge pits in places.
    More importantly, there was Sahalia. She was sitting on the ledge of the roof, looking out at the sky. She had a box next to her. A home safety fire-escape ladder. It was still unopened.
    Sahalia was staring straight ahead.
    Niko and Alex were standing behind her, staring in the same direction.
    I stopped in my tracks and the masks slipped from my fingers when I saw what they were seeing.
    In the distance, near the mountains, a thick streak of pitch-black rose up, twisting like a ribbon through the air. It went up in a line, up until it reached cloud level, and then it gradually expanded out, shaped like a funnel.
    It looked like a stream of ink being poured up, pooling in the sky.
    Cold water from the hail was seeping into my sneakers and wetting the bottoms of my pant legs. I didn’t care.
    The black cloud was growing and growing, this ball of nighttime spreading out over the horizon.
    “What is it?” Alex murmured.
    “Ask Brayden,” Niko answered.
    Sahalia murmured, “They made something evil over at NORAD.”
    The ink cloud was now as big in the sky as the mountain range behind it. It looked like an inverted mountain, tethered to the ground by its long black plume.
    “AC units,” Niko said. “Now.”
    Brave Hunter Man had spoken.
    We scrambled to obey.
    *   *   *
    The units were easy to find. They stood right in the middle of the roof. Four giant, van-size boxes. They had slits in the sides to let in the clean air and then metal ducts branching out from each machine and connecting