Children of the Underground

by Trevor Shane

  I ran past the door to the second floor, wondering if the guard was still tied up in the bathroom. I turned the corner and kept running. I passed the door to the third floor, picturing the utter chaos that we’d left inside. As I neared the platform in front of the fourth floor, I squinted, barely able to make out a shape slumped in the shadows in the corner. It wasn’t moving. I climbed two steps closer to the platform. On my second step, I kicked something that was lying on the stairs. I bent down. It was a long metal flashlight. I held it in my hand for a second, unsure of what to do. I listened for noises, trying to make sure that no one else was in the stairwell. It was quiet. I pointed the flashlight at the ground and flicked it on. A cavern of light erupted through the darkness. I lifted the flashlight toward the platform, afraid of what I might see. Before I could even make out the outline of the shape in the corner, the light from the flashlight reflected back at me from a pair of eyes. It was a body but it wasn’t Michael’s body. It was a large man, slightly overweight. He had a uniform on. His head was hanging loosely on his neck, his lower jaw resting against his chest. I moved the flashlight toward his hands. He was still gripping a gun.

  I stepped onto the fourth-floor platform and moved the flashlight beam up the stairs toward the fifth floor. The stairs were empty, but halfway up, their color changed. I began leaping up the stairs, skipping steps as I went, until the blood started. Then I kept running, moving to one side of the stairwell, trying to avoid slipping in Michael’s blood.

  I got to the top of the stairs and pushed the door open. Beneath the fluorescent lights, the blood on the floor took on a vibrant shade of red. It almost glowed. I dropped the flashlight and followed the trail of blood into the archives. The key card was lying on the floor in front of the glass doors. There was blood on it. I picked it up and used it to unlock the doors. I ran through them. “Michael!” I shouted, knowing that we barely had any time to get back down the stairs. The only response was the sound of shuffling papers. I followed the noise through the labyrinth of shelves. “Michael!” I shouted again. He still didn’t answer. I ran to the end of the corridor, chasing the sound. That’s where I found Michael. He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by pieces of white paper, half of which were now colored by his blood. I watched him grab another sheet, seemingly at random, and look at it. “Michael,” I said, more softly now.

  He looked up at me, his eyes wet. “Why are you here?” he asked me. “You weren’t supposed to follow me. I told you to go.”

  “I heard the gunshots,” I told him. “I couldn’t desert you like that.” I looked for the wound on Michael’s body. I couldn’t see anything. Then I saw the blood seeping through the back of his shirt. He’d been shot in the back. It was bad. “We have to get out of here,” I ordered. “We have to get you to a hospital. We still have at least five minutes.”

  Michael shook his head. We didn’t have five minutes. “He hit the button.” I didn’t understand what Michael was saying at first. “The guard on the fourth floor,” Michael explained, “he must have heard us going down the stairs with the Historian. He was waiting for me when I came back up. He hit his button right before I shot him.”

  They were already on their way. Palti had warned us. If someone pushes that button, hell will rain down on that building. “Then we need to go now, before they get here.” I stepped forward and grabbed Michael’s arm, pulling him to his feet. It was like lifting deadweight.

  “I won’t make it. Even if I get outside, they’ll find me.” He looked down at the blood on everything around him. “I can’t hide anymore.” He looked up at me, his eyes on fire. “Go, Maria. Run.”

  I didn’t hesitate. Michael was right. I couldn’t save him. It was too late. If I moved quickly, I could still save you. So I ran. I ran out of the archives and toward the stairwell. I expected total darkness when I entered the stairwell, but it was full of light dancing along the walls. Then I heard footsteps—lots of footsteps. They were still at the bottom of the stairwell, but I could hear them. Hell was already raining.

  I pushed open the door to the fifth floor again and ran back inside. I retraced my steps toward Michael. “They’re already here!” I shouted. “They’re in the stairwell!”

  Michael answered me this time. “Are they close?” he shouted back to me, with a strength I didn’t think he still had in him.

  “Not yet,” I yelled back, “but they’re coming.”

  A second later, Michael was standing in front of me. His face was pale but he didn’t look weak anymore. “We have to get you out of here,” he said, shuffling past me, toward the elevators. He walked up to the elevator, aimed, and fired two shots into the elevator’s buttons.

  “Will that keep them from being able to ride the elevator up?” I asked, hoping Michael knew what he was doing.

  “Probably not,” Michael said, “but it’s worth a shot.” We walked past the passenger elevators and around the corner toward the stairwell. We saw the entrance to the freight elevator, the one that nobody used. There was a button next to it. Michael pushed the button to see what would happen. Nothing. He kicked the freight elevator doors. Then he stepped forward and tried to pry open the doors with his fingers. “If we can get it open, maybe you can climb down the cable,” he said. I was standing near the door to the stairwell. I put my ear against it. I could hear them climbing, getting closer. “Fuck!” Michael shouted and kicked the freight elevator doors again. They wouldn’t open, not without a crowbar.

  “Easy, Michael,” I said. “Those doors aren’t opening. We have to stay calm.” Even as I said the words, my heart was racing. Sweat was seeping out of my pores. We settled in, facing the stairwell doors, our guns at the ready, waiting for the deluge. For a moment, everything was quiet. I looked at Michael. I knew we didn’t have much time, but I had to ask. “Did you find anything?”

  Michael knew immediately what I was asking. He shook his head. “There was too much information. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.”

  “Why did it suddenly matter?”

  Michael shrugged. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “I’m a fighter, Maria. I need something to fight for. And this”—Michael waved his hand between the two of us—“was almost over.” Then our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell at the other end of the hall. Michael and I both heard it. We looked at each other, momentarily confused. “The elevator,” Michael said.

  I turned in time to see two of Them running toward us down the hallway. I lifted my gun, holding it in two hands and looking down the sights like Clara’s people had taught me. I aimed, adjusting slightly for the first man’s speed, and fired. Then, without hesitating, I moved the sights of the gun to the second man, aimed, and fired again. Both men fell to the ground almost simultaneously.

  “Looks like the elevator still works,” Michael said, not bothering to comment on my shooting. “That means that there will be more of them soon.” I put my ear back against the door to the stairwell. They were moving slowly. Either they didn’t know that there were only two of us or they didn’t know what floor we were on. “Where are they?” Michael asked.

  “Still at least two floors down,” I said.

  “The roof,” Michael said. “The stairs keep going up. Maybe you can get on the roof. Maybe you can escape from there.” It was an idea—the only one that had any chance of working.

  “It’s worth a shot,” I said. “But we need to move now.”

  “No. We have a few seconds,” Michael said, breathing heavily. I didn’t understand why we would wait, but I trusted him. “You still have that pack of cigarettes?” Michael asked.

  “My good-luck cigarettes?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Give me one.”

  “What for?” I asked, thinking that there was some aspect to Michael’s plan that I didn’t understand. I should have known better. Michael never was much of a planner.

  “I’m going t
o smoke it,” he said. I reached into the backpack and grabbed the unopened pack of cigarettes. I pulled out a cigarette and handed it to him. Then I pulled out a lighter and lit it. I could hear the footsteps through the door now. They were getting closer. “Give me your gun too,” Michael said, inhaling on the cigarette.

  “What for?” I asked again.

  “Because I’m going to need a lot of bullets,” Michael answered.

  “If we leave now, you can come with me. We can both make it.” I knew it was a lie but felt compelled to say it anyway.

  Michael laughed a pained laugh, the cigarette dangling from his lips. “Do me one favor, Maria,” Michael said. I looked at the lines on his face. He looked tired. “When you find Christopher, tell him about me,” Michael said while looking at each of his three guns, trying to figure out how many bullets were in each. Then he looked at me again for the last time. “Do what I was never able to do. Make my life mean something.” I nodded. My throat was too dry to speak.

  “Are they at the bottom of our staircase yet? We need them to be close so that the light will blind them, even if it’s only for a second.” That’s why we were waiting. I knew Michael had a reason. I put my ear to the door. They were close. I nodded to Michael again to let him know that it was almost time. As I nodded, the bell from the elevator rang again. They were everywhere.

  “When we go through, you go up,” Michael said. “Don’t look back.” I heard footsteps coming toward us from the direction of the elevator. There was so much more to be said, but there wasn’t any time. Unable to think of anything to say, I leaned forward and kissed Michael on his cheek. He stared down at his hands. Then he reached out for the door handle. His eyes were steel. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t know how to be. Michael swung open the door to the stairwell and stepped through it. I followed him. Michael turned toward the stairwell below us, a gun in each hand and one more tucked into his belt. He started shooting before I even made it through the door, painting the stairwell with bullets. I didn’t look back. I ran. I ran up the stairs, gunshots echoing behind me. At first it was only Michael, but before I reached the top of the stairs, the sound of his guns was joined by the sound of a whole orchestra of gunfire. I reached the door at the top of the stairs, threw all my weight against it, and burst through.

  It felt like leaping into cold water. The air outside was cool and quiet. It was brighter on the roof, bright enough to see without a flashlight. I didn’t know how much time I had. I ran to the edge of the roof. I ran toward the front of the building. There was no way down from there, no fire escape, nowhere to jump. The street in front of me was wide and lined with sidewalks. When I got to the lip of the roof, I glanced down. Four men in black uniforms were guarding the front door. I knew the back of the building wouldn’t be any better as far as escape routes went. The street there was thinner but still too wide to jump across. I looked toward the sides of the building. The building to my right was taller than the one I was standing on. It towered over me like a brick wall. The building to my left was a full story shorter than the one I was on. My only chance was to jump over the edge, hoping to clear the distance between the buildings like I’d seen in so many movies. I ran to the edge and looked over. The space separating the buildings was about eight feet. A year ago, the gap would have been too wide. I wouldn’t have had the courage or the strength to jump it.

  I backed up to get a running start. I couldn’t believe that Michael was still holding them off. They must not have known that I was there. They must not have been looking for me. I flexed my calves, readying myself to run.

  “Stop!” a voice shouted from behind me. It was a woman’s voice. She sounded armed. I had an urge to reach for my own gun, to turn and fire like I was in a duel. Then I remembered that I’d given my gun to Michael. I slowly turned around.

  I could see the woman’s face in the moonlight. It was the guard from downstairs. I could tell by her uniform. She wasn’t one of the professional killers responding to the dead guard’s alarm. I thought about running, hoping that she wouldn’t have the courage to pull the trigger or the aim to make it matter. We made eye contact. Her gun was pointed directly at me. I didn’t know if she knew how to shoot, but she definitely knew how to aim. She lowered the gun for a moment. She took a step closer to me. “I know you,” she said with tangible surprise in her voice. “You’re the woman with the baby,” she said. The woman with the baby—the words echoed in my head. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  I steadied myself. “I’m trying to find my son.” I hoped that she might have children of her own. “You guys keep the information about where he is here.”

  I could see the uneasiness in the woman’s gaze. I could feel her doubt. “What are you going to do if you find him?” she asked, like so many people had asked me before.

  “I’m going to save him,” I said.

  “From what?” She took another step closer to me, raising the gun so that it was aimed at my chest.

  “From this,” I answered her. We could hear the commotion going on inside the building as the summoned killers found the guard’s body on the fifth floor. “Please let me go. No one needs to know you let me go. No one needs to know that I was here.” She was close enough now that I could see the pity in her eyes. I had killed or helped kill four of her coworkers, but she was a woman, maybe a mother herself. She knew that there were things in this life more worthy of pity than death.

  She lowered the gun. “Go,” she said, whispering the word into the night. I didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. I turned around and ran toward the side of the building. When I got to the edge, I leapt.

  Forty-five

  It was early afternoon when Addy and Evan finally turned off the highway toward the swamps. They’d left Atlanta in the dim light of the dawn. They were still driving the car they’d taken from the screaming woman with the child in Louisiana, though they’d replaced the Louisiana plates with Georgia plates. They spent most of the day’s drive passing through flat, open land dimpled with billboards, strip malls, and golf courses. It was only during the last bit, miles from the main roads, that they were engulfed in dense thickets of trees and surrounded by swampland. It was here, hidden inside the dense swamps that were hidden inside the constructed sprawl of the Florida suburbs, where they hoped to find Addy’s old friends. Reggie’s compound was somewhere in these swamps. Addy had made this drive hundreds of times. Many of those times, like now with Evan, she was bringing someone with her for the first time, preparing to introduce him to his new life. Nothing was ever the same for the people Addy took to the swamps. They were abandoning their lives, their family, their friends, their purpose, and putting all of their faith in her and Reggie. Even with those hundreds of drives under her belt, Addy couldn’t remember ever being as nervous as she was at that moment. Even the first time she made the drive, she’d been too naive to be truly frightened. She wasn’t as naive anymore.

  It was hot and humid, even hotter and more humid in the swamp than it had been on the open road. Addy rolled down her window and made Evan do the same. She turned off the air-conditioning in the car. She wanted to be able to hear everything. She was hoping to hear voices traveling over the swamp as they drove closer to the compound. With the windows down and the air-conditioning off, Evan could feel sweat starting to drip down his forehead. A mosquito flew into the car through the open window. Evan heard it buzz by his ear before landing on the back of his neck. He felt the pinch of the mosquito bite before his open hand flew up, crushing the bug against his skin. Evan pulled his hand back. The crushed bug stuck to his palm, surrounded by a ring of blood.

  With the heat, the mosquitoes, and the silence, Evan felt like they’d already driven dozens of miles since they turned off the last paved road. At the speed Addy was driving, Evan knew that his mind was playing tricks on him. They’d be lucky if they’d driven a single mile. Speed wasn’t an option anymore. Addy was leading the ca
r over a slim, winding strip of solid ground elevated above the surrounding swamp. The strip wasn’t much wider than the car. A wrong turn would drop them into thick mud that they would never be able to pull out of. Trees grew out of the swamp surrounding them, the roots plunging down into the murky water. Evan looked out the window, scanning the water for movement. All he saw were dragonflies and mosquitoes. He didn’t hear anything. There was nothing to hear. He wondered when that should start making him nervous. “How much farther?” he asked Addy.

  “We’re about halfway,” Addy said without looking at him. He noticed the tension in her voice.

  “You’re sure this is safe?” Evan asked. Addy ignored the question and kept driving. Come on, Evan, she thought instead. You know better than to ask me that.

  A few minutes later, Evan noticed the solid ground beneath their car growing wider. They were nearing some sort of island in the swamp. After the maze they’d just driven through, Evan wondered how anyone ever found this place. He decided not to annoy Addy with any more questions.

  * * *

  George saw Addy and Evan’s car coming slowly out of the swamp before Sam did. It was easier to see through George’s binoculars than through the scope of Sam’s rifle. When George saw the car, he nudged Sam on her shoulder and motioned toward the beat-up car. Sam immediately fixed her sights on it, focusing the scope of her rifle just above the driver’s-side door. She aimed for the open window. She and George had already been sitting in the tree for eight hours without seeing a single thing worth noticing. They weren’t surprised. It was their third shift staking out the compound in the past week, and they hadn’t seen anything unexpected during the first two shifts either. No one did. Ever since the night of the raids, everything had been quiet. Each shift, Sam and George simply sat in the hunting nest nailed into one of the trees surrounding the compound and silently waited.