We keep descending the steps.
They seem to stretch on forever, deeper into the darkness. White stains of efflorescence mark the damp stone walls.
Finally, we reach the bottom.
The tunnel is large and spherical here. I see subway tracks in the center, but they’re corroded and covered in a layer of water. In fact, the whole bottom of the tunnel is flooded by about a foot of stale liquid.
“Those tracks aren’t live, are they?” a traveler asks. “I don’t want to get electrocuted.”
“No. I’m sure they’ve been dead for years,” someone else answers, sloshing down into the water without hesitation.
A few travelers start lighting dim lanterns. It’s nearly impossible to see even with these lights, but I’m guessing that they don’t want to risk using any bright lights unless they have to.
Liam and I reach the bottom of the stairs, and we step into the water. It smells awful, like raw sewage, or runoff from the wheel. I feel it soak through my boots instantly, making my feet cold.
I hear more footsteps coming down the stairs behind us. More travelers.
“Let’s go save Rika, Markus, and everyone else!” Gadya bellows as she starts running forward, despite her injured leg.
Liam and I follow closely behind, weapons raised.
Our feet churn through the water. I glance back and see David lagging.
“Liam,” I say, touching his arm. We both pause for a moment so that David can catch up. We need him and his knowledge to help free the archive. And we’ve also lost so many friends, I don’t want to lose track of any more. I wish I’d been able to find Cass and Emma on the highway. What if they didn’t survive?
As we continue running, I ask Liam, “You think this could be a trap?”
“Maybe.”
“What if Meira told us we had four hours until the archive self-destructed, but it’s going to blow up as soon as we get there?”
“Then we just have to get there faster than she thought we could.”
“The bombs could be automated,” David speaks up next to me. “Like the feelers. Our arrival at the archive could actually be what sets off its destruction. We have to tell the travelers to be careful.”
“How do you even know the travelers so well?” Liam asks.
“I knew about them from rumors in my resistance cell. And then I heard stories about ghosts on this part of the road while I was in the drones’ camp. So I put two and two together. But when I landed that feeler on the road, I’d never actually met them before. They instantly understood how I could be useful to them, once they saw the black box and I told them about Meira.”
I hear more and more travelers sloshing in the tunnel around us. I think of the freezing cold temperatures in the gray zone, and I shudder. It’s cool down here in the tunnels, but nowhere near what it’s going to be like in the zone. And this time we don’t have any protection against the cold.
My only hope is that the tunnel opens into some kind of protected building. If it just opens into the gray zone outside somewhere, we’ll freeze to death.
We keep running. Endlessly, down the wide tunnel. I wonder if we’ll even be able to tell when we pass underneath the barrier to the gray zone. Probably not.
We just have to reach the control tower and free everyone before it self-destructs. If we can do that, then our mission will have been a success. No more Monk. No more archive. No more different tribes fighting one another when we should be united in fighting the UNA.
I wonder where the feelers will take the kids they capture, after the specimen archive is destroyed. Or perhaps they’re programmed to self-destruct too. If they aren’t, they’ll eventually run out of power. Or else they’ll be struck down from the sky by us, one by one. They might snatch a few more kids along the way, but their days ruling the skies will be over.
We keep running. My chest is heaving. My heart feels like it’s about to burst. But I know we can’t stop to rest now, not even for a second.
Liam is helping David along. Gadya is a few paces ahead of us. I just hope that we reach the gray zone soon.
But it’s then that the first terrifying screams begin. And I hear the sound of travelers yelling in surprise—as something begins darting from the shadows and skittering across the water, down here with us in the darkness.
25UNDERNEATH
I INSTANTLY STOP MOVING. So does Liam. He swings his body sideways to protect me. The water is churning all around us.
I realize that we’re not alone. That something unseen is down here in the tunnels with us. I raise my blade. Liam does the same.
“Great,” Gadya mutters.
David staggers sideways. Travelers are calling out to one another. I also hear more strange sloshing noises in the dark.
“What going on?” Liam calls out.
“I don’t know!” a traveler yells back. “We didn’t think anything was down here. No feelers. No machines—”
I hear the noises again. Eerie, chittering, cackling sounds.
“It’s not feelers,” I say dismally, staring into the darkness. These sounds are too raw and animalistic to be coming from machines. “It’s drones.”
“Drones?” David asks. “One’s who’ve gone rogue?”
“No. Drones who aren’t wanted,” I say, in a moment of sudden realization.
This whole time it has bothered me that the drones all seemed so similar. I’d remembered them as a diverse group. Now I realize that some of them—probably the craziest ones who couldn’t be controlled—might have been weeded out by Meira. The 5 percent that the new drugs don’t work on. They might have been banished and sent far away, to a place where they couldn’t cause any trouble. A place just like these tunnels.
Liam looks at me in the dim light. “What do you mean? Tell me.”
“Gadya and I fought a huge girl last time we were on the wheel—nearly a mutant. And we saw a few kids like that at Minister Harka’s camp. I think they’d been physically affected by the drugs here, or even back in the UNA.” I pause. “But didn’t you notice how uniform the drones seem now? How placid?”
Liam nods in agreement. “The drugs couldn’t work perfectly on everyone. There had to be some kids who didn’t fit in. Who stayed completely wild. Makes sense.”
David stares into the darkness. “And now they’re down here with us?”
For once, I can tell that something has taken him by surprise. It’s clear he didn’t know about this. Meira must have kept it from him. And now these crazy drones are going to form a human blockade between us and the control tower in the gray zone. If we can’t get past them in time, then the specimen archive is going to self-destruct after all.
“We’re going to have to fight them off,” Gadya says.
“No problem,” I say, sounding braver than I feel.
Gadya hoists up her spear. “Just another day on the wheel, right?” She forces a smile in the gloom.
Suddenly, I see a blazing flash of orange light. I shield my eyes.
One of the travelers has lit a flare. I didn’t even know that the travelers had any. He’s standing about fifty feet ahead of us in the tunnel. I glance up and freeze.
“Hell no . . .” Gadya breathes.
I see that we are far from alone in the tunnel. Facing us down is a group of terrifying-looking drones, hissing and snarling. All of them look sick from the Suffering, pockmarked with bloody sores. But they also look completely insane.
I instantly know that my theory was right. These are the outcast drones. These are the drones that couldn’t even be controlled by Meira and the new drugs. There are hundreds of them, staring at us angrily. Maybe thousands. They would be useless as part of an army attacking Australia, or anywhere else. But here in the tunnel to the gray zone, they work perfectly in preventing any progress. Meira put them here on purpose.
I see a couple of travelers already lying facedown in the water. Blood pools out from their bodies.
It’s clear that we won’t be able
to reason with these drones. When Meira took control of the drones, she must have exiled any kids who didn’t fit. Just like the UNA exiled us when they sent us to the wheel.
One of the nearby drones growls, displaying his pointed teeth. He’s huge and menacing, with rippling muscles. But I see that his mottled flesh is rotting with infected sores. None of the kids have weapons, but their teeth and fingernails are razor sharp. They stare back at us, the light of the flare reflected in their dilated pupils.
The light seems to be keeping them at bay. But I know that this flare will burn out soon.
“Charge!” one of the travelers yells, as the flare starts to flicker.
A moment of pure silence follows his words. Our only option is to keep moving forward. We can’t go back because of the feelers.
The travelers start rushing forward through the water, heading straight at the drones. The tunnel is plunged into near darkness again as the flare sputters out, and we rely only on lamplight.
“Stay next to me!” Liam says, clutching his blade. I hold my long knife up too, just like Gadya taught me.
I hear screaming. Something thuds into me and I instinctively leap back, swinging out hard with my blade. But I don’t catch anything—only empty space.
“Keep moving!” voices yell.
We race forward in the near darkness. I see a traveler trying to light another flare, but it’s knocked from his hands by a large drone who leaps onto his back. Both the traveler and the flare go into the water. The drone holds the traveler’s head down, trying to drown him. We sweep past them, unable to take the time to stop and help.
I hear the voices of the drones cackling and wailing. The drones keep coming at us relentlessly.
A crazed girl with a shaved head claws at me with her fingernails. I knock her back with my elbow, and she stumbles into the shadows, babbling to herself. It’s like they’ve lost the capacity for speech. Their minds have rotted, just like their bodies.
“Don’t stop, no matter what,” Liam says. We’re at each other’s side.
I glance back for David. He’s several yards behind us, keeping low to the water. “David, come on!” I call out. “Hurry up.” He hears me and moves faster, heading toward us.
A traveler gets another flare lit behind us. Its orange glow illuminates the horrific scene. I see a drone crouched over the body of a traveler, using his pointed teeth to tear at the traveler’s neck. It’s like watching an animal rather than a fellow human being. These drones seem possessed with fury.
I glance up and see even more of them heading our way. How many could there even be down here? Somehow, we have to get past them. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.
We keep pushing forward. The water is deeper in places, and the base of the tunnel is uneven. My feet sink into holes at least half a foot deep, making me stumble and nearly twist an ankle.
I see a huge, crazed boy lumbering out of the shadows right at Liam.
“Liam, look out!” I yell.
A second later, the boy throws himself on us.
I lash out with my blade. It hits the boy across his bare chest, slicing into his skin. He goes spinning sideways, falling into the water with a scream and a splash.
Another drone darts out at us. This one is thin and lean. His emaciated body is covered with weeping sores. His pointed teeth are bared, like fangs. He hisses at us like a snake and then leaps right at me. I hit him with my blade, and he plunges down, flailing in the water. Liam and I rush forward again.
But this thin drone won’t leave me alone. I hear splashing sounds. A second later, tight fingers grab my ankle like a vise. I gasp in surprise and stumble, falling onto all fours in the toxic water. It sprays up, splattering my face.
I kick out with my boot, hitting the drone’s face and knocking him backward.
“Liam!” I yell. He turns around to help.
But the drone leaps onto me before Liam can reach me. The drone is screeching as he scrabbles up my body, trying to push my head down into the water. I fight back as hard as I can, getting to my knees. Water gets into my mouth and makes me retch.
I fling my elbows backward, trying to hit him in the face again.
Then he’s tumbling off me. Liam has slashed him across the face with his blade. The drone topples into the water, bleeding.
I stand up, grabbing Liam.
Before we can even move forward, the drone is up again, startling both of us with his demented vigor.
This time he goes straight for Liam, moving with surprising speed. His face is contorted into a mask of madness. Blood drips down his forehead from where Liam cut him to the bone.
He slams into Liam, gnashing and clawing at him. Liam hammers at him with his fists and with his blade.
I rush forward. If I don’t do something, then this drone is going to hurt Liam. I lunge and stab the drone in his side, plunging the blade to its hilt.
With a howl of pain, the drone relents and lets go. He drops back down into the water, clutching the bleeding wound.
Liam and I rush away from the drone as fast as we can. I glance back and see him hobbling off in the other direction, into the darkness. Behind him and around us, travelers continue doing battle with these banished drones. The drones are screaming and grunting, but they keep attacking.
It’s like they can’t help it. Like they’ve lost any self-control.
More of them burst from the shadows.
If they continue to assault us like this, they’re going to be able to halt our progress. And then everyone in the specimen archive is doomed.
“Up ahead!” Gadya calls out. “There’s more of them!”
The travelers are being overwhelmed by the drones now. There are just too many of them here in the dark. They’re slowing us down.
Liam and I race forward, fighting our way past them. I glance back to make sure David is with us. I see him staggering along in our wake.
“This way!” Liam yells, pointing at a gap in the horde of drones. We plunge into it, fighting to keep their claws and teeth away from us.
I keep running side by side with Liam. My only thought is that we need to keep going. If we stop even for a moment, I know that we’ll be killed.
Finally, we reach a bend in the tunnel. A traveler sets off another flare. This one is blue, and it casts an eerie light. I stare around in despair. More crazed drones lunge forward. Others scuttle back and forth in the shadows, growling.
The travelers thin out here. The drones have decimated their numbers.
“It’s getting worse!” Gadya cries.
I’m still gasping for air. We’ve run a terrifying gauntlet—one that doesn’t seem to have an end.
“Don’t stop!” Liam calls out. “The drones are following us!”
I glance back. He’s right. As we continue to move through the tunnels, the drones give chase. So we keep racing through the water.
“You okay?” Liam asks, as he swings his blade, knocking a drone out of our path.
I nod. “Barely! You?”
“Yeah.” I look at him and see that his bandage has come undone. The wound from the arrow is leaking blood again. “You’re bleeding!”
“I’ll be fine.” He glances at my arms. “You’re cut too.”
I look down and see deep lacerations across my left forearm. Probably from where the thin feral drone gouged me with his fingernails. “I’m fine,” I tell Liam, not wanting to waste any time.
Drones flood from the shadows. Terrifying figures that keep lashing out. I stare ahead down the tunnel as we race forward, swinging our weapons. “You think we’ll make it?”
“We better hurry.”
As we keep moving, I feel like it’s getting lighter in the tunnel. It remains gray and dim, but it’s a little easier to see. The light isn’t coming from torches or flares. It’s just like the level of ambient light has increased in general. And then, finally, as we turn another bend, I see some kind of light source up ahead of us.
Liam sees it to
o. “That could be the exit! Could be our way into the gray zone.”
“It’s getting colder,” I point out, realizing that the temperature has dropped by several degrees.
Gadya reaches my side. “I must have killed twenty drones!” she mutters. “They’re relentless. And they’re still on our tail!”
I point at the light up ahead as we run. My joints ache. But we’re moving forward.
I see a few remaining travelers ahead of us running forward too. They’re calling back and forth to one another. I can’t believe our group has been whittled down so quickly. There are fewer than ten of them left ahead of us.
“This is it!” one of them yells, turning back to us. Before we can ask him any questions, he just plows forward again.
We follow him and the others, heading toward the light in the distance. I can see now that it’s embedded in the side of the tunnel, like some kind of opening in the stone wall.
It’s definitely colder now. The air has a distinct crisp chill to it, and it smells fresher. The farther we go, the colder it keeps getting. We turn another slight bend.
When we finally reach the opening, it’s not what I expected. Instead of stairs and a stone archway leading outside, there’s a metal hatch. Like the ones I remember from the specimen archive. The hatch door is hanging wide open.
Beyond the hatch, I see a spiral staircase encased inside a cylinder of thick, curved glass. It looks as though the hatch leads into this strange, vertical glass structure. The stairs only head in one direction. Upward.
We race after the handful of travelers, a few steps behind them. I don’t want to get caught by the crazed drones again. I can hear them in the tunnel battling the remaining travelers behind us.
“Where does this thing go?” Gadya yells from behind me and Liam. She’s running next to David.
None of the travelers reply. Either they don’t know or they’re not saying.
I plunge through the hatch with Liam and onto the metal stairs. The air is much colder inside the glass tube. I’m hoping this is a good sign—that it means we’re back inside the gray zone. But I also don’t want to get hypothermia before we can free everyone.
The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy Page 31