by Drew Cordell
“Caeldra, Jake, you need to turn off your Artemis links right now and get back here. We’ll be waiting outside the trash pit. If you keep your links on, whatever that is will be able to track you, even in offline mode. If it’s not James, then we don’t know how it has access to the radio frequency. We’re working on jamming it,” the voice from Command said.
We did as we were told, and my sense of comfort and safety depreciated further.
“I know you’re hurt, but we need to move as fast as possible,” Caeldra said as we started back through the tunnel toward the trash pit.
“It’s almost an hour walk without an injured leg. You need to go without me. I’ll make it back,” I said, not trying to be a hero, but to keep Caeldra alive and Mindshift safe.
She dismissed the comment. “We have a better chance of survival together, even if you only have one good leg. The bleeding has stopped, and your vitals are stable.”
I nodded grimly, and we continued to trudge forward. My blood froze when we heard the same manic laughter echo through the tunnels.
“Oh, I will kill you both. Carlson was quite easy to kill,” the voice crooned. Shadows danced on the edges of the tunnel as the lights began to flicker.
I was overcome with a grave sense of peril as the lights grew dimmer and cast wicked shadows on the walls, distorting our ability to see down the tunnel, even with our shoulder lights.
“I’m waiting just around the corner,” the voice whispered from nowhere.
“Just keep moving and shoot anything that moves who isn’t me,” Caeldra said as she continued to grip the C-15 with grim determination. “We’ll get out of this together.”
She jumped around the corner and raised her weapon, preparing to fire. There was nothing there. I scanned over the tunnel behind us, looking for any signs of an enemy, but there was nothing. The numbing sense of fear had stiffened my whole body; it was as if a great weight had been placed on me. I saw something move behind us, just the faintest sign of dancing shadows and felt a shift in the air against my skin. It was subtle, but the temperature was increasing. I was suddenly reminded of the steam vents that covered the streets and sidewalks of the Slums. It felt just like the warning surge the vents gave off before spewing steam. There was a series of sharp popping sounds followed by a dull thud.
“Let’s turn up the heat,” the voice said. I saw movement in the distance again, and it was getting closer. The large pipe lining the wall to our left was starting to bend in strange shapes, groaning in protest. The fastening bolts of the pipe were blasting off and slamming into the walls.
“We need to run now!” I yelled as I fought against my injured leg, jumping in great bounds with my good leg. I moved as fast as I could while bracing myself against the wall and leaning on Caeldra. We needed to find a way to escape the time-bomb pipe that would kill us when the metal finally ripped.
We turned a corner and saw a barred vent on the ground. Caeldra dropped to her knees and began to pry at the corroded metal bars. She yelled a complex string of obscenities and began to fire the C-15 at the edges of the vent. Brilliant purple flashes and sparks erupted from the metal as it began to tear and glow orange from the sudden burst of energy. With no time to spare, she shoved the butt of the weapon through the holes in the vent and pried it open. Moving with brisk efficiency, she wrapped a cable around the vent lid in several locations and attached it to her rappelling device on her harness. Still cursing, she attached another hook to my harness, and we dropped down the vent, descending at a rapid speed into the unknown depths. Caeldra didn’t have access to Artemis at the moment, which not only meant she did not know where we were going, but we also didn’t know if there would be a jutting rod of rebar sticking out of the wall which would skewer us on the way down.
There was a horrible popping sound above and I felt the air shift. A huge cloud of steam was forcing itself down after us, following our rapid descent. We were encased by bright light from our flashlights and the darkness both above and below us. A weak blast of pressure hit us from above and dissipated as harmless slivers of metal rained down from above, deflecting off the thick leather we wore. This vent was much narrower than one of the main vents—it was only a few feet across and warm, damp air started pressing up from somewhere in the depths of the Undercity. The weight of the two of us had pulled the barred lid back over the vent, but our cabling was the only thing keeping us safe. If whatever was hunting us found and cut our cable, we would fall to a horrible death through the darkness.
“Shit. We’re almost out of cable,” Caeldra said. “Look for anything we can fasten another line to,” she told me as we slowed down.
The walls were made of smooth concrete and we hadn’t seen another tunnel entrance anywhere since we started to lower down the dark hole.
“I don’t see anything,” I said, trying to scan below us. “If we turn on Artemis, maybe we can find a way out of—”
She interrupted me. “If we turn on Artemis, that thing is going to know where we are and will cut our lifeline.” She sounded grim. “The truth is we can’t do anything but wait or try to climb back up and take our chances.”
“The truth,” a voice said from above us, echoing through the vent, “the truth is you’re already dead.”
As soon as we heard the words we were falling, the cable that had held us only moments ago flailing down after us.
24 TOXIN
∆∆∆
We hit a moving body of water, and the current instantly pulled us under the surface. I closed my eyes, not wanting to get any potential contaminants in them if the water was bad. My backpack and wounded leg made it a struggle to surface, but when I did, I couldn’t see Caeldra or her flashlight in the dark green waters that pulled me helplessly along. My mask began to fill with water as the strip of cloth lining the bridge of my nose soaked through. Coughing and choking, I yanked the mask off and pulled it around the back of my neck, breathing in the questionable air. I saw a flash of light below the surface and realized it must be Caeldra. I reached down to my harness and grabbed the attached line, pulling it up with all of my strength as I struggled to keep myself afloat. I pulled her up and held her in front of me, my arms wrapped under hers. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not, but I had to assume her mask was keeping the water out. A moment later, her head moved, and she let out a muffled scream; the force of the impact had made her lose consciousness. She took in her surroundings as we continued to float downstream and turned around to see my mask-less face.
“Jake, your mask!” she tried to yell, but it came out little more than a squeak.
“It flooded,” I responded as I continued to look for a way out of this river. For all I knew, this would dump us right in the toxic Atlantic Ocean.
We were in an enormous open tunnel which was roughly twenty feet across. The ceiling was maybe thirty feet high and towered over us. There was no hope of being able to reach it or throwing up a cable to attempt to grasp any of the strange-looking loops of either rope or something else entirely. The hanging loops were coated in thick, green algae or some sort of slime, the same color as the dark water. Lights jutted from the walls in even intervals, but they did a poor job of lighting the tunnel. I guessed that once it was built, it wasn’t really intended for human use anymore.
There was a sudden drop as we were thrown over the edge of a hidden waterfall and pushed back under the dark water. This time, we both emerged gasping for air. Without the mask, I had taken some of the water into my nose and mouth as I wasn’t prepared for the drop. I did my best to spit it out and clear it from my body. We continued downstream for some time, the flow eventually slowing until we were able to swim in any direction without much resistance. Had it not been for the swimming lessons my father had insisted I take as a child, there would have been no hope of me surviving such an encounter, and we still weren’t out of danger just yet. I had to assume my body was already poisoned from the water and I needed immediate medical attention. I desperately hoped th
e bandage on my leg was keeping the water out of my bloodstream. The thought of toxic sludge coursing through my veins was terrifying, but it was a very real possibility at this point. I supposed we had been lucky to survive at all, and even more fortunate there was something to break the fall. As of right now, we were both living and out of immediate danger from the terrible thing hunting us.
Three lights in a fixed pattern shone about fifty feet in the distance. There was a white light, a blue light, and a purple light sweeping across the surface of the water. We couldn’t tell if whoever or whatever it was had seen us yet, but Caeldra and I both raised our weapons.
“Will these even fire still?” I asked with uncertainty as we continued to float with the slow current.
“It’s a closed system. You could shoot it underwater, but I’m not sure how much good that would do,” she whispered.
“Ooohhh, shiny!” a voice in front of us cried as something sparkled in the tri-colored light when lifted by a metal pole. The man looked like he was standing on some sort of boat—if it could be called that at all. As we neared it, I saw large orange barrels tied to the sides which appeared to be keeping it afloat. Various nets and metal hooks hung from the edges of the boat and a strange-looking lamp illuminated the cavern as it hung from an extended rod above the dark waters. Whatever he was doing, it didn’t look to be dangerous.
“Hey!” Caeldra called out to him.
The man jumped back before peering out and shining the strange flashlight around trying to spot us. He shone the light on us and jumped back farther.
“Don’t shoot! I’m no threat!” the man cried in an exasperated voice. “What in the blasted heavens are you doing in the river?”
“It wasn’t by choice,” Caeldra said as she kept the weapon trained on the man.
“You’ll find no enemy in me. Come closer, and I’ll pull you up,” he said as he turned off the flashlight and set it down in the boat.
Cautiously, I kept my weapon trained as he pulled Caeldra onto the raft. A few seconds later, Caeldra kept her gun raised as I was lifted onto the solid metal platform inside of the boat. Caeldra removed her mask.
The man was dressed in an odd fashion. He wore a cloth jacket underneath an orange rubber outer suit, which looked suitable for keeping out toxins or radiation. A necklace with strange trinkets hanging from a metallic wire hung around his neck. He wasn’t particularly tall or short, heavy or thin, but he did look a bit older, perhaps in his fifties. His graying hair was unruly beneath a rubber coated beanie, and he flashed us a strange smile as he saw everything we had in our backpacks.
“I tell you what, the river always provides. I’m not sure where you found all of your treasure, but I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a map there!” He grinned.
“We don’t have any treasure. Look, something was hunting us and we fell down a drainage vent into the river. Do you know how we can get back into the Undercity tunnels?” Caeldra asked.
“Of course I do! But why would anyone want to travel through tunnels? They’re such droll inventions,” he said, trailing off with something a little more than a whisper.
“We need to get back to our friends,” Caeldra said carefully. “Can you please help us, mister …?” She paused, waiting for him to offer his name.
“Jasper. Jasper Rivers,” he said with a gap-toothed smile.
“Well, Mr. Rivers, we’d appreciate the help greatly and might even be able to offer you a reward for your troubles.”
His eyes lit up at this, and he rubbed his hands together as if excited to eat a meal. “Certainly, certainly. But I need to finish the day’s salvaging, you see. I’m behind schedule I’m afraid,” he responded as he grabbed the strange looking flashlight once again. He reached down and lifted something that looked like some kind of grenade launcher from below a blue tarp. Caeldra had her weapon raised in an instant. Jasper’s crude-looking weapon or device looked to be cobbled together from many different pieces and contained a large metal flap on the front of the barrel.
“It’s no weapon, miss,” he said quickly as he began to raise it in a slow, unthreatening way, his hand off the grip and trigger. He pulled down a latch and detached the rectangular ammo box that held small metal spheres. Continuing his slow motion, he pulled out one of the spheres and pressed a button on top. A moment later, the canister split open and thick sprawls of black net began to emerge. “It’s a net gun!” he said with a big smile. “Made it myself! The river always provides,” he said.
Caeldra lowered her weapon. “How much longer will you be scavenging?” she asked impatiently.
The man lifted his wrist and pulled back the rubber sleeve to reveal some kind of watch which contained only blinking LED lights of various colors. “Oh, two or three,” he replied with a smile as he worked to reset the metal net sphere he had opened in his demonstration.
“Two or three what, Mr. Rivers?” Caeldra asked, impatience all too evident now.
“Maybe four if you keep asking!” Jasper shouted as he fumbled and dropped the open sphere.
I put my hand on Caeldra’s shoulder to calm her down as soon as I saw her stiffen. The simple fact remained that this man, however strange, had rescued us from a state of disaster and had, at least marginally, improved our chances of survival.
“Mr. Rivers, I fell into the river without a mask on and got some of the water in my nose and mouth. Will I be okay? Am I infected?” I asked.
“I don’t know why anyone would do that, but the algae filters out the radiation. Marvelous stuff algae is,” he said with a grin.
“So I’m in no immediate danger?”
“I’d say not my new friend!” he responded with enthusiasm. “Do me a favor and scan the waters,” he said as he handed me the strange three-colored flashlight. Jasper made sweeping gestures, and I mimicked the motion.
“Well, you’ve got to turn it on! You people sure are strange, taking a swim in the river, and now not knowing how to operate a flashlight. A strange people indeed,” he said as if reassuring himself of the validity of his statement.
I switched on the light and began to move it over the water. Surprisingly, the light seemed to penetrate the green haze, and I could see the bottom of the river—it was probably ten feet deep. Unsure of what to look for, I combed the surface and searched for anything that wasn’t water. A few moments later I saw what looked to be a section of plastic pipe drifting through the water about five feet down.
“Umm, Jasper? There seems to be some kind of pipe here,” I said as I motioned for him to come over. He grabbed the long metal pole and peered to where I was pointing.
“Ahhh, good find, sir. Pipe is a welcome sight always. The river provides,” he said as he fished out the small tube with the hook rod.
“What is the net launcher for?” I asked.
“For the eels, of course. You think I could catch them with something like this metal rod?” he asked, a smile forming on his face.
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond and had no idea what an eel was, so I just kept shining the light around. Caeldra took the opportunity to take inventory of our remaining gear and check the condition of things. It was great to relax on the side of the boat. Caeldra and I had both stripped down to our undergarments to let our clothes dry. If we would enter any colder regions, we’d need to have clothes that could keep us warm. My bandage seemed to be intact, but the painkillers were fading. Not knowing how long we’d be down here, I didn’t want to exhaust our supply of medicine unless I absolutely needed it.
We fished out several pieces of scrap and Jasper seemed equally excited for them all, despite their simplicity and low value. As I passed the light along the water again, I saw something long and slender whisk by. Jasper spotted it too and pulled back the round breach slide on the top of the sphere launcher with a loud click. He waved frantically for me to give him the light and he attached it to a small mount on the side of the launcher. Standing on the side of the boat, he scanned the waters with fierce concentra
tion. A thin smile formed on his face, and he pulled the trigger. There was metallic slapping sound as a sphere launched from the crude-looking contraption. It didn’t travel at a fast velocity, but the sphere split into the net before it hit the water. Seconds later, a squirming creature was pulled from the green water, struggling against the net which held it captive. Jasper opened a large cooler and placed the entire net inside of it.
“There’s my dinner! Now, we can either stay and scavenge longer and hopefully catch some dinner for the two of you, or I can take you back to the Undercity tunnels.”
“We’ve still got some rations,” I said politely, speaking before Caeldra could, in case she was still angry at the strange man.
“All right, suit yourselves. We’ve got a few days’ journey, and it’s going to cost you,” he said, setting his jaw stubbornly.
Caeldra grumbled something that could have been a complaint, then rummaged through her backpack. She pulled out an old-looking pump-action shotgun and checked to make sure it was devoid of ammo. “I assume that this will do?” she asked.
Jasper eyed the weapon and motioned for her to hand it to him. He turned the gun in his hands and inspected the overall condition. He looked up at Caeldra as if about to ask a question.
“You’ll get the ammo after we’ve safely arrived,” she said.
“Splendid. The river always provides, and I do believe we have an accord,” Jasper said.
Caeldra turned to me after he started the small motor on the side of the boat which began to propel us forward at a steady speed.
“Watch for exits on the way and keep your gun handy. If he’s planning on betraying us, we may not know until it’s too late if we let our guard down. If the journey does take more than one day, we will sleep in shifts,” she told me, her voice low and quiet.
“I’ve introduced myself to you, perhaps I could be permitted to know your names. I like to know those I transport on my vessel,” Jasper said with a friendly grin.