The Regenerates (19 page)

Kayn appeared out of nowhere and aimed at the creature’s eyes. After several hits, its right eye was nothing more than a bloody, gooey mess. It let out a loud screech once more and pounced on Kayn. This time it hit its mark, nailing his ribs with its pincers. He yelled as it dragged him around the corner of the tunnel and out of sight.

Ven seized Coralie, who was clutching her arm, and together they ran as fast as they could around the corner.

Coralie was panting, struggling to keep up with him. “Ven, we have to hurry…He has the dagger…”

“Yeah, I know.”

They followed the sound of the creature’s clicking legs until they had reached another, larger atrium. This one was different than the last. It was circular and covered in collapsed metal beams and rusted wires.

On the other side of the atrium was an elevator that had been twisted and bent out of shape, its control panel smashed and sparking. What remained was a deep, black pit. Near the elevator, the creature was on its hind legs, towering over Kayn, who was clutching his side and gingerly trying to edge away. Ven rushed forward and seized him under the arms, dragging him back to safety, while Coralie stayed back, tightly gripping her injured arm.

The creature seemed to have other plans. It lunged, picked up Kayn and Coralie and began making its way towards the pit by the broken elevator. As Kayn and Coralie yelled in pain at their injuries, Ven could do nothing but aim both Kayn’s fallen blaster and his own pistol at a clear spot. He shot at the creature’s remaining eye but it had turned in the opposite direction. Its hind legs suddenly swung out of nowhere and nailed him in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him. Ven flew backwards and crashed painfully into the tunnel wall.

Blinking, he saw that Coralie had managed to retain her pistol and aimed it close to the creature’s eye. Close was all that was necessary. Its remaining eye was quickly reduced to a similar state of bloodiness as the other. Wild with rage, it flung them around. Kayn grabbed onto an upper ledge and managed to hold on. As the creature continued to swing its arms, Kayn hesitated for a moment, then stretched out and grabbed Coralie, pulling her onto the ledge. Ven let out a sigh of relief and ran to join them, stumbling on the unfamiliar ground.

He felt something fall from his arms over the edge of the precarious cliff to the darkness below. In a lurch of horror, he realized what it was: the satchel containing the Magistrate’s Dagger.

It took only seconds for Kayn and Coralie to figure out what had happened. They staggered in shock. The creature swung its arms out once more. Ven watched helplessly as it connected with the two of them and sent them flying over the ledge and into the abyss after the dagger.

“
Coralie!
” he screamed.

But he had no time to let the terror of what had just happened sink in. With no other target, the creature had now focused all its attention on Ven, and it was angry.

“Come on then, you ugly bug,” he yelled.

He had to think of a plan. Aiming a miniscule pistol at it wasn’t going to work. He looked around the atrium. A massive pile of rubble lay on top of a metal platform similar to the one in the previous tunnel. Ven rushed towards it, ducking the creature’s stinger and legs as they shot out at him. He grabbed the slippery copper ladder and climbed as fast as he could. Once at the top, he began flinging bits of wall and stone at the creature’s head to draw its attention towards him. It turned and advanced on him, clicking its pincers.

“That’s right,” he egged it on. “Just a little closer…”

Once it had stopped underneath the edge of the platform, Ven let out a battle cry and heaved a massive pile of rock and metal over the edge. It landed with a sickening crunch on the creature’s head, making it teeter for a moment. Nearby, he found a long metal pole. He broke the edge on a large stone slab so the end was pointed sharp and flung it at the creature’s forehead for a final blow. With a deafening bang, the creature fell to the ground, twitched for a moment and was still.

Ven collapsed to the ground. A sudden sharp pain began to radiate from his shoulders and he found it difficult to move his arms. Clearly, he had overexerted himself. Trying to fight back the pain, he took careful strides down the ladder. His upper body was in so much pain that it took him almost five minutes to reach the bottom. Once on the ground, he walked towards the pit and peered over the edge. Clenching his fists, he kicked a pebble into the pit to see how deep it was. To his relief, it took only a few moments to echo.

“Coralie?” he shouted. “Kayn? Can you hear me? Hello?”

There was no reply. Either they had been crushed under a pile of rock or the pit contained some sort of exit. Ven prayed it was the latter. It couldn’t have been a very short fall, and they were already injured. Not just that, Coralie was the only one with a weapon now, and who knew what other beasts resided here? There would be no way to get back up, either. The walls were slick and straight, save for a few nicks and wedges.

He debated whether or not to risk sliding in despite the height. It could easily maim him, if not kill him, since his shoulders were now searing with pain. With no other option, he sat with his legs dangling over the edge and looked for some part of the side he could use as a step for his feet. When he found one, he tried to make out what lay at the bottom. Not wanting to waste any more time, he took a deep breath and placed his foot on the closest ledge he could find. Bit by bit, he slid down to the bottom of the pit.

Right before he hit the bottom, his foot got caught on one of the sharp rocks and he lost his balance. He cried out as he landed on his face, almost passing out from the impact. After a minute he was able to regain some composure and straighten himself out, every inch of him now extremely sore. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he tried to feel his way forward, running his palm along the slick walls.

Suddenly, he felt the floor disappear below him. His feet gave way and he began to slide down the smooth tunnel ground.

Instinctively, he grabbed on to the slick wall as he hurdled downward, but there was nothing to grip. He felt his hands being cut and scraped from the abrasions on the wall but continued to try to hold on, desperately hoping to break his fall.

Below him, he could see greenish light. As the light got closer and closer he made out another narrow tunnel lined with a faint glow. The slide suddenly stopped and as the moisture from the ground disappeared, he tripped and fell flat on his face again.

Ven painfully lifted himself up and dusted the dirt off his arms and face. Wincing, he looked around him. Old, abandoned mining carts lay teetered to one side. Sharpened pipes stuck out of wooden planks littering the floor. There was silence, other than a distant dripping sound.

“Kayn?” he called out again. “Coralie?”

There was still no answer, but they had to be here somewhere. Where else could they have fallen? Unless the slide he had fallen down wasn’t the only one…

Coralie tried to analyze the scenario she had found herself in. Ven was nowhere in sight. Heavily bruised, she was trapped underground in a massive, abandoned mining tunnel with Kayn Stafford himself, the man responsible for having her and her parents sentenced to death. If it hadn’t been for Ven, none of them would be here now, and yet here she was, at a complete disadvantage. The pistol Ven had given her had disappeared. She knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against Kayn in a fight if he really intended to finish her off, but it would have been comforting to have some way of buying herself some time. The welt on her arm stung. She tried her best to appear calm.

“So,” she said awkwardly. “Which way are we going?” Her stomach churned as she remembered Ven. He wasn’t much of a fighter, and that thing was still alive.

Kayn looked at her. Though he tried to appear tough, his eyes were squinted in pain from the wound in his ribs.

“
We
?
We
aren’t going anywhere. I’m going to knock you out and leave you at the mercy of the next monstrosity living down here while I find the dagger.”

Coralie turned to face him. “Why not kill me yourself? You seem to have no problem sentencing people to death without hearing them out. Or is that not a problem because you just sit on your pretty chair and watch while someone else handles the noose?”

Coralie refused to take any more nonsense from him. If she was going to die anyway, she would do so looking him in the eye. Still, she couldn’t stop her hands from sweating.

Kayn looked amused. “That’s a good point. I really could. As for your implication that I have no backbone, you’re horribly wrong. Allow me to prove it.”

Kayn pulled out Coralie’s pistol, clicked it and aimed it right between her eyes. She kept still.

“Hmm.” He was obviously enjoying himself. “Should I or should I not? You did insult me, my father, and my ancestors back in Lamparth. Not to mention the fact that you and your parents were supposed to die in front of everyone in Stratum Square. No matter how you look at it, you shouldn’t be alive right now.”

It seemed like her bravery from moments ago had vanished. Why had he saved her back there? Out of spite? Coralie found herself shaking. She fought to keep her face calm.

“My father wanted to help you,” she said. “So did my mother. They did everything in the interest of Cor, worked hard to rise to the tops of their respective jobs, and you rejected them. What’s worse, you had us arrested for trying to convince you that what we were doing was for the sake of improving life for your citizens. Isn’t that what the Stratum Order is about? You’re not stupid – you should be able to think for yourself what’s right and wrong, and not blindly follow rules without understanding their meaning. I’m no one to go insulting our city’s rulers, but you, your father and grandfather have turned those of us in the lower Quadrants into enemies, alienating us and separating us.”

Coralie could no longer stop her voice from quivering. “So what if the Stratum Order has been around for centuries? What if it was you, living in the Drudger Quadrant, forced to go against the Order just to survive and feed your family? It’s a different story then, isn’t it? You don’t have to be like your predecessors. You can be different, because no matter what you say or think, you’re still a kid, just like me and Ven.”

Before he could reply, Coralie began to hear dripping in the distance. The sound continued in a steady rhythm.

Kayn brought the arm with the pistol aimed at her face back to his side. He wore a bizarre expression, a mixture of confusion and remorse. Impossible. Had something she said gotten to him?

“I think we should save this discussion for later,” he said. “The dagger is more important.” He suddenly took Coralie’s hand and followed the sound of the dripping. She flinched as his hand closed around her wrist. She remembered when those in the lower quadrants had had to book appointments way in advance just to get five minutes with Kayn, and now here she was, wishing she was ten miles away from him.

They continued on until the sound was the loudest. They had arrived at a large, dark groundwater pool. The dripping came from the stalactites high above them. Other than that, the place was completely still.

“Where could the dagger have fallen?” said Coralie, ripping her hand away.

“I don’t know.”

He might have been trying to act calm, but Coralie knew he was terrified. Without the dagger, he was not only without a nation to lead, but without a home.

“There were two openings from the pit we fell into,” said Coralie. “The smaller, straight one and the second that led to a deeper pit. It could have fallen into that one. But these tunnels are like a slippery anthill. I can’t tell where they’ll end up.”

“Even so, that entrance had to have connected to a bigger area like this. I highly doubt it veered off in another direction.”

“Where’s the exit, then?” said Coralie. They looked around the large space. After a few moments, Coralie saw it high above them, a little left of a large stalactite.

“There!” she said. “I see the bag!” She pointed to a ledge. The gray cross-body satchel was hanging precariously over the edge, its strap caught on a pointed rock. A short ways above it, there was a large hole.

Sighing in relief, they spun their heads around the groundwater cave, trying to find a way to reach the bag. Kayn winced. The pain in his ribs was clearly taking its toll.

“We just have to climb,” said Coralie. “There’s no other way.”

“You’re not going to make it very far with that arm.”

“Speak for yourself,” she said coldly.

They went up to the side of the ledge and looked for something they could grab on to. Coralie could already sense trouble. The wall was slick with moisture.

“This isn’t going to work,” said Kayn.

“What if we throw something at it? It’s already at the edge. One of us will stand underneath and catch it as it falls.”

“The pool is right below it. Unless you don’t mind swimming along with whatever’s in the water.”

“You don’t know that there’s anything in there,” said Coralie. “We have no other option. We can’t climb.”

He thought for a moment. “Fine, then, let’s try it. But if we lose the dagger in the water, I’m going to push you in with it.”

“Whatever you want.”

Kayn picked up a large stone and flung it at the bag. It moved a little, but didn’t fall. Coralie stood underneath the ledge, as close as she could get without having to enter the water. She stretched out her arms.

“Try again,” she said. Once more, Kayn threw a large rock at it. This time, his aim was true. The bag slipped over the edge and plummeted down. Coralie stretched out her arms even further and the tips of her fingers caught the cloth strap. Triumphant, she threw the bag behind her and Kayn seized it. He opened it up and smiled. The Magistrate’s Dagger was still inside.

Coralie slipped on the wet surface and her legs splashed into the water. She gasped, but managed to not fall in.

“That was close,” said Kayn.

“Shut up. You were going to shoot me, back there. Don’t try and act concerned, it’s disgusting.”