The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy by Ryan Winfield Read Free Book Online

sure the I’m not moving after all, my stomach bounces and settles again—the elevator has stopped.
    I wait for the door to open. Nothing happens. Maybe it’s stuck? There’s no call button, no floor indicator.
    Hearing a metallic sound, I look up. A ceiling vent slides open and a cloud of gas blasts into the elevator. I drop to the floor and crawl away from the gas, crouching in the corner and managing one last clear breath as the gas covers the floor and covers me. Why are they doing this, I wonder, my breath held, my heart racing. Why? I panic and crawl to the door, pounding against the metal, but nothing gives. Air. Please. Now. I gasp out my expired breath and suck the gas into my lungs ...
    The door slides open and I fall out onto the ground.
    “Sorry about that,” a deep voice says above me, its owner hidden in the cloud of gas billowing from the open elevator. “First time’s never fun.”
    The gas clears and I see his face. Thick dark hair, blue eyes, maybe 30. He reaches out a hand to help me up. I take it and scramble to my feet, coughing to clear my lungs.
    “We do it too, if it helps to hear,” he says. “Disinfect, I mean. Every time we move between levels. Clothes, skin ... lungs, too. Hope I didn’t scare you too bad. Gotta make sure you take a breath. Average man panics his first time—holds it about 55 seconds. Second time they hold it longer. Us pros, we just suck it right in and take our medicine. I’m Dorian.”
    Dorian waves his electronic clipboard, indicating for me to follow, and then he heads off into the Transfer Station.
    It’s a large warehouse with concrete ceilings supported by steel girders, and we weave our way through stacks of metal crates, dodging busy electric lifts carrying supplies.
    Dorian walks through the machines as if anticipating their movement, following a path visible only to him. I stay close on his heels and out of harm’s way. As he walks, he marks things off on his clipboard and talks, half to himself: “Finally, some iron ore. You’d think those damn tunnel rats could dig a little quicker. Don’t see my soybeans yet. Haveta send another ton of damn algaecrisps.” Then he points his clipboard in the air, raising his voice. “You know what that is there, young man? That’s a brand new fuselage for a PZ-51 Ranger drone. I’d give my retirement to see one actually fly.”
    I do recognize the drone body because they’re designed by our engineers on Level 3, but they’re built on Level 4, so it’s amazing to see one in person. Long and black and angled, its wings detached, the Foundation’s interlocking Valknut shield on its nose as it hangs from a crane being loaded on the back of a waiting train ... train?
    “I didn’t know we had a rail system,” I say, surprised.
    Dorian laughs. “No rails, youngster. This sexy beast here slides along on magnetic fields,” he says with a level of pride as if he’d built it himself.
    “Well, where does it go?”
    “Mostly services the deep mines down south. But don’t worry,” he adds, seeing my confused look, “we don’t send fifteens there. Tunnel rats is tunnel rats and they always will be. You see, Levels 2 through 6 are stacked like one big algaecrisp layer cake, but the mines are spread out south. Anyway, today she’s going up, up, up. And so, my young man, are you.”
    Having arrived at the end of the train, he stops beside a steel-walled windowless passenger car.
    “I’m getting on the train?”
    “Unless you want to stay here and load supplies with me.”
    “But isn’t Level 1 above us?” I ask.
    “Above us? And here I thought you scientists down there knew everything. Level 1’s closer to the surface, sure. But it’s north, young man, north. Sweet, sweet north.”
    “I’m going north?”
    “Sure are. And every man in Holocene II would give his left nut to be getting on this train today and going north. Eden, my man. Eden! Of course, in a way, you’re being taunted more than treated.