Until My Dying Day

by S. C. Stokes

  As she drew nearer to the machine, the size of it boggled her mind. The monstrosity filled the entire tunnel. It was almost twenty feet wide, and almost as tall. It rumbled forward on two sets of rotating tracks. Dirt and stone from the bore were being funneled to the sides before being ejected behind the machine.

  Seeing her target within reach, she picked up her pace, anxious to catch the vehicle as it continued to roll forward. Slowly but surely, it ground away at the tunnel ahead. The noise was deafening, and not for the first time, Kasey wished she had earplugs to dampen the noise. Their plan had been focused on finding the device, not their personal comfort while doing so.

  A set of steel rungs ran up the back of the machine. Kasey reached for them. She halted as a Shinigami stood up on top of the machine. From his perch above the steel monstrosity, he raised his assault rifle and took aim at Kasey.

  Kasey dove forward, aiming to shield herself with the body of the machine. As she dove, she tucked and rolled to protect her head from the worst of the fall.

  The gunshots punctured through the incessant grinding of the bore, but the first bullet passed inches from her leg as she slid beneath the bulk of the machine.

  From her place in the crawlspace beneath the tunnel borer, she could make out the ADI’s response. Sanders and the agents behind him raised their weapons. They blasted away at the Shinigami in a deadly rain of fire. A second later, the black-clad body slammed into the tunnel floor behind the machine.

  Another one bites the dust.

  Kasey considered emerging from her hidey hole, but in the event that the Shinigami had any other companions waiting, she preferred to take a less expected route. Shielded from prying eyes by the bulk of the machine, she crawled forward, searching the underside of the boring machine for any form of access hatch, or entrance that might lead into the machine. She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, racing against the machine’s slow but unyielding progress.

  Reaching the front of the machine, she saw the bore for the first time.

  The immense rotating tunnel bore was carving through the stone, breaking it up and grinding it to dust before funneling it behind the machine. The bore filled the entire circumference of the tunnel; there was no going around it. If Kasey wanted to get inside the machine, she would have to crawl through the narrow space between the front of the tracks and the start of the bore.

  She turned around and scanned the bottom of the machine again until she was satisfied there was no other choice. There wasn't a hatch or access point to be found anywhere.

  With her options limited, she edged forward, finding a space between the rotating tread of the machine and the tunnel bore that was drilling away. There were only a few feet of empty space between the two. She would need to be swift in order to avoid being crushed beneath the whirring tread.

  She paused to time the progress of the machine. It would surge forward several inches, then hold as the bore ground away, breaking up the stone. The machine seemed to hold position for twenty to thirty seconds before the bore had done sufficient work for the machine to inch forward once more.

  Kasey waited as the machine lumbered forward several inches, then halted. As soon as machine came to a halt, she scrambled forward on her hands and knees. Shimmying in front of the tread, she found herself in the narrow confines between the treads themselves and the wall of the tunnel. It was barely bigger than she was.

  Without warning the machine lurched forward. Kasey swung her legs to the side as the mechanical tread came crushing down barely an inch from her thigh.

  Phew.

  Kasey let out a slow breath.

  Oh, how Henley would hate this. Not that he’d fit.

  Rolling onto her back, she slid along beside the machine until she found what she was looking for: a ledge where the steel skirt of the machine disappeared, and steel steps lead up the side of the vehicle. Grabbing the lowest of the steps, she pulled herself off the ground and began to climb them. Rung by rung, she ascended, scaling the side of the tunnel borer. The steps led to a landing and the driver’s cabin. Catching her breath, she clung to the side of the machine. She was almost six feet off the ground.

  The machine lurched forward once more, and Kasey grabbed the ladder with both hands to avoid being thrown free from the side of the machine. To fall between the machine and the wall would likely result in being crushed to death.

  When the vehicle came to a halt, Kasey stole a look in the window. The machine had no windshield, which made sense when she thought about it. There wasn’t really anything but the back of the bore to look at, and it would only provide a structural weakness that falling stones might shatter. Instead, the cabin housed a complex dashboard of flashing lights and read outs designed to inform the driver of the machine’s vital signs and progress.

  The driver himself seemed to be in a world of his own. He rested his legs on the dashboard, his head buried in a book. A pair of earmuffs drowned out the incessant boring of the machine.

  Kasey wondered if he truly understood the precariousness of his position. Did the Shinigami acolytes know what was going to happen, or were they simply following blindly, clutching at the promise of eternal life? The man was literally sitting on a bomb, clearly oblivious that his actions were about to result in the death of millions of people. Not to mention his own if the device detonated before he was able to get clear of it.

  Kasey reached for the door and wrenched it open.

  As he raised his head, she saw the man's lips move but with the background noise of the tunnel she couldn't hear a word he was saying. His wide-eyed expression and slackened jaw told her everything she needed to know: he'd not been expecting company.

  Kasey launched herself into the cabin as the Shinigami dropped his book. He lashed out with his foot, clipping her in the ribs. She fell sideways and slammed into the dashboard. There was a lurch as the boring machine picked up power and shuddered forward. The sudden momentum caused her to roll across the dashboard, crunching buttons and levers. The same motion launched the driver into her lap.

  She grabbed at the driver, pulling him against her. He drove his elbow into her stomach, but the vest took the worst of the blow and she simply gritted her teeth. Wrapping her legs around the driver, she locked him in placed as she reached around his throat. Slowly, purposefully, she choked the life out of him.

  Pushing off the dash, he stood up, taking Kasey with him. Turning, he threw himself backwards against the steel wall of the driver's compartment. Kasey's back bore the worst of the blow, but her head still clipped the bulkhead. Her vision swam and her legs went slack.

  The driver bent forward, wrenching her off his back and over his shoulder. He slammed her into the floor of the cabin. Kasey hit the floor hard. The Shinigami loomed over her, smiling as he reached for the pistol in the holster at his waist.

  Kasey kicked for all she was worth. The blow caught the weapon and sent the gun flying across the cabin. It skittered to a halt just before the open door that Kasey had entered through. The driver went after it as Kasey clambered to her feet. The Shinigami and Kasey both raced across the tiny cabin but in her heart, she knew she'd already lost.

  The Shinigami bent down and snatched up the weapon. Kasey took the next best option. As he raised the gun triumphantly and whirled to face her, she stretched out her hand.

  Her whispered words of the incantation were drowned out by the noise of the machine. The fist of air struck the Shinigami in the chest like a charging bull. There was nowhere for him to go but out. The enchantment knocked him through the open door of the cabin and into the stone wall beyond it. He bounced off the stone and hit the machine, before gravity dragged him downward. His scream filled the tunnel as an almost imperceptible bounce signaled the boring machine had crushed him beneath its enormous bulk.

  Kasey breathed a sigh of relief. There was no time to rest on her laurels though. The machine continued grinding forward, boring toward the fault line. Turning to the dashboard, she studied the control
s.

  There has to be a way to shut this thing down.

  Her eyes raced over the bank of controls. Lights flashed everywhere as the machine whirred away.

  A flashing red light at her left drew her attention. The label below the meter read ‘Engine Temperature’. The needle bounced at the far right-hand side of the display, teetering dangerously in the red.

  The machine was overheating. Not really a surprise when she considered that it had likely been operating non-stop for days. Whatever button she'd hit accidentally when she’d been thrown into the dash was evidently too much for the engine to handle.

  The machine lurched forward again, faster this time. It ground forward for almost thirty seconds before halting again.

  It's picking up speed. Kasey realized.

  She wondered if she could use her magic to bring it to a standstill. As she thought about it, she had no idea what spell would even have such an effect.

  She turned to the control panel and found a series of buttons labeled ‘Bore speed’. Of its five settings, the machine was operating at its highest speed. Kasey punched the zero button and brought the bore to a halt.

  With the drilling ceased, the machine was simply trying to drive forward with brute strength. There was a grinding sound as the machine threw itself at the wall in front of it, to little effect. Kasey spotted a lever that had no accompanying controls or explanation, but it did rest beside the steering mechanism. The lever was pressed right to the dashboard. Reaching for the lever, she wrenched it back toward herself. As she did, the machine ground to a halt. Beneath the lever was an ignition with a set of keys hanging out of it. She turned the keys and the tunnel borer coughed and spluttered as it shut down.

  I'll take these.

  She lifted the keys from the ignition and slipped them into her pocket. With the machine’s progress arrested, she climbed out of the cab and onto the ledge. Seeing that the ladder beside the cab continued upward, she grabbed the rungs and began to climb. It was better than trying to fit back down between the machine and the wall.

  Reaching the roof of the tunnel borer, she came face-to-face with the business end of a Glock.

  Kasey raised her eyes to find Sanders staring down at her.

  “Oh, Kasey, it’s you.” He let out a breath, lowering his gun. “You gave us a heart attack. We saw you disappear under the machine, and when the bloody body was spat out a moment ago, we feared the worst.”

  He offered his hand and helped her up onto the roof.

  “No, fortunately that was the driver. He wasn't really ready to retire, so he needed some encouragement. It took me a while to work things out, but I finally managed to turn the damn thing off.”

  Sanders nodded slowly, the furrow in his brow relaxing.

  As she studied Sanders, he seemed to be glittering in the faint light. Leaning forward, she wiped her hand across his brow.

  He started. “What are you doing?”

  She lowered her hand until it caught the light better. “I was just wondering what all this dust was.”

  “Oh, that,” Sanders said. “When the machine surged forward a moment ago, it started spitting up clouds of this dust. It’s everywhere.”

  She looked down at her hand and studied the dust. It was green. Emerald green.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  Oh, no—we’re here.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kasey looked down at the machine. The entire steel bulk of it was covered in the thin layer of the emerald green dust. There were footsteps where Sanders and the other ADI agents had traipsed across the machine but everywhere else was coated in the dust, including the agents themselves.

  “What is it, Kasey?” Sanders asked, looking at her outstretched hand.

  Kasey swallowed hard and raised her gaze to him. “We’re here. We've reached the deposit. This is where Akihiro plans to detonate the weapon. We need to stop it, and we need to stop it now.”

  “Alright. We wanted to stop the machine first. There seems to be some kind of compartment on the back of this thing. If I had to guess, I'd say the weapon is in there,” Sanders replied

  “Alright, let's go. There isn’t a moment to lose.” She turned and raced along the top of the stationary vehicle.

  At the back of the machine, two large panels had been welded shut. It appeared there was no way to open it.

  “Sanders?” she called, without looking up.

  He came up beside her.

  Sanders pointed at the welds that ran down the side of the sealed panels. “Grafan!”

  A brilliant lance of golden energy shot out of his outstretched finger. He moved his hand around the edges, his spell cutting through the welds as if they were paper. As he completed the circuit, two agents grabbed the handles and lifted the panels off before throwing them off the back of the boring machine. With the panels removed, Kasey found herself staring at Akihiro’s weapon for the first time.

  The entire space was filled with bricks of explosive. Unlike conventional C4 that came formed in bricks only eleven inches long, these had been formed into immense bricks that were two feet long and one foot wide. They had been stacked on top of each other until they filled the entire rear of the boring machine. Although it was difficult to see just how far they stretched, it was immediately apparent that Akihiro had packed the machine with enough C4 to do cataclysmic damage to the Manhattan fault line.

  Unlike the device in the subbasement, the bricks had no visible detonators protruding from them. Instead, affixed in the center of the stack was a glass vessel. The vessel was a square, one foot on each side and perhaps six inches deep, with a glass lid resting atop it. The entire dish was filled with a scarlet solution. The translucent liquid sloshed about within the container as if it had a mind of its own.

  “What is that?” Kasey asked, staring at the strange fluid.

  It glowed as it gave off a light of its own. There was something off about it. Kasey couldn't put her finger on it, but something about it wasn't right.

  Sanders held his hand over the glass vessel. Closing his eyes, he lowered his hand toward the glass lid. The vessel bore the Japanese character shi, meaning death. As Sanders lowered his hand, the glass vessel began to shake.

  As if stung, he recoiled. “It's magic.”

  “Magic?” Kasey looked at him. “What do you mean magic? It's a bomb isn't it?”

  “That,” Sanders said, pointing to the bricks of explosive, “is a bomb, no doubt about it. But this…” He gestured toward the vessel. “This is something else entirely. It's magic, but I've never felt anything like it. The energy is all wrong.”

  Kasey brushed her hair back behind her ear. “How could it be magic? It's here. I thought that arcane energy was felt, not seen. It's manifestations and uses, of course I've seen those, but the very essence itself…How is it possible to contain it like this?”

  She reached for the vessel. Her stomach began to churn, her heart raced as if it would explode, and her brain felt like it was on fire.

  She snapped her hand away.

  “What the hell?” She cried as she grabbed her head.

  Sanders leaned closer and nudged the vessel gently. The liquid sloshed about reluctantly.

  Kasey's gaze followed it as it lapped at the edges of the container. The color, the viscosity, Kasey knew that fluid.

  “It's blood,” she muttered. “That entire thing is full of blood. Why the hell is it full of blood?”

  “For the same reason that you are a witch, Kasey, and Henley down there is a normal. Magic, it’s in your blood. It's in all of our blood. It passes from parent to child along bloodlines, the oldest inheritance the world has ever known. It's not just blood in there. It's magic. The entire vessel is coursing with it. If I had to guess, I'd say Akihiro is using it both as a detonator and as an accelerator. The arcane energy coursing through that blood will trigger the C4 and add its strength to the blast, magnifying the explosion a hundred-fold. It won't just vaporize the serpentinite, it will
devastate the bedrock beneath the city. It will level the city and everyone in it. He must have enchanted the vessel simply to be able to contain it.”

  “Then we need to get it the hell out of there,” Kasey replied, reaching for the vessel. Ignoring the pain, she ripped the lid off it.

  Energy pulsed from the container. It was as if it contained a beating heart that was pumping arcane energy into the air with every powerful pulse.

  Bobbing on the surface of the sickening fluid was a thick transparent cylinder.

  Inside the tightly packed cylinder was a steel cylinder, a black powder, and a digital display. The digits on the display were counting backward.

  00:01:29

  00:01:28

  00:01:27

  It’s a timer.

  The device wasn’t remote detonated. It was on a timer. A timer that was rapidly racing to zero.

  “Sanders, that’s the trigger. We’re out of time. It’s going to blow.” Without a second thought, she reached into the vessel.

  “Kasey, no!” Sanders shouted, wrenching her hand away. “You can’t stick your hand in there.”

  He lifted his pistol. With a flick of his hand, the magazine dropped free and clattered as it struck the top of the machine. Pulling back the slide, he ejected the cartridge that was in the chamber. Then, before Kasey could stop him, he lowered the barrel into the swirling broth. After two long seconds, he lifted the pistol out.

  The barrel had entirely melted off. There was no trace of the steel; it had simply been absorbed into the surging energy coursing through the blood.