by S J Taylor
“We can’t go back that way,” I hissed, waiting for Jadran to give us the all clear. “The guy controlling those cannibals might not be dead and then there’s, oh right, cannibals!”
“That way is out!” Laria said, her voice rising to a near-shout again. “We need to go back!”
“Shh.” Jadran motioned us to follow him, but I could see the tension across his shoulders and back where the light fell on him. It wasn’t bad enough that we were trapped underground with an inbred group of killers. Now Laria was arguing with us about which way to go.
Well, I was too, I guess. But I was right.
Laria and I did our best to stare each other down, but we silently agreed on a truce. We were still among the cannibals, we were weaponless, and only two of us knew anything about fighting.
Just as Jadran stepped out of the room, the light fell on two shapes on the floor by the exit. Our packs.
I snatched them up. The one that had held our food and liquid pouches was empty. My stomach growled but I didn’t pay it any mind. Food wasn’t what I had been hoping to find, anyway. Tossing the empty pack aside I pulled the other one open.
With a heavy sigh of relief I reached in and ran my fingers over the cover of my journal.
The wristcom was still in there, too. So were the handheld explosives. Callesco must have decided his savages wouldn’t know what to do with those.
So we had weapons. A few anyway.
More importantly, I had my journal back.
Chapter 4 - Burning Bright
The tunnel started to bend upward. The rooms we passed became fewer until there were none at all. In a few of the last ones I saw shadows moving but nothing came out at us. No one tried to attack us. It was like they were retreating from the light. Maybe without their leader in black leather telling them what to do, Callesco’s children had reverted back to the vermin they really were.
Crawling in the shadows, feeding off refuse.
Eating their own wounded.
The Enforcers existed to eradicate problems like these people. Their whole purpose was to journey into the Outlands and wipe out anything that posed a threat to the decent people still trying to live decent lives in a post apocalyptic world.
But… the Restored Society had created this world. It was their fault these problems existed in the first place. These kids here, painted in white and using the only source of food they had—human flesh—wouldn’t even be a problem if not for the Restored Society.
It made me wonder. Did the Old Society, the world that had passed away, have problems like this? Were there bad people even back then? Bad like this? What would they have become, without the Society’s interference?
For that matter, what would I have become?
No. I couldn’t excuse what they had done to the Earth. The problems they created could not be used to excuse their own atrocities.
There was no excuse for what they had done.
I had to stop them.
“Wait,” Jadran said, stopping in a part of the tunnel that looked like every other part to me. “Do you hear that?”
I cocked my ear to the side, but couldn’t make anything out. Laria was clinging to Jadran’s side, and I was very purposefully not paying attention to how her hands felt over his skin. All I could really hear was her constant complaining about how her wrists hurt and she was scared and she just wanted to get out of here.
But then I did hear something. A sort of low humming thrum that repeated at regular intervals.
“What is that?” I asked, moving up from my position at the rear of our group. The cannibals hadn’t attacked us again, not yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t and someone had to keep watch behind us. Now I focused my attention forward, toward that sound.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
No, wait.
I knew that sound. I hadn’t heard it much since escaping Colony 41. That could be why it took me a moment longer to recognize what it was.
Electricity. The quiet hum and pop of machinery working at some automated task. It was just a soft susurration moving down from the tunnels ahead of us. If I’d paid any more attention to how Laria was draping herself over Jadran I might have missed it entirely.
Jadran took a few more steps. Laria never left his side. “They take from what the Enforcers throw away, is what Callesco said.”
I remembered those words, too. “So they have to have some way of getting at those leftovers.”
“Exactly,” Jadran agreed. “The idea that the Enforcers are nice enough to throw their garbage on the ground out here for Callesco to pick up, is not likely.”
“He’s getting what he needs from them directly. You think the tunnels go right to the genetics facility?”
He nodded. We were both thinking the same thing. Jadran might have been able to find the building, eventually, but here was a way right into the heart of the place.
“But…” I thought about it. Something wasn’t right. “How is that possible? Jadran, we were just up on the surface. There was nothing up there, from one horizon to the other. These tunnels can’t lead to a building. There was no building.”
A single beep punctuated my words, from somewhere not far away, ahead of us in the darkness.
“Something is up there,” he pointed out. “Either way, that is our exit. We go that way.”
“We need to go back,” Laria said, again. “Please, Jadran.”
He pulled her hand from his side and held onto it, speaking soft, shushing words. Laria bit her lip, nodding, but I could see by the look in her eyes that he wasn’t convincing her.
Turning away from them, from the way Jadran held onto her hand, I went back to watching behind us and ignoring Laria’s complaints. We moved on, a little at a time, listening to the sounds of equipment and machines growing louder. A low hum began to fill the air. I imagined I could feel it vibrating through the rocks at my feet.
There was no sign of pursuit. I figured that the cannibals avoided this end of the tunnels for the same reason they avoided sunlight or the light from the orb we were carrying. They feared what they couldn’t understand.
And just like all insects, they craved the shadows.
Era’s Journal, Entry #3127
Sometimes, when you know you’re safe, you get careless. I have to wonder how many people have gotten hurt right at that exact moment when they felt most secure. People who didn’t lock their doors, one time, and that’s when they got robbed. People who trust a friend one time too often.
People who don’t look over their shoulder.
That’s when things are most dangerous, after all.
Because when you know you’re safe, you get careless.
A door, set into the rock.
That’s what we found when we came to the end of the tunnel. Jadran stood staring at it. Laria and I stood there too, staring at him.
“Huh,” was all he said.
“Seriously?” I asked him. “You were the one who said you knew where the tunnels led. You had the whole thing mapped out in your head. That’s what you told me.”
“Stop pressuring him,” Laria snapped at me, her fingers trailing down the line of Jadran’s spine.
I so wanted to smack her in that moment.
Seems I get that feeling a lot when I’m around her.
Jadran bent to examine the door, holding his light closer. It was metal, with three studded metal straps evenly spaced to reinforce it. No visible hinges. No doorknob. Nothing I could see to indicate how to open it.
“Trapped, is what we are,” I heard Laria complaining. She crossed her arms under her breasts, her clothes somehow still clean and perfect. I looked down at my own shirt, smeared and dirty, at my pants that had ripped to threads at my knees and thighs. Whatever. Laria would always be the prettier one.
I could only be who I was.
“I don’t know how to open this,” Jadran finally admitted.
“We should go back,” I heard Laria suggest. “We can find one of the hole
s we fell through. Yes. That is what we should do.”
“Laria, wait—” Jadran tried to say.
“We can’t go back,” I explained for the fifth or sixth time. “It’s too dangerous back that way.”
“Well, we would not even be here, about to die, if not for you.”
Jadran stepped between us. “Laria!”
“We could have left you tied up back in that room, you know!” I snapped at her.
Now Jadran turned his weary eyes on me. “Era Rae!”
“You led us to our deaths!” Laria accused me.
I drew a breath, feeling the blood starting to rush to my face.
“Will you two please stop!” Jadran shouted, slamming a fist back against the unforgiving metal door in his frustration.
With a hollow reverberation a small, square panel dropped open in the middle of the door, right in the center of the one studded strap. We all stared at the shallow recess behind. The panel had been hidden so well that I doubt we ever would have seen it there.
Sometimes dumb luck favors the unprepared. I think one of my professors back at the Academy told me that.
“A palm scanner, is what it is,” Jadran told us, bending down to inspect the device hidden within the recess. A glass screen with a keypad. “On a magnetic catch. Hitting the door popped it open.”
“How fascinating,” Laria said drily. “Can we go back now?”
“Forward, is where we are going,” Jadran told her, in a tone that tried to make it final. “This has to be the way to the genetics facility, Era Rae. The place where the Restored Society is making their monsters.”
“The place the Enforcers are coming to destroy,” I added. I would not let them erase this part of their history like it never happened. Everyone was going to know what they did to our world, starting with this place.
“How are you going to get through this door?” Laria demanded. “You cannot unlock it.”
Jadran turned his face up to hers, still crouching before the door. I kind of stared at her, too. “How did you know he can’t open it?”
“Well, it…” She stuttered on her answer. “You said it was a palm scanner. It isn’t going to take your palm.”
Jadran nodded. “That is true. But there are other ways to open a door, other than the lock.”
I knew what he meant. I was already reaching into the backpack when he stood up and held out his hand to me.
The door might not open to Jadran’s hand, but enough explosives could open any door.
The explosives were compact cylinders no bigger around than my wrist. The controls allowed them to work on a standard delay which was good, because we did not want to be standing here when they went off. I’ve seen just one of these things blow a boulder into little tiny bits.
I handed Jadran one, then got another one ready.
“How many do we have?” he asked me.
“Four. We shouldn’t need more than two.”
“I want to set three of them, just in case. If we set just two and it does not work, we will not have enough left to try again.”
It made sense. So, one by one we set up the three explosive devices, laying them at the bottom along the seam where the door met the tunnel floor.
“You’ve got the angle set?” I asked him as the last one went into place.
“Yes. Up and back. The force should blow the door away from us, if there is anything left of the door at all.”
Laria was watching us, back and forth, with her mouth hanging open. “You… you can not be serious!”
I chose to ignore her. Jadran tried to give her some explanation that probably only would have made her argue and complain harder, but I cut him off, shouldering our backpack. “Come on. The timers are set. We don’t want to waste our time.”
Jadran looked like he was at his wit’s end with the two of us. I tried not to care. I might have been able to admit I still loved Jadran, but that was something I’d just have to carry deep inside. He had Laria. Let him love her.
Loving me was dangerous.
I was a couple dozen steps back down the tunnel when I realized there were tears in my eyes.
Jadran caught up to me soon after, Laria glued to his side again. Funny, but now that we were headed back down the tunnel, away from the door, she didn’t try to complain anymore. She didn’t whine or argue. She just let Jadran lead her, and nuzzled closer to him, and glared at me.
“How far down should we go?” Jadran asked me.
“Why not just keep going?” Laria suggested. “We know we can be safe this way.”
“Another few yards should do it,” I answered Jadran.
Laria scrunched her face up at me. “We should go further.”
And that was the final remark I could take from her.
“What is with you?” I asked her, stopping to shove my face into hers, surprising Jadran as I did. “Why do you keep asking to go back further into these tunnels? Don’t you get it? The only safe way out of here is through that door! I don’t know how long these savages down here will leave us alone. Next time they get hungry they might just decide to come looking for a snack named Laria!”
Her face paled in the harsh light, and her eyes grew wider. “They will not… he promised me they would not…”
I glanced up at Jadran. I saw the same confusion I felt mirrored in his face. “He promised you? Laria, what are you talking about? Who promised you?”
Her line of sight drifted past me and focused on something not far away. I knew what she saw. Or rather, I knew who she saw. I knew it before I even turned around to see for myself.
Callesco. Just on the edges of our light. He had his mask back in place, breathing through the respirator. At his side my stun pistol was holstered in place of the gun he had been carrying. In his right hand he held the stun stick that Jadran had lost during their fight. He sparked another of the light orbs in his left hand, and held it up high.
The glow spread outward from him, both in front and in back. Behind him stood another half dozen of the cannibals. They were obviously younger than the others had been. No mistaking these as anything other than kids.. The white paint on their skin glistened. So did their eyes. They had the same mismatched weapons the other group had possessed, long rods fitted with sharp bits of metal, and the same fearful deference for Callesco.
It was Callesco who worried me, not his children.
What had he promised Laria?
I gripped the strap of the backpack harder. We were trapped, with no way out.
“What did you do?” Jadran asked Laria, his voice thick with disbelief. “We saved you from him. What promise could he possibly make that would be worth a blistered damn?”
It took a lot to make Jadran swear. I’d say this definitely qualified.
Callesco’s laughter was muffled and tinny from inside his mask. Why did he wear that thing, I wondered.
Then I reminded myself it didn’t matter. If we were going to die here in this tunnel, the last thing I was going to worry about was what this madman chose as a fashion accessory.
“Do yourself a favor, Jadran.” Callesco’s voice sounded loud after all of our efforts to be quiet and avoid detection. “Next time we fight, don’t just leave me for dead. This will be the second time it comes back to bite you between your legs.”
“Then let me fix my mistake,” Jadran growled, stepping out in front of both me and Laria.
Callesco stood still, watching us through his black lenses. “Don’t make me kill you, old friend.”
“Jadran, no,” Laria pleaded with him. “Let him explain!”
I wasn’t about to wait for an explanation that would make this all right. We didn’t have that kind of time. We might be facing this madman down here, but there was an army of Enforcers on the march up above the surface, going to destroy the very place I was trying to get to myself. I needed to get there first. I had to find the answers I was still lacking. I had to find evidence to show the world, something to broadcast on all remainin
g frequencies so there would be no way for the Restored Society to lie to us anymore.
Callesco wasn’t going to keep me from that.
Shifting myself behind Jadran to hide my movements, I knelt down in a crouch, reaching for the vibroblade tucked into my boot—
It was Laria who threw herself into me, knocking me off balance, surprising me so that all I could do was throw my arms out and try not to break any bones as we hit the tunnel floor. She grabbed hold of my wrists and climbed on top of me, using her own weight to hold me down.
For a moment, it worked.
“Callesco, she has a knife!” I heard her shout, giving away my secret.
Screaming furiously, I pushed my hips up from the floor and rotated them sideways, throwing Laria off, rolling with her, until suddenly it was me on top of her. With a simple twisting motion of my forearm I got my right hand free and then brought it back around to smack her across her pretty face just as hard as I could.
She stared up at me, stunned, a little blood trickling from the cut I’d opened up on her cheek.
“How could you!” I hollered down at her. “How could you betray us like this? How could you betray Jadran?”
She came back to herself, blinking away hot tears, working her sore jaw until words came out. “Callesco promised me. If I kept you down here, then we would be safe. Jadran and I could go, is what he said. All I had to do was keep you here. He left me in that room, and told me… when you found me… slow you down. Turn you back down the tunnel… is what I had to do.”
She was crying, and I didn’t care.
“Laria?” Jadran asked uncertainly.
“I had to, Jadran! I had to! All he wanted was you, Era Rae. As soon as I told him… who I was with. When I told him… your… name! All he wanted was you!”
I sat back on her legs, still holding her arms in case she got any more dumb ideas about assaulting me. Callesco wanted… me. He’d told Laria that he would let her and Jadran go, so long as he got me.
“That doesn’t make…” Any sense, I had been about to say, but then my thoughts all came together at once. Of course it made sense. It was the only thing that did make sense.