"Why?" He narrowed his eyes at me.
"You'll finally be old enough to visit the Body Perfect building. I know they don't work miracles, but there must be something they can do for your face."
Daniel opened his mouth to reply but Artie chose that moment for a not-so-subtle throat clearance and he dropped it.
I stood and flashed Artie a smile which he attempted not to return. But I wasn’t going to complain about a little preferential treatment. Ever since my parents had died, luck had always been against me so I’d take what I could get.
I wandered over to stand by the outer door, readying myself for my first ever sight of the world beyond The Wall as I pushed Daniel and his snobby friends out of my mind. I’d be the one laughing when we graduated and I got a job that earned me an apartment on the upper levels while he stayed firmly on the middle levels for the rest of his life.
The door itself was a circular piece of steel that blocked a hole in the side of The Wall. It was around two meters wide, perfectly smooth and was operated by a keypad and retinal scanner.
I reached out and placed a hand on the smooth, sandy stone of The Wall.
It was cold, even through the material of my glove and a shiver danced along my spine as I ran my fingertips along its surface. I’d never been so close to The Wall before. It was hard to take in.
"So what are you peeing yourself with? Fear or excitement?" Taylor asked in a low voice as he joined me.
"Oh, I didn't actually think about a bathroom break, maybe that would have been a good idea," I said with a smirk.
“Great, now I need to go," he groaned.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Seriously?”
"I'll make it, don't worry," he said, raising his hands placatingly and I laughed. It would be just like him to have to piss himself in his suit because he hadn’t thought to empty his bladder.
A deep vibration started to radiate through The Wall as the vacuum seals around the outer door were released and adrenaline surged through my limbs.
This is it!
Thunk, the door shifted like a plug being pulled from a sink. The thick steel split in the middle and opened smoothly to reveal the cable car landing point beyond. A whoosh of pressure pulled at me as a balance was created between the outer atmosphere and the air within the room.
I could feel my pulse throbbing in my wrist as my heart pounded out of rhythm.
"Please make your way onto the cable car and brace yourselves for motion," the frazzled woman called as she ushered us through.
Taylor and I were nearest to the door and as we walked out onto the platform, I could hardly breathe. We were in a tunnel built of semi-transparent perspex. Above my head was the mechanism for the cable cars and I could see the wire moving along steadily.
At either end of the tunnel were open doorways and long plastic tassels blocked the view outside. But as I watched the entrance to our left, the cable car pushed its way through them. As it got closer, dark grey smoke was blasted over and around it from vents that lined the tunnel wall, momentarily concealing it in a cloud as it was decontaminated.
The smoke disappeared and the cable car pulled level with us on the platform. Droplets of water ran down its surface and the door slid open quietly. I stepped inside with the feeling that I’d just stepped onto another planet. This was without a doubt the most adventurous thing I’d done in my entire life and it felt like waking up. Like I’d been stuck in a dream that just repeated itself day after day and now I was finally about to break the cycle.
The cable car was a large, glass sphere with a silver handrail running all the way around the middle of it. There was nothing else to prove that there was a barrier between us and the outside world so the view was completely uninterrupted. Everyone piled in behind me as it glided along the platform and then we were moving through the tassels at the tunnel's exit.
I walked straight to the far end of the space and gazed out, straining my eyes to take everything in.
I reached out and placed my hand on the glass in front of me as if I could push my way through like I needed to reassure myself that this was real.
Beyond The Wall was a wasteland. A scorched desert of grey-brown dust extending endlessly to the north, west and south. The Wardens went out to burn anything that grew there and sewed salt in the soil to keep it barren. To the east of The Wall, the ocean stretched away beyond the horizon, providing all the water the city could ever need and more.
I’d never had a clear view of the sea before.
It was just so big. I couldn't comprehend it. My eyes darted back and forth as I watched the tips of the cresting waves moving in a constant dance
. The city was perched high above the shore on a row of cliffs and I couldn't even see the point at which water met land.
I turned back towards the west and the endless wasteland. For a second, I thought I saw a glimpse of green but when I looked again there was just more brown dust. My imagination was playing tricks on me. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. That the world outside The Wall could offer us so much more than contamination and fear.
As the ground loomed ever closer, I could see it was pockmarked with the odd interruption of rocks or other immovable pieces of the terrain which didn't hold any life. It was impossible to make out anything with any clarity but I wanted to see it all. I shuffled my feet and flexed my fingers, anxious to get moving and experience it up close for myself.