Jak followed Union through a labyrinth of dark tunnels, using the sound of her footsteps on the packed earth as a guiding signal.
She swooped around one turn after another, staying always just far enough ahead that he couldn’t catch up. Nailing her with a throwing knife or a shot from the Colt Python wasn’t an option, either; getting a bead in the darkness, with the continued quakes and so many twists and turns along the route, would be next to impossible.
So Jak just kept running and hoping for a break. Maybe the tunnel would open up soon into a well-lit area, and he would have a better chance of stopping her with a blade or gunshot.
But when he got his wish and followed her through a door into a big, bright space, he had no more luck bringing her down. The room they emerged in was full of shifters, a whole mob of them standing stiffly, staring in the direction of the opposite corner from the door Jak and Union had come through.
So much for getting a clear shot with a throwing knife or a round from the Python. There were too many bodies in the way.
Union sprinted through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. The shifters made no effort to stop her, nor did they try to obstruct Jak when he waded through them.
But when Union reached the other side of the room, she whipped around and shouted at the top of her lungs for all the muties to hear. “Stop the intruder! Stop the intruder!” She jabbed a finger at Jak. “He has brought destruction down upon the Children of the Shift!”
All eyes turned to Jak, who kept heading for the side of the room where Union had landed. He felt the spreading tension all around him, fanning out over the assembled muties like poison gas.
Then, before he could reach the wall where Union was waiting, she opened a door and slipped through. Just as she left the room, the first of the shifters to lift a hand against Jak made his move, stepping in front of him with shoulders squared and arms folded across his chest.
“You’re not going anywhere.” The shifter slowly shook his head. “Except hell.”
“Been there.” Jak grinned and took a step toward him, accessing a throwing blade in the sleeve of his jacket. “Not all cracked up to be.”
* * *
“DID YOU JUST shoot at me?” Exo shook the swordstick in Ankh’s direction.
“Of course not.” Ankh raised the Winchester and aimed it at Exo. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
Just as Ankh pulled the trigger, Exo leaped behind a welding unit a few feet away. The bullet pinged off the unit’s metal case, missing the true target hunkered down behind it.
“What the fuck?” Exo howled. “You work for me.”
“Absolutely.” Ankh cranked the action on the longblaster, ejecting the spent cartridges, and loaded fresh ones. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. What about you, Dr. H.?”
Doc, who’d ducked behind a tool cart that only partially concealed his form, called out over the continued clamor of the quake, “Likewise, of course.”
“Fixie’s your man, Ankh!” Exo said. “Yet he activated devices that it is only my right to operate!”
“Terrible. Just terrible.” Ankh swung up the Winchester and kept it aimed at the welding unit. “He must be reprimanded most severely.”
“I’ve already beaten him to death. What else could we possible do to him?”
Ankh started walking toward Exo’s position. “Don’t worry, brother, we’ll think of something.”
Was Fixie dead? Peering out from behind the cart, Doc spotted his inert form on the floor under the control panel where he’d been working. His body was drenched in blood, though it was impossible to tell from a distance if he was definitely dead.
Doc’s own future looked pretty bleak, given the circumstances. Whichever of the shifters survived, Doc thought his own chances of survival were poor. He’d double-crossed them both by working with Fixie to switch on the device; once one was killed, it wouldn’t take long for the other to murder Doc for his betrayal.
If the earthquakes and the blazing heat and light inside him didn’t kill him first.
Even as Ankh continued his advance, Doc’s internal torment kicked into its highest gear yet. The white light flared stronger than ever, pressing against the restraints of his flesh as if it might blow him apart from within. The crackling noise in his head reached a deafening peak, drowning out the next exchange between Ankh and Exo.
Through tightly slitted eyes, Doc saw Ankh fire another round at the welding unit, then Exo fire back with Doc’s LeMat. But he barely heard the blasterfire through the crackling roar filling his skull.
Then, suddenly, the forces at work inside him rose in a tidal surge that seemed to wash away his physical form. He felt like a single, flickering candle flame whipping in a strong wind, barely keeping from being extinguished.
Seconds later, his body seemed to recrystallize around that single flame. The sounds and sensations of the outside world reasserted themselves, beginning with another pair of blastershots.
This time, Exo’s latest round found a home in Ankh’s belly, doubling him over. As for Ankh’s round, it punched into the heart of Fixie’s main control panel, sending sparks and shrapnel in all directions.
But none of that was Doc’s most immediate concern. The focus of his attention was a nearby section of the floor of the mat-trans chamber, to which he felt unmistakably drawn. Now that the sequence of “funny feelings” had run its course—from fizzing to crackling, from bodilessness to resolidifying—the attraction of that one spot could mean only one thing.
As he watched, the metal and plastic plating of that part of the floor buckled and broke. Cracks turned to fissures, fissures turned to gaps, and gaps widened into holes…all of which joined together in one big crater.
As Doc stared into that gaping pit, a vision of a winding tunnel leaped into his mind, a chute etched in yellow neon light. It took only a heartbeat for him to realize it was a diagram, a map of where the new hole in the ground led.
And the final destination, when he saw it, was reason enough for him to consider jumping into the maw of that newly formed chute. According to the map, the opposite end of the tunnel opened onto the outside world, aboveground and away from the buried redoubt.
At the sound of another shot, Doc looked away from the crater and saw Ankh take a second slug in the belly. He toppled backward to the floor, and Exo immediately marched toward him with the .44 raised, looking ready to finish him off.
With Ankh gutshot and Exo distracted, Doc realized he had a moment to run for the crater if he so chose. If the map in his head was right, the chute connecting to that crater would send him out of the line of fire, away from the worst insanity.
And the fact was, he instinctively believed in that map. Under the influence of the Shift, he’d been gradually tuning in to the region’s changing topography; now, perhaps because of his extended exposure to the core, his Shift sense had fully evolved. He believed he was experiencing what the shifters experienced when they communed with the transformations of the Shift, right down to the detailed diagram in his head.
Given those possibilities, he could think of no good reason not to take a leap of faith. It might be his only chance, his absolute last chance, to get to freedom.
Taking a deep breath, Doc got to his feet. Watching as Exo stood over Ankh and gloated, he tried to brace himself against the quakes and prepare to make a run for it.
But as soon as he took his first steps toward the crater, the ground shook more roughly than ever. Doc stumbled once, then twice, barely staying upright…then found himself with both feet off the floor as it seemed to drop out from under him.
But he didn’t go down. The floor lurched back up, and he regained his footing, then propelled himself with three quick steps to the crater’s edge.
He hesitated, on the verge of doing something he and his teammates would once have considered so completely un-Doc-like. Taking courageous leaps into the unknown was something that his companions would do. As much as he felt like a changed man since his abduction, as clear as the map in his head seemed to be, this was still a pretty big risk for the old man.
But watching Exo pump three more rounds into Ankh helped move things along. Doc took another step closer to the edge of the pit, preparing to jump.
The darkness beckoned. Would it lead him to freedom or extinction?
The floor rocked, nearly throwing him in. Doc spread his arms wide and steadied himself, which was the exact instant when Exo looked back at him.
Their eyes met through the sparks and smoke. Exo sneered, and Doc knew instantly that the mutie would kill him if given the chance.
The floor heaved, but it didn’t manage to hurl Doc into the pit. When he jumped feetfirst off the rim and shunted down into the blackness, he did so of his own accord, taking a chance that he knew he never would have taken just a few days earlier if given the opportunity.