Roche followed the Mbatan up the stairs, with Haid behind her. The staircase wound steeply upward in a tight spiral, lit by ancient fluorescent tubes every half turn. Explosions occasionally came through the stone walls like the booming of enormous beasts. The loudest, and presumably the nearest, made the steps shake beneath their feet.
Then, when Roche estimated that they had risen about ten floors, the lights went out.
"They've reached the main generator," Haid said into the darkness. "Good."
"It is? Why?" Roche stumbled in the dark, then regained her balance.
"Someone tripped the breakers before they arrived," Emmerik explained.
"Didn't you notice?" said Haid. "No explosion."
"So?"
"Wait a second," said Emmerik. "You'll see."
They continued to climb. Behind her, barely audible over the sound of their scuffling feet, she could hear Haid counting to himself.
" ... three ... two ... one ... Hang on!"
Roche braced herself as the air began to tremble. A rumbling sound grew steadily louder until the walls began to vibrate, shaking loose pockets of dirt that rained down upon them, causing Roche to gag. Then, an explosion from somewhere deep beneath her feet, the force of which made the steps themselves buck. Roche slipped to her knees, instinctively wrapping an arm about her head for protection from the rubble spilling down from above. She only looked up again when she heard Haid's cry of elation in the ringing aftermath, although the darkness still effectively hid him.
"That'll slow them down!"
"What — ?" Roche staggered to her feet, still hearing phantom echoes of the blast in her ears. "The generator blew?"
"Self-destructed. A little contingency we prepared years ago, if we were ever forced to leave." His voice held equal parts triumph and regret. "They might think twice next time before advancing so quickly."
"Maybe," Emmerik muttered from farther up the stairwell. "But we no longer have a headquarters."
"Not that it matters anymore," Haid responded, although less vigorously. "Soon we'll either have the landing field, or nothing at all." A hand reached out of the darkness to nudge Roche upward. "Keep moving. We've still got a long way to go."
They exited the stairwell a few minutes later, Emmerik first, with his rifle ready. The safe house was clear, although shots rang out from somewhere close by. Roche followed the Mbatan through the corridors of the building, Haid at her side, until they reached the garage where they had disembarked from the truck two days before. Sunlight seeped through grimy windows, casting geometric patterns across the packed earth floor. Roche blinked, startled; she had lost track of the time underground.
A fleeting figure passed across the other entrance to the garage, and was gone before Roche could raise her rifle. It returned an instant later: Cane.
"Good, you're here," he said. He was wearing combat armour provided by the rebels — not powered, but passive; thick plates of black impact-resistant foam padding his torso and limbs. A lightweight helmet covered his head, its faceplate removed. "This way."
He led them to the room in which Roche had showered. Standing massive and still in the centre of the room was the suit they had stolen from the Enforcement team in Houghton's Cross.
"Hey, Proctor," Roche said, running a hand across the suit. "Am I glad to see you."
"We recharged its batteries before the generator blew," said Cane.
"Excellent," said Haid.
Roche moved forward and removed the data glove. Cane held the Box in position behind her back as she stepped into the headless shell. When her palm slid home into the suit's left glove, the armour came to life, wrapping around her body in an intimate yet intimidating embrace.
She took a step, feeling the solid thump of the suit striking the floor through her feet. Again, the sensation of power diffused through her veins — hypnotic, and misleading. Still, it was good to be feeling strong and in control once again.
Cane, standing behind her, placed a helmet on her head. "There's an Enforcement team outside," he said, both to her and the others. "We've been holding them off until you arrived."
"You and how many?" asked Haid.
"Six others. Two on each floor, sniping from windows."
"How many Enforcers?" Haid asked quickly.
"A dozen or so, most of them in the building opposite. Maii says there's another team on the way."
"Maii's here too?" Roche turned to face Cane.
"Veden, too," said Cane. "We're going to need both of them if this plan is going to work."
"Is he up to fighting?" said Roche.
"Sylvester finished treatment late yesterday," Haid explained. "His system has been flushed clean, and his long-term prognosis is good. Whether he can fight or not, though, I don't know."
"We'll have to carry him out, then — "
the Box interrupted, speaking over Haid's plans to get Veden out of the safe house.
"Maii?" The rebel cast his one eye toward the ceiling. "Did you hear that?"
"You'll be trapped!" Roche protested, her voice unnecessarily loud.
"Are you sure?" asked Haid.
Haid described a rendezvous while Roche strode heavily back to the garage. Intermittent gunfire crackled in the street outside. Faintly at first, but growing louder, she began to hear the nasal buzz of aircraft.
"If we go outside, we will be caught in a pincer," said Cane from behind her.
"I agree." She flexed the fingers of her suit's right glove. "We'll have to go back down again and come up another way."
Haid and Emmerik, when they had finished making arrangements with Maii, agreed.
"Neva is still down there somewhere," said the Mbatan.
"So is Enforcement," said Roche.
"If Maii can contact her, she can open the back door," said Emmerik. "Or at least keep it from being closed."
Haid nodded. "We'll go down via the stairwell — if you'll fit," he added with a nod to Roche. "The others will stay topside to keep Enforcement off our backs for as long as possible."
"Agreed." A suicide mission, Roche thought to herself, glad she wouldn't be staying behind.
Maii said.
"Good." Haid glanced around him, at Emmerik, Cane, and Roche. His face betrayed little of the nervousness Roche herself was feeling. He seemed poised but relaxed, much as Cane did: a natural fighter.
There, however, the resemblance ended. Haid had initially learned the ability to fight by implants, whereas Cane seemed to have been born with it. Watching the muscles twitching in Cane's neck as he led the way back to the stairwell, she wondered how he felt about his experiences so far. Was it just a game to him, a series of obstacles to be overcome in a larger plan — or was he as Pristine as he seemed, despite the evidence?
She doubted she'd ever find out. The best she could hope for — if it was all a game to him, and if for the moment he was playing on their side — was that he'd win.
After that, she was prepared to take her chances.
* * *
At the bottom of the stairwell, Roche eased gratefully out of the cramped space and into a
dark, smoke-filled passageway. Forced to descend sideways due to the width of the suit's shoulders, she relished the simple joy of facing the direction in which she was going.
"Clear," she called to the others, when she had swept the corridor with the lights on the suit's chest. Apart from smoke and debris, the way was empty.
Haid emerged from the stairwell, followed by Emmerik. Cane came last, shutting the door carefully behind him.
"That way." Haid pointed ahead. "Turn left at the next corridor. We'll have to climb down the elevator shaft to get to the right level."
Roche led the way through the ruined headquarters, stepping gingerly over the debris. Occasionally they passed bodies; apart from one Enforcer, the dead were all rebels. Emmerik stopped briefly at each to identify the victims. Roche waited patiently while he did so; although to her the dead were strangers, to the Mbatan they would have been family.
They reached the elevator shaft without mishap. The doors had been blown open by the explosion of the power plant, and the cage had fallen to the lowest level. Cables dangled like snake carcasses before the entrance, while fires from below gave the scene an almost infernal ambience.
"Two levels down is the one we want," Haid said. "Do you think the cables will take your weight?"
Roche shrugged. "We'll soon find out."
The four of them slithered down the shaft, Cane more speedily than the others. When they reached the right floor, he had already levered the doors open and was waiting to help them through. Roche thudded with relief onto the solid floor. Despite the strength of the suit's grip, she had experienced a few moments of apprehension on the way down.
The smoke was thicker on the twenty-third floor, and smelled strongly of burnt insulation. The suit lights struggled to penetrate the gloom, and she eventually gave up looking for the most part, relying on hearing to tell if there was anyone ahead. As yet, however, they had encountered no one in the ruins.
"Almost too quiet," said Emmerik, echoing her thoughts.
"No sign of anyone at all," Haid agreed.
"I can hear people," said Cane. "Not close, though."
"This level?" said Haid.
"Perhaps." Cane closed his eyes and cocked his head slightly. "It's hard to tell."
Haid nodded. "Okay. You and Emmerik wait here. Roche, come with me."
Roche obeyed, following the rebel leader through the shadows, her chest lights burning circles into his back. He led them down the corridor a short way, then turned left. Fifty metres farther, they came to a locked door.
"Good," he muttered, fumbling with the manual lock. "It hasn't been disturbed."
"What hasn't?"
"Munitions dump." He glanced over his shoulder, his artificial iris constricting as Roche's lights stabbed at him. "We need everything we can get to tackle the landing field. Seeing as we're already down here ... "
The door opened with a click, and Haid waved her inside. The small room contained a single crate, from which he handed her a number of small items. Stowing them carefully in the suit's chest and thigh compartments, she mentally recorded each item: grenades, mortars, ammunition for the projectile rifles, gas cylinders, pistols, power packs, pressure mines ...
When the suit was full, Haid stowed an armful in his own clothes and led her out of the room.
"Back doors and arms caches," she said as they began to walk back the way they had come. "Has anybody ever told you people that you're paranoid?"
"You have to be," he replied. "An underground movement is always under threat — especially one as established as our own. Long-term survival is inevitably more important than short-term gains. What we lost in the past by diverting arms to secret caches is more than compensated for by the possibility that we might survive now."
Roche smiled to herself, remembering her Tactics teacher at college, many years ago, whose words Haid had unknowingly echoed: "Show your true face to your enemy, and expect to have it slapped. Give everything you've got, and expect it to be taken away from you. Never feel so superior, or inferior, that you can afford to relinquish your most valuable weapon: deceit. A war is won only when at least one of the parties loses the ability to lie ... "
The younger Roche had always thought her teacher slightly cynical. Now she had to admit that his point was sound, in practice.
Cane and Emmerik were where they had left them. As one, they headed along the corridor toward the headquarters' back door — the place where Sabra had died. Halfway there, Roche remembered the final expression on Sabra's face. The bewildered horror and despair in the woman's eyes, as victory had been suddenly turned to defeat, was a potent reminder that nothing should be taken for granted.
Part of the roof had collapsed near the end of the corridor. As they climbed over the obstacle, Cane announced that he could hear fighting up ahead.
"Gunshots, energy weapons — " He peered forward through the gloom, as though willing the smoke to part. "And voices."
Roche could hear nothing. "How many?"
"I can't tell."
"Quietly, then," said Haid, shrugging his rifle into a more comfortable position. "Lead the way, Cane. Roche, turn your lights off."
They continued along their way with Roche at the rear. Presently, she too heard the sounds Cane had reported: the occasional sizzle of energy weapons, the angry crack of rifles.
When they reached the end of the corridor and entered the maze of corridors, their progress became even more cautious.
"I estimate ten Enforcers," Cane whispered over his shoulder to Haid. "Maybe the same number of your people defending the exit. The Enforcers lie between us and the others."
"With their backs to us," the rebel leader finished.
They came to a halt near a corner. Flashes of light issued from the branching corridor every time an energy weapon discharged. Explosions echoed through the confined space, almost painfully loud.
"Lights back on, Roche," said Haid, stepping aside. "They'll think you're one of them long enough for us to get close."
Roche activated the suit's chest lights and strode forward. The three men waited a moment, then followed in her shadow. As she turned the corner, she quickly surveyed the scene.
Seven armoured Enforcers filled the crowded corridor, using debris for shelter where it was available. Beyond them, across a short section of no-man's-land, a rough blockade protected the entrance to the room where Sabra had died. As Roche watched, a projectile rifle was fired from behind the blockade, sending ricochets sparking along the walls. She automatically ducked before regaining her composure and moving on.
Barely had she taken five steps when the Enforcement squad noticed her. Recognising her armour as one of their own, they turned back to the fighting. She swallowed, and raised her rifle.
Before she could fire, Cane rushed past. Snatching a percussion rifle from the hands of the nearest Enforcer, he turned it on the armour, blowing holes in the tough ceramic and killing the person inside instantly. The rest of the squad, belatedly realising that they were being attacked from behind, scrambled for cover.
The corridor quickly dissolved into chaos. A hail of bullets and energy filled the air. Silhouetted against the firestorm were the combat suits, powerful shadows jerking from side to side, trying to locate targets in the mess of motion.
Roche's rifle kicked in her hands. A lucky shot shattered an Enforcer's visor. Pressing the advantage, she rammed the butt through the starred plastic. Screaming, the Enforcer dropped his percussion rifle, and Roche stooped to pick it up. Firing quick bursts, she backed away. Blinded, the Enforcer staggered forward with his arms outstretched until the suit failed completely and he collapsed spread-eagled to the ground.
Emmerik heaved the suit into a sitting position and used its solid bulk as a shield. A second Enforcer fell under Roche's fire, and a third. Cane dodged in front of her, firing a stolen rifle at its owner. Haid joined Emmerik, and together they picked off the remaining Enforcers.
Within moments, the skirmish was over. Ha
id climbed over the ruined suits to meet his fellow rebels behind the blockade, trailing a streamer of blood from a flesh wound in his left leg. Roche and Cane gathered the undamaged weapons from the bodies and did the same. Emmerik waited until they were through before following.
"Emmerik!"
A battle-worn Neva pressed forward to take the Mbatan by the arm. Her face was grimy and blackened, but otherwise she seemed none the worse for wear.
"We made it." Haid held a cloth to staunch the flow from his leg.
"Not a moment too soon," she said. "Maii told us to wait, but I don't know how much longer we could have held them off."
"That you did for long enough is all that matters." The rebel leader urged Roche forward. Opening one of the suit's compartments, he retrieved a grenade and primed it. "You go with the others. I'll catch up with you in a moment."
Neva led the way through the doorway with the damaged sign above it. Another flight of stairs greeted them, this one easily wide enough for the suit and lit by baleful red emergency lights.
Roche performed a quick head count: herself, Cane, Emmerik, Neva and a half dozen surviving rebels. Eleven people, four of them with Enforcement percussion rifles, only one with combat armour.
"Are we all that made it out?" she asked Neva.
Neva shook her head. "I sent about twenty ahead. There may be more who came before us, too. The exit was open when we reached it."
Roche nodded. The number was still small, but not as bad as it had seemed at first. Enforcement had been looking for her, after all, and she didn't want a massacre on her conscience.
A muffled detonation from the base of the stairwell made her ears pop. That was followed by the sound of falling masonry. Moments later, Haid limped to join them, shaking dust from his clothes.
"The exit is blocked," he said, grimacing. "If anyone's left down there, they'll have to take the subway out."
Neva put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Your leg ... ?"
"Is fine," he said, looking around at the party. "Am I the only one wounded?"
"No." Her gaze shifted to Emmerik, who nodded, then to Roche. "But we've made it this far. That's the main thing."
Sean Williams & Shane Dix - Evergence 1 - The Prodigal Sun Page 26