Splintered

by Jon McGoran

  They nodded and murmured and smiled at each other, but they still seemed full of doubt.

  Devon looked at me, unsure what to do. Before I could say anything, Claudia came up beside us. “Okay,” she said, her voice booming. “Anybody who wants to stay is welcome to, but for anybody who wants out, our ride will be here any minute. It’s time to go. Now!”

  CHAPTER 53

  The chimeras who weren’t injured or sick or weak carried the dozen or so who were to two of the mine carts. As I tipped the unconscious exoguard into a third, I sensed Devon and Claudia staring at me.

  “I don’t want them to just wake up and walk away from here,” I said. “They need to pay for what they’ve done. And testify against Charlesford or Wells or whoever they were doing it for.” But I also didn’t want to simply leave them there unconscious, to die when their air ran out. We left the dead guard where he lay.

  Devon and Claudia each got behind one of the carts with the chimeras and started pushing, fast. The other chimeras ran along behind them. I got behind the cart with the guard, but before I started running after them, I raised my right hand, extended my fingers, and folded them down, one by one. The suit assumed the start position, the brackets released, and the breathing mask swung up and away from my face. Without stepping out of the legs, I leaned over and reached into the cart, checking the exoguard’s pockets. It was vaguely intimate, reaching into his clothes like that, and repulsive in every way imaginable.

  I checked his breast pocket, then the two front pockets around his hips, where I finally found what I was looking for: his ID card. I slipped it into my own pocket, resumed my position in the exosuit, and pressed my wrist against the plastic panel in the arm.

  I wanted to let out a sigh of relief as the arm cuff slid down onto my hand, but I couldn’t breathe just yet. I wiggled my fingers in the dry gel, then clenched my fist. By the time the suit closed around me once more, and the breathing mask closed onto my face and began pumping air, my lungs were aching and I was fighting off the beginnings of panic.

  I took a deep, grateful breath, and began pushing my cart after the others. I almost caught up with them at the dorm, where they had stopped as several of the stronger miners began pushing the carts with the injured from the dorm. I dragged out the other unconscious exoguard and dumped him into my cart with his comrade. Devon and Claudia looked back as I did. So did some of the chimeras. I couldn’t tell if they approved or not—the nonchimera saving the nonchimeras who had been imprisoning the chimeras. I’d understand if they didn’t.

  Once again I almost caught up, but stopped to collect the exoguard who had been watching Gus and his crew. I tipped him in on top of the other two.

  I finally did catch up just as we were approaching the processing units. The ground shook, and dust and small stones fell from the ceiling.

  “What was that?” I said as I came up behind Claudia and Devon.

  Devon shook his head. “Doesn’t sound good.”

  Even pushing the carts, Devon and Claudia hadn’t been running at close to the suits’ top speed, holding back so that the miners on foot could keep pace. I looked back at them, sweaty and exhausted. But we sped up anyway, urging them faster.

  For all we knew, Kiet and Sly were already waiting for us, sitting ducks in a stolen truck, visible from the road.

  The closer we got to finishing the whole thing, the more I felt that it could all come apart any moment. The ominous rumbling added to that feeling, and as the side tunnel to the processing units came into view, it grew even stronger. Devon and Claudia seemed to be feeling something similar, but probably even more intense.

  There were still people in there, two guards and a half dozen technicians. I didn’t want to leave them behind to escape or die, either, but right now, we had to focus on getting the chimeras to the truck and getting them safely to Centre Hollow. The processing unit was close enough to the entrance that I could come back for them afterward.

  Each of us cast a glance down there as we passed. Debris littered the ground outside the reclamation unit. A steady cloud of smoke was seeping out, creeping along the ceiling and making its way out into the tunnel.

  “What’s that place?” one of the chimeras asked. “I’ve never been up here.”

  No one answered.

  As we hustled past, Devon pulled ahead, outpacing the miners. He looked back and motioned for Claudia and me to catch up with him.

  As we put some distance between us and the rest of the group, he said, “That second unit is coming apart.” He choked back a cough. “If it explodes, it could destabilize the entire mine. Especially if it triggers an explosion in the other unit, as well.”

  The miners were running out of steam, especially as the slope of the floor steepened, but when the curve of the main tunnel finally revealed a pale gray rectangle of light in the distance—the tunnel’s main entrance—they seemed reenergized.

  About halfway between us and the entrance, Gus and the other miners we had encountered earlier were huddled against the wall.

  Beyond them, through the entrance, I could see the black and yellow gate still in place. No truck.

  The ground shook with a loud boom, more violent this time. Looking back, I saw heavier black smoke coming out of the processing units, clinging to the ceiling and blotting out the lights.

  As we approached Gus and the other waiting chimeras, we slowed to a stop.

  “Sure is good to see you folks,” Gus said, as the floor rumbled again. “And there’s definitely a ride coming, right?”

  The other miners looked terrified, caught between the explosions and mayhem on one side, and the world of fresh air that was poisonous to them on the other. Gus might have felt the same way, but he was doing a much better job of hiding it.

  A faint, cool breeze rolled in from the open entrance. The chimeras in Gus’s group inched farther away from it as we all turned to look. A strong wind was blowing snow horizontally, and I hoped that wasn’t going to complicate things. Then the black and yellow gate rose, and a white truck pulled in underneath it.

  “Thank God,” Devon whispered.

  “Okay, everyone,” Claudia called out. “Looks like our ride is here. Once they have the back open and I say go, take a deep breath and run your asses off. You just get yourselves into the back of that truck, don’t worry about how crowded it is, don’t worry about what you’re breathing, just get in there. It might not be pleasant, but we’ll get you away from here and take you to Centre Hollow.”

  The air was thick with a palpable mixture of excitement and fear, hope and anxiety as the miners contemplated freedom, but freedom that could kill them.

  Out in the blowing snow, two figures got out of the truck. One stood by the driver’s-side door, rubbing his hands against the cold, while the second one went around to the back and opened the door.

  “Okay,” Claudia said, “Let’s go!”

  Claudia and Devon and I ran forward, pushing our carts. After a half-second pause, the other chimeras followed.

  Outside, the wind died down for a moment, and I slowed a step, halfway there.

  The chimeras streamed around me as I squinted into the gray light outside. Claudia turned to look back at me.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  She and Devon slowed a step, too, looking back and forth between me and the entrance. Some of the other chimeras paused as well.

  “What is it?” Claudia asked.

  I squinted, trying to make out the details of what I was looking at, trying to be sure.

  “That’s the wrong truck,” I said. I couldn’t see it clearly, but it wasn’t as big as Kiet had described it. And the guy standing by the driver’s-side door wasn’t Kiet or Sly. But he did look familiar, with blond hair shaved on the sides and a matching blond tuft on his chin.

  “Oh, no,” I said, then I shouted, “That’s not them!” I charged forward, pushing my cart through the crowd of chimeras, shouting, “Get back! Everyone, get back!”

  The g
uy outside, the guy who’d been driving the truck the day we first walked past the mine, was crouching and squinting at us through the mine entrance.

  I got out ahead of all the chimeras and turned, with my arms thrown out. “No!” I shouted, stopping so suddenly that my feet slid on the dusty stone floor. “Go back! They work for OmniCare. They work for Wells!”

  CHAPTER 54

  As I stood there for a moment with my arms flung out, watching the entire group—even Claudia and Devon—disappear back down the tunnel, back toward the smoke now billowing out of the reclamation unit, I was more devastated than afraid.

  For a moment it had seemed like we were going to make it. Now everything was falling apart.

  I heard a distant pop, and a bullet bounced off the ceiling over my head, sprinkling me with rocks and dust. I turned and saw the two men outside, both pointing guns in my direction. I heard another pop, and a small stalactite shattered to my left.

  A wave of fury washed over me, not just at the men outside who had cut off our retreat, not just at Charlesford and Wells and whoever else was part of this evil scheme, but at fate for getting us so close to success, and then dashing our hopes.

  But fate wasn’t available for me to rage at. Neither was Charlesford or Wells. The only ones at hand were the two men shooting at me. As I stared at them for a moment longer, feeling my adrenaline surge, I saw another truck swerve onto the access road behind them.

  This time it was the truck from the hospital. This time it was Sly and Kiet.

  Before I knew what I was even doing, I started running, pushing the cart in front of me as fast as I could. With three exoguards in it, the thing must have weighed close to a ton.

  My motion definitely got the men’s undivided attention. They fired once more. The first bullet pinged off one of the exosuited legs sticking up out of the cart. The second passed close enough to my head that I heard it go by.

  My fury was in no way diminished, but my fearlessness was gone. I was scared. I didn’t want to die. But I didn’t want my friends to, either. I hunkered down behind the cart as low as I could.

  A couple of bullets slammed into the cart, and a few more sailed overhead. I hoped the people behind me were out of the line of fire.

  I, obviously, was not. And yet I hadn’t fired my gun. In spite of everything that had happened, everything I’d witnessed, after having forced Devon to act in my place, I still dreaded using it. I’d been pushing that cart so long, I figured pretty soon I’d be close enough to run over them, if I lived that long. But if I was nearly within striking distance with my cart maybe I was close enough to do something else.

  I gave the cart a final shove, and as it rolled away from me—taking my cover with it—I drew my dart gun and straightened up to aim.

  They were less than twenty yards in front of me. One was looking right at me, and I fired two darts at him, pfft, pfft. The other guy was turned, looking behind him, at the other truck. I fired three darts at him, pfft, pfft, pfft. I was running the whole time, but the suit’s stabilizers steadied my aim.

  As the first guy fired back at me, I ducked, so fast and so low I lost my balance and went sprawling across the stone floor of the mine. I heard the gunshot, close and loud, then the crash of the mine cart slamming into something.

  I clawed at the floor to stop myself skidding across the ground, and panicked as I came to a stop right at the mine’s entrance. As I struggled to get to my feet, the exosuit tried to help, guessing what I was trying to do but getting it totally wrong.

  I had already decided that if I hadn’t darted them both, it would be time for bullets. Before they could kill my friends, or me. But if I couldn’t get to my feet, I wouldn’t have the chance to act on that decision.

  As I struggled to get to my feet, my skin crawled with the certainty that any second those two goons would walk up to me and shoot me dead. Then they’d go kill my friends. And they’d go on killing chimeras—abducting them and altering them and imprisoning them underground, working them to death and then dissolving their bodies to extract whatever precious minerals had been absorbed during the brutal last months of their lives.

  I heard footsteps approaching. Terrified, I finally managed to get my toes underneath me, and from there, to get myself upright.

  As I stood up straight, I heard the familiar ting of a dart bouncing off metal, and I saw Kiet lowering his dart gun, looking mortified.

  “Jimi!” he said. “Oh, crap, sorry.”

  Next to him was Sly, grinning wide. He gestured at the two men sprawled unconscious on the snow next to the upended mine cart and the three unconscious exoguards. “Good thing your aim is better than Kiet’s.”

  I lifted my breathing mask and smiled. “Sure is good to see you two.”

  But there wasn’t time for more small talk than that.

  “I’ll go get the others,” I said. As I turned to run back inside, an ominous trickle of black smoke slid out of the top of the entrance and curled up over the rocky lip before dissipating on a gust of wind. Inside, I could see it slithering like a black snake along the ceiling.

  “Okay let’s go!” I shouted. “Take a deep breath, then run!”

  This time there was no hesitation. The chimeras in the tunnel surged forward, streaming toward the trucks outside.

  I slid my breathing mask over my face and watched as Devon and Claudia followed with their carts of injured miners from the dorm. The first ones to reach Sly and Kiet’s truck were coughing already, and I swallowed against the lump of fear and guilt growing inside me. I had known all along that this was going to be uncomfortable and dangerous for them.

  Grabbing an empty mine cart, I ran back inside.

  I slowed to a stop next to the guard we had left in the tunnel, the one whose exosuit Claudia had disabled. Steadying the cart with one hand, I tipped him into it with the other. He went in upside down, so he was resting on his head with his huge metal feet sticking up into the air. I didn’t bother straightening him out.

  The cart almost tipped over as I turned down the side corridor toward the processing units. The smoke sliding across the ceiling was thicker and lower and darker. I was glad I had a breathing mask.

  I left the cart in the corridor and ran into the reclamation unit, trying not to look around me, trying not to look at the bodies in the cart, on the conveyor. I grabbed the guard we had left on the floor, the one I had kicked in the leg. His knee was oozing blood, and it flopped as I dropped him into the cart. Then I went next door. As I was piling unconscious technicians into the cart, the reclamation unit let out another loud rumble, followed by a clang of falling pipes. When I got back out into the corridor, it was rapidly filling with smoke.

  I grabbed the cart and pushed it back into the main tunnel. Rounding the corner, I almost plowed into Claudia.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled at me. “We need to get out of here!”

  “Here,” I said, pushing the cart forward until she put her hands on the edge of it. “More witnesses.” Behind me, the processing unit rattled and rumbled again. I was already stepping away from her, back down the tunnel. “I need you to get them out of here.”

  “What? Wait, where are you going now?” she called out across the growing distance between us.

  The ground shook hard enough that I stumbled as I turned back to yell, “I’m going to get Rex!”

  CHAPTER 55

  The ground shook violently as I ran. Chunks of ceiling came down around me, clanging off the exosuit and littering the ground in front of me. Devon’s words about how unstable the mines were came back to me, and while the suit itself handled the uneven terrain just fine, I was terrified that one misstep would leave me stuck on my back as the entire mine came down around me. Behind me, all I could see was black smoke, filling the tunnel, erasing the ceiling lights as it came my way.

  I ran as fast as I could, worrying the whole time about all the people on their way to Centre Hollow, telling myself they would be okay because the peopl
e taking care of them, Claudia and Sly and Kiet and Devon were all brave and smart and competent and better equipped to do what needed to be done for the miners than I was.

  The smoke disappeared behind the curve of the tunnel as I sprinted away from it, but another explosion rumbled behind me. As I dodged more falling debris, I observed with dread that a crack had opened in the ceiling, several inches wide. Now, Claudia’s words came back to me about how the coal columns left by the original miners to hold up the ceiling had been liquefied and pumped out.

  A minute later I passed the dorm, then the inactive branches of the mine. Then I was back in the main chamber. I slowed to a stop in front of the elevators and slipped my arm out of its cuff and into the pocket on my coveralls to retrieve the ID card I had taken from the exoguard. I swiped the card through the slot and pressed UP, the only button on the panel, then slipped my arm back into the relative safety of the exosuit.

  Then I waited, heart pounding, looking around at the cavern, at the open entrance to the NE1 mine shaft, at the main tunnel that now seemed to be in real danger of collapsing. As far as I knew, there was no one else in the entire mine complex. No one else alive, anyway. I felt isolated and utterly alone, just me and—increasingly as the seconds ticked by—a swarm of doubts and fears.

  Suddenly I heard a voice, surreally calm, absolutely unfazed by the chaos. It said, “Air supply, ten minutes. Please change canister.”

  It took a moment to register that it was the exosuit’s automated warning system. I cursed the voice and the news it delivered, but the worst of what I said was drowned out by a thunderous boom that echoed down the main tunnel, shaking rocks and dust loose from the ceiling of the main chamber. I looked up in time to see a massive stalactite, at least thirty feet over my head splinter and come away from the ceiling.