Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1)

by Donna S. Frelick

  Ethan reddened. “Asia, those guys are following us. They could have been there. It’s just common sense. And you want to tell me that guy wouldn’t have been all over you in a heartbeat?”

  “Oh, you wanna go there?” I countered. “As it happens, he hardly registered on my radar screen, but at least he seemed to be willing. He didn’t appear to be afraid to touch me or to talk to me. He wasn’t treating me like I didn’t even exist.” I stopped and ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “Shit, Ethan, you made me feel like I was back in high school. It was like I’d fucked the captain of the football team on Friday night and Monday morning he didn’t even know my name.”

  Ethan’s lips set in a thin line. “Asia, you know I never meant—”

  It might have been the start of an apology, but I was on a roll now, and just drunk enough, too, and I was going to have my say. “You never meant to what? Ignore me? Shut me out? Leave me waiting for a word from you that showed you cared even a little bit? Goddamn it, Ethan, you can’t tell me we didn’t have something that night, something more than just a particularly good fuck.”

  Ethan stared at me for a long, wordless moment, then he turned away. My heart shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

  “Whatever we had that night was special.” He didn’t look at me, and his voice was like the fall of sharp rocks. “But a lot has happened since then—you may want to give that some thought.”

  I laughed bitterly. “I see. Very analytical. We’re back to doctor and patient now, huh?”

  He turned back to me. “I’m just trying to protect you, Asia.”

  “Protect me?” I was shouting at him now, tears streaming down my face. I had no pride; it hurt too much to hide what I was feeling. “From what? It’s too damn late. The only thing that can hurt me now is you.”

  He stood, stricken, seemingly unable to move or speak or respond in any way to what I’d said. But deep in his eyes I saw a dark reflection of my pain, a shadowy counterpart to the anguish in my heart. I don’t know if what I saw would have been enough to help us get through that awful moment to a place of understanding. We never got the chance. Motel management got the next move with a loud knock on the door.

  After an eternity we spent staring at each other, Ethan answered it. He checked the peephole, glanced back at me, then yanked the door open and spoke with a barely controlled growl. “Yes?”

  A very intimidated desk clerk stood outside with a fully confident security officer, one I might have seen keeping a lid on things in the bar. “Sir, I’m sorry, but there have been some complaints about the noise.”

  “Yes, I apologize. We had the TV on pretty loud. We’ve turned it off.”

  “You’re sure everything’s all right in there?” The security guard was looking straight at me.

  I stepped up. “Everything’s fine. We’re going to bed now. Sorry about the noise.” Of course, my tear-stained face couldn’t have helped, but I tried to make it seem like things had blown over.

  Apparently they believed me, though the guard made a point of looming in the doorway a second longer than necessary. He backed off.

  “Okay. Let us know if you need anything. Goodnight.”

  We closed the door on them and spared each other the slightest glance.

  “Asia—” Ethan began.

  I held up a hand. “No. It’s late. I’m going to bed.”

  I got undressed without another word and crawled under the covers of the bed nearest the door. Ethan turned off the light, and I heard the mattress take his weight as he stretched out on the other bed. The minutes ticked by, and there we remained, each of us alone and miserable, until, despite everything, sleep claimed us at last.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “This job is almost finished, you know, Sphinx.” The blazer handed her a fist-sized chunk of crumbly bread. “I took as long as I dared to place those laser markers in the far cavern walls. They won’t need us for the rest of it.”

  Fourteen-oh-eight stared at the cavern that had been their sanctuary for nearly three months. “What does that mean? Will they let us work together again?”

  The tiny woman met her gaze. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  She stared at her boots in silence. There was suddenly a hollow pit in her belly that had nothing to do with hunger.

  “What would you do, Sphinx, if you had a choice?” When 1408 didn’t respond, Dozen pressed. “What would you do if somebody gave you a chance to leave this place?”

  Something caused her heart to beat wildly in her chest. She stood up and started to pace.

  “No one leaves this place unless they’re dead.”

  Dozen grinned, her teeth flashing white against her dark skin. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Fourteen-oh-eight stared at her companion in exasperation. Every conversation she’d had with the woman since they’d met had been like this—infuriating, stretching her mind beyond its limits. And yet, 1408 couldn’t envision a life in this hell without Dozen now. She wasn’t the same person she’d been when Dozen had found her weeks ago. If her partner said there was a way to leave this place and go somewhere—anywhere—shouldn’t she go?

  The blazer got to her feet. “Come on. It’s time to get back.”

  The two workers packed up their tools, hooked their harnesses to the permanent rigging lines on the cavern wall and, one after the other, hauled themselves up to the narrow passageway that led back to the main part of the mine. In the time since they had first broken through to the crystal cavern, they had enlarged the passage to the mine tunnel and now made their way quickly back to the entrance.

  As they emerged they saw a light coming down the tracks toward them from the interior of the tunnel. “Just in time!” Dozen crowed.

  “You always know. How do you always know?”

  The woman shrugged as the handcart rumbled closer. “Intuition, my dear. That’s why ya gotta love me.”

  The cart rolled to a stop in front of them, and the guard pushing it waved his stun gun at them. “Get on board and get moving! If we miss the last lift up, I swear I’ll kill you both before I take my punishment.”

  They did as they were told, dropping their gear on the cart and taking up positions on either side of the push handles. They bent to their work, and the cart began to move back down the tunnel.

  Soon the smaller passage opened out into a larger vein that led them into the heart of the mine. Workers in long trains streamed out of other passageways, their faces masked with dust and fatigue. At each junction, guards stood with stun guns and whip sticks. A smell of metal and grease and earth hung in the air. There was no sound but the shuffle of feet, the growl and thump of the machines and the drone of the lift announcements as the cages at each vertical shaft slammed shut and rose to the surface.

  As their handcart neared the end of the line, 1408 and Dozen slowed their efforts and brought it to a controlled stop. The guard rose to his feet and pointed his stun gun at them. Then, unaccountably, he stumbled and nearly fell back to his seat. An immense, thunderous, bone-shattering concussion filled the space around them, shaking the floor and the walls, moving the handcart and the rails, their bodies, the people around them.

  It went on for three seconds, ten seconds, a minute. It wasn’t stopping, and the world was coming apart. Beams cracked and groaned, and pieces of rock fell from the ceiling and walls of the tunnels.

  Lights flashed and popped and finally went out, leaving the mine in darkness. Dust billowed and choked the life from lungs and air filters. Supports collapsed and tons of mountain crushed screaming workers in pockets of tens or hundreds. Guards panicked and shot at dozens more trying to get at the lifts.

  It was chaos. It was hell. Fourteen-oh-Eight cowered beside the handcart, unable to move or think at all. Until Dozen slapped her face.

  “Sphinx! Look at me! At me!”

  “I can’t see you!”

  “Open your eyes, dumbass!”

  Dozen had a working headlight on and was strapping on her blazer�
�s gear. She handed 1408 her rigger’s harness.

  “Get into this. We may need it.”

  Numbly, 1408 did as she was told, her fingers shaking. All around her, people were screaming, scrambling in the dark as the tunnels shook apart. There was no sign of their guard, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.

  Dozen shouted above the chaos. “You remember what I asked you today? Now’s the time, Sphinx. We have to take what the universe gives us. And you have to trust me. All the way. Do you understand?”

  She barely understood anything at all, but she nodded anyway. What choice did she have?

  Suddenly, the rumbling and the quaking stopped, and it was eerily quiet except for a sound that was like rain in the forest—loose dirt sifting from the ceiling and falling to the surface. Then the screaming began anew, and the moans and the calls for help from all around them. And from deep in the mine, the sound of the earth shifting, adjusting to its new conformation, regardless of what, or who, might be in the way.

  Dozen gripped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I think so.”

  “This ain’t gonna be easy. We have to make it to a service shaft on Corridor Three.”

  Fourteen-oh-Eight suddenly felt sick. “Corridor Three is closed. We can’t go there!”

  “Who’s gonna stop us?” Dozen grinned. “That service shaft is used in emergencies. I’d say this is an emergency. And I know some people who work that service shaft at times like these. They make a point of it.”

  “Why?”

  A guard stumbled past, his arm hanging at an impossible angle. He stared at them from a face blanked by shock, but he did not stop.

  “I’ll explain later. Come on.”

  They stumbled, crawled and felt their way back down the tracks. The bigger passageways were largely intact, but many of the smaller feeder tunnels along the sides had collapsed or were partially blocked with debris. In isolated spots, workers were digging with their bare hands to get their companions out from under the crushing rock, even though in some of those spots, it was clear, no amount of digging would help. Captains and guards cursed and swung whip sticks freely in an effort to bring order to efforts to open essential routes—or maybe it was just to save their own lives.

  Still, the lifts weren’t running. No one was getting out.

  They found a connecting passageway between Corridors One and Two that was relatively free of obstruction, and Dozen picked up the pace. But as they came around a bend in the tunnel they met a group of three workers, one of them bleeding badly from a leg wound and being carried between the other two.

  One of the workers shook his head. “Can’t go there. Tunnel entrance collapsed.”

  “Shit,” Dozen spat. “Okay, thanks.” She kept walking.

  Fourteen-oh-Eight hesitated.

  The worker turned to stare at Dozen. “Hey, stupid. I said it’s blocked.”

  “I’ve got tools. You want to help, you’re welcome to.”

  “Fuck you. You’re crazy.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  The three staggered off toward Corridor One. Fourteen-oh-Eight glanced after them.

  “Thinking you made a mistake, Sphinx?”

  “All we have is the spade. How are we going to get through anything with that?”

  “I have a laser cutter.” Dozen hefted it in one hand with a grin.

  “How . . .?” Workers didn’t have laser cutters. They used them under strict supervision, but they didn’t keep them.

  Dozen was already nearly at the obstruction. “Are you going to stand there asking questions, or are you going to help me?”

  The blazer had her sensor pack out and was taking readings of the rockslide that blocked the passageway. Most of the debris appeared to be small gravel and earth, but the sensors picked out several large rock plates in the slag heap. Dozen used a stylus to mark a route around them on the screen. She showed the screen to 1408.

  “We can get through here”—she pointed—“and here.” She grinned at her companion. “Just goes to show—if you’re going to be trapped underground, be sure you’re with someone who makes a living finding her way through solid rock!”

  Dozen used the cutter to make a few discrete cuts in the slide. Gravel and dirt parted and shifted at the site, leaving an opening high on one corner. They enlarged the hole with the spade and continued in that fashion, working through the obstruction until, after nearly an hour, they broke through to the other side.

  “Oh, shit!” Dozen hissed from the top of the heap. “Stay down!” Lights blazed through the hole they had created. She peeked out from the side of the gap.

  “They’ve got the emergency lights on, and the guards have crews formed up. They’re already organized.” Dozen watched for several minutes while 1408 held her breath. Then the blazer turned and looked at her companion. “Shit. Shit! Okay. There’s only one way to do this. We have to have bigger balls than anybody else, that’s all. You up for it?”

  Fourteen-oh-Eight had had enough. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t even know what it was she was doing. All she knew was she was scared to death and she couldn’t do it anymore.

  “No. No! You’re going to get us killed!”

  Dozen grabbed her overalls and got right in her face. “Yes, I am, Sphinx. And so what? What the hell have you got to live for in this godforsaken place? Better to die trying to get out of here than to live forever as slaves. Now you can come with me, or you can stay here. I don’t give a fuck.”

  Slaves. What did that word even mean? She remembered . . . something. But it was gone. And so was Dozen, scrambling out of the hole that led to Corridor Two.

  Fourteen-Oh-Eight cursed and climbed out behind her. Shit, she was running toward a captain of the guard! What the hell was she doing?

  “Yes, sir, that’s what they told us, sir! We’re here to open a passage to Corridor Three! There’s supposed to be a secure emergency lift over there, sir. They want us to check it out.”

  “I don’t know anything about an emergency lift on Corridor Three,” the captain snapped. “Who gave you your orders?”

  “Major Zandor. He told me to look for you specifically. Said if you got the job done there’d be something special in it for you, sir.” Dozen was laying it on thick.

  “Zandor, huh? I’ve heard of him.” The captain thought it over. “How am I supposed to get that done with all this shalsitt going on? I don’t have anybody to spare.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, sir. We’re specialized workers.” She splayed her hands on her chest. “I’m a blazer; this is my rigger. We do stuff like this all the time. I have the tools with me. Just leave it to us. And you’ll get all the credit!”

  Several guards called for the captain’s attention from other parts of the shattered corridor. He snorted with exasperation. “Get the fuck out of here. Get your asses smeared into jelly for all I care.” He waved a hand at the guards watching that part of the corridor to let them through. Like a miracle, Dozen and 1408 were allowed to enter the passageway that led to Corridor Three.

  Dozen cursed softly as she surveyed the route ahead. The cut-through was a jumble of broken beams and crumpled support structures, the twisted metal thrusting up through huge chunks of rock and reinforcing concrete like grasping arms. The tunnel had been lasered through solid igneous rock; the quake had loosened the supports where metal had been driven into the rock. There was little of the loose dirt and debris that had made passage so easy earlier.

  Dozen studied the sensor screen. “We’re going to have to cut through almost the whole passage. The only thing that’s saving our shit here is that the passage is short.”

  She shook her head. “Okay. Let’s try it here.” She took out the cutter and made a wide swipe at a nearby pile of rock. A hole opened into the space beyond. She looked, crawled tentatively through and made a cut from the opening. Things shifted beyond 1408’s field of vision. Dozen glanced back through the hole.

  “W
ell, what are you waiting for, an invitation? There ain’t but one way to do this.”

  “Shit,” 1408 muttered, and dragged herself through the hole after her friend.

  They worked their way along—Dozen cursing and sweating and cutting, 1408 following reluctantly behind—until at last they cut through into a larger space, dark as only the unlit underground can be, but cold with the movement of volumes of air.

  “Is it Corridor Three?”

  Dozen grinned. “Damn right! We’re through!” She squeezed through the hole into the space beyond and looked around, her headlight beam falling short in the looming dark. The space was immense, not a corridor at all, but a vast round dome from which the engineers had planned to start exploratory tunnels outward in an expanding array.

  “Why did they close this?” Fourteen-oh-Eight stood close to the blazer, intimidated by the size of the space.

  “I heard it was for lack of workers.” Dozen gave her a wicked grin. “If that’s so, then I say score one for the good guys. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “But you can’t have been here before, Dozen,” she insisted. “Closed means no access. There’s nobody here!”

  “No access except in emergencies. No one here except when the rest of the mine is fucked—like now! Weren’t you listening?”

  “When was the last emergency? I don’t remember any!”

  “The last one was before you got here, that’s why.”

  Fourteen-oh-Eight stopped, her boots scraping on the rock of the tunnel floor. Dozen turned to look at her.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, before I got here?”

  “You don’t remember.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’ve always been here.” Her anger burned, her head pounded. She refused to hear these crazy things from Dozen anymore.