Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Knowing Balidor, I guessed we were in the catacombs––one entrance to them, at least.

  “Correct,” he said, handing a gun to Revik, who was putting a holster on over his organic vest. “Six miles southeast of Vatican City. Dante found it for us, via one of the flyers she managed to hack. She’s mapped a segment of these tunnels already.”

  I nodded buckling my own holster around my waist, then bending to tie it around my thigh. They’d thought it was a good idea to keep us weapon-free and electronics-free while we were inside the crate, presumably on the off-chance a scanner might pick either up.

  “How far from the hotspot?” I said.

  “Five and a half miles northwest, give or take. It’s a little outside Vatican City. They’ve got it protected as part of the grid, though. Her flyer hit an OBE during its mapping, about a mile outside the Vatican wall.”

  I nodded, frowning.

  I was still scoping out our surroundings as Revik strapped a second belt and holster around his waist, pulling out the gun briefly to check the chamber and magazine.

  The tunnels down here were much older-looking and mustier-smelling than what we’d navigated via the sailboats earlier that day. Looking around at the low ceilings, and the moss-covered stone bricks, I swallowed, glancing at Revik.

  He wasn’t going to like this much, either.

  “Apologies for that,” Balidor said, glancing at Revik and folding his arms. “I thought it was best to get us as close to Dante’s readouts for the hotspot as possible. That’s still the priority, correct? Before we deal with these Mythers? Or the possibility of Listers being held here?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I glanced at Revik, who was frowning around at our surroundings.

  From his expression, I couldn’t even be sure if he’d heard Balidor’s question.

  I followed his gaze, looking at the dark, dank-smelling water of the underground river a second time, then the wooden platform where we stood. The river tunnels on either side looked even lower-ceilinged than the room where we stood now.

  Glancing behind us as I zipped a folding knife into the side pocket of my vest, I saw a stone path leading to a dry tunnel that sloped deeper into the earth.

  By dry, of course, I mean it wasn’t another river, but a path we could walk. Water dripped from the ceiling and walls of that tunnel, too. I saw holes and cracks in the stone, some of which had eyes shining from the darker crevices.

  Rats. Of course a place like this would have rats.

  Gaos. Revik would love this.

  I wondered what else might live down here.

  I glanced at the rest of our group. We appeared to be reunited with all of our people, at least. I couldn’t help but find that reassuring. My eyes paused on Varlan, Stanley, Holo, Illeg.

  I looked at Dalai last, a female ex-Adhipan seer I knew the least well of the group, but who I now knew from Revik’s memories of her in South America. Despite the content of some of those memories, I couldn’t bring myself to dislike her. Revik’s memories of her were of a thoughtful, compassionate person, a gifted infiltrator, with a good sense of humor.

  More than that, she’d been kind to him, at a time he really needed it.

  From next to me, Revik took my hand.

  When I quirked an eyebrow at him, he gave me a sideways smile, but only reinforced his grip, holding my fingers tightly in his. I saw the narrower glance he raked down me, too, likely checking to make sure I wore enough armor and weapons to satisfy him.

  Feigran stood by Varlan, jumping lightly on his toes as he grinned at me. The excitement on his face probably should have unnerved me a little.

  As per usual with him these days, it mostly just amused me, though.

  “All right,” I said. “The hotspot first. Do we have live maps?”

  Balidor handed me an earpiece, which I fitted in my ear.

  Revik released my hand long enough to tie his hair back in a half-ponytail, making him look seer-like again, and borderline feral.

  He fitted an earpiece Balidor handed him in his ear as soon as he’d done it, giving me a sideways look when I continued to stare at him.

  I swear, even his face looked different.

  I’d always found him beautiful, but something about his looks these days hit at me whenever I let myself notice them. His crystal-like, almond-shaped eyes seemed to stand out more than before, even down here, in the dim, torchlit cave. His skin was darker from the day and a half of sailing. The longer black hair made his cheekbones stand out more, his jaw appear longer. His shoulders looked broader––

  Wife. Revik nudged me with his elbow, lowering his hand from his ear. Cut it out. Unless you’re trying to distract me from being in yet another goddamned hole in the ground.

  I gave him a deadpan look. Of course that was my intention.

  He snorted. Excellent. Now I have a hard on. Very distracting for the claustrophobia. Not so great in a firefight––

  “Are you children finished?” Balidor said drily.

  He handed me a handheld computer, which I promptly wrapped around my wrist.

  “We have some small amount of satellite access,” he added. “Dante thinks she’s got it set up to bypass local security scans, but I suggest we only use it in the event of an emergency. We should try to find the doorway ourselves first. Dante said we should expect security to pick up our location at some point, regardless… but no need to make it easy for them.”

  I nodded, agreeing.

  I gave Revik a grim look, and he returned it, turning on his own handheld computer after wrapping it around his arm.

  We’d known from the beginning this might end up being a telekinetic fight.

  He hit a few keys on the flat screen, and a three-dimensional projection rose and expanded above his wrist, showing a blue-green grid map that displayed all of our people in red, standing by a virtual representation of the underground river.

  A brighter, gold-white spot lit up the map roughly where Balidor said the hotspot lived. Just beyond it, but what looked at least twenty stories higher in elevation, according to the 3-D graphic Revik projected, I saw the depiction of the Vatican City wall. Even the wall appeared to go below the surface of the Earth.

  Where we stood now, we were at least three stories under the normal Vatican catacombs and the lower boundary of that wall.

  The hotspot looked at least fifteen stories deeper than us. That made it roughly twenty-three stories deeper than the ground level where the bulk of the Holy See lived. Although I’d already guessed as much, I frowned when I noted the waterways wouldn’t get us any closer, either. The golden glow was perpendicular to all of them.

  I frowned, glancing at Revik, who quirked his lips in a humorless smile.

  Lovely, I sent.

  He tilted his head sideways, a seer’s shrug.

  “I guess we’re walking,” he said, giving me a half-smile. “Corridor B, it is.”

  Without another word, he clicked off the map and turned, aiming his booted feet down the stone path leading into the sloping tunnel.

  Exhaling, I gripped my gun holster in one hand and followed.

  Walking after us, their boots echoing on the wet stone, Varlan and Stanley ignited two organic yisso torches, gripping them in their hands as they hissed and spit green flames, throwing odd shadows on the walls.

  I fought back another shiver of misgiving, glancing at Feigran with a frown, in spite of myself. Briefly, I was tempted to ask him.

  Of anyone down here, Feigran might know what I was reacting to.

  Then again, knowing Feigran, that same thing was probably the reason he had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

  Grimacing a little, I gripped my gun tighter, and decided not to ask.

  Instead I sped my feet, walking faster to catch up with Revik.

  THE CAVE DIDN’T really start to bother Revik until we’d been walking for almost two hours.

  The going had been slow.

  The stone path from the u
nderground river and dock brought us into a low-ceilinged tunnel crossed by multiple underground streams, some of which were deep enough that we had to use ropes to get across. One of those streams came from a dead drop above, making it more like an underground waterfall.

  Crossing that one meant balancing precariously on wet, mossy rocks while two of our people held ropes on the opposite side, usually Balidor and Holo, who were the best climbers of our group, and who had the ropes and axes with the organic hooks.

  It wasn’t all underground waterfalls, steep drops and cave rivers, though.

  Parts of the ground were made up of black, sucking, bad-smelling mud.

  Some of it was nearly a foot deep in parts, and took a lot of strength to walk in for more than a few minutes at a time. We ended up resting in bursts, looking semi-comic as we clustered to lean against nearby walls, our combat boots stuck in the dark mud.

  We also came across a few segments filled with deep, stagnant water.

  One of those was nearly an underground lake, and smelled worse than the mud.

  Cass and I––and Dalai, who was also relatively short for a seer––were forced to wade through that water up to our chests, our guns held over our heads to keep them dry.

  Other segments of our route were interrupted by fallen segments of stone ceiling, earth and wall that blocked parts of the tunnel, likely due to water erosion. We had to use ropes again when we reached a narrow ledge that crumbled under our booted feet, leaving the rest of us to do our best to hold up the person who’d fallen, using metal hooks embedded in the stone by Holo.

  Revik almost seemed to do better when we had to problem-solve our way through a particular segment of the tunnel.

  He did less well when the tunnel started to narrow.

  He did worse when that narrower tunnel began to slope downwards at an increasingly dramatic angle.

  By then, I was walking even with him, keeping an eye on his light.

  I could feel him trying to hide the worst of the effects from me, maybe just to distract himself, or to keep me from inadvertently amplifying the problem via my light.

  I would have thought he’d want to hang back, to not be looking down that sloping rock, but he insisted on being in front.

  Gripping one of the yisso torches, he led our group, with me following alongside him, giving him space, but always within physical reach.

  Varlan walked a few yards behind us, holding the second torch.

  We rounded another turn, and I felt Revik’s light starting to destabilize again.

  The ceiling seemed to have come down another few inches. I could feel through Revik’s light that the slope in the tunnel continued to increase in small increments, as well.

  “Check the map,” I said, sliding more of my light into his.

  He glanced at me, frowning. “I’m all right.”

  Gripping his free arm in my hand, I shrugged.

  “Fine. I’ll check it.”

  Still leaning on him as I walked, letting my light merge into his, I hit through a few keys on the handheld without letting go of his arm. The handheld still worked, thank the gods, despite my smashing it into a cliff-side when I slipped on that crumbling ledge. When it happened, Revik jerked down to catch me, but that may have only made me hit into the side harder, since he caught hold of me by the vest, jerking me towards him.

  The handheld was sturdy, I guess.

  The map expanded out from my wrist just like it had before.

  Rotating it a few ways with my headset, I zoomed in, pulling estimates off the coordinates fed to me via the linked comp-systems.

  “Assuming this is right, we’re less than a mile out,” I said. “We should be looking for the OBE.” I glanced over my shoulder at Balidor. “Did Dante say why the flyer missed it? You said her flyer got fried, right?”

  Balidor nodded. “I’m looking for the field now, Esteemed Bridge. She was able to give me nearly exact coordinates for when she lost transmission, so I can tell you we’re still almost a half mile out. However they have the field cloaked, it’s unlikely to be totally invisible from the Barrier, but we’ll slow down when we get closer.”

  I nodded, but the slight frown never quite left my face.

  Hesitating another beat, I looked back at Varlan.

  “Keep an eye on the corridor behind us,” I told him. “Let Balidor focus on the tunnel ahead.”

  The older seer quirked a dark eyebrow, right before he and Balidor exchanged looks.

  “You believe we are being followed, Esteemed Sister?” Varlan said politely.

  “I don’t know.” I frowned, glancing at Feigran unconsciously before I met Varlan’s violet eyes. “Something’s bothering me. I just want to keep an eye on all directions right now.”

  Revik glanced at me along with the others, frowning.

  I saw him glance at Feigran too, hesitating for a pause before he seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say. Focusing back down the tunnel, he lifted the yisso torch higher, so that it illuminated more of the tunnel’s walls.

  “The floor’s dry, at least,” he muttered. “I smell water.”

  I noticed he’d ignited part of his telekinetic structures. A faint crescent of pale green illuminated his clear irises from within.

  Nodding to his words, I glanced at the walls, which bled water and mud over algae. That water disappeared into holes in the stone below, which made me wonder what lay under us.

  On the plus side, it also left most of the tunnel floor dry.

  As we resumed walking, I felt Revik’s breath growing harder again. I kept my light entwined with his, but I could tell that closing-in feeling was getting worse, not better, even with my light compensating.

  We walked maybe twenty minutes more before I saw it.

  Once again, I gripped Revik’s arm.

  “Stop,” I said.

  He obeyed at once.

  “Don’t take another step,” I warned him.

  His whole body tensed, but he didn’t move, not even to glance at me.

  Staring down at the incongruous metal fragments scattered over the floor of the tunnel, I scanned the space, feeling my adrenaline spike. I looked back at Balidor.

  “Dante’s flyer,” I said.

  Balidor walked up so that he was alongside me and Revik. When he seemed about to walk past us, to approach the nearest pieces of broken flyer, I put up my arm, stopping him.

  “Don’t,” I warned. “I want to know exactly where that field is before anyone takes another fucking step.”

  Balidor gave me a puzzled look.

  Then, seeming to see something in my eyes, or maybe feel it in my light, he nodded.

  Lowering his weight to a crouch, he scanned the pieces of flyer from where we all clustered in a line. Cass, Varlan and Holo came closer, too, but didn’t try to pass any of us, or to press in too close on me, Balidor and Revik. Rather they hung back, looking out over the pieces of broken flyer illuminated by the torch Revik held up in one hand.

  “Give the torch to Holo,” I told him.

  Revik gave me a look, frowning.

  Then, seeming to realize I wanted him to have his hands free, he nodded, once, then passed the torch back to the other seer, who stood behind him and to his right.

  “I don’t feel the field,” Balidor said, still down in a crouch. “And we’re still further out than what Dante told me.” He looked up, meeting my gaze. “I understand why the field concerns you. But I don’t understand. Are you feeling something specific right now, Esteemed Sister?”

  “No,” I said, blunt.

  I didn’t elaborate, but continued to try to scan the surrounding space using only the higher structures of my light. I fought to see the lower levels through Revik’s light, but he seemed to mostly be relying on his higher structures at the moment, too.

  I felt a part of him looking for Menlim down here, for some sign or scent of that higher Dreng frequency.

  “I don’t understand,” I said after a beat, still talkin
g mostly to Balidor. “How did the pieces get here, if the flyer went down closer to the hotspot? Could the OBE field have thrown the pieces all the way out here?”

  Balidor looked up at me, deepening his frown.

  “A quarter mile?” he said.

  “It’s not possible then?” I pressed.

  He frowned, looking back at the broken flyer. “I don’t know. Dante lost contact with it much closer to the hotspot. It’s possible the pieces got thrown back…” He pointed ahead vaguely with a hand, still keeping his body behind the line I’d set. “…but the tunnel’s curved. It strikes me as highly unlikely without intervention. Someone or something moving the pieces out here.”

  “Is that your best guess?” I said. “Does it strike you as reasonable that someone or something could have moved it? Or is it more likely Dante’s coordinates were off?”

  He frowned, not answering me as he continued to scan the tunnel.

  I could tell something was bothering him, even before he clicked under his breath.

  “I don’t know if I can give you a best guess without more information, Esteemed Bridge,” he said. “Something’s not right about this.”

  I agreed. I didn’t bother to voice that fact aloud a second time, though.

  Revik frowned, looking between us.

  “Are we going forward?” he said. “Or are we still waiting?”

  Balidor and I exchanged looks.

  Biting my lip, I looked back at Revik. “I think we have to keep going. But we should probably assume we’re about to walk into something.”

  Revik nodded, once.

  “Guns up.” He looked around at the others. “We’re all nervous. That means we’re probably feeling something real. Don’t get so jittery you shoot me in the back, but be ready to engage. Safeties off.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him, even as I unholstered my own sidearm, clicking the trigger twice to disengage the safety before I moved my finger back up to the barrel of the gun. Once I had the gun pointed in front of me, I glanced at Revik, waiting until he was done checking over our team and looking back down the tunnel.

  Then, together, we crossed that invisible line I’d more or less drawn on the stone floor.