“They defied Leader, started terrorizing the Cotton Cave again?”
“No, Gabe. The men Leader told came after me. I’d made a deal that took food out of their stomachs, and they didn’t like it. Angry, bitter men need somewhere to direct their ill intentions.”
“Let me guess. That somewhere was a someone, and that someone was you.”
“Exactly. I was the one who made the deal, so they blamed their hunger on me. Not Leader, because they knew to try to kill him would mean death for them, one way or another. So, they came after me.”
“I still don’t get why you left. If the men of the Cotton Cave had you on a pedestal, then surely they’d have looked after you, stopped you from being killed?”
“Ah, but they did look after me. Where do you think the rockbowls and the water and the rice came from?”
“And the lighter?”
Soames laughed. “The lighter I took from Leader myself. To show him he didn’t have power over me, that I wasn’t afraid to take something from him.”
Gabe understood the symbolism of that, and he admired it.
“So, people come from the Cotton Cave with food and water and other things to help you, I get that, but I still don’t understand why you left. Wouldn’t they have guarded you like Leader’s men guard him?”
“You ever meet a guy called Adams? Had a missing thumb on his left hand?”
Gabe blinked, the change of subject surprising him. “I know Adams, yes.”
Adams was a squat guy with huge biceps. Only 5’5, he was the most unthreatening man Gabe had met down here, until Bodge. He lived a quarter of the way along the Cotton Cave, and he’d sometimes come to the tunnel at Gabe’s end and help him set traps for rats. To show his appreciation, Gabe would often share with him what he caught.
He’d made his living above ground robbing Metroline machines and selling pre-paid travel tickets for half their face value. That was a big deal to many, because the cost of building the networks for the self-driving, levitating system had to be paid for by someone, and the World Alliance had higher priority things to spend money on, like digging more SUICs. They means-tested anyone with employment, figured out what they could afford to pay for their commute, then doubled it. Sometimes tripled it, for those earning a decent wage.
Cars were, of course, a thing from a bygone era, since fossil fuels were more or less exhausted, and due to the fact the companies designing better batteries for the electric ones had gone bankrupt during the Cascade.
Adams had gotten his thumb blown off by a World Alliance cop during the commission of a crime. He’d managed to evade capture, but hadn’t been able to stop the bleeding, and had turned himself in to a World Alliance Medcenter. They’d already known who they were looking for from the DNA bank by then and, as Metroline fraud had been designated a subhuman crime as a strong deterrent to would-be thieves, he’d found himself two miles down. He’d accepted his fate without complaint, as far as Gabe could tell. He blamed himself, not his jailers.
“Great guy,” Soames said, smiling.
Gabe nodded, returning the grin. “You know how he’s doing?”
“Yes. He’s in the Cemetery.”
“What?” The smile dropped from Gabe’s face.
“He caught two Gang creeping up on my place in the Cotton Cave and tried to stop them. They killed him. Ripped him open with their bare hands.”
“Shit.”
“I knew I had to leave then, to stop that from happening to anyone else. Things are hard enough down here without carrying guilt. Without me in it, the Cotton Cave would be a safer place, and I knew they’d always take care of me.”
“But now you want me to start a war. That’s crazy.”
“Why is it crazy?”
“Because my plan was to stay out of trouble, make it to where Gang has made the most progress, and find a way out of the SUIC.”
“And you think my idea is crazy?” Soames didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “I don’t expect you to do it alone. That’s why I traded you the food and water, in return for you delivering a message.”
“And what if I don’t want to deliver it?”
“Then I guess you won’t. But this is the place your conscience comes in. It’s on you, Gabe, it’s all on you.”
Gabe sighed and looked at Bodge, fidgeting in his uneasy sleep, sweat rolling down his forehead. The confines of the tunnel were beginning to feel claustrophobic. “Why is it all on me? If you want to start a war, start one yourself.”
“It’s not as easy as that. You’re the only man who can get my message to Rosselli. Listen to me, Gabe. You wouldn’t survive ten seconds if you got out of here. They’d pick you off in a heartbeat. But down here, without Gang? Things would be a lot better for everyone.”
“We’d still be living in the dark, eating rats.”
“You could live in the Cotton Cave, or even under the shaft where sunlight gets in. Without Leader, you’d have all the light you wanted. You’d have hundreds of lighters, and you’d have all the rice you could eat.”
Gabe could see the logic in what he was saying. His options were to think of himself, or to think of the other men down here. And Bodge, of course. He glanced across at him.
What about Adams? Shouldn’t he think of Adams too? The hours spent hunting and trapping rats with him had been some of the few good ones he’d had down here. Without Leader, Adams would still be alive. Without Leader, a lot of the men buried in the Cemetery, Gang members included, would still be alive.
“Who’s Rosselli, anyway? What’s so special about him?”
“Lots of things special about Rosselli. He’s the guy who brings stuff to me. He’d walk through a minefield for me. In fact, he’d do the same for you. He helps everyone in the Cotton Cave, no matter who they are or what they did before they got here. This place would be a whole lot better if there were more men like him in it.”
“Why can’t you deliver your message when he brings you stuff? Or go to the Cotton Cave and deliver it yourself?”
“That’s part of the message. Want to hear it?”
Gabe closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, but you’re going to tell me whether I want you to or not.”
Soames nodded, all at once looking somber. “The message is in four parts. First, I want you to tell him I’ve left where I was before. Don’t tell him where I am. I don’t want him, or anyone else, coming to look for me.” He paused. “Because I’m dying.”
“You’re dying?” Gabe thought about how he’d put his hand on the wall, how he’d looked like he was struggling to catch his breath, how he’d pounded his chest.
“Yes, that’s the second part of my message. I don’t have much time. Not such a big deal, happens to all of us, and after spending the last thirty years down here, I’m ready to go.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Soames shrugged. “Cancer, probably. I dropped maybe sixty pounds in the last three months.”
The revelation was a blow. Not because he cared about the guy, but because he couldn’t deny a man his dying wish. He was going to have to go to the Cotton Cave and find Rosselli, or his conscience wouldn’t let him forget.
“Okay, Soames, I’ll deliver your message.”
“I’ve only told you half of it.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Well, the third part is to tell him I said it’s time to fight, time to overthrow Leader. The only way for the Cotton Cave to be safe now is to stop the digging, and the only way to stop the digging is to kill Leader.”
“What’s the fourth part?”
“That, my friend, is the best part. I want you to tell him I buried a gun. It’s near where I used to live in the Cotton Cave, under a square rock on the left side. I carved an S into the rock, so my old place is easy to find.”
“Bullshit you managed to get a gun in here.”
“No, I didn’t. Someone dropped it down the shaft. Maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was a delib
erate act. There are men down here who were gangsters on the outside. There are others who had money and influence. Doesn’t matter why it was dropped into the hole. Just so happened I was right there when it landed. Damn thing almost caved my skull in.”
“Does it fire? After falling so far?”
“I never had a chance to test it, but it’s loaded with six bullets. Tell Rosselli to put them all into Leader, if the thing works. Will you do that for me, Gabe? Will you grant a dying man his last wish?”
He flashed his grin again, not looking at all like a terminally ill man.
“I’ll try to find Rosselli.”
“Thank you.” Soames rested a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, an expression of gratitude on his face. Then he turned and shuffled away along the narrow tunnel, before dropping down and making his way to the hole through which they’d entered.
Gabe listened to him go. He never saw him again.
“BODGE, WAKE UP.” GABE gently touched the sleeping giant’s shoulder. Bodge opened one eye, then the other.
“Has he gone?”
“Yes, he’s gone.”
“He left his light. How come?”
The fire was still burning, down to its last embers. In the fading light, he saw something glinting. Bodge was right, Soames had left his lighter. Something in his gut told him he’d left it behind on purpose. A gift to help them navigate their way to the Cotton Cave and set his plan in motion.
“I guess he thought he didn’t need it.” He retrieved the lighter and returned to Bodge’s side.
“Because he’s dying?”
“I thought you were sleeping?”
“I was faking. I think maybe I had a bad dream with him in once, a long time ago.”
Bodge had likely seen Soames’s image on the giant Subboard, set up in the city above to act as a deterrent to would-be criminals by showing the faces of men who’d been banished underground.
He wondered how long he’d pretended to be sleeping, and how much of the conversation he’d heard.
“I guess you know what he wants us to do, then?”
“No.” Bodge broke eye contact with him, looking like he’d been caught in a lie. It seemed he’d slept through most of the conversation. That meant he didn’t know about the gun, or that Soames wanted him to start a war. Bodge wouldn’t like that. As big and mean-looking as he was, he was as gentle as they came. Fighting wouldn’t come naturally to him.
“We should get moving. Smoke from a fire will get Gang’s attention, and we don’t want to get ourselves backed into a corner, do we?”
Bodge shook his head, still avoiding eye contact, still looking frightened. Gabe felt like a parent with his child. He would have to manage things carefully if he wanted Bodge to go along with him. If he knew the plan, he’d likely freak out and refuse to go, and Gabe didn’t want to have to break his promise to him, or the one he’d made to the dying Soames.
“Are we taking the rockbowls and the rice?”
“Sure we are. The rice was good, wasn’t it?”
Bodge brightened. “Filled me up real good.”
“Maybe made you a little sleepy, huh?” He smiled to show he was joking, to make Bodge feel better about being caught in a lie, and Bodge laughed his deep huh huh huh laugh. He didn’t tell him to keep it down this time. He needed a happy Bodge.
They grabbed their possessions, including those Soames had given them, and put them all in the bag. Then they left, Bodge dropping awkwardly out of the hole and into the darkness below, trying to avoid putting weight on his twisted ankle, not using his swollen wrist to bear weight.
Gabe passed the bag down, lowered himself, then sparked the lighter. They followed the tunnel, Gabe hoping they were headed in the right direction.
SOAMES HAD TOLD GABE he preferred to be in the dark, and Gabe thought he knew why. it was much safer to travel in darkness down here. Now that they had two lighters, he had no excuse to make Bodge walk in darkness, at least until one of them ran out of gas.
Having light brought one major benefit. It meant they could see holes in their path, either manmade or natural. There were plenty of them, too. Some small and deep, others wide yet shallow. In the darkness, they’d walk right into one of those holes. At the very least, that would slow them down due to twisted ankles. At the very worst, they could fall into a deep hole, one from which ten feet of rope would be useless. He was sure there were holes down here where a thousand feet of rope wouldn’t reach the bottom.
The ever-present danger of turning a corner and running into Gang worried him. He was as fearful of the light as Bodge was of the dark. He’d prefer, much like Soames, to douse the flame that danced on the walls like a glowing sunrise. It would slow them down though, and that was as much a problem as any they had.
They heard explosions that, as several hours passed, grew more frequent. At this rate, there would be no need for a war. The bombs were picking them off two by two; there would be few of them left in a matter of days at the rate the explosions were detonating.
Then again, the whole place could cave in. Game over. No war. No escape. No matter about Soames’s gun.
They had to move fast, the damn place was like a maze. He was sure he was seeing the same holes in the ground, the same narrow, partially-dug tunnels neither of them could fit more than a few meters into, the same puddles of undrinkable water.
But water wasn’t the problem. They had water, for now. Going in circles was the problem, and he thought that was what they were doing.
When they’d set out, looking only for a place to shelter, any one of those half-dug tunnels would have been ideal, even though they were too low to stand up in. After two hours of walking, hearing explosions ahead of and above them, Bodge began to wonder, began to ask questions.
“We seen lots of little caves, Gabe. Why aren’t they good to live in?”
“Too small,” Gabe answered, thinking on his feet, deflecting the question.
“That last one was bigger than our cave, the one where I helped you.”
“We need a special kind of cave.”
“Why?” Genuinely curious, hanging on Gabe’s every whispered word, completely trusting him, and he felt like a dirty liar, leading him on despite the dangers he knew were ahead.
“We need to find a place where we have clean water nearby, and somewhere we can catch rats. I haven’t seen either, have you?”
“No,” Bodge said glumly.
“That’s why we have to keep moving.”
“Can’t we even stop just for a little while? My ankle hurts.”
Gabe thought about it. There was no excuse that would sound reasonable when levied against forcing Bodge to walk on an ankle that was obviously very painful. He was limping badly, slowing every minute. He told him they could stop at the next cave they came to. Ten minutes later, they came to one three meters deep and two meters high, and went inside. They sat side by side, their arms touching, the heat making them sweat profusely.
“Here, drink some water.”
They had one and a half bottles left. In a day’s time, they would have none. Bodge took two gulps from the half-full bottle and handed it back. Gabe drained the rest. One bottle left.
“Can we cook up some rice?”
“No, Bodge. Not until we find more water.”
“How about catching some rats? I’m hungry.”
“We can try for rats, but we’ll have to walk in the dark. It’s easier to catch them that way.”
“That’s okay. I can wait. I don’t wanna walk in the dark. Please tell me we don’t have to.” His fear was so great he gripped Gabe’s arm using his bandaged hand, seemingly without registering the pain it must have caused him. And if his wrist was broken, that pain had to be huge.
Bodge leaned on him then. Within a couple of minutes, Gabe felt the tension leave his body. He was sleeping.
Could he take care of him? If a war broke out among Gang, if the Cotton Cave staged an uprising to gain control? He didn’t think he could, not
in those circumstances. There would be catastrophic loss of life in a war like that, he was certain of it, but the alternative was just as bad.
If Gang kept digging up, he was sure everyone would die. Gabe, Bodge, Soames, Rosselli, Leader. Everyone. Continuous explosions would destroy the place.
His plan was risky – it meant they had as much risk of being killed as they did fighting in a war – but wasn’t it better to die trying to get out than fighting in a battle for supremacy between egos? He thought it was. Or suffocating slowly when the earth crumbled around them? His plan was definitely better than that.
And this was his plan: make it to the Cotton Cave and find Rosselli. Tell him three parts of Soames’s four-part message – he’d moved, he was dying, they had to fight for control of the SUIC. The part about the gun? He would keep that to himself, because he wanted that gun for himself.
Once the fighting began, he would find a way to get them up and out of this place – him and Bodge – and he would need the gun to protect them against those guarding the SUIC.
If they died pursuing freedom, so be it. This was no place for innocent men, and that was just what they were.
CHAPTER FOUR
BODGE SLEPT FOR FOUR hours. His heavy head dug into Gabe’s shoulder, meaning he didn’t sleep at all. He heard one distant pop, but it was so far away that the rumble hardly made it to where they were. It had to have been Gang setting off explosives somewhere, but his mind was elsewhere, and he paid little attention to it. The horrors of Bodge’s life weighed heavy on him. Heavier than Bodge himself, but he didn’t push him away or try to wriggle out from under his weight. To go from a life of abuse and misery above ground, to one of fear and uncertainty in the darkness of the SUIC, was almost as great an injustice, in Gabe’s mind, as his own conviction for a murder he didn’t commit.
Eventually Bodge woke, and they drank half the remaining bottle of water between them.
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