“Sounds good,” she said and flashed a wry smile. “Now, Alexander, you’re going to make a left-hand turn up here. You can see the fork in the road coming up.”
There was an audible grinding sound behind us as the street door closed and left us completely enveloped in the passageway. Lights blinked on along the edges of the road and guided us along. Alexander took a left, and Harlow directed him a few more turns until we arrived in a large underground cavern.
We were met by a team of Lowers dressed in all white, acolytes of their religion from what I could tell. I understood them to be silent generally and unwilling to interact with Uppers.
Harlow jumped out of the SUV and addressed them. Four of them approached us, and we opened the door for them to assess Luke. They lifted him out of the back seat and began to walk away with him held between them. I jumped out and followed, asking them a million questions that all went unanswered.
If I hadn’t been so worried about Luke, I would have marveled at the secret world beneath our feet. The fractured reality of a culture that was forced underground because of Upper cruelty. There were people everywhere, like the city during the day. They were all Lowers, but none of them were downtrodden or hunched over like they were on the surface.
We were in their territory here, and I noticed how it humbled Alexander and Rome into silence. This was a good experience for them. They were forced to confront their own place in the system that drove me crazy, and felt so unbearably wrong.
“Where are they taking him?” I asked Harlow as she came up beside me.
The four acolytes were disappearing into a side entrance, going somewhere out of sight. I rushed to keep up. I didn’t want Luke out of my sight.
“There’s a medical clinic this way,” Harlow replied. She kept up with me, and Alexander and Rome were just behind.
She was right, of course, and we finally reached an actual clinic. We’d gone past storefronts and small restaurants by that point, but nothing held my attention other than Luke and his battered body. I tried to stand close to him as the acolytes set him on a hospital bed, but they stepped back and blocked my way, shooting me stern looks that told me I wasn’t wanted.
I thought about protesting but decided against it. Being an Upper wasn’t going to get me far down here. If anything, it would hinder the treatment.
A doctor came sweeping through a door at the end of the room, and she stood next to Luke before examining him. She held the same kind of diagnostic machine that Doctor Norris used on me, and I watched as she ran it up and down Luke’s body.
She began to read out his afflictions, a fractured cheekbone, a splintered orbital socket, a chipped tooth, three broken ribs, and a possible lung puncture. Those were just the ones I heard because blood began to flood my head, and my ears exploded into one loud pulsing throb of anguish.
I couldn’t see a way for them to fix him any time soon, and we still needed to get back to the school before anybody noticed we were gone.
“Fuck,” I exclaimed, and Alexander took my hand.
“He’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise.”
“There’s no way they’ll let him suffer,” Rome reassured me.
The doctor heard us talking and looked up. Her eyes traveled along the three of us, and disgust curled her lip.
“Yes, your poor Lower friend will survive another day to serve your needs, Uppers.” she sneered.
She ran the little gadget up and down his body again, and I heard it hum as it began to glow blue.
“That’s not what he is to us,” I protested. “He’s our equal.”
“If he was your equal, I wouldn’t be doing this,” she replied and raised her eyebrow. “If you saw him as one of your own, you would have him in treatment. Like your other friend here, she shouldn’t be made to suffer like this when I can see the effects of Upper medical attention on your body, but you abandon your classmate.”
“I want to help her,” I began to protest, but the look she gave me shut me down. She was right, I wanted to help Harlow, but my hands were tied. Maybe I should have forced it already, dragged her to Doctor Norris’s office, and demanded he give her the same treatment as he gave me.
But I hadn’t, and as much as I wanted to help, I hadn’t done the dirty work of actually making it happen.
Maybe being an Upper was already fucking with my moral compass. Maybe I was already corrupt and too far gone.
“You can help by staying out of my way and keeping your Upper bullshit to yourself,” the doctor replied with a glare. “If you want to donate some of your energy, then we can heal him faster.”
“Donate?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“You don’t know how this works?” she asked, holding up the instrument. “Of course, you don’t. You’re a brainless seat holder.”
“I am not,” I exclaimed and stepped towards her. “I’ll do whatever you need. Hook me up.”
She looked me up and down again and said, “Hold out your arm.”