Run (36 page)

That was why she walked in darkness.  That was why she stumbled. 

She fell forward, her hands reaching out automatically, grabbing the wall for support.  She narrowly avoided a spill, but any relief at that small victory fled her mind instantly with the sound she heard.

It was a deep groan, like a million bass singers screaming an aria from the depths of the earth in angry protest of her hands touching the wall of the tunnel.

A tiny spray of silt fell on her head.

She brushed it off and looked around.

The Controllers lived inside a mountain, one of the only places that provided adequate shelter from the adverse conditions of the time and place they lived in.  But it was nothing like this.  It was steel and ferroconcrete all around them.  This was bare rock, and dirt that would rain down on a person who merely fell into the wall.

She was afraid, and stood still for a moment, listening for more noise.

There was none, and in a moment she continued.  She did not notice that in the darkness behind her, a fine mist of dust continued to spill downward from the ceiling, forming a small pile of sediment on the packed tunnel floor below.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

10:30 AM TUESDAY

***ALERT MODE***

John’s eyes snapped open suddenly, and he had to stifle the urge to scream as a monster swam into focus before his eyes.

Sharp teeth that were a mile long, beady black eyes that seemed to swallow up the dim light that came from his flashlight, a mottled black and pink nose that wiggled cutely....

Wiggled?

John blinked, and realized he was nose to whiskers with a mine rat.  It looked the same as other rats he had seen, though smaller and apparently more friendly.  He pulled back slowly, though, not wanting to startle the rodent that was illuminated dimly by the flashlight below the bed.  He doubted rabies was a danger with subterranean creatures - at least, he had never heard of a miner dying of hydrophobia - but didn’t want to chance being bitten, all the same.

The little creature just stared at him, nose wiggling.  It’s tiny tail - a puff of fur that resembled a brown dandelion - twitched once, then it turned around and scampered off the bed, running through the door and disappearing in the blackness beyond.

John looked around, smiling at the cute little animal as it retreated.  Only gradually did he become aware that there were several other rats in the room, appearing from cracks in the walls and running out into the corridor.

His smile disappeared, replaced by a frown.

He got out of bed, trying not to wake Fran up.  She reached out to him in her sleep as he left, but he gently pushed her hand back to her side.  Better that she keep resting, if she could.  The more sleep she had, the better she would be able to function when they finally had to emerge from this underground oasis, to weather the fearful realities outside.

He grabbed the flashlight off the floor and walked into the tunnel, shining the light before him like a pale spear.  His heart sank at the sight which greeted him there.

The tunnel was alive with rats.  Millions, it seemed, literally stampeding down the shaft.

John raced back into the sleeping area and sat down hard on the bed.  He shook Fran once, sharply, and began putting on his shoes.

"Fran, get up!" he shouted.

Her eyes blinked sluggishly.  "What...."

"Get up, Fran.  We have to go."

She caught the urgency in his voice and sat up immediately.  John admired the way she threw off sleep so quickly, stepping into her shoes beside the cot and lacing them up before he had even gotten his on himself.

"What’s going on?" she asked.

"I don’t know," answered John.  He watched another fluffy-tailed rat race by and disappear into the tunnel, joining its brothers and sisters in a brown stream of panic.  As he watched, the stream slowed to a trickle, then disappeared entirely.  But the fear he felt did not disappear.  It grew only more intense as the flood of rodents dried up.

"I don’t know," he repeated.  "Something bad."

***

Deirdre glided down the tunnel.  A small light illuminated a tiny sphere around her, but she turned it off and watched for other lights every couple of hundred feet, disappearing into the darkness as completely as a specter in a haunted house.

She hadn’t found anything yet.  In another couple of minutes she would go back to the elevator and try a different level.

Then she heard voices. 

***

Malachi turned a corner, following the indications of the jewel he once again held.  He was so intent on following his course that he cried out in surprise when he abruptly turned a corner and came face to face with two men.

In the instant that he dropped the tracker and raised his gun, it registered who they were.

Controllers.  A Recovery crew, from the looks of their garb.

He fired at the same instant as they did, all three throwing themselves in different directions at the same time, trying to evade the spray of bullets that came from Malachi’s gun and the weird blasts that came from those of the Controllers.

***

Jenna turned around.  She couldn’t find anything, and would have to give this level up as a lost cause.  She wanted desperately to be the one who found them, though.  She wanted to kill John, then Fran.  She would bring back Fran’s heart to Malachi, and redeem herself for her earlier mistakes.

She wanted to redeem herself.  Redemption was what every single one of Malachi’s followers dreamed about. 

They were Fanatics, and all Fanatics wanted redemption, followed by death.

She reached the elevator shaft and punched the button that would call back the lift from the lower levels of the mine.  After several minutes, she realized she had closed the wrong circuit, causing the elevator to descend instead of rise.

She cursed softly and hit the other switch.  The cable in the open shaft before her began to spool up.

***

Malachi fled down the hall, turning back and forth, taking corridors at random in the hopes of losing his two pursuers.  He glanced back and saw that the two Controllers he had bumped into had been joined by two more, a man and a woman.  All four opened fire on Malachi.  Their guns weren’t the primitive ones he was using.  They were pulse pistols, each holding an electromagnetic charge in the handle that shot out thumps of concentrated sonics.  If one hit him, he would fall to the ground, twitching and immobilized, very possibly permanently paralyzed. 

He knew they wouldn’t kill him, but he wasn't sure exactly how important his bodily integrity would be to them.  They might not have any problem with cutting his legs and arms off and taking him back to Controller Central like that.

After all, that was what he had trained them to do, back when he had been Adam's second in command.

So he ran as fast as he could, dodging the blasts, feeling the air heat around him, feeling dirt rain down on his head as the blasts pummeled the tunnel's ceiling and walls.

***

John handed Fran her jacket.  They both wore their helmets again, but hadn’t yet turned on the lights.  The only illumination came from John’s flashlight, which still shone brightly.  Apparently they hadn’t slept long enough to kill the heavy duty battery, for which both were now grateful.

John picked up his length of rope, slinging it over his shoulder, and they stood, ready to go.

He looked at Fran, shining the light under his chin and making a spooky face.  She smiled at the antic, but was again struck by the premonition of doom that had ceased her before, outside Gabe’s house, when John's face had looked like a skull to her.  He winked, but fear gripped Fran in an unrelenting grasp. 

John took her hand and turned with her to the door that led to the tunnel. 

And in that moment the black woman, one of Malachi’s supporting players in this shadowy play of death, stepped in the room and opened fire with an automatic weapon.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

10:43 AM TUESDAY

***ALERT MODE***

Adam came up against yet another dead end. 

He cursed under his breath.  This was getting them nowhere. 

Behind him the two Controllers - two women who were the Recovery team’s most capable members - shuffled uneasily.

Adam stared at the blank wall before them for a moment before turning around once more.  "Let’s go back to the entrance," he said.

He had a feeling that waiting was the only thing he could do at this point.

***

Fran screamed as the woman opened fire.  Luckily for them, the woman came in shooting blind, firing round after round into the room.  Then Fran felt John stiffen beside her, and was sure he had been hit.

He hadn’t, though.  She had felt his muscles clench as he threw his heavy flashlight at the woman.  The thick steel cylinder collided with the barrel of the Uzi, knocking the woman’s weapon upward and sending her next shot into the ceiling.

The flashlight hit the ground with a heavy clatter, and the bulb shattered on impact, pitching them all into darkness. 

Fran felt John grab her hand and pull her to the floor, then they both rolled under a bed.  She felt him pushing her shoulders as above them the black woman continued to fire, the bursts deafening and the light blinding in the close quarters of the room.

Oh, well, thought Fran.  With any luck the woman before them would be just as confused by her own fire as Fran found herself.

Fran felt John push her again, and finally realized he was trying to get her to crawl back to a stony outcropping she had earlier noticed in the back of the room.  Perhaps that would provide some cover in this place that had abruptly become a whizzing arcade of death, a shooting gallery with real ammunition in which she and John served as the ducks lined up in a row.  She moved with him, keeping her head low as gunfire sounded, immense in her ears, her hearing assaulted by the deafening thunder all around.

Bullets zinged around them, ricocheting off the walls, and Fran realized that even in the small area hidden behind the vertical shelf of stone, it would only be a matter of time before some bullet bounced into their hiding space and she or John - or both - were hit.

***

Malachi kept running from the four Controllers on his tail, the breaths surging in and out of his lungs in what felt like ragged chunks of wood that had been set ablaze.  Cramps gripped his side, and he didn’t know how much farther he could go at this sprinting pace.

He fell suddenly, rolling and shooting behind him as he did.  The sight of the four Controllers scattering into offshoot tunnels gratified him, but he had no time to enjoy the tiny respite.  He jumped to his feet and continued running. 

He turned and ran again, hoping the elevator was still on his level, not knowing that Jenna was even now riding it up to the top of the shaft.  But even if he had known, he would have run there anyway, for all other avenues of escape had been closed by the Controllers who now followed him.

He turned another corner and saw the open shaft before him.  Saw the cable that trailed below the elevator.  It was reeling upward, a sinuous snake clamped tight to some anchor high above, rippling slightly as it moved upward with the lift.

Malachi risked a look back and saw the Controllers still close behind.  He had gained a bit of a lead, but had nowhere near the time he would need to recall the elevator.  So he didn’t bother to try.  He kept running instead, and when he got to the shaft he pushed off from the lip of the tunnel, jumping desperately for the cable.

He caught it, and held tight.  His grasp slipped on the cable and he thought for a moment that he was going to fall as he scrabbled for purchase on the thickly wrapped wires.  Then his hands caught on frays and a few roughened edges on the black cord, and his short descent abruptly ceased.  The elevator - so far above him that he couldn’t see it – rose, and drew him up with it.        

Malachi looked down and saw his pursuers appear at the shaft opening.      He opened fire, gripping his rifle one-handed as he let forth a few short shots, and the Controllers disappeared back into the shaft like rats in their holes.

He looked up again, and saw the next level approaching.

***

In the lift, Jenna raised her gaze.  The top was approaching.  Beyond that hung the icicles, crystal teeth in the maw of a giant, a golem fashioned by some long-gone artisan out of stone and earth and clay.  They glimmered as with saliva, bright and shimmering, water dripping steadily off their wickedly pointed ends.

***

John popped open the rifle, checking how many shots he had left. 

One. 

Shots still blasted all around them, ricocheting nearby, threatening their miniscule area of safety behind the rocky outcropping in the cave.  He cursed inwardly.  He had done pretty well during the evening, considering that he hadn’t seen action in years.  Even still, some of his habits were bound to be rusty.

Like remembering to keep on top of your ammo count.

Beyond the stony outcropping he and Fran hid behind, the black woman continued firing, sharp staccato bursts that were too close for comfort.  One of the bullets ricocheted within inches of John’s face, heating the air beside him.

John shot blindly in the direction of the doorway, hoping to get a lucky shot in.  But Lady Luck was not interested in assisting his aim, it seemed, for the woman didn’t even pause in her firing.  John thought furiously, then pulled Fran close to him.

"Can you get to the tunnel from here?" he asked.  He practically had to yell to be heard over the din of the shots, but he knew the sound would only carry as a distorted noise to the shooter; she would remain unaware what was being planned.

Fran nodded.  The gunfire continued, but John noted that the woman wasn’t coming any closer.  She probably didn’t know if they had any weapons or not.  But soon enough she would realize that her fire wasn’t being returned, and would begin a cautious advance.  When that happened, they were as good as dead.