Run (37 page)

"I’m gonna rush her," said John.  He felt Fran stiffen beside him, concerned, but there wasn’t any other choice.  "When I do, you get into the tunnel and run left.  Do not touch the walls.  As soon as you’re out of firing range, turn on your headlamp and run as fast and as quiet as you can.  Okay?"

Fran pulled John next to her.  "What about you?" she asked.

"Don’t you worry.  When you get to the T-intersection in the tunnel, stop and wait for me.  No matter what happens, just wait for me, okay?"

Fran nodded.  John kissed her in the dark.  Her lips sought his at the same moment, and he was struck by an odd feeling of destiny, as though all this was supposed to happen.  He only hoped that their kiss wasn’t the final touch of doomed lovers, a Romeo and Juliet whose lives were torn apart not by feuding Montagues and Capulets, but by something much more cruel and less easily-defined.  Still, the feeling demanded that he add one more sentence to his instructions, one more line of dialogue that might have been plucked from any of a thousand melodramas, but that he meant nonetheless, from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. 

"I will come for you," he said.

He still didn’t know what had happened in Loston, or why these people were out to kill him.  But now wasn’t the time to find out.  Now was the time for action, for survival.

He separated from Fran, pulling away slightly in preparation for the coming movement.

"When I leave, you count to three and go, stay on the right, because I’m rushing her left, okay?  But don’t go until I leave, okay?  No matter what I say, stay here until you feel me move away."

Fran nodded again, a movement he felt more than saw, almost preternaturally aware of her closeness and position next to him.  Is this what love does? he thought.  Takes someone we know and makes them so close they are a part of us?

Then he thought, And then they are taken away.  He pushed that pessimistic line of thought away, shoving it out of his mind with all the force of his will.  They would live.  They had to live.

"All right," he said to Fran.  Then in a loud voice, he screamed, "Now!"

He felt Fran stiffen beside him, reacting automatically, but she caught herself before leaping into the room.  Good girl, he thought.

The woman in the door fired several rounds at his voice, then stopped shooting, listening for the sounds of a hit.  In the silence, John removed the coil of rope from his shoulder, then took off his jacket before repositioning the rope so that it was still on his shoulder, but not blocking his movement in any way.  He threw the jacket across the room and to the left, then ran out to the right.

The woman in the door heard the sound of the jacket and opened fire again, masking John’s movements as he rushed her.

It was a risky move, one that he never would have tried if the situation didn’t force it on him.  Too many ways it could go wrong.  She might sense the decoy and fire at him as he rushed.  He might miss her in the blackness.  Fran could rush out and get hit in continued fire, or trip on the coat that John had thrown in the middle of her intended escape route.  Too many ills could come of his move, a crazy, desperate escape attempt that no sane man would engage in if he could avoid it any other way.

But he had no alternative.

***

Fran felt John leave as more than a physical departure.  The sensation was a painful psychic rift that she felt at the center of her being, where she held her most delicate and painful and wonderful secrets.  He scampered away, and Fran wanted to reach out, to hold onto him and wait for eternity together.

But then something inside her rose up, pushing aside the romantic notions and making room for her steelier side.  This was the feeling she had when she buried the cleaver in the head of Nathan’s killer, or rather the lack of feeling.  Fear, love, everything shut down as her instinctive animal self rose from within and took calm control of her body.  Life was all that mattered now, a life with John, a future with him.  Which would not happen if she lost control, if she surrendered to the panic that gripped her in the moment of his departure. 

She counted to three and then ran, staying low and trying to weave around the two cots she and John had moved next to each other to sleep on.  She heard a grunt in front of her and the firing stopped, signaling that John had gotten to the woman; he had not been killed on his headlong flight into danger.

For a moment she thought about helping, then realized that her aid would be useless.  She had seen John in action, and knew that if he couldn’t handle the woman, neither could she.  Her presence would only distract him, perhaps fatally.  So she ran down the tunnel, turning on her headlamp as she did.

And being oh-so-careful not to touch the walls.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

10:46 AM TUESDAY

***ALERT MODE***

The cable pulled Malachi to the next level.  He almost jumped off automatically, then realized that a free-hanging cable would provide no leverage with which to push off, and he would not jump but fall, a swift flight to the bottom of the shaft, to the center of the earth where he would be dashed to pieces, never to return.  Unlike most of Loston’s inhabitants, he could not come back to life if he was killed.  The divinity that protected him from direct attack was also his weakness: he could die, so falling was not an acceptable option.

He swung the heavy cable back and forth like a child’s swing, using his body to push jerkily back and forth.  The cable whipped back and forth, and the entrance to the mine level he had just passed slowly sank before him.  Malachi doubted if he would make it to the next level - one of the Controllers might shoot him long before he got there, sending him plummeting to his death in the deep bowels of the earth - so he let go.

He almost didn’t make it, throwing his gun as he fell so it landed in the tunnel, and then grabbing onto the lip of the mineshaft floor with both hands.  His shoulders felt as though scalding acid had been poured over them as the full weight of his wiry body pounded downward, wrested from gravity’s grip by his own muscle and will.

He pulled himself up, gasping as he lay in the mouth of the tunnel, one arm hanging over the edge into nothingness.

What now? he asked himself.

What now?

***

One level below, the four Controllers watched the wire reel past.  Then one of them - Elijah, the senior Recovery officer - signaled for the group to move forward.  All of them jumped almost as one, grabbing onto the wire and hanging on one-handed, rifles aimed steadily upward. 

Elijah saw Malachi’s arm and fired.  The other three followed suit and fired as well, the sonic blasts dislodging bits of dirt from the sides of the shaft.  The silt fell on them like black rain, and the arm disappeared.

Elijah hoped they had managed to hit Malachi, but doubted it.  The bastard was slippery.  Besides, Elijah could remember when Malachi had been a Controller and the head of the Recovery Operatives.  He hadn’t trained Elijah, but Elijah knew from Reco-Ops myth that Malachi was the best.

No, not just the best.  The best ever.  Someone capable of wiping them out.  And they didn’t know how many of them would be
allowed
to kill him, even if they were so lucky to get in a position where such became possible.  Because his genetic makeup was something so rare that most of the Controllers would not be able to harm him, even if it meant dying themselves instead.

Stopping him would be hard. 

Maybe impossible.

***

Jenna stumbled as the lift jerked around her.  The cage rattled and the cable below it tautened suddenly, as though something below was suddenly pulling on it.  The motor whined above, sending eerie echoes down the shaft that sounded like the shriek of a baby being sliced with razors.  Jenna had heard a baby dying that way once.  Malachi had done it, had killed a child and brought back a video reproduction of it, played on the primitive media of that time and place.  A videocassette, showing him killing the infant, draining it of blood, and kissing the dead child on the mouth after it was all done, after the cries had ended and all was celestial silence.  She shuddered.

Then shuddered again as she reached the top level in the shaft, and thumbed the button.  The elevator jerked to a halt, and she got out. 

Time to wait.

***

Elijah almost lost his grip on the elevator cable when the elevator stopped.  Two of the others
did
lose their grips, falling about a foot down the cord before regaining their hold and sliding to a stop.

They waited a moment, but the elevator didn’t move again.

He looked at the troops.  They still held their guns with one hand, each pulse blaster aimed upward, each person probably praying for Malachi to pop his head out, but Elijah knew that was a hollow hope.  Malachi wouldn’t do anything so foolish. 

Elijah also knew they couldn’t climb and cover themselves at the same time. 

They were stuck.

***

Adam moved back and forth, trying to discern some distinguishing mark that would tell him where he was.  He hated to admit it, but he was lost.  He was positive the entrance to the mine shaft was nearby, but all the tunnels looked so similar that it was hard to find one that looked merely familiar, as opposed to the exactly the same as every other tunnel he had traversed.

Then he saw something in the tunnel ahead.

"The elevator," he whispered, and headed for the shaft, the three Controllers following behind.

***

Malachi lay on his back, weighing his options.

The Controllers had come en masse, that much was sure. He wanted to kill Fran and John.  But more than that he needed to survive.  That limited his range of choices.

He resisted the urge to look out and down the elevator shaft; it was a sure bet that the Controllers were waiting for him to do just that.  Nor could he reach out and fire blindly downward, hoping to hit them.  They were sure to be watching the lip of the floor where it merged with the elevator shaft, and if he put out his arm he had no doubt it would be hit and paralyzed by a pulse before he got off a single shot. 

So he looked up instead.

The elevator was up there, though he couldn’t see it.  And as sure as anything, there were more Controllers above him, too.  Adam was more than likely among them.

And don’t forget the four Controllers below.  Hanging below, waiting for a chance to come up and capture him.

The more he thought about what to do, the more his mind kept returning to the elevator.  At first he thought his subconscious was telling him to call it down and ride it out.  He rejected the idea.  As soon as he got on, the Controllers below would fire up, puncturing the lift, paralyzing him.  The elevator might fall as a result, but he knew they’d be more than willing to hurtle to their deaths if it meant stopping him.  He didn’t think that they’d be able to do willingly cause his death, but an accidental murder might be within their action parameters, and he’d be just as dead as if they’d done it on purpose.  So he would stay off the elevator.

The elevator.

He smiled then as he realized what his subconscious had been trying to tell him, then wiggled out as far as he could onto the lip of the tunnel.  It projected a bit into the shaft, providing him an unobstructed view straight up while still shielding him from any shots ascending from below.

He aimed his gun up the shaft and pulled the trigger.  Not once, but many times.  The pinging of bullets tearing into the lift above sounded in response to his actions, and Malachi imagined the bullets punching holes, tearing through machinery.

Shearing cables.

The cable that trailed below the lift began to swing wildly, and he heard screams from below. 

Let them cry, he thought.  Let the Controllers weep in their last moments and feel the emptiness that comes to those who have no souls.

They wouldn’t die, he knew.  They couldn’t. 

Because most of the Controllers, like the berserk inhabitants of Loston, were machines.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

10:47 AM TUESDAY

***ALERT MODE***

Adam reached the elevator a moment before the shooting.  It was empty, and one of the Controllers - a woman named Del - reached out her hand to open the gate.  Sudden shots pounded up from somewhere down below, causing the lift to twitch back and forth like an enraged animal on an electrified floor.

The edge of the lift caught Del’s shin, knocking her over into the center of the cage.  She lay in a fetal position, arms shielding her head, as bullets shot through the floor all around her.  Miraculously, none hit her, though the floor of the lift looked like a cheese grater when the firing stopped. 

Adam thought for a moment that God might actually be doing a miracle of some kind, impossibly saving the woman’s life, before a snap ripped through the turbulent air and the elevator plunged out of sight.

A few seconds later, something else fell past them.

Adam couldn’t really make it out.  But it had glistened like a diamond.

A long diamond, in the shape of a spear.

***

Elijah was still trying to figure out the best way to proceed, how to get himself up the cable and onto solid ground again before he either fell or Malachi killed him and the three other Controllers hanging out in space below the elevator.  He needed time, he needed peace and quiet for thinking and some time to decide how to proceed.  But peace and quiet were not to be found in this place, it seemed, and time was the one thing he couldn’t have, for in that instant he felt the cable slacken in his hands and knew that he was falling. 

It was over. 

The thoughts in his head tumbled over themselves in an almost childishly silly patter of twists and convolutions, making no sense and all sense at once, marking his end not with the peaceful understanding that he had hoped for as he entered the eternities, but rather with confusion, with disorientation, with despair.  His thoughts were jumbled even as he was, plummeting in fast loops and barrel rolls as he fell through the silence of the mine shaft.  He could not see where he was going, or where the other three Controllers who had been on the cable with him were.  But he could feel the wind rip through his clothing and pierce his skin as he fell, picking up speed as he dropped like a stone down a deep and empty well.