“But you just said you never stay.”
“Someone would’ve told me.”
“Why the hell would someone tell you that? For what reason? You were the Extraction Master’s son. As up-city and privileged as they come. For all they knew, you’re just like Mitch. You just do it in private.”
There’s a silence here. A silence filled with Finn’s deep thoughts about himself and how he actually might be more like his friend than he realized. Because he was rough with me. He didn’t hurt me, but it’s not a stretch of the imagination to believe that hecould.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and lets out a sigh. It takes him a moment to look me in the eyes, but when he does, I find sincerity. “I want to know things, Jasina. I want to understand what’s happening to us. I’m tired of the lies and I want the truth. I think it’s up there in that room. And if you want the truth as well, then I would like you to join me so we can find it together.”
I smile. And it’s a big smile. Maybe the biggest smile I’ve ever smiled in my life.
“Is that a yes?” He’s not sure what my smile means.
But I am. “It’s a yes.”
We leave the food for laterand climb the stairs to the fourth floor. The door to the Looking Glass room is closed, but not all the way, so Finn just pushes on it and it swings open to reveal the domed room covered in weird white triangles, that are so shiny, they look to be made of glass.
The triangles are positioned in an interlocking, top-to-bottom way so as to allow them to curve with the ceiling. This is not the first time I’ve seen them, of course, but it’s the first time I have my wits about me and really take a good look.
“What?” Finn asks. “What’s so interesting about the ceiling?”
“They cover the dome.”
“So?”
“So there has to be a purpose for that.”
“Maybe they’re just ceiling tiles?”
“Maybe they can do two things at once?”
He smiles. “But what is their other job?”
“Well.” I blow out a breath and look around the room again. “There is a control room in the Matron Tower like this, but it doesn’t look like this at all. It had glass plates or something that can show images. It also had a desk with a bunch of switches. So I’m thinking that these triangles are a different kind of glass plate and this thing”—I point to the circular desk in the center of the room—“this is where the switches live. My Auntie said that room was outdated but the one in the Extraction Tower wasn’t. This is just a newer version of that old room.”
He looks around, up and down the walls, reflecting on my statement.
I look around too, and this is when I notice that the open door makes a break in the seamless triangle tiles. So I walk over there and push it closed. But it pops back open.
I lean in, trying to see what the problem is. “What’s wrong with the door?”
Finn walks up behind me. “What?”
“It won’t close. Look.”
“Oh. Yeah. We broke it trying to get in. I didn’t have a key.”
I look up at him. “Can you fix it? I think it needs to be closed. Look. There’s a little smooth thing here on the side of the door and it matches this smooth thing here on the doorjamb.”
“Huh. Like they have to match up or something.”
“Yeah. It’s some way to signal that the door is closed and… I’m not sure. Like maybe a connection is made.”
Finn studies the door for a moment, then points. “This plate is bent on the lock. Let me go find a tool and see if I can get it to lie flat.”
He leaves and I go over to the circular desk in the center of the room, then step into the ring and stare down at the black top. Which I now realize, once I take a closer look, is not completely black. There are faint outlines. Circles, and squares, and rectangles.
“Found something.” Finn is back and he starts working on the bent plate on the side of the door.
