“Depends on whose side you were on,” said Liam.
Paul didn’t know what Masada was, but he liked neither the shaking nor the hippies’ tone.
The doors slid open. Another tremor traveled through the car and the tunnel beyond. Several hippie soldiers ran by as Liam led the way out.
They hurried down the hall, Nicolette taking them through multiple steel-doored checkpoints with palm scanners. Within minutes, they entered a cathedral-sized control room carved out of the bedrock. Teams of hippie soldiers manned consoles facing a bank of screens that displayed views of the base’s hallways and the ground above.
Three soldiers—two men and a woman—watched a bank of monitors offering a range of exterior views. All showed Ravager helicopters, trucks, and ground troops moving through the woods and converging on a set of massive doors set into a hillside.
Another impact from above made its way down to the room.
“Heavyweights at the gates, more at the silo lids,” the woman said. “They’re hitting the farther reaches with bunker busters. We’ll hold for a while, but they’ll be inside sooner or later if they’re serious about it.”
“How many?” D.W. said.
“Too many. More than usual—a lot more.”
D.W. watched the Ravagers stream across the fields. He turned to Paul, then Porter. “The rumors got here ahead of you,” he told the Envoy. “And the Nightlights. It all adds up to something. But what?”
“Unknown,” Porter said. “We’re on the road to find out.”
Another explosion. A nearby console buzzed with the hit.
D.W. came to a decision. “The railroad.”
Nicolette gave him a look.
“You have a better idea?” he said.
She didn’t. Nor did her friends.
“Nobody’s been down there for two years,” Liam said. “It’s charged?”
“The systems would let us know if it weren’t,” said D.W.
It was clear that Nicolette didn’t agree with the call. She eyed Liam for support.
“I’ll take them,” he said.
Paul hoped it wasn’t significant that Liam wouldn’t look at Nicolette when he spoke. Or that she, in turn, wouldn’t face them.
They ran down corridors, passing hippie soldiers headed the opposite way. Porter’s breathing came hard, but each bomb that hit above only spurred them to go faster.
Liam stopped to load a small bag with homemade nutrition bars, bottles of water, and other provisions. They rushed through several dim meeting rooms and a gym, then down another long hallway.
Paul weighed the situation on the run. The hippies were in a hardened complex built to withstand a full-on assault. Yet they assumed their defenses would be breached. That spoke to the respect they had for the Ravager forces—and to how badly Brill wanted to find him.
As D.W. said, it all added up to something. How would Paul handle whatever that was?
They hurried through a staging room the size of an aircraft hangar. Table after table held plants that resembled those seen on every anti-drug poster made since the 1950s. Grow lamps lit them from above, and irrigation tubes hung from the ceiling.
Rain shot Liam a questioning glance.
“Hemp,” he said as he stopped them at a hatch in the floor. He jammed a key into a heavy padlock holding a series of interlocking bars in place. It took a little jiggling—and a lot of language that would have earned him hours in the New Beginnings cool-off room—before the lock opened. The bar mechanism, rusted into place, required a number of boot-heel stomps before following suit.
The hatch groaned as Liam hauled it up. Clumps of accumulated muck dropped from its edges as he locked it into its open position. A set of steel steps—half staircase, half ladder—led down into black.
The murder was personal. Truitt saw everything through the eyes of the Shade in movie-sized images on Mr. Brill’s monitors, as if he were the life-taker. Surprisingly, the effect was not without its pleasure.
The security system that controlled the missile complex’s elevator was no challenge for the monster. Because Mr. Brill’s access to the Essence of The Commons itself was so far-reaching, little in the realm could refuse his will. It was only a matter of him taking an interest and judging the cost and effort to be worth the return.
Finding the boy was certainly that.
The elevator doors parted, revealing a long-haired young woman in military garb running past. The Shade caught her and fed, the girl’s cries such that the monitors’ audio cut in and out as the system tried to compensate for the rise in pitch and volume.
The view tilted up to take in three armed soldiers rushing toward the scene of the attack. They hoped to rescue the girl, but wouldn’t even be able to save themselves.
The Shade met them halfway. Mr. Brill gave a shuddering sigh.
The butchery complete, the dark beast continued down the hall, toward the sound of shouts and footsteps. Truitt found himself excited by how many there were.
Then he remembered his place.
The lower tunnel was lit by a string of bare bulbs, though it was charitable to call it lighting in any meaningful sense. Liam led the group toward an older, smaller hatch. Atop it, water dripping from the rock ceiling had built itself a small stalagmite.
The vibration of another strike made its way down to them. The bulbs swung; the drips became dribbles.
This hatch wasn’t locked. Paul considered asking Liam why they didn’t worry about anyone coming up from below or errant hippies wandering down without permission. But he was going to find out regardless.
Liam pulled at a ring on the hatch, straining against a seal of water and gunk. He lifted it, and the ladder that was revealed in the dim light was gummy, damp, and old—a relic of the U.S.-Soviet arms race visited most frequently by flood and worms.
“I’d love to tell you it’s not as bad as it looks,” Liam said. “It’s worse.”
He grabbed three heavy-duty flashlights from the bag and handed them out. “There’s an open-air train down there. It’s ancient, but it works.”
Porter, Ken, and Rain each took a light. Rain aimed hers down the ladder. The hatchway swallowed the beam, refusing to surrender its secrets to anyone who wouldn’t give themselves over to it.
“The engine’s a simple set-up,” Liam said. “Right hand, gas. Left hand, brake. The battery’s charged by a solar array up top. The tunnel ends under a complex that was never finished—miles from here. You with me?”
They nodded, accompanied by the buzz of another explosion.
“There are reasons we don’t use this train. A lot of them. So move. They will hear you coming, but this is their hibernation season, and they’ll be slow to wake up. Go full-out. Do not stop. Do not get off until the end. And do not think for one second that I am exaggerating.” He scanned their faces to ensure the last part sunk in. “We wouldn’t do this if there were any other way. Keep going, and you’ll be clear before they get to you.”
Liam looked at each of them again to ensure they understood the gravity of what he was saying. He stopped at Rain. “One more thing. I was going to be diplomatic, but there’s no time.”
Something huge hit up top, prompting heavier dribbling.
“We need to know we gave you an option, tough as it is,” Liam told her. “The Ravagers want Paul, not you or the mythicals. It’s Porter’s job to take the crazy train. When Paul leaves, my guess is the Ravagers will break off, especially with the reception we’re going to give them. It’ll be too expensive for Brill to stick it out.”
Another big hit. Water flowed freely.
“As a bona fide, you’re a target for Brill out there. Your odds are better with us,” Liam said. “Will you stay?”
A whump up above lent sound and feeling to the bomb Liam had dropped.
Rain was speechless.
“I’m sorry,” Liam told Porter. “It’s what we do. We have to ask.”
“I understand,” Porter said, watching Rain.
“It’s your choice,” Liam said to her. “If Paul’s caught, so are you. We all want him to reach Journey’s End. If he does—when he does—where can you go, assuming Brill knows your part in this?”
Rain looked to Porter, then Paul.
It was a knee in Paul’s gut. The next bomb hit closer. He tried to prepare himself.
Boom.
“You decide,” Rain said to Paul.
“What?”
“I’ll come with you, or I’ll stay here. What do you want?”
Her. More than anything he’d ever wanted. “Rain, I can’t—“
Boom.
“I need to get up there,” Liam said.
“Do you want me with you?” she asked as if he needed time to think it over. He already knew. He’d known since they met.
“Yes.”
Boom.
“All right, then,” Liam said. “Off we go. Remember. Right hand go, left hand stop.”
Ken and Po hit the ladder and hurried down. Porter moved to the hatch next, stopping to shake Liam’s hand.
“We’d planned a nicer trip for you,” Liam said.
“I never intended to put you at risk,” the Envoy replied. “We’ve done good business together, my friend.”
“And will again. Good luck to you.”
Porter started down.
Boom.
Rain took Liam’s hand, one gun-toting pro to another. “Thanks for the offer.”
“It stands as long as this place does.”
She descended, leaving Liam and Paul.
“Oh, hey,” Liam said.
Paul wasn’t sure how to feel about him now. He wanted to believe Liam’s offer to Rain was official, not personal. He wanted to.
The hippie soldier handed his bag to Paul. “Breakfast. Again, it was supposed to be hot. And better.”
“It’s fine,” Paul said. He hoped that would prove to be true.
Boom.
Harder now. Louder.
Paul went down the ladder, and Liam shut the hatch above him.
The others waited in the train tunnel below. The space was earthen, dark, and wet, and it didn’t feel right. The cold moisture was one reason. The dankness and its odor of threat—the inside of a casket would smell like that—was another.
A string of free-hanging bulbs, many of them burned out, disappeared into the clammy distance. They provided a bit of light, revealing nothing more comforting ahead.
On the tracks sat a rusty, scum-layered mini-train with, as Liam had said, an open-air engine and cars. A filth-encrusted headlight on the engine did little to supplement the poor illumination provided by the bulbs.
Po was already at the controls, his robe smeared with the mud and grime that covered the train’s every surface. Porter sat next to him.
Ken helped Paul off the ladder, which was missing its last few rungs.
Bumph.
The explosion, somewhat more muffled than those they’d heard on the next level up, dropped more mud onto the train. And them.
Somewhere nearby, a hard fall of water began. Paul followed Ken and Rain into the car behind the engine.
“Let’s move before this thing becomes our tomb,” Porter said.
Po squeezed the train’s throttle. It responded with a loud bang. He tried again, prompting the same reply. The monk exchanged a look with Porter and massaged the handle.
Ba-bumph. The bombs were either getting bigger or penetrating more deeply.
Another squeeze. A slightly more subdued bang. One more try ended in a series of clicks and, finally, a hum from the engine.
The monk grabbed the filthy brake lever.
It didn’t budge.
Ba-ba-bumph!
Mud and water rained down. A volleyball-sized rock followed. It just missed crushing Porter’s skull and bounced off the hood of the engine, denting the steel and obliterating the headlight in a tinkle of glass.
Mr. Brill twitched like a sleeping dog’s leg as Truitt watched the monitors.
The Shade rushed past tables filled with small plants, the screen’s perspective rising and dipping with the monster’s off-kilter gait.
At the edge of the screen, a hippie soldier ran along an adjacent row of tables, headed back the other way. The man didn’t spot the Shade in the dim light, and Mr. Brill couldn’t be bothered with him now.
The monster reached out and ran its arm through the plants. They curled and died as it took their Essence, robbing them of their tiny lives.
With the boost, the Shade made faster progress.
Ken climbed up into the engine and shoved Po and Porter over. Grabbing the rust-seized brake, he put his sizable shoulders into it.
The handle snapped off.
Ba-ba-bumph.
It was as if the Ravager bombs and the broken brake were establishing a dialogue.
Cold water gushed from the ceiling, soaking them all.
The Shade pulled a heavy floor hatch open as easily as it might have picked up a gum wrapper. It didn’t bother with the ladder, instead dropping through the square opening to the wet floor below.
Mr. Brill made sniffing sounds as the Shade did the same on the screens. Spotting another hatch, they snorted with satisfaction. The beast cleared the distance to it with one leap.
Porter, Ken, and Po studied the stump of the brake lever like it might have a suggestion of its own to offer.
Rain unholstered her shotgun and laid it across her lap.
Paul wished he had something to do, too.
“Hit the gas,” Porter told Po.
The monk gave the throttle a full squeeze again. The engine hummed and whined as it fought the brakes, which gave no ground.
“Everyone hang on,” Porter said over the motor’s protests.
Ken sized the situation up and leapt back into the car with Paul and Rain.
Porter tapped the brake stump with his staff. The lurch that followed as the brake stump fell to its lowest possible position would have given Paul and Rain a mean case of whiplash had Ken not braced their heads with his immense arm.
The train took off like a dragster, tearing free of the wires charging its battery.
Paul looked back to see the full length of cars emerge from the black space behind them. He counted eight before he faced forward again. It seemed like a better idea to watch where they were going, as if he could oversee and affect their progress.
The engine gathered speed. He couldn’t see anything ahead.
They were running blind.
The Shade landed in a dark tunnel.
A pair of taillights sped away from it. A railway.
The beast leapt after the lights, grabbing for the train’s last car. It fell short, slipped in mud and went face-first into the muck and wooden ties of the track bed.
Mr. Brill had missed his train. Truitt kept that joke to himself.
Ba-ba-ba-bumph! The loudest explosion yet rocked the monitor’s view from side to side with rim-shot timing.
The Shade righted itself as darkness descended from above, shrouding the screen completely.
Mr. Brill grunted again.
Truitt wondered if that had hurt.
Paul turned to check the rear of the train again as the ceiling collapsed behind them. The lights back there went out, and the tunnel vanished.
“Drive carefully,” Porter told Po. The monk continued to squeeze the throttle hard. “No brakes.”
Po stared into the darkness rushing at them.
None of them could see where they were going, and they were going at full speed.
The monk eased up on the throttle.
The train didn’t slow.
He let go altogether.
They continued at their nose-bleed pace.
Po looked to Porter for guidance. He received only a shrug in reply.
They hurtled toward their destination in the dripping blackness with no notion of how they would stop when they got there.
29
I Was a Soldier, Too
Annie had never actually seen any of the numerous guns aimed at her in her dangerous years. She’d heard bullets whine by, watched slugs send hard-packed earth flying. She’d been targeted by those too far away or too well concealed to spot. But she’d never once stared down a barrel pointed her way.
It wasn’t a streak she’d wanted to end.
With passwords and security between the embedded Americans and the Iraqis less than perfect, several friends on transition teams had related the joy of the experience. Her MiTTs friend Borman told of M4s and type fifty-sixes pointed at his head for long minutes while he and the men he was advising convinced each other that they all were who they said they were.
One thing he’d had right: it didn’t matter where you laid your eyes; all you saw was the hole at the gun’s bad end. And the longer you looked, the bigger it got.
Annie’s phone vibrated. She ignored it. If she was about to get her face shot off, she’d do so undistracted.
The next notification came with a mild electric shock—a reminder that no matter how much the phone she held resembled hers at home, it was not that phone. Here, the phone you thought you understood could electrocute you before the dead soldier had a chance to blow you away.
She chanced a glance at the screen. “READ THIS NOW,” said the subject line of the newly arrived text. “NOW.”
Annie opened the message. “Go to the app store and install QRBoy,” it said. “He pulls the trigger in sixty seconds.”
She mistyped the name of the app twice before finding it.
In a college physics course, she’d learned about Einstein’s concept of time dilation, which holds that a clock at the top of a tower runs faster than the same clock at the bottom because the latter clock is closer to the mass of the earth. Similarly, one minute with a gun on you will seem like hours. Unless you’ll be shot in the head if you muff the task at hand, in which case time passes at a brisk clip.
She lost ten seconds when the phone demanded her password before allowing a new app to be installed—and a few more while she struggled to remember it.
The Journeyman Page 17