by T. K. Malone
Sable’s voice echoed in his mind. “The first gate has been destroyed. Munitions should be deployed.”
Though Connor understood her words, it was as though he was trapped inside a vast shell. Every one of his movements felt odd, almost like it was being caught on film, stilted and staggered. He tried to call to Croft but was sure his voice was only audible inside his empty head. He tried to reach for him but felt dizzy and sick. And then the dust began to billow up and roll over the balcony, and one by one they were each swallowed by it until they became mere outlines, like specters.
Connor began to hack, his eyes stinging. If that was just one gate being blown, what the hell would it be like when they got closer? He shut his eyes to clear them, the raking dust making them water. Weren’t those gates supposed to survive a nuclear blast? How could Banks have so easily destroyed them? But Byron had already explained it all to him, how the gates had been designed to deflect any blast but in the process sacrificing themselves. That one blast may have taken three or four down, but at each gate the force would have been diminished until it was eventually spent. They weren’t designed to resist plodding progress, only one huge blast.
Fear shivered through him at the thought of the explosives directly beneath them.
Croft knelt at his side, offering a hand. Connor took it and sat up. “What…” but the word just echoed in his head. Croft stood, pulled him up and near dragged him to the back of the balcony and into a small messroom. He sat him on the floor and propped him with his back against the wall. Cupping Connor’s face, the commander looked deeply into his eyes, as if searching out his consciousness. Connor gave him a slight nod, a signal to say he was okay, which Croft returned before pulling away.
Time and again he left and returned with one of the others until they were all safely in the mess. Sticks had recovered enough to help Molly in, and soon went off in search of some water. When everyone had drunk a drop and cleared their heads, Croft nodded once more and stood, their group in a circle at his feet.
“I have made my choice, and as I am senior ranking commander of this base, my choices are now commands. Once the dust settles, and depending on what machinery he has, it will take Banks some six hours or so to clear the route and repack the next gate along with explosives. Each explosion will degrade the effectiveness of the next one. So, I reckon we have about two days maximum. I propose…no, I command that a way be found from the residential area to the surface. We’re fairly certain it must exist. All troops will move to that area and the stairwell will then be destroyed. We’ll set the explosives we’ve found under here to blow at the time we estimate Banks will finally break in. If a way out from the residential area can’t be found, then we’ll have to remain underground until it is, or until we’re rescued.”
“But who will rescue us?” Connor asked.
“I’m hoping you will, Connor.”
Everyone looked at him.
“I propose that you, Byron, Sticks, Molly, Gino, and Joe take the path through the explosives. I’m guessing there’s likely a way out from there—gut feeling. But, if you don’t find it within a day of walking, or if you get to a dead-end, you turn around and run like hell back here. That means you need to be back no more than two days from when you leave.” He looked up at a clock on the wall. “Let’s say six pm this evening—Sticks, does that give you enough time to equip them and give them some pointers on firing a few weapons?”
Sticks nodded.
“I don’t think I should go,” Kenny said through gritted teeth. “Think my arm’s bust.”
“Get it patched up,” Croft said, his voice brooking no argument. “Charm assembled you lot for a reason. He allowed you to go outside for a reason. You’re all sticking together—I’ve got enough on my plate. Three hundred-odd trapped and panicked apocalypse survivors should keep me busy.”
“Why split us up?” Molly asked.
Croft clearly thought about it for a moment and then smiled. “I just want to fuck up Charm’s playbook.” He looked down upon Connor and gave him an almost fatherly smile. “What do you think?” He reached out, offering Connor his hand. Connor took it and was pulled to his feet.
“Sounds good to me,” he said.
“Listen, I said my job was to protect you, and right now I think this is the best way to do it. Forty-eight hours—no more. So, come on folks, jump to it. Let’s move the goods out of the shop window.”
8
Connor’s Story
Strike time: plus 8 days
Location: Underneath Project Firebird
They’d been walking for just shy of two hours when the piles of explosives finally petered out.
“’Bout two and a half miles of the stuff,” Sticks said, crouching down and taking a long slurp of water from his canteen. “Don’t reckon we was making much more than a crawl for the last half, though.”
Connor reckoned he was just about right. The clear, flat and smooth stone path had soon given way to roughly hewn rock. It had followed a long curving route, timber uprights and crossbeams holding back the rock above them.
“Prospecting mine,” Byron said, adopting Sticks’ pose. “Do you have a smoke?” he asked.
The soldier glanced at the explosives. “You sure you wanna light one here?” He tossed him a pack, anyway.
“Perhaps a few more yards farther on then, though I wasn’t planning on stubbing the butt out on them.” They shuffled along again.
“You were sayin’?” Sticks said, dumping himself down against the wall. Connor and the others did the same. “Gino, you and Joe have a little spy up ahead. ‘Bout fifty yards or so, and if there’s nothin’ of interest, take a load off ‘n we’ll catch up with you.”
“And who put you in charge?” Gino growled.
“Croft,” Sticks said, and he turned back to Byron. “So, this here’s a mine shaft, so does it mean we’re gonna find an entrance?”
Byron took a draw on his smoke. “Unlikely but not impossible. The most likely explanation is that the cavern—the military area—is the entrance, and this is just what it is, a shaft. So, I’d honestly think it most doubtful. Logic would say we were just going farther and farther down—farther and farther into the mountain.”
“Then we should stop and go back,” Molly suggested.
Byron smiled. “Logic isn’t always right, though,” he said. “Look,” and he took a great lug on his cigarette and blew out the smoke, “there, see that? Airflow. Subtle, but it’s there.”
Connor watched the smoke billow into a small cloud and then dissipate like tendrils of mist, following the path taken by Gino and Joe.
“Of course,” Byron then said, “it could just be a vent shaft.”
“So, we’re none the wiser,” Kenny muttered.
“Nonsense, Kenneth. At least we know there’s a way out.” He smiled. “It’s merely a question of whether you can fit through it.”
Kenny sent him a look which said he wasn’t amused. Sticks looked at his timer. “Well, we’ve got twenty-two hours to find out.” He got to his feet, as best the roof would allow. Connor, hunched over, followed him.
Up ahead, Gino and Joe’s headlights swung this way and that, but then Connor stumbled, and so he focused his own lights on the rocky path ahead. Sticks had insisted on equipping them all, and now Connor, Byron, Molly, and Kenny were all dressed in full combat gear. Each helmet had two LED lights taped to their sides; Sticks had insisted their hands be free to carry an assault rifle. Though rapid and rudimentary, the young soldier had also given them quick instructions on how to fire it. Connor was confident he could at least aim the thing in the right direction.
As they trod on, it became colder and colder, the chill somehow becoming unnerving, like the ever-present silence punctuated only by the shuffling sound of their careful steps and the rasp of their stolen breaths. But then Connor noticed just a single constant drip, coming from up front, and somehow it disturbed him and made him wary.
Occasionally, Kenny groaned as
he jerked his busted arm, missing a footfall or two. Connor wondered if his meds were failing, but Sable assured him she was timing his doses and that everything was okay. The farther they went, the smaller the tunnel became, until they had to walk with more of a stoop. Claustrophobia appeared to infect them all one by one as the walls pressed in and the supporting timbers became fewer and farther apart. The heavy, bulletproof fatigues Connor wore made him sweat, even in the chill air. Ever so slowly, panic began to bubble in his subconscious, despite Sable’s best efforts to keep him calm.
No one spoke; Connor was convinced they were all fighting their own personal battles. Step by careful step they trod on, no room for a rest, no inclination to stop, as the walls continued to press in. He kept thinking back to the sewers, to floating on the luminous white water, to feeling it slide down his throat, and to seeing Teah, though at that time he’d not known her name, shining above him. His memory of her was of an iridescent being, one bending down to pick him up then carry him to safety. “She is the queen,” Sable announced in his mind, but she offered him no further insight. Connor gasped for air, his mind now swirling around. His stomach began to heave, but then Joe shouted from up front.
Connor came to with Molly cradling his head, looking down at him. She tipped a canteen of lukewarm water into his mouth, slaking his thirst. “What happened?” he asked.
“You collapsed; fainted, I think. We dragged you here—some kind of cavern. There’s a small pool—Byron says it’s a spring of some kind.”
“Does it lead…”
Molly shrugged. “We only know the path ends here. There’s talk of trying to follow a stream the pool drains into. It’s bloody freezing, though, Connor.”
Connor tried to clear his head. “Cold, buried underground, blown up, or captured and sold—our choices just get better and better.”
“Can you sit up?” she asked, and Connor shuffled onto his haunches.
“‘Queen’ Sable said; queen. What does that mean?” he wondered out loud, but Molly just gave him a “Not now” look. Those thoughts, however, didn’t go away. Why wasn’t Sable telling him? Why wasn’t she explaining? Connor felt his body go calm. Molly shuffled closer.
The cavern they were in was a good size, the pool Molly had mentioned being around five feet across, its outflow little more than a shallow brook, soon vanishing beneath a low archway in the rock. Both Gino and Joe were crouched down by it, shouting something into its blackness.
“Sticks has crawled in there,” Molly said, “to see if it can lead us to somewhere promising. If not, we’re going back.”
“Connor, you're back with us,” Byron called, and he wandered over. “What was all the queen stuff you were muttering? ‘She’s the queen’, or something like that. Is Sable a queen?”
Connor took the canteen from Molly and had another gulp of water. He mulled over Byron’s words. “No, no, I don’t think so. I think she was referring to Teah, the stiff who rescued me; my brother’s girlfriend until…”
“Teah? Your brother’s girl? Yes, I know her. Only met her the once, mind, but she was a truly impressive woman—she had a depth to her, Connor, an unimaginable depth.”
Connor glanced uncertainly at Byron. “What makes you say that?”
Byron shrugged. “I’ve met many people in my life. On the grid, the vast majority were the same—might as well have been drones—but Teah—well, Teah had a mind of her own. And she loved Zac.” He smiled, as if he were actually in the bar watching them. “Man, oh man, but how she loved Zac.”
“She could be alive,” Connor blurted out.
“Why do you say that?”
Connor thought on his words. “Because Sable said ‘She is the queen’, not was, but is.”
Molly placed her arm around Connor and pulled him close. “We all grasp for those hopes,” and Byron’s eyes told Connor his thoughts mirrored Molly’s.
“Well, mine are all dead,” said Kenny from a little way off. “Unfortunate timing.”
“Eh?” Byron muttered.
“My friends, the people I knew; they’re all gone.”
“How…” But Byron clearly thought better of pursuing his curiosity.
“Unfortunate timing? What makes you say that?” asked Molly, much to Byron’s consternation.
Kenny drew closer, wincing with every jerk of his arm. “Well, it’s like this—my workmates—didn’t care for them, so don’t care if they’re dead. My friends—well, they were really just fair-weather buddies—the sort who soon dropped you if something better came along, so I don’t care about them. But that apocalypse—that pissed me off.”
“Why?” Byron asked, now concealing a smile.
“I’d just gotten a girlfriend. After all those years alone…”
From over Kenny, Connor saw Sticks come splashing out from beneath the archway. “Looks navigable,” he shouted, and made his way over to them. “But I’m telling you, it’s colder than an Eskimo’s tit in there, and with no end in sight.”
“Does it open up?” Byron asked.
“After about ten feet,” and he shook the water from his legs and crouched down. “What’ya thinking?”
“Well, we’ve been walking…what, five hours? I’d say we can’t be too far from the surface, wherever that may be. If I were a betting man, I’d say that stream will lead us to the outside, provided—”
“Why’s there always a proviso?” Kenny asked, sounding defeated.
“Because, Kenneth,” Byron muttered, “because I’m not certain, so there has to be. The proviso is that the route is clear, the roof doesn’t drop to the level of the water and thereby bar our way. Plus, I have the feeling once we commit, there’ll—”
“Be no way back,” Connor finished for him.
Molly started to say, “But we’ve still got…what...”
“Sixteen, seventeen hours?” Sticks informed her. “We need to rest up a bit. I could send Gino and Joe on, but then one’d have to come back if the way split or something happened. Wouldn’t fancy that myself, not if I saw the sky at long last—not sure I’d trust myself. No, if we commit and the way is blocked, we’re going to be tight on time.”
“But it’s ,our only hope,” Molly said.
Sticks shrugged. “We could go back,” and he sat down, but then a sudden gust of wind blew into the cavern, pressing in on them.
Connor looked at Byron, then at Sticks and Kenny, all clearly knowing what it meant. Connor pulled Molly close, covering his ears as he drew his knees up tight just as a rumble shook the rock about them. The blast, when it came, was deafening. Dust and lumps of rock fell from the roof, then everything settled to a dread stillness before the air was slowly sucked out of the cavern, slurping into the shaft they’d only just come down. After the briefest of moments, the ground beneath them trembled once more before an explosion, far larger than the last, and rocked them where they cowered.
Presently, an even deeper stillness followed on, but into which soon came the sound of groaning rock, then the tortured grumbles of it slipping free followed by a growing cacophony of a rockfall. Sticks jumped up and pulled Molly away from Connor, freeing his view to Byron’s panicked face, and then all hell broke loose as everyone sprang into action.
Whether it was Sable’s doing or simple instinct, Connor jumped up, dragging Kenny with him. Byron was already on his feet, and together they raced after Sticks and Molly, toward the rock arch. Gino and Joe were already pushing Molly into the stream’s low passageway, then Sticks was pushed in. A great crash rent the air of the cavern as part of its roof gave way behind Connor, but by then he and Byron were being pulled into the passage by Kenny, its cold air cutting through his fatigues like a knife. Everything seemed a blur of limbs and pencil-beam lights as he ducked and fell to his knees, his helmet scraping against jagged rock as he frantically crawled in for dear life.
Joe screamed—Connor was sure it was him—from behind then Gino’s deep and throaty voice cried out before an earsplitting crash filled the passage
way and dust enveloped them all.
Connor pushed himself up, out of the ice-cold water into which he’d fallen, but could only see the odd thin and flickering beam of flashlight. When his hand felt a boot, he tried to grab it, but it slid away. Floundering, he finally managed to pull himself out of the stream and onto what felt like dry rock, and there he lay, panting, his ears ringing, but through which came a deep, whimpering groan. It grew and grew and finally erupted into a bone-chilling scream. Above it, Sticks was shouting, “Gino, Joe,” but only Gino answered, the pitiful cries remaining clearly Joe’s.
Fortunately, both beams of Connor’s headlights still worked when he reached up to clean the muck from their lenses, but they picked out nothing but a gray and dust-laden fog. But then a dark shadow appeared through it, moving around, and Connor recognized Sticks. Before he could move though, Kenny’s form came beside him, staring toward where Sticks was now bent over. Together, they edged toward him, holding back when they got close enough to see a third shadow on the ground.
At first, Connor couldn’t work out what, exactly, he was seeing. It all seemed somehow wrong. Sticks was bent to what looked like Joe’s upper half, whispering to him. Beside him, Gino was pulling at something—clearly straining to get a hold. Connor couldn’t quite understand why Joe’s upper body seemed to end just under his armpits. His arm was reaching out, the other curiously absent, and his head writhed around, shaking, as a steady whimper curled past the two soldiers now before Connor.
“It ain’t movin’,” Gino growled.
“Help me.” Joe’s voice sounded desperate, but Sticks was shaking his head.
As the dust settled farther, Connor heard Molly gasp, then Byron mutter, “Shit” before Kenny said, “Oh, God, no,” yet he himself stayed silent.