Doc hit the icy water with a hypothermic shock and barely managed to stay afloat.
Seconds after sinking through the sand alongside the muties, he’d fallen through some kind of open space, then suddenly splashed down in water. He paddled madly now, struggling instinctively to keep from going under, though the truth was, he couldn’t breathe above the surface, either. He’d inhaled enough quicksand on the way down to clog his nose and throat and lungs with smothering muck.
His eyes were wide as he thrashed and suffocated, but there was only pitch-darkness all around. If the muties were there with him, he couldn’t see a trace of them.
He started to feel light-headed and heavy at the same time. One last frenzy of kicking and gyrating, and his movements began to slow; he pulled his hands in to clutch his throat, and his body drifted downward.
All sense left his oxygen-starved brain as the water rose to cover him. His vision danced with sparks, and then mysteriously cleared and brightened. He saw the faces of his wife and children from his life in the nineteenth century, beaming and waving for him to come closer.
The last expression on his face as he went under was a smile, even as his body spasmed and stiffened without air.
Then, suddenly, hands grabbed hold of his upper arms and wrenched him back up again. Dazed and almost certainly dying, Doc was barely conscious of the hands as they dragged him through the water. Was he being pulled onto some kind of surface, some kind of dry land at the edge of the water? He couldn’t be sure.
Whatever was happening to him, he dropped out of consciousness like a shotgunned bird, plummeting into absolute darkness. Even the faces of Emily, Rachel and Jolyon were lost to him; he was racing finally into the limitless night, giving up the earthly suffering that had been his lot for far too long.
Or not. With the same shocking force with which he’d hit the freezing water, Doc rocketed out of the mindless blackness. Someone pounded his back again and again, and Doc gagged up quicksand in great muddy gouts.
As he retched up the garbage stuffed into his respiratory system, Doc became aware that he was on his knees on a rocky slab. He didn’t have long to consider it between blows to his back, though; they came so hard and fast that they scattered his thoughts as well as ejected the gritty clods.
Finally, enough of the matter was expelled that Doc’s airway opened partially. Without thinking, he sucked in a giant breath of cold air that immediately revived him.
And then the hand smacked his back again, and he continued coughing up quicksand.
Eventually, though, the hand stopped striking. Doc gagged out some more gunk, then slumped forward, breathing almost normally again.
At that moment, he heard a familiar voice in his ear. “Welcome back.” It was Ankh. “You need to hold your breath better next time.” He chuckled softly.
Doc turned toward him but couldn’t see a thing. Wherever they were, there didn’t seem to be a trace of light to be found. “What… Where…?” Forcing out words took an effort and triggered a fresh coughing jag.
When it faded, Ankh patted him on the back. “You’ll see in just a moment.”
As he said it, a loud boom echoed through the place, followed by a sound like the crackling of sparks from a downed power line. Off in the distance, Doc glimpsed a lonely twinkle that was quickly doused then followed by several more, flickering to life at scattered points. These guttered, too, and were replaced by others that also died, and then, suddenly, a brilliant light blazed to life.
In spite of his continued discomfort and hacking, Doc gazed in wonder at the scene before him. He was at the edge of an enormous cavern filled with a lake of crystal clear water. The walls and ceiling were lined with a web of brightly glowing filaments, the source of the illumination that had blown away the previously impenetrable darkness.
As Doc watched, the band of muties frolicked in the shallows at the fringe of a lake, laughing and splashing one another. Their weapons were spread over the upper bank of the shoreline, gleaming in the light washing over every inch of the enormous underground vault. “What…what is this place?”
“Shh.” Ankh placed a crimson index finger against his lips. “Keep it down.”
Doc frowned. “Why on earth would I do that?”
Ankh lowered his voice. “You’re supposed to be Dr. Hammersmith, aren’t you?”
Doc narrowed his eyes. “Of course.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” Ankh said. “Dr. Hammersmith built this place.”
As the implications came home to roost, Doc nodded slowly. “Ah. I see.”
“It is our refuge.” Ankh gestured at the cavern around them. “One of them anyway. It is underground, and it is located in a still zone.”
Doc shook his head at the way the light rippled on the surface of the lake and danced over the chiseled gray walls. He was having a hard time accepting that this had somehow been created by one man. “What is a still zone, pray tell?”
“A pocket of the Shift that does not change,” Ankh explained. “It is unaffected by the energies emanating from the core. This particular still zone, in fact, is unaffected because of special shielding installed by Dr. Hammersmith. Once the quicksand pulls you belowground and fills in above you, you may rest assured that your surroundings will not undergo any sort of transformation.”
“The Shift can be controlled?” Doc asked.
“Only blocked,” Ankh replied. “And only in a very few locations using equipment constructed by Hammersmith. But he did believe that control might be possible. He had a theory.”
“He did, did he?” Doc coughed, then swallowed hard to break the jag. “And what was it, exactly?”
“Only two people know,” Ankh said. “Hammersmith is one of them, and he is…you know.” He drew a finger across his throat. “As for the other, he is right over there.” Ankh pointed at a single mutie who was sitting apart from the rest, contemplating with a darkling gaze the recreation going on in the water.
“Exo?” Doc coughed again. “He possesses a scientific mind?”
“I never said that.” Ankh shrugged. “But Hammersmith did tell him the theory, and Exo is determined to bring it to life.”
“To what end, I wonder?” Doc frowned. “Perhaps I can draw it out of him. After all, he ought to speak freely about it if I am the originator of said theory.”
Ankh narrowed his dark brown eyes. “Exo has a blind spot where you’re concerned, and he thinks he needs you. But trust me, he is more than capable of making you suffer if you rub him the wrong way.”
“Yes.” Doc nodded grimly, recalling the beating Exo had given him. “That has been made quite clear to me.”
“You ought to keep that in mind,” Ankh said. “Never forget who holds the power in this society.”
“An irrational creature prone to fits of extreme violence,” Doc replied. “The perfect individual to seize control of the transformative nature of the Shift.” Doc shook his head. “Why do your people follow him?”
“He helped us overthrow a tyrant and survive a great disaster,” Ankh explained. “Though, to be honest, he was a different person then.”
“In what way?”
“One without brain damage.” Ankh gazed at Exo with an expression that might have been regret, then he turned away. “But that is neither here nor there.”
“Brain damage?”
Ankh cut a hand through the air in a gesture of finality. “Enough.” He got to his feet and dusted off the seat of his ragged camouflage pants. “If I were you, I’d enjoy this brief quiet time. There might not be another for quite a while.”
“Sage advice.” Doc coughed as he, too, got up from the rocky slab. “Though I believe I will ask one more question, at the risk of overtaxing your hospitality.”
Ankh’s expression was one of rising irritation. “What question is that?”
“If he is not the man he once was, why do you follow him?”
Ankh watched the muties splashing in the lake for a moment, their crimson bodies glittering in the light from the illuminated web on the walls and ceiling. Then he flashed a smirk in Doc’s direction. “Who said I do?”
With that, he walked away, wading into the water among his fellow muties, leaving Doc to ponder the possibilities that hung in the air around him.
Was Ankh unhappy with Exo’s leadership? Did he represent a force for change, one that Doc might exploit to win his freedom?
Ankh had spoken of turning an alliance with Doc to his advantage. Perhaps, if Doc played his cards right, he might be able to turn Ankh and Exo against each other and escape in the chaos that followed.
That was, if Ankh’s manipulations or Exo’s rage didn’t kill him first.