by Todd McAulty
“We will deal with that.”
“How badly will this theft cripple progress on the Indiana bioreactor? I don’t want to set those guys further back than they already are.”
“It will not materially affect progress. Thibault says additional equipment is largely useless without centrifuges.”
“Thibault is okay with this?”
“She has not been briefed on specifics. But she has urged us to acquire centrifuges.”
“Okay, good.” I walked through the plan again, looking for weaknesses. I imagined Hayduk, watching the camera footage of someone wearing his precious combat suit. I imagined what he might make of our little bit of theater. Would he find it plausible? If not, how could we make it plausible?
“How do we make the theft believable?” I asked. “I won’t exactly be carrying a load of centrifuges when I pass by the cameras. Is it plausible for one guy to steal all this stuff?”
“We will make it plausible. We will use freight elevator to move stolen items to loading dock. There are no cameras in elevator. You simply need to be seen entering and leaving building for theft to be believable.”
“How many people are you taking?”
“I will keep team small. Three, I think.”
“How much will you tell them?”
“Not very much,” said Sergei. “That we have received approval to appropriate equipment through . . . unofficial channels.”
We reviewed the logistics and schedule one more time. Timing would be critical. Since they were taking the truck and I’d be on foot, I’d have to set out for Columbia well before they did. Sergei estimated a one-way trip through the tunnels would take about two hours, and that seemed about right, assuming a minimal amount of blundering around in the dark. Round trip would take about four and a half, assuming half an hour inside the college.
“If I stumble on an AGRT patrol—or they brave the tunnels and find a way to track me—it could get pretty tricky,” I said.
Sergei hesitated. I knew what that meant. “Out with it,” I said. “What are you hiding?”
“I do not think it likely AGRT will pursue you. There are standing orders to avoid tunnels.”
“Avoid the tunnels? Why?”
“They have a . . . bad reputation. They have not all been explored.”
“What the hell does that mean? What do you mean, not explored?”
“Tunnels were critical part of Chicago strategic defense, just before fall of city. When city was pacified, Colonel Perez ordered the tunnels to be cleared.”
“So?”
“Operation was . . . never completed.”
“Never completed.”
“Nyet.”
“Why not?”
“Unknown. Captain Lagunza submitted report on operation to the colonel. Report is . . . highly classified. I have been unable to access.”
I nodded slowly. “Ooookay. So, a bunch of Venezuelan soldiers crawled around under Chicago for a few weeks, looking for . . . what? Secret enemy camps, American soldiers who don’t know the war is over, shit like that? And suddenly they stop looking, and nobody knows why?”
“Da.”
“Somebody knows why, Sergei. Captain Lagunza, and the soldiers under his command, probably know why. In fact, if some kind of trauma happened to them in the tunnels, they’d have been treated by the best medical team in the division. By my friend Sergei, perhaps. Am I correct?”
“I have spoken to some soldiers, yes.”
Sergei was stalling. There was something he didn’t want me to know. “And what did you hear?”
“Rumors, only. Reports of frightened young men, who saw only shadows in tunnels. They were not credible.”
“And what did these shadows do to your soldiers, exactly?”
“They caused minor injuries. Mostly.”
“Mostly.” I nodded again. “Any deaths?”
Sergei was thin-lipped. “Two. If you believe rumors.”
“I always believe the rumors. It’s how I’ve stayed in business so long. Two deaths?”
“Da.”
“What do the rumors say caused them? Mole people? Giant alligators?” I thought about the genetic monstrosities I’d seen in Godfrey’s hidden lab in the Continental Building. “Mutated monsters?”
“Rumors are inconsistent,” Sergei said impatiently. “Nonsensical.”
“Why don’t you let me judge that for myself? What do the rumors say?”
“That there are robots in the tunnels. Robots that kill.”
“What kind of robots? Venezuelan?”
“Reports are very contradictory. There are no specifics.”
“But Perez obviously believes there’s something in the tunnels, if he called off the search operation.”
“Colonel Perez has many priorities. There are many reasons he may have called off search.”
“Are there any tunnels that are particularly dangerous?”
“No. Reports of attacks are scattered, inconsistent.”
I stared at the maps for several long moments. Sergei seemed to want to say something, but he bit back any additional commentary. He simply watched me patiently.
“All right,” I said. “You’re right. One or two dumb accidents in these old tunnels is probably all it would take to start all kinds of rumors. And even if there is something dangerous in the tunnels, I’d prefer to take my chances there, instead of with the drones. I’ll use the tunnels, as you suggest. I’ll leave in a few hours.”
Sergei’s face remained impassive, but some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “As you like,” was all he said.
“On one condition,” I said.
Sergei raised an eyebrow.
“You get some sleep. Before tonight.”
“There is still much to do,” he said, with a glance around the room that took in the bioreactor, the purifier just starting to come together in the corner, and the busy teams working on it all.
“I need you at one hundred percent tonight, if we’re both going to be putting our lives on the line,” I said. “Agreed?”
Sergei checked the time on his tablet. “We will need to be ready to depart in six hours. You, in five hours.”
“You can pack in a damn good nap in the next six hours.”
Sergei seemed to be doing some quick thinking. “Three hours. I can sleep for three hours,” he said.
“You drive a hard bargain,” I said. “All right. I’ll see you tonight.”
I headed back to my room to get some last-minute messages out to a potential Ghost Impulse buyer in Zurich before I had to start preparing. Robots in deep tunnels, far underneath Chicago. Just how does one prepare for that, anyway?
Good thing you have a thirty-million-dollar combat suit, I thought.
XX
Wednesday, March 17th, 2083
Posted 6:14 am by Barry Simcoe
CanadaNET1 Encrypted, Sponsored by Jungle Jenius.
Because you’re too busy to garden, but that doesn’t mean your lawn should look like shit.
Sharing is set to PRIVATE
Comments are CLOSED
The tunnels under Chicago are cold, dark, and crappy.
They’re sort of like a long, dank, endless museum, where all the exhibits are unlabeled, unilluminated, and . . . weird. I stumbled across moldering piles of ancient lumber, two great rusted wheels at least eight feet in diameter, several stacks of bent rail ties, and even the ruined hulk of a steam engine.
The tunnels would probably be an archeological treasure trove if they weren’t so cold and plugged with decayed junk. I couldn’t tell you for sure, because I didn’t stop to examine any of it, but it sure looked like some of the stuff was a couple hundred years old. I swear I saw two covered wagons, and mining equipment that looked like it had been used to excavate the pyramids.
Sergei was right about one thing—I was glad I brought the suit. Even unpowered, it was still watertight and kept me decently warm. I had the mask with me, but kept it tucked into my
belt. I had a hard enough time seeing down there without having my vision clouded by a foggy mask.
I needn’t have worried about stagnant air in the tunnels. What I should have been worried about was goddamn frostbite. I have no idea where it was coming from, but there was a constant flow of cold air. And while the suit—and keeping a steady pace—kept me warm enough, after about half an hour my ears and cheeks felt like I was in a blizzard.
Sergei—along with Joy Lark, the doctor who’d been supervising the reactor construction—saw me off. I couldn’t tell if Sergei had actually slept or not. He hadn’t changed his clothes, his hair was just as disheveled as it had been the last time I’d seen him, and he still had about three days’ worth of beard. But he seemed alert and his eyes were a tad less bloodshot, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Sergei had led us into the basement of the hotel. I carried the combat suit and boots from my room in a bag. Zircon Border was right where he told me he’d be, positioned near the locked doors leading into the sub-basement. I’d spoken to him last night, asking if it would be a problem if we accessed the tunnels.
“Not a problem for me,” he said. “But I have to report anyone I see accessing the sub-basement.”
“Ah. Well, that’s a little awkward,” I said. “I’d prefer if my trip were private.”
“Perfectly understandable. I’m completely dependent on one camera to observe the access point to the sub-basement. It’s a standard optic unit, nothing fancy.”
“You’re not suggesting I mess with your camera, are you, Zircon Border? I don’t want to leave you in the dark down there.”
“Not at all. I’m saying that camera is useless when the lights are off.”
That’s all it took. We switched the lights off, fumbled in the dark with the master key Sergei brought with him, and we were through.
“Thank you, Zircon Border,” I whispered in the darkness. I reached out and patted his big metal torso affectionately before following Sergei and Joy through the door.
Sergei carried a heavy pair of bolt cutters, and I found out why when we got to the lower level. He knew exactly where we were going, but it seemed that every second door he led us through was padlocked with chains.
“Colonel had underground walkway sealed late last year,” said Sergei. “It has not been disturbed since.”
“Won’t your friend Zircon Border notice all the cut chains?” Joy asked me as we walked. “He’ll know who passed through here, surely.”
“He already knows we’re here,” I said. “However, he’s only obligated to report anyone he sees accessing the sub-basement. He was kind enough to let me know how to avoid that.”
Joy shook her head. “What a strange machine.”
“Yeah. I’ve met a lot of strange machines recently.”
By the time we’d cut our way through three doors and descended two more sets of stairs, I was starting to feel less like a hotel guest and more like a tomb raider. The air was cool, it was very dark, and it was completely quiet. Joy held a powerful flashlight, and it illuminated white tiled floor and walls, stagnant pools of water, and, after a while, several shuttered shops. Despite what Sergei had said about Chicago not having a subway, it felt very much like we were in the ruins of a long-deserted subway station.
We walked for perhaps three hundred yards, past an abandoned barbershop, several women’s clothing stores, a café, a luggage retailer, and the occasional sign that indicated we were passing under another building. Sergei led us to a service door that was locked and too sturdy to jimmy open, so we had to continue another two hundred feet to find a door that was less stubborn.
Once through that door, we descended another set of stairs, and suddenly it was like we’d moved backwards in time over a century. The clean white tiles on the walls were gone, replaced with crumbling brick. There was naked copper piping overhead, oxidized to a fungal green, and the stone floor under our feet was deeply worn and covered with grit.
I dropped the big shopping bag I’d found in the street two nights ago, and which I’d also used to smuggle the suit into the hotel past a bunch of sleepy AGRT soldiers. I pulled out the combat suit now. It was remarkably light, and it unrolled easily in my arms. Joy helped me climb into it, and then took my shoes as I lifted the boots out of the bag and pulled them on.
After making a few adjustments, I presented myself for inspection. “How do I look?” I asked.
“It fits you well,” said Joy admiringly.
“It’s a little tight in the shoulders, but not too bad. I think I’m breaking it in.”
Sergei and Joy accompanied me another sixty feet into a broader passageway. There was a stack of iron-banded barrels looming ahead on the right. The bands looked like there was nothing left of them but rust.
“I suppose the radio will be useless?” I asked.
“There may be some reception in pedestrian walkway, if subterranean GSM base stations are still functioning,” said Sergei.
“That doesn’t help me if I get into trouble in the coal tunnels.”
“There are risks,” Sergei agreed.
“When do we hit the coal tunnels?” I asked.
“We are in them now,” said Sergei.
“Seriously?”
He brought up a map on the ruggedized tablet he was carrying and showed me where we were. Sure enough, we were on the outer perimeter of the old freight runs. It didn’t feel like we were forty feet underground, but apparently we were.
“I thought the coal tunnels would have metal rails,” I said. “For the freight carts.”
“They do,” said Joy, pointing to her left.
She was right. They ran along the ground, just off-center of the passage, not five feet to our left. They were covered in grit and dust and very nearly blended into the floor. We must have been walking beside them since we’d entered the passageway.
“The route looks pretty clear from here,” I said, looking at Sergei’s screen. A right turn, a left, a long straight passage, and then up into the pedestrian walkway. Piece of cake.
“Are you certain?” said Sergei.
“Yeah, I think so.” I shone my flashlight down the tunnel ahead. It looked the same as it had for the past sixty feet—dark, dirty, and unremarkable. “No need for you two to go any further. I don’t want you getting lost down here.”
Sergei handed me the tablet and the bolt cutters. “Stay on route. If you encounter serious obstacles, return to hotel.”
“Got it.” I checked the time. “I’ll see you back here in four and a half hours.”
“Da. I will meet you here,” said Sergei.
“With a cold beer,” I said.
“Two beers,” said Sergei. “We shall drink to success.”
“Good luck,” said Joy.
I hefted the bolt cutters over my shoulder and started down the passageway. Joy and Sergei watched me for the first hundred feet or so, and then I saw them turn back.
I made decent progress at first. The tunnels were dank and cold, but they were almost perfectly straight, and it was dead easy to maintain my sense of direction. After about eighty yards I came to my first turn, where the passage I was in joined with a larger tunnel.
It’s also where I encountered the first . . . I’ll call it an oddity, for lack of a better term.
For much of the journey, there were cobwebs. Tucked into corners, sometimes dangling down to catch your hair. Precisely the kind of thing you expect when you’re mucking your way through a two-hundred-year-old coal tunnel.
Just before I reached the first juncture, I started noticing some bigger webs. Nothing too extraordinary, but they stretched from the floor up to the shadowy ceiling, and they were thick enough to cast shadows themselves. They had accumulated plenty of dust over the decades, and in spots they were like furry curtains. I stepped around them, none too eager to have them sticking to me, even with the protection of the combat suit.
When I reached the wider tunnel, I found the first really huge webs.<
br />
They were eight to twelve feet across, stretching from floor to ceiling, and almost completely opaque. They weren’t just larger—they were more frequent, too. As I made my way west down the bigger tunnel, I saw webs on almost everything. There was a pile of bricks and lumber that was almost completely obscured by a great tangled web. More and more often, I was having to weave carefully between them as I made my way west.
Every once in a while there were lumps in the webs, or on the web-covered stacks. I kept my distance from those and had no urge to investigate.
After I’d walked about two hundred yards, I came out of a twisty maze of webs into a relatively clear space. I was picking my way carefully, scanning floor and ceiling ahead as I made my way, and that’s how I spotted the thing, dangling on a thick strand of web, straight ahead in the middle of the tunnel.
It was one of the furry lumps. It hung from the ceiling in the shadows ahead, five feet off the floor. It was perfectly still, not spinning in the light breeze blowing through the tunnel.
I scoped it out pretty well before I got too close. It was about the size of a football, and as far as I could see, it didn’t have any markings. It didn’t have a lot of extra legs either, which, I don’t mind telling you, was something of a relief.
I got close enough to poke it, and that’s what I did. I jabbed it with the bolt cutters.
It spun lazily, bobbing slightly on the thread. It looked like some kind of dead husk. I reached out and stopped the spinning with my hand.
Whatever it was, it was dried and very dead. It looked almost like a tortoise shell, but it seemed more fragile. I couldn’t tell how long the thing had been dangling here. Five years? Longer?
Was this more of Godfrey’s handiwork? There were all kinds of stories about the monsters he’d accidentally unleashed in the city during the war. After what I’d seen in the deserted biolab, I was more inclined to believe them.
I didn’t have time to satisfy my curiosity about the thing, so I left it and moved on. There were more webs farther down the tunnel, and I avoided them the best I could.
As far as I could see, the most challenging aspect of the tunnels wasn’t monster webs and other mysteries. It was the fact that it was almost impossible to tell exactly where you were. There were no landmarks of any kind—none that I could see, anyway. I had Sergei’s tablet, with a hi-res map, but GPS was useless this deep underground, and it couldn’t tell me where I was. I had to keep careful track each time I passed an intersection, and with all the webs and occasional stacks of junk, that wasn’t as easy as one might think.