by Harper North
“I don’t know the mines…” Sky says. “I’ve spent my whole life avoiding them. You have to help me.”
I angle to Lacy and Drape. Drape seems uncertain, but doesn’t reveal what he’s thinking. Lacy shakes her head in a firm no.
“Take me there!” Sky shouts. “You have to! This is your fault! All of this is your fault!”
He’s right. This is all our fault.
“We’ll take you to the mines’ security room,” I say.
Lacy moans, but doesn’t argue. Most the time she acts like she doesn’t but, I know she has a heart.
“But only if you help us find our way out of this sewage tunnel,” I add for insurance.
“Fine. Let’s go,” Sky says.
We follow him further into the darkness. We trudge on into the pitch-black and disgusting sewage tunnel. The dim light from Sky’s glow things guide our path. While these systems haven’t been used for probably more than a hundred years, they have the smell of sulfur that makes my eyes water.
“I think the bleeding has stopped,” Drape says, wiping his forehead with his shirt. No one says anything back, but I’m relieved to hear the news.
Lacy sneaks up beside me and leans in. “Let me get another peek at that mod kit. You know I’m an expert at black market stuff like that.”
“No.” Lacy’s my best friend, but it doesn’t mean I trust her.
“Come on, Finley. You know I’ve always been curious about Yasay’s not-so-secret operations. Maybe I can figure out how they smuggled illegal tech down here.”
Lacy curiously forces her fingers into my pocket. I slap her hand away, giving her a firm glare.
“Just let me see it. Do you think Yasay paid someone to steal it? I bet people would give him whatever they could to be modified.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “You can see it later. Not now.” I nod up ahead to Drape, who’s attempting to make small talk with Sky. “He’s upset. Now’s not the time for games, okay? You can play black market detective later.”
“Fine,” she says. “Do you really feel different?”
“Yeah, I guess. The biggest change is my mind, though. I’m… processing differently,” I say, but it’s difficult to explain.
“Processing differently? What do you mean?”
“It’s like… like Ms. Kayla from the Oven. Remember how she and that oaf Lorie would play chess in their down time? They would brag about how they could plan so many moves ahead. That’s kind of how I feel. Like I’m just… thinking. Constantly. Just thinking. Observing. Predicting. Without even trying.”
“Weird, she says”
“Guys, we’re here.” Drape points upward.
We exited the sewage system a good way back and re-entered the subway tunnel far from the place Nero’s goons had likely exited. Gazing up, there’s an entryway to an old, vertical mining shaft. I cringe slightly at how narrow it is.
“We’ll be able to climb up this and exit down Abandoned Tunnel 238,” Drape says. “That one is blocked off, but something tells me our Superwoman can handle some flimsy particle board?”
“Yeah,” I say, confident that I can.
“Good,” Drape says. “Because, Tunnel 238 is connected to that new air shaft right outside of the mining security office.”
“How do you know?” Lacy asks him.
“Remember last year when I broke my right wrist during that cave in?”
“Yeah?”
“They had me on light duty for a couple months. I worked on installing the air vents.”
“Installing air vents is light duty?” Sky asks, shaking his head.
“Ready to climb?” I ask the group as I step up underneath the entrance of the dark, seemingly never-ending shaft. “Drape, lead the way.”
Drape nods, and Lacy and I give him a lift with our palms to raise him up into the shaft. He moans in pain, but doesn’t complain. His ankle must be a bit tender, but it’s not slowing him down. Lacy tosses her glow stick up to Drape, and he hangs it around his neck.
“You next,” I say to Lacy.
Sky moves to stand by me, helping me lift her up in a similar way as Drape.
“Now you,” I say to Sky.
“I’m not trained for this.” All the bravado he had before has vanished and worry fills his face.
“I’ll help you up, and Lacy should be able to pull you the rest of the way. After we get there, you’ll need to help me.”
“Okay,” he says.
I bend down and put out my palm. This is surprisingly easy—lifting him up on my own. Sky pulls me up into the shaft, and I grasp on tight to the wooden beams that make up the bottom of the wall as the others begin the long ascension.
This particular shaft is squared, and there are plenty of wooden boards to grab onto. The further Drape and Lacy get from us, the darker it gets at our end of the shaft. Sky’s one glow stick dangles from his neck. He shouldn’t, but he’s constantly checking below. His face is covered in a layer of sweat from the climb. We get a few more yards and then a board snaps under his right foot. His hands slip, and I grip the boards around me, pressing my boots into the shaft wall and bracing myself for a tight impact.
I glance up, imagining the worst, but he’s gripped firmly to some boards and is working to secure his footing.
“You got this!” I call to him, and after a moment of gasping and much struggle, his feet manage to find a home on a sturdier board. “All right, you’re fine.” I climb toward him. “Sky?” I beckon as I reach him. I can hear his quick inhales, but I can’t squeeze past him. “Sky.” I say his name firmly, but he’s not responding.
“Everything all right down there?” Lacy’s voice echoes. “We found the tunnel.”
No wonder it had gotten so dark. Lacy and Drape and their glow sticks were no longer in the shaft with us at all.
“Yes, we’re fine! Give us a minute!” I call up to her. “Sky, keep moving,” I whisper up to him.
He still doesn’t respond.
“Sky, listen to me. You’re not used to this sort of climbing. Your arms and legs are bound to give out, and you’ll send both of us falling. We’ve climbed nearly twenty feet now. We’re almost there. I’m right behind you, all right? I promise I won’t let you fall.”
He pauses and takes in a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I just needed a minute.”
Sky flinches to move, and the glow stick on his neck loosens. I try to grab it as it falls past me, but miss. The two of us find ourselves in utter darkness in the middle of a creaky, old mining shaft vent.
“You guys alright?” Lacy calls again.
“Everything’s fine! We just lost our light!” I call back, trying to make it sound like a minor inconvenience.
“I can’t see,” Sky says, stating the obvious. “It’s pitch black.”
“You’ll have to feel around.”
“I can’t,” he says at last. “I can’t do this.
“Yes you can and we’re almost there.” I reach upward and locate a steady board for him with my hand, then stretch back and touch his right calf. “Let me guide your footing.”
Slowly—painfully slowly—I help him reposition his feet.
“You have to locate a place to grab on with your hands. I can’t do that for you,” I say.
“I know,” he grumbles, taking his time. “I got this.”
Finally. Truthfully, I was worried, but he starts moving faster than I expected. As we make our way upwards, a tiny bit of green illumination appears above our heads.
“About time.” Lacy pulls Sky up into the abandoned tunnel.
I climb up myself, and, thanks to the higher ceilings, I stretch my back. This abandoned tunnel is massive, and clearly mined dry of any minerals the EHC could possibly want.
“Sky did a great job.” I say. “Didn’t you Sky?”
He looks at me and nods. The anger he had toward us earlier is gone. “Thanks to you.”
“The shaft we need isn’t far,” Drape says.
“Hold
on.” I pull a cloth from my cargo shorts. “Geez, Drape, you look awful. Here, wipe your face better.”
A dim light trickles in from the floor of the tunnel where sloppy miners broke through to the corridor below. Beneath us is a walkway in the Slack.
“Thanks,” Drape says as he cleans the dried blood from his cheek.
Sky steps forward. “Can we get moving, now? I need to find Cia.”
“Of course,” Drape says and hands me the now-bloodied cloth. I shove it back into my pocket, and we hurry down the tunnel, allowing Drape up front. It doesn’t take long for him to point out a ventilation shaft, moving aside to let Lacy and I yank the ventilation cover out of the wall of the tunnel. Drape dives in first, but I go in behind him, followed by Sky and then Lacy. The shaft slopes downward, so we slide on our bellies to prevent ourselves from fumbling forward. Compared to the mining shaft, the air ventilation system is cool to my skin.
Drape halts. “We’re here,” he whispers, pointing to a vent cover. “I don’t think anyone is down this hall right now, but just past the corner there’s probably a bunch of tunnel guards outside the security room.”
“We need to come up with a distraction,” Lacy whispers.
“There are normally only two guards in front of the main entrance of security,” I say. “If we can knock them out and use a key card to get inside the back lobby, there should be a seismometer set up in the room. All it would take is a decent shake to set that equipment off.”
“Seismometer?” Sky asks.
“It detects earthquakes,” Drape explains. “They’re stationed in the most active areas. The earthquake alarm will sound, and everyone will rush into emergency mode. We can sneak into the main security room with no problem and lock ourselves in.”
“There’s an alternate ventilation shaft in there we can use to escape and find wherever they’ve taken Cia,” I say. “So, first things first. We need to overpower the guards.”
“Can you do that yourself?” Drape asks.
“I’m strong, but I’m not stupid. I need backup, guys.”
I kick the vent cover out and it makes a loud clanking when it hits the metal flooring below. I cling above the exit as two guards rush to investigate the noise. Good, just two. With a look to my friends, I allow myself to fall. I land hard right on top of one guard, and the two of us tumble down together.
“What the—” the second guard shrieks as Drape and Sky tumble down from the vents, just barely managing not to fall on one another.
The guard I landed on is out cold. Lacy comes next and the remaining tunnel guard charges at her. The poor guy is no match for the four of us. Drape, Sky, and Lacy all grab hold of him, and I beam him in the back of the head with a tightly wadded fist. He falls in a heap.
“All right, let’s move,” I say.
I snatch the man’s keycard and we make our way to the security wing, a stone fortress not far from us. The cemented brick surrounding the security wing stretches out of our line of sight, wrapping around the bend.
I turn to them and raise my finger to my lips. “Shh.” With a quick swipe of the keycard and peep from the lock, we open the door and enter an extended hallway with metallic flooring and cemented brick walls and ceiling.
“Any idea about the location of the main control?” Lacy asks.
“All the way at the end,” I reply, but I’m only half sure.
The hallway juts to the right and I pause to peer around the corner, giving an all clear signal We walk into the hallway, which extends into a sky bridge overlooking an enormous room full of security personnel. This won’t be as easy as I thought.
“If we walk across that bridge, we’ll be spotted,” Lacy says.
“Yeah, but see what’s on the other side?” I point toward the end of the stretch at a door prominently labeled Security Headquarters. “I’m guessing that’s main control.”
“If they see us go in, we’ll trap ourselves inside with guards just waiting on us,” Drape protests.
I shake my head. “No. Remember? We can use the air vent in the main control.”
“I only installed a few vents,” Drape argues. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get us where we need to go!”
“You’re going to have to,” I say. “Get ready. Hopefully this key card will get us in there.”
There’s a collective deep breath and then they bolt. We step out from the hall and onto the sky bridge, making ourselves quite visible to the guards below.
“Hey!” I hear a man shout from beneath us. A group of guards bolt to side rooms that will take them up to this level.
At the door, I slide the key card.
Beep.
“Lock us in,” I instruct.
Lacy rips a fire extinguisher from the wall and bashes in the key card scanner.
“What are you doing?” sounds a nearby cry. A man jumps from his seat behind the abundant display of computer screens. He charges at us and I throw a kick into his gut. As he falls, I strike his head with my knee. He’s out.
“Ouch,” Drape says, wincing.
Muffled shouts sound just outside the door.
“Hurry, the seismograph!” I yell, pointing at the equipment set up in the corner. “Set it off before these goons have a chance to call for backup.”
Drape and Sky both dash for the machine. “How?” Sky asks.
“Like this!” Drape violently kicks the table the machine is seated on. Almost immediately, a screechy alarm sounds off. Pain rips at my eardrum. We throw our hands up to block the sound. On the security screens above, masses of hysterical people are shown running throughout the main operations cavern and tunnels, trying to get to safe zones.
“Good,” I say. “Do that every once in a while so the alarm doesn’t stop.” I find the enormous keyboard laid out in front of the monitors. I reason my way around it, and in a flash I’m able to figure out exactly how this equipment works.
Lacy stands beside me, peering over my shoulder in awe. “How do you know how to use that?”
Computer skills were not exactly taught to us in the Oven. I’ve maybe used one on a handful of occasions. We were bred to be miners, and that was all.
“I just had to figure it out,” I say, and shortly after I pull up various camera angles throughout the shafts and in other areas in the mines. “There,” I say when I see a smug Nero Kyoto walking alongside Cia, his hand roughly gripping her elbow. “Found her,” I growl, and Sky is suddenly trailing me, practically breathing down my neck.
“Where is she?” he demands. “What mining tunnel?”
I frown as the realization hits me. “They’re not entering a mining tunnel.”
“Well where then?” Sky snaps.
“They’re headed to the surface transport level.”
“What! Why?”
We watch the video, and I have to change cameras a couple times to keep up with Nero and his thugs. Then we watch in horror as Cia is forced onto a transport tram that will escort her to the surface world. It’s possible for dwellers like Cia to be transported to the surface inside of sealed capsules to prevent radiation poisoning, but even within those capsules, dwellers will die given time and exposure.
“I’m going after her. I’m going to the surface,” I insist.
CHAPTER 5
Boom.
Sounds of popping metal echoes as the guards bust the door down. We scurry up the air vents and away from our pursuers, the earthquake alarm still blaring. Beyond the confines of our cramped shaft, I hear people screaming and yelling
I lead with Drape right behind me, the two of us attempting to guide the others through the maze of ventilation shafts.
“I think this vent will lead us to the back of the Slack,” Drape says, grunting slightly as he crawls behind me.
“We should be able to reach the transport levels on foot,” I add. “Everyone will be heading into the barracks, thanks to the alarms.”
We drop down out of the vent and into an empty hall near the transport level
. Not a single guard is to be seen, but there’s not much reason to have this area heavily secured. No dweller would be stupid enough to try to make their way up to the surface and risk being exposed to the radiation.
I point to a stairwell. “The railway and elevator systems are just up there.”
Racing up several levels of stairs, my ears pop. Must be the air pressure change. The sensation increases the nervousness spinning in my stomach as we near the surface, and by the tense expressions on everyone’s faces, I can only assume they’re feeling the same.
At the top of the stairs, we enter an enormous cavern at least a thousand feet wide, and over three times that in height. The transportation station.
“Whoa,” Lacy murmurs.
It’s like we’re standing in a giant pit. Up the tall, circular cavern, there’s no end in sight. The darkness conceals anything more than a few hundred feet up. It’s natural opening has long been sealed to limit the radiation. It’s now just an access point for the EHC. Carved and welded into the rocky walls, railway lines, as well as elevator shafts, stretch up as far as we can see.
“So how are we supposed to get into one of the pods and all the way up to the surface?” Sky asks.
“This is not a we thing. I’m rescuing Cia alone. No way I’m putting you all in more danger,” I reply, grabbing a standard-issue miner’s water bladder that hangs near the entrance we came from. “You three stay down here where you won’t risk radiation poisoning.”
“Or you could stop being a martyr trying to go it alone,” Lacy says, her cheeks reddened. “Modify me and I can go, too!”
“No!” I shout. “You don’t know what sort of risks are associated with—”
“Lacy is right, Fin,” Drape says. “You’re gonna need help.”
“You two shut up!” Sky barks. “This is my sister you’re talking about. If anyone is going with her, it’ll be me.”
“So a random street kid, we don't know, gets to be modified while we stay here,” Lacy mutters to Drape.