I pound again on the window, trying to weaken the spot.
Still nothing, but I think I see a slight webbing. The blade’s cracked the window, barely.
Hoping the third time really is the charm, I go full force. I hurtle myself and the knife into the window.
It works.
The glass cracks, breaks into pebbles. They float toward my face. I shield myself and shimmy through the side window, avoiding the fragments jutting from the frame.
Out in the open channel, my body feels weightless, drifting.
Next to me, my Rimbo slams into a building, loosening some of the bricks. Debris barrages down, a slow-motion shower of stone and concrete pieces. I can’t avoid them all. All I can do is dodge them, one by one. Dog-paddle. Push myself backward. Then, somewhere along my forehead, sharpness and fire are all I feel.
A bloom of red appears before my eyes.
A square shape bashes into my shoulder. Eyelids grow heavy; I can’t make myself want to stay awake. The swirling underwater city fades into jagged shapes and shades of brown. Navy, too. It’s as if the sky is somehow underwater, and I’m sinking into a galaxy of black.
Air hunger forces my eyes open. My body heaves, convulses. I ignore the need to open my mouth. How long was I out? It don’t matter. Instinct overrides thought. My body knows what to do, even if exhaustion has made my brain useless.
I swim. Up.
Can’t get there fast enough. Arms grow heavier. I can barely feel my legs, though my Hessians are still on, I think. Thank goodness.
Then I can’t help it—I open my mouth. Water rushes in, salty and cold. So cold, it makes my teeth ache. It trickles down my throat, knifing my lungs. I gag, I push myself up.
It feels like hours since I came to. Years since I went under. Years till I reach the surface.
Aven. The race. The money. My Rimbo. All of it pulls me back to myself like the riptide of a tsunami. I need to get out of the water.
Each stroke tears at my muscles. Something as light as water has never felt heavier to anyone, anywhere. It’s lead. My body is lead. It’s like lead pushing lead, and I can’t even be sure I’m moving.
Am I moving?
Then, a slow shift in darkness. From the black of a raisin to the black of sun-bleached asphalt.
I believe it only when my hands shoot out of the frigid water. Next, my elbows. Then forehead. My nose. My mouth, choking and retching, is last.
Hard and fast, I suck the sharp air into my lungs. It stings. Heady with relief, I close my eyes. My body is so tired, though, it forgets to tread water. Again, I go under. Stupid. I push myself up, once, twice. Swim.
I’m numb to the cold now, but my brain knows enough to tell my arms to paddle and my legs to kick. Once more, I force my head above the surface.
Beside me, the brick siding of a wall, and not too far off, an escape ladder.
I swim—flail, more like it—through the dank canal, inching my way closer to the ladder. When I reach it, I throw myself out of the water, trying to catch the bottom rung so that I can pull it down. I catch it in my grip, and the ladder collapses down. Chips of white paint and rust flake off.
Ignoring the ladder’s shake, I pull myself up. Never did like those chin-ups they made me do during DI training, but now I’m grateful. A few rungs later and I’m level with a huge window, cracked open wide and covered with algae. It tinges the sharp edges with green, makes them look smooth.
Finally, I’m close enough to the windowsill that I can swing myself half in the building, half out of it. Glass crunches under my fingers. I can hear it, the only reason why it registers on my radar, not because I can feel anything. Well, there’s one perk to being nearly paralyzed from cold, I guess. Shards rip the leather at my thigh—skin too, possibly, though I can’t feel it.
Both feet touch ground at last. I collapse onto the floor, grasping for flimsy, disoriented threads of thought. My blood pools on a mildewed carpet, and my teeth dance around in my mouth. I clench my jaw to still them. One look at my hands shows me they’re shredded from the windowsill and have turned a delightful shade of blue. I imagine my lips are about the same.
A heavy panting—my heavy panting—brings me to myself. I wipe my face of the brack water and my hand comes back red. Only then do I notice the deep sting of a gash somewhere around my temple. I flex my hands, watching the red squeeze from each cut. I may as well be a robot, nerve free. Don’t feel a thing. On my wrist, my cuffcomm blinks a fluorescent red through a cracked screen. This one is water resistant, but the crack must’ve allowed some in. Still, it’s a reminder that so long as I’ve got a heartbeat, I’ve got a job.
I feel for my video comm, though it wouldn’t do me any good with my cuffcomm not working. It’s gone, anyway. Must have lost it in the crash.
Benny will be able to approximate my location from the GPS in my Rimbo, though, so he’ll send someone for me, I’m sure of it. Which means I don’t have much time. I may have lost the race, but I can still scout for that Justin guy. At that thought, a wave of adrenaline courses through. Makes me forget for a moment how broken I am.
I try to stand but my legs wobble and I lose my balance. Then I feel myself shaking from the bottom up. This irritates me—I’ve got to scout before anyone gets here. But my thermal homeostasis has just been given an icy-cold middle finger, and I need to get warm. That’s step one.
I force my Hessians to carry me around the perimeter. Until I can arrange heat, movement is key. Get the blood pumping. I pass old bulletin boards, whiteboards, and wooden chairs, too, scattered along the floor. Peeling paint and tiny, scampering critters tell me that this place has been deserted since the Wash Out. With each step, the floor creaks. Hope this building doesn’t collapse with me in it—they can go under so easily, and my Rimbo hit the thing real good.
Feeling for my utility belt, I remember the lighter and my flashlight—it turns freshwater neon, but I can still use it. I pull the lighter out of my belt, removing it from some elastic lining that seems waterproof.
Don’t know for sure, as I’ve never needed to look.
To get the lighter started, I roll my finger over the metal. Nothing but sparks. With a few more flicks, I have a flame—a small one, sure, but it will do. My utility belt has already proven handy and I say a secret thanks to Benny for making me wear it all these years. “For your protection,” he’d say, and I’d take the belt and hook it on to humor him. Never thought I’d actually need any of this junk, aside from the flashlight. And even that, well . . . it’s been years since we’ve found a local freshwater spring in these parts. I never expect I’ll need the flashlight.
Now for some dry fabric. I start opening all the doors on this level, hoping that one of them is a closet. When I find one with a few coats, I toss a whole pile of musty, moth-eaten fabric to the ground and light the edges on fire. I’m not worried about the building burning down—everything here is damp from tide fluctuations.
After some blowing, the coats go up in flames. I get as close to the growing fire as I can without burning my jumper off, then step out of my Hessians to let my feet roast.
The blood creeps back to my extremities, and every sensation is magnified. Painfully so. It’s worse than being numb, I realize. I know it won’t last long, that my skin just has to get used to this new and improved, fully functional body temperature, but that don’t make it any easier.
I give myself two minutes, then slide my Hessians back onto my feet—they’re still wet and I’d rather go barefoot, but I’m not stupid. I stamp out what’s left of the glowing, charred coats with my soles.
Grabbing one of the last coats from the closet, I make my way down into the stairwell. If freshwater is going to be anywhere, it’ll be either ground level or under the basement—Blues training, and common sense, taught me that.
It’s dark so I flip on the flashlight, clutching the banister the whole way. I’m in no shape to be doing this; my knees rattle like a madman’s and the cold is creeping under my
skin again, but on the upside, that gash on my temple feels like it’s clotted.
Need to keep moving.
The plan is to first find out if the lower levels are underwater.
I step out into the ninth floor, officially below the water level. The stairwell isn’t flooded, so I’ll make an educated guess and say that the lower floors probably aren’t as well. The ninth floor looks much the same.
But there’s one key difference: the windows. Every single window on this floor has been patched up with bricks and mortar. Why would someone do that? If they wanted to preserve the building, why is this place deserted? And why stop just at the water level?
It don’t make much sense.
Back in the stairwell, I pick up my pace. By now, the race is probably over. Someone should be coming for me.
Level after level, staircase after staircase . . . my head starts to spin and nausea sets in just as I realize I’m going to have to walk back up. I groan out loud—the sound rebounds off the stairwell, a reminder that I’m the only one in here.
For some reason, this makes me nervous. As though smashing my mobile into the canal and busting up my face haven’t already made me nervous . . . But the quiet—a deep, echoing kind—lets me know how alone I really am. How I could pass out here and never come to, and no one would find me. Just some crazy dragster, turning to bone in a rotting stairwell. That’s the kind of realization I don’t need to be reminded of at every turn.
When I finally reach the ground level . . . well, when I reach what was the ground level before the waters rose, I see signs dangling from the ceiling. They’ve got letters and numbers on them, reading “uptown” or “downtown.”
This was a subway—one of those underground trains people used to get around on. The Blues taught me about subways early on, during my scout training.
The tunnels continue a ways in the distance, lines of rusted track laid out for miles. If I strain my ears, I can hear droplets of water sounding off, rhythmic, like a busted faucet in the underground. Seeing as I’m fifteen stories underwater, there’s probably a leak somewhere—I don’t want to get my hopes up.
Still, I glance around, listen for a direction. Though I don’t expect to find anything, at least this way I’ll have something to tell Officer Cory. The building is, after all, in Quad Nine. He never specified where in the quadrant I needed to look.
This flashlight is so genius right now.
I flip it on and head right. Random pools of water—brack or rain, I don’t know—gather under the tracks. The beam turns them bright and I follow the drip-drip-drip-ing way back into the dark.
Every few steps I slow. Stop. Listen—to the droplets and their echo.
I continue walking, then I pause. Wait.
They’re doing more than that. . . . I hear something at the tail end—a final sound, like water trickling into a full-up bucket. The sound of water as it falls into even more water. For a moment my heart does a jig. It could be . . . I think, almost allowing myself to hope.
I inhale, and I let the steady rhythm of its falling lead the way. Like it’s calling to me, speaking.
5
2:00 A.M., SATURDAY
I keep on moving—the sound is so loud, it must be next to me—but the farther I walk, the farther away it gets. Where’d it go? I backtrack until I can hear it again, but there’s nothing in front, and nothing behind.
Next to me, maybe?
I press my ears to the tunnel walls. Sure enough, I find it: the spot where the sound is loudest. But what am I supposed to do, walk through walls? I shine the beam along the grime-covered tunnel looking for a crack, a crevice . . . anything.
Then I see it: a hole. Made from a different material than the tunnel walls.
The hole is, of course, filled in with bricks.
Ugh. I’m really starting to hate bricks—first the knock on the head, now this. I steady my foot and aim to kick the things, when I realize one crucial difference. This time there is no mortar.
These bricks were meant to be removed.
And who better to remove them than me? I get down on all fours and start hammering away at them with my flashlight. After each swing, it shakes on and off like a strobe light. The flashing makes me dizzy, so when I give the final blow that ends its life as a flashlight and turns it into an official hammer, I’m almost happy. Darkness coats the tunnel again.
I pull all my air tight between my lungs—hadn’t realized what a comfort the light was. . . .
You won’t get lost. . . .
There’s left, there’s right, and there’s up.
The segments loosen, and since I don’t want to have to crawl into a pile of bricks, I try to push them to either side of the hole using the flashlight turned hammer. When I’ve removed enough of the bricks that I can crawl through the opening, I take my coat off to get rid of some of my bulk.
My kneecaps crush into the gravel and whatever else is sharp and pointy underneath me. I slide forward, inch by inch. Without the light, I have no sense of how large the interior is. I whistle. The sound doesn’t carry far—it’s cramped in here. There’s a dripping, and it’s coming from a few different sources along the ceiling, but I can’t see where. I keep on inching, continuing the crawl. My palms pick up pebbles as I slide along.
An ache in my wrists tells me the ground slopes. I put my left hand down, then my right, then left. . . .
A slippery wet against my fingertips. My wrists, all the way to my elbows, sink down, and then—
It’s too late. More water. Hot water, and a little bit slimy, too—I’m in it headfirst, flailing around, splashing and kicking and trying to right myself. Out of habit I choke out the stuff, expecting sour, dank, brackish bitterness.
Only I find none.
This water, it’s sweet.
I get my head back to where the air is—tonight’s theme—still choking from the surprise of it all. It’s hot, and it’s sweet, with no trace of the saline that’s made the local reservoirs undrinkable. I bob around for a few moments, allowing myself to luxuriate. This is about as close as I’ve gotten to a bubble bath in years. Who cares that it’s made of ancient subway mud?
As I dog-paddle to get a sense of the space, I can tell it’s small. Not much wider than seven feet across. I can tell, because though the tunnel is mostly dark, a tiny orb of light is glowing neon just a few feet below the surface—my flashlight. It’s shining like new, clinging to a ledge. Great. Now it works—I reach for it, and then realize: It’s glowing. Not just glowing . . .
Neon purple. The thing is glowing neon purple.
I don’t believe it.
I dive down, thanking the subway gods for the warmth of the water. I don’t think I could’ve taken any more cold. Keeping my eyes open till I have the light in my hand, I find myself wincing out of habit, expecting salt water to burn my eyes. But no, nothing.
Soon as I have the flashlight back in my hand, the fact of what I have, literally, fallen into hits me. A hot spring would have been bizarre enough, though there is a fault line around these parts, somewhere. But that’s not all: freshwater.
I never really believed I’d find it. Hoped, sure. In a probably-not-gonna-happen sort of way. Do I even remember the procedure for what to do after finding it?
Wait . . . Yes, I do. My flashlight . . . I’d totally forgotten—that’s where the test tube is stored.
And I used the thing as a hammer. Brack—how could you have forgotten?
Hey, head trauma? I remind myself. If ever I deserved a little slack, it would be now.
I unscrew the back of the light. . . . A cork falls out, followed by teensy glass pieces. Wonderful.
To the canteen, then.
Removing the cap, I dunk the bottle into the spring. Once it’s filled to the brim, I almost can’t help myself . . . I have to taste it. I shouldn’t. Who knows what’s in the stuff? But I’ve already swallowed gulpfuls, thanks to falling in. If I’m going to get sick, the damage has already been done.
> I bring the canteen to my lips. Pull it away before it touches. Then, I drink.
The fresh tastes so much better—cleaner, purer—than the rainwater from the dinky drainage systems everyone in the Ward has.
One gulp follows another. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I chug until my stomach feels jiggly as a water balloon, and when I’m done, I refill the canteen for Boss.
A slight nausea sets in and I want nothing more than firm ground beneath me, so I swim around the edge of the spring. Digging my fingers into the slippery, spongelike surface around the pool’s edge, I steady myself and with one push, pull myself from the pool.
Still heady with the taste of the spring water on my tongue, I begin the awkward, plodding wriggle back through the crawl space into the tunnel. Exhaustion has begun to settle in—thank goodness for these walls, they keep me balanced, but I have to remember to lift my feet or I’ll trip on the rails.
And then a tingling sensation starts behind my eyeballs.
Not uncomfortable. At first. The tingle soon becomes a prickle, which in turn becomes a burn. My eyes water. Salt tears coat my cheeks, the cuts—all of which have started to sting. But it’s worse than that. Across my entire face, the scrapes and the fresh cuts also begin to burn.
Like a bonfire, the fire grows and it grows, and soon enough the fire starts to itch, and hell, do I want to scratch. I don’t know what’s going on. My lips, my forehead . . . if I had nails I’d be raking them over my skin right now.
I’m about to rub at my cheeks, but then my hands, my arms, every microscopic cell in my body also feels like they’ve been doused in gasoline, then lit on fire. I think I hear myself calling out to the stairwell, but I know I’m alone. Lit on fire.
And here I am. Fifteen stories underwater, but with no way to quit the burn.
6
2:20 A.M., SATURDAY
I’m calling into the stairwell, or I’m hearing a noise from the stairwell. I don’t even know . . . the scratching . . . I’m doused. I’m hallucinating, I must be hallucinating. None of it was real—the hot spring, the freshwater. That’s the only thing that makes sense. . . .
The Ward Page 5