“It could be poisoned.”
Soames laughed, then abruptly cut himself off. “Please, don’t make jokes. I doubt either of us want Gang to know we’re here. The water isn’t poisoned, but it’s up to you. You can choose not to drink it. You could choose to cut my throat with that weapon of yours, but as you can see, I have no weapon. I have nothing with which to defend myself.” He turned and held his hands out at his sides, then walked back to where Gabe stood.
“I’m not a killer,” Gabe said, and Soames raised his eyebrows in response.
“I have some things I’ll share with you. My way of proving to you that I’m not trying to hurt you. May I?” He reached toward the dark cavity.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Gabe glanced over his shoulder and took a step back, gripping the rockknife tightly enough to make his fingers ache.
As he watched Soames’s hands disappear into the hole in the wall, he thought about Bodge. If this man was duping him, if he caught him off guard and killed him, Bodge would think he’d deserted him, broken his promise to take care of him. The thought of that was almost worse than the thought of dying at the hands of Soames.
When those hands reappeared, he was holding a bowl, carved from rock, and a bag of rice.
“That’s...”
“Real food, yes, and it’s yours if you can get over how you feel about me. What do you say?”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch.”
Gabe didn’t speak.
“Well, okay, there is kind of a catch.” For the first time, Soames sounded almost nervous. “Why don’t we boil up some rice, how does that sound? I’ll tell you what I need you to do for me while we eat.”
“I, um, I can’t.”
“Why not? You’re too proud to sit down and eat with someone like me, is that it? We’re all subhumans down here. You’re no better than anyone else.”
Gabe wanted the food, wanted it badly, but he couldn’t sit here eating while Bodge was alone, starving, wondering why his friend had abandoned him.
Could he trust Soames? He was starting to think maybe he could, as crazy as it seemed. Like the man said, he’d followed him for an hour, he could easily have attacked him if he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t, and Gabe came to a decision.
“I have a friend. I can’t eat with you, knowing he’s starving where I left him. If you share your food with us both, I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
Soames looked up, tapping at his lip with a long fingernail. “Do you have a place where fire can’t be seen?”
“Yes. You have to climb into a hole in the ceiling to get to where my friend is hiding. It’s safe.”
Soames nodded, holding out the bowl and the rice. “Take these. You know how to find that place in the dark?”
“I think so.” Gabe stepped forward, just far enough to reach for the items. Overstretching, he dropped the lighter and the rockknife to the ground. Before he had a chance to bend and retrieve them, he heard a flick, and light was restored in the intersection between the two tunnels.
He looked from the lighter Soames held to the one at his feet, and thought about him asking if they had a place fire couldn’t be seen. Initially, when he’d said he preferred darkness, he’d presumed it to be because he was so used to it, thinking light must hurt his eyes after so long down here in the dark. But no, he was afraid of Gang, just the same as Gabe and Bodge. That was the reason he’d asked him to kill the flame.
The realization was a leveler. He lost his fear of Soames completely and, when he bent and retrieved the lighter, Soames didn’t move. Only after he’d straightened again, tucked the rockknife into his waistband next to the empty water bottle, and slipped the lighter into a pocket, did Soames step forward and hand over the rice and the bowl.
Then he reached back into the hole and retrieved a second, larger bowl, also shaped from rock. He held the lighter between his teeth as he did so, and Gabe caught a faint whiff of burning whiskers.
“Here, let me hold that.”
Soames placed the bowl at his feet. “There’s only one more thing I need.” He held out the lighter. “Hold it close so I can see what I’m doing.”
Gabe stepped close and took the lighter, then watched Soames thrust his arm into the hole again. The bag he brought out was made from a cotton shirt with the sleeves tied together and the neck crudely stitched.
Soames grabbed the smaller bowl, set it inside the larger one, then dropped the water inside it. He stuck his hand into the cavity one final time, and when he brought it out again, he was holding three more water bottles. All of them were filled to the brim.
“BODGE?” GABE WHISPERED into the darkness.
For twenty seconds, there was nothing, and he began to wonder if his mind-map had let him down.
He lit the lighter, stood on his tiptoes, and shined light into the hole above his head. There, he saw Bodge, fast asleep. A wave of relief washed over him.
“Hey,” he hissed.
Bodge opened his eyes, yawned, and smiled widely.
“Hi, Gabe. You been out catching rats? I’m hungry.”
“I got something better than rats. Jump down here, will you?”
He backed up, hustling Soames back to make room for Bodge in the narrow space.
“I can’t. I’m scared to drop on my foot.”
With the stress of running into Soames, he’d forgotten about the injuries Bodge had sustained when they’d jumped from the ledge. Now, he felt guilty, wondering how long Bodge would have stayed up there if he hadn’t returned. Maybe long enough to die of thirst.
“Okay, Bodge. Drop down the rope. You can pull me up.”
The rope dropped from above, and he grabbed it, gripping with both hands.
“Pull,” he said, jumping simultaneously, and feeling the hands that had done so many brutal things under him, propelling him up and into the hole.
Bodge pulled him inside and hugged him. “What you got that’s better than rats?”
“I got a person.”
He looked disappointed. “You got a person? We can’t eat a person, Gabe.”
“I don’t mean for food. Come on, help me pull him up.”
“Okay.” Bodge moved along the tunnel, and Gabe reached down and took the bag from Soames. He placed it in front of Bodge, then called to Soames. “You got hold of the rope?”
“Sure do.”
“Okay. Three, two, one, jump!”
Between them, they pulled Soames up easily. Once they were all safely inside, Gabe fired up the lighter and they made their way along the tunnel and up into the second chamber. He took his rockknife from his waistband, carved a hole into the wall, and set a fire going using cotton torn from their rope. He’d wanted to save the rope in case of emergencies, in case one of them needed rescuing from a hole, but they’d already used up a quarter of it.
“Bodge, meet Soames,” Gabe said, studying Bodge’s expression to see if he knew who the man was. It seemed he didn’t. To Bodge, who’d only been born fifteen years after Soames was banished to the SUIC, this was just another guy.
“Hi,” Bodge said nervously.
“Hello, Bodge. That’s a great name.” The playful tone in Soames’s voice told Gabe he saw that Bodge was different from most down here. He didn’t speak to him like he was a human or a subhuman, he spoke to him like he was a child.
“You think so?”
“I sure do, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Soames held out a hand, and Bodge’s face lit up in a big smile. He slapped him five.
“We don’t need to be scared of Crossmen if there’s three of us, do we?”
“We always need to fear Gang,” Soames said, his voice slightly sterner.
“Soames is right. We need to keep our voices down; we don’t want Crossmen sneaking up on us.”
Bodge shook his head. “What’s in the bag?”
“Why don’t you take a look.” Soames gestured toward the bag with an open hand, his long, skinny finge
rs wiggling slightly, making Bodge look even more excited to find out what was inside.
He pulled the bag open and stuck his head in. “I can’t see.”
“Take the stuff out of the bag.”
“Oh yeah, okay.” Bodge smiled, then took each item out of the bag and laid them down in front of him. He looked bemused.
“What’s up?” Soames asked.
“There ain’t much here, and my grandma says I’m still growing, so I need lots of food. You should’ve got some rats, too.”
Gabe and Soames exchanged smiles, and in that moment, Gabe felt like he saw past his reputation. There was something unguarded about the man labeled the Executioner by the world so far above.
Soames spoke. “It’s rice, Bodge. We heat water in this rockbowl, then put in the rice, and when it cooks, it grows into lots more food. There’s a whole heap of food in that little bag you’re holding.”
“Really?” Bodge eyed the rice like it was magic beans.
“There’s probably enough there to keep us going for a week.”
“Really, Gabe?”
“Really, Bodge.”
Somewhere in the distance, a muffled pop sounded, and they turned their heads in its direction. A few seconds later, the ground rumbled.
“That might be the end of Thirty-Nine and Forty,” Gabe said, and Soames nodded thoughtfully.
“Two of the dumbest men Leader ever branded.”
“You know those guys?” Bodge asked.
“Well, why don’t we cook up some rice. We can talk after we eat. Sound good, Bodge?”
“Yeah, I’m hungry.”
Soames eyed the four bottles of water between them. “Bet you’re thirsty, too. You and Gabe can drink one of those, we’ll still have plenty left for cooking with.”
Bodge drank half a bottle before handing it off to Gabe and hiccupping.
Soames directed Gabe to add more cotton to the fire. Surprisingly, it burned strongly. The downside to that was the clearing became increasingly unbearable. Gabe wafted at the white smoke that filled the place, trying to cool himself and clear the smoke simultaneously, as Soames added water to one of the rockbowls, and they watched as it slowly heated over the fire. When it was as close to boiling as it was going to get, he added rice, and they were silent as it cooked.
When most of the water had boiled away, Soames asked Gabe to tear off another piece of cotton, so he could handle the bowl without burning himself, and placed it down in front of Bodge. He began the process a second time as Bodge ate greedily, scooping the rice up and cramming it into his mouth, despite Gabe cautioning him to slow down.
As the second batch of rice cooked, Soames watched it silently, Bodge hiccupped intermittently, and Gabe wondered how he could afford to give away such valuable resources.
Soames finally handed him a bowl of rice, and he ate slowly, savoring its texture. When finally he finished his meal, Soames began to talk.
SOAMES INTERLACED HIS long, slim fingers and quickly flexed them, causing several knuckles to pop. “I take it you know what that rumble was earlier?”
Gabe nodded. Bodge remained silent. The food in his belly was making him drowsy, but each time his head began to drop, a hiccup brought him out of his slumber.
Soames continued. “The more times that happens, the more danger everyone is in. You know, this place wasn’t so bad in the early days. There were only around thirty of us in the first year. You know the Cotton Cave, of course.”
“Yes,” Gabe answered, recalling his time there. The cramped, squalid conditions, the constant threat from Gang, the bit of blessed daylight that found its way in from the shaft.
“We dug that out of the wall down there.”
The statement brought Gabe back from his memories. “You did?”
Soames nodded. “Took us four years.”
“That’s some achievement,” Gabe said. “That place was hell when I was there.”
“It wasn’t always like it was when you were there, but then, there wasn’t always Gang.”
Gabe tried to imagine what the SUIC must have been like without Leader and his followers. Dark and hot, yes, but it was fear that made his time there unbearable, not the squalid conditions. It wouldn’t be heaven without Gang, but it wouldn’t be quite so hellish.
Soames crossed his legs. “Leader was just like you and me when he got here. Just scratching out survival, one day at a time. Except he was brainwashing people as he went, little by little. By the time there were a hundred people in the Cotton Cave, he’d convinced twenty of them to dig him his own compound. That gave him power and a reputation, so he could impose his will, start taking things from people, gathering more followers, having those who challenged him killed. Once something like that gathers momentum, it becomes a hard thing to stop.”
“Yeah, I know it.” Gabe turned to look at Bodge. He’d drifted off to sleep, his chin resting on his broad chest.
“I stopped it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was there when you arrived, Gabe. You walked right past me, and I never saw you again until today.”
“But what do you mean, you stopped it? All the time I was there, the place was awful.”
“Indeed, it was.”
“So how, and when, did it change?”
“It changed on the day I spared Leader’s life.”
“Yeah, right. No one ever gets near him. Even when he comes out of his compound, for the brandings, he always has his strongest men guarding him. Do you seriously expect me to believe you got past his guards?”
“They weren’t guarding under his compound.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed questioningly.
“I dug my way in. I dug right under that little weed’s security. Took hold of him by his neck and told him to make a deal or die. The deal was this: you can take people’s lights and their water bottles, you can look like you’re the boss down here, the man with all the power. But when people make their home in the Cotton Cave, you will leave them alone. They will be safe there, from you and your thugs. I told him half the rice that was lowered in belonged to the men in the Cotton Cave, no negotiation, and I told him Gang ended with those who were already in, that he couldn’t have any new recruits. He didn’t like it, of course. Said he had two new men ready for branding the following day. I told him he could brand them, but that he was never to heat that little cross he wore around his neck again after those two.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s not what he said, it’s what he did. He pissed himself, and when he did that, I laughed. I asked him how someone who called himself a leader pissed himself at the first sign of danger. He knew who I was, everyone did, of course, and he was terrified of me. But it was that puddle of piss that clinched it. He told me he’d meet my demands, for as long as I kept that puddle a secret.”
“And now it’s not a secret.”
“Can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s blowing this place up. He’s blowing up our home. It’s not much of a home, granted, but it’s the only one many good men have. I don’t know why he’s doing it. Maybe to get back at me, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that, with each passing day, the risk of major collapse grows.”
“What can we do about it?”
“We can take back control. I should never have let him keep his power. I should have killed him.”
Gabe shook his head. “There are too many of them.”
“At least thirty have already been killed. He had eighty or ninety men, so that means he’s down to sixty, at best, and more will die every day. It can be done.”
“You want to start a war?”
Soames shook his head from side to side emphatically.
“Then what?”
“I want you to start a war.”
GABE SAID NOTHING FOR the next five minutes. When he finally spoke, he asked a question.
“Why did you leave the Cotton Cave?”
Soames
shook his head, took a deep breath, pushed his hair behind his ears, and leaned closer to Gabe.
“After I got into his compound, he had the men who were supposed to be guarding him killed. He needed a reason to do that, and an explanation as to why he’d decided, suddenly, to stop terrorizing the Cotton Cave, why he suddenly wanted to share the food. He told those closest to him, the men tasked with killing his former guards, that the guards had been asleep on the job. He said nothing about my threat to him, or the puddle of piss, of course.”
“But you’d never have got in a second time. I’m guessing he placed guards inside, to stop that happening again?”
“I’d have found a way in if I wanted to, believe me, but the point is we made a deal, and he honored his side of it. His men still got the bottles and the light from the new arrivals, but they stayed out of the Cotton Cave, for the most part, and they shared the food. Things got a lot better for the men in the Cotton Cave.”
“You still didn’t tell me why you left.”
“I’ll get to it.” Soames leaned back and took a couple of deep breaths.
A distant rumble made Gabe wonder how much time they had. The whole place could fall in at any moment. If the front half of the SUIC crumbled, it would cut off the oxygen flowing in from the shaft. The cooling holes dug down through the earth didn’t deliver enough oxygen to keep them alive for long; they’d suffocate on the carbon dioxide they were exhaling. Nobody was coming to rescue them.
“People in the Cotton Cave found out I was the one who brokered the deal with Leader, the one who made sure they didn’t starve, and they made me a kind of honorary leader. They changed their opinion of me, from a man to fear to a man on a pedestal. Truth be told, I was embarrassed. I was used to being a pariah, even down here among killers and rapists and pedophiles. If people in the Cotton Cave didn’t have to worry about Gang, they’d be happier. Things would get better if they had access to food. In turn, I thought that would mean my life would be easier. It was good for a while, but nothing ever lasts. Certainly, good things don’t last down here.”
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