Down Deep

Chapter Thirty One - Zdana

She could see Grant sitting beside Grady on a bench watching. He did not look as excited as the crowd around him. The man's strange mismatched eyes were full of worry. She could not blame him of course. Not only were they able to dig deeper into the Capital's secrets with the new terminal, they were learning the true horrors the ten council members were capable of. The few things they thought they had known had been tame compared to the atrocities discovered. Experiments on their own people, murder, hundreds of innocent people sent to the mines only to increase production and even the slaughter of an entire outpost that had dared to break off and become independent of the Capital. The list of crimes was horrible, but what really had them worried was the backlash of releasing the video of Mores. The council had been outraged, but not for the content of the video. They were angry that someone had not only been able to hack a councilmen's privet terminal, but they had done it leaving no trace as to how.

Now a team of hackers working for the council, were searching for them in full force. It took both her and Grant working all night to reinforce all of their safety nets and shields to keep them from finding Gateway.

'This is the elimination round for the endurance trials.' Xavier called drawing her attention back to the games. The endurance trials only had fifty at most competing. She knew more than half would not pass this first part. Xavier and four other judges moved between the five lines of people making sure they were all a good distance apart. 'Good.' Xavier called looking the group over. 'You will all be expected to do a handstand and maintain it for twenty minutes. Go!' She moved easily into a handstand.

After the attack on her, her legs had been weak, but her arms had always been strong. It was only the pain in her back that limited her. Now without that restriction, she could feel herself growing stronger every day and had worked to push her own limits.

The people of Gateway were not helping at all in her efforts. Zdana was getting sick and tired of them trying to do things for her, or telling her that she cannot do something. She loved them all, but it was time that they understood and accepted that she was no longer that nine year old girl they saw ripped apart.

When she won the archery contest and guaranteed her place in the hammering, she had planned to back out of the other games she had signed up for. This would open a spot for someone else to join in. What changed her mind was more than one tarren approaching her as she trained and tried to talk her out of competing.

'Time!' Xavier called. Zdana eased herself to her feet felling a little light headed as the blood rushed from her head. She saw of the fifty, twelve had managed to pass the round. As she moved through some standard stretches, she watched as the judges brought out stools and buckets with some weights in them. They were each told to take a stool and sit down. As soon as everyone had a seat, they were given orders to hold their arms out to the sides and lift their legs holding them out straight. The judges moved around quickly placing a bucket in each of their hands and they were made to hold them. After half the group was eliminated for dropping their buckets, or feet, the judges made things harder. Using rope, they hung a bucket around their feet. Every minute that passed, they added a small weight to each of the buckets.

Zdana hardly noticed them moving around the competition. She distracted herself from the burning in her arms and legs by going over all of the information they had found yesterday. There was a second council vault containing concealed records stored on the Citynet server. All of it was locked with a near impossible encryptions that took her and Grant working together to crack. Someone had copied everything from the vault in Gateway into the system. The only exceptions were the blueprints of Gateway, how to run it, and a few notes from the founders. With the council's hackers hunting them, she and Grant had to be careful how they went through the files. It would take them months to sort it out.