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ONCE, HE’D BEEN BRETT Birtles. Plain old Brett Birtles. Just trying to support his wife and put enough aside that they’d be able to afford a kid. In the post-Cascade world, this had proven impossible. They’d been poor. Poorer than poor. Getting through one day at a time, steadily building debt rather than savings.
Working for the World Alliance Council was employment, sure, but it was never going to make him a wealthy man. His wife was hot, too. She could take her pick of any man, even a senior World Alliance councilman, if she pleased.
He’d thought and schemed, hell, even prayed he’d get promoted, so he could earn enough to feel confident she wouldn’t leave him for someone better. If they could have a kid, she’d be locked in. But the standard by which people were permitted to bear children in 2150 was a number in the bank, and his number had never reached a quarter of the amount required for him to qualify to come off the contraceptive injections.
He was almost twenty-five when he saw an opportunity to make some extra cash. He would have to steal it, and risk the SUIC, but he’d been getting paranoid her eye was wandering, and it had been the only option left. The only chance he had when he’d sensed that bastard boss of hers was sniffing around the honeypot. So, he’d gone all-in, determined to keep her, and give her everything she ever wanted. Because all she’d ever wanted was to have a kid.
But at the age of twenty-eight, it had all gone to shit.
He’d weighed up the pros and cons, figured there was little chance of getting caught, and gone for it. The council was lax about security. It had been easy to divert funds, forge false invoices, invent a person and start filling a bank account in their name. He hadn’t spent any of it. No, he’d just been saving it, trying to reach the magic kiddie number. The problem had come when he had to figure out how to get it from the fake account into his own to pass the World Alliance’s Fit for Parenthood test. He had the system admin rights, sure, but if he did it himself it would be obvious. He’d coaxed a so-called friend, a man named Bailey, to do it for him. Bailey had decided he’d prefer the RPSC - the Reward for Preventing Subhuman Crimes – to the ten percent Brett had offered, and the rest, as they say, was history. He couldn’t really blame him, the reward had been double what he was offering, and Bailey had his own ideas about becoming a father.
The thought of being cast underground, into a SUIC? Well, it simply hadn’t occurred to him, in his blinkered pursuit of that magic number, that one day he’d be standing in the sweltering darkness two miles under the earth, sweating his balls off even though he was wearing just enough to cover his modesty.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d lose her through his own stupidity, that he’d be, less than six months after putting his proposition to Bailey, joining a brutal underground gang, just to feel safe.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be standing here, quivering with fear, with a cross burned into his forehead. That he’d be here, in almost total darkness, never to see his wife again, never to have the child they’d been so desperate for.
It never occurred to him that he would give up even his name to survive.
Once, he’d been Brett Birtles.
Now, he was Thirty-Nine.
****
“GET IN HERE, YOU WORTHLESS pieces of shit.”
Forty flicked on his lighter, and one of the two guards standing at the entrance to Leader’s compound stepped forward and grabbed it from his hand.
The flame went out, but not before Thirty-Nine made eye contact with Forty, and saw they were as terrified as one another. Under his fear was cold, hard calculatedness. It made Thirty-Nine uneasy, and he wished he was Brett again. But he’d always be Thirty-Nine, until the moment he died.
A guard shoved them toward the door neither of them wanted to go through and, as Forty stepped aside to let him into the dimly-lit interior of Leader’s compound-within-a-compound, he began to seriously wonder if that moment was about to arrive.
All because he wanted a little extra cash to make a family. Was that so bad, in a society that was shattered?
He put his back against the gypsum wall and tried to breathe. Leader stood in the center of the room, scowling. It could have been a normal room in a normal house. A hallway, maybe. That would explain the four bare, white walls. It wouldn’t explain why there was no ceiling, why blackness spiraled away, up and up.
“Get off my fucking wall,” Leader growled. Thirty-Nine stood up straight as a pillar, his jellified legs trying to support his spinning head.
He didn’t look directly at Leader, who slapped each of them impatiently on the shoulder to make them move away from his precious wall and into the center of the room. On the ground, a plan of the SUIC had been drawn in the dirt. Around it were numbers, half of which had a cross through them. Gang, crossed out by bombs.
Thirty-Nine saw him from his peripheral vision. A small, skinny old man. A man not physically imposing, but terrifying all the same. The aura of him surrounded them, ominous, like pressure in the atmosphere.
He kept his eyes on Forty, too scared to talk, too scared to breathe, waiting for the storm to break. Slowly, carefully, he sucked air in through his teeth, hoping Leader wouldn’t notice. People had been killed for less. That was why he was so feared: because he was evil. Not evil like the devil. No, he was much, much worse than that.
And they’d said he was evil. Brett Birtles. All for skimming a little cash off the top of the World Alliance pile. His time in the SUIC had made him realize: risking spending the rest of your life in this hell, well, it wasn’t worth all the money in the damn world.
Too bad for Brett, that he’d gotten himself classified subhuman and banished to the SUIC for what amounted to less than a year’s salary. A year’s salary he’d never even actually seen, let alone spent.
“You look like you’ve been dragged through shit backwards.”
Leader walked around them, eyeing their filthy skin, wrinkling his nose at the odor of sweat that coated them. Although Thirty-Nine was almost a foot taller than him, he felt like a child. He felt like a child who’d been caught with his hand in his mother’s purse, and now had to answer to his father.
“I told you to go out there, find Fifty-Seven and Fifty-Eight, and bring their lights to me. You should have been back here days ago.”
He stopped behind them. Every one of Thirty-Nine’s muscles tensed, ready for violence. He felt a vein pulsing on the left side of his forehead, and silently willed it to stop. If Leader saw it...
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Leader spoke the words so viciously that both men flinched, as spittle hit the back of their necks.
Thirty-Nine tried to glance at Forty without turning his head. He could feel tension oozing from him, and despite his own fear, that felt good. Forty was a worthless piece of shit.
“ANSWER ME,” Leader bellowed, and shock made Forty take a step forward. He turned to face Leader, hands up, apologizing.
“Shut up, shut up.” Leader slapped him across the face repeatedly. Left hand, right hand. Left hand, right hand. “I didn’t tell you to look at me. Put your eyes on the ground, before I have them ripped out of your head.”
Forty looked down, let his arms drop to his sides. “Their dig-hole exploded. They were killed. We buried what was left of Fifty-Seven, in the Cemetery.”
“And Fifty-Eight?”
Thirty-Nine stayed silent.
“We couldn’t find him. He must have been vaporized in the explosion.”
“Lights.”
“Huh?” Forty looked up, earning himself another slap.
“Lights. I told you: if they’re dead, I want their lights. We’re down to the last thirty, and once the fuel is gone, it’s gone. We can’t afford to lose them.”
“They...they weren’t there. We couldn’t find them.”
“You couldn’t find them? So, what, they grew legs and walked right out of there?” Leader made walking feet with two of his fingers.
“I don’t know. Maybe they got blasted into the wall, and like, fused, so we couldn’t see them.” Forty’s voice was rising, growing shrill.
“What about you, princess? What do you think?”
Thirty-Nine shrugged, opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, kept his eyes on the ground.
“Or do you think, just maybe, that Fifty-Eight wasn’t killed, that he walked out of there, with two lighters, and you pair of idiots were too stupid to track him down?”
“Perhaps,” Forty said. “Maybe he didn’t want to dig up no more.”
Leader studied him coldly. “You think he decided to defy me, a man who’s followed me for fourteen years?”
“Lots of people are scared, because of the explosions. There could be a rebellion, maybe Fifty-Eight is part of it. I don’t know.”
For a few moments, there was only silence. Then Leader began to laugh, throwing his head back and sending his voice up past the white walls, away into the darkness above.
Thirty-Nine glanced at Forty and saw him raise his head to look at Leader, a grin on his bloodied mouth.
Abruptly, the laughter stopped. Leader stepped forward and delivered an uppercut to Forty’s chin.
He staggered back, then crumpled to the ground.
“Get up, you piece of shit. Get on your feet.”
Forty dragged himself to his feet, wobbled left and right, and eventually managed to regain his balance by putting one of his hands on the wall.
“Look what you did. You got blood on my wall.”
Forty kept his mouth shut. His hand dropped to his side. A string of thick blood and saliva hung from his chin. Leader stepped up to Thirty-Nine.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, he lifted his eyes from his feet, until they met Leader’s cold, menacing stare.
“Why aren’t you talking? You know something you don’t want me to know?”
“No, Leader.”
“So, where is Fifty-Eight, and why did it take you so long to get back here?”
“We looked for him, after we buried Fifty-Seven, but we couldn’t find any sign of him. We went all the way to the Cathedral, but we couldn’t find him.”
“And that took almost a week?”
“The tunnel around the Gypsum Chamber caved in. We were trying to find another way past.”
“When you knew I was here, waiting? You should have gone through the Gypsum Chamber.”
Forty found his voice. “We did, once I convinced this coward we could do it. He didn’t want to, and he doesn’t want to dig. He’s doubting you, doubting your plan.”
Thirty-Nine felt his heart rate increase. He looked at the floor. Why would Forty do that to him? Just to save himself, he supposed. Or to get back at him for punching him? He knew who the real coward was, but now he couldn’t speak. He had to wait and see what the vicious little man in front of him would do.
Leader stepped close to him, the top of his head level with his chin, and looked up.
“Is that true?” he whispered.
He shook his head, and Leader turned and marched to the door through which they’d entered.
“You, get in here.”
One of the guards entered, his eyes on Thirty-Nine and Forty.
“One of these look like a coward to you?”
“Both of ‘em do, sir.”
Leader chuckled. Thirty-Nine kept his gaze on the ground.
“I guess you’re right.” He paused. Then, “Take that one outside and kill him. Throw his body in the Water Chamber.”
Thirty-Nine tensed, thinking of his wife. Waiting for the big hands of the guard to seize him, knowing fighting was pointless. This was it.
To his amazement, the guard grabbed Forty. He dragged him away, kicking, screaming, begging. Out the door, then the killing began.
****
LEADER STOOD, LEANING forward, his ear to the crack where it didn’t quite meet the wall, listening as Forty’s screams changed from throaty to gurgling.
Thirty-Nine listened too, while he told himself how stupid Brett had been to steal the money and get himself sent down here, where he’d reached new levels of stupidity by joining Gang and getting himself branded by the man who was about to have him killed for no reason.
It took twenty minutes for Forty to die, his screams subsiding to painful moans and then, eventually, to nothing. He listened to the sound of the guard dragging the body away.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard a muffled pop. Another bomb detonated. More Gang killed.
He wondered which was worse. Standing waiting for the guard to return, knowing his fate, or being vaporized by a bomb without seeing the explosion coming. At least the bomb would be unexpected, quick.
“Follow me,” Leader said. He led him through a doorway into a larger room. Lamps burned in each corner, lighting the white walls with an amber glow that reached a third of the way into the room, meaning the center was dull. Leader extended a bony finger and pointed to a heap of SUIC-issue clothing that was piled in the middle of the room. “Grab a seat. You’ve been through a lot this week.”
He hesitated, wondering if he was being mocked, or dared into making a mistake. Then he did make a mistake, in his confusion, glancing into Leader’s eyes without being told to.
Leader only smiled. Then he spoke, his tone gentle.
“Go ahead, take a seat. Going through the Gypsum Chamber can’t have been much fun. You’re lucky you made it out of there alive. I was right about you, all along.”
He wondered what he could say to save himself.
Leader scratched at his beard. “I must apologize for that little scene back there.” He stood five feet from Thirty-Nine. “No one likes a tattletale, especially not me. Nasty, horrid people they are. That in itself should be a subhuman crime, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Leader.”
“But tell me. What he said, was it true? You see, I’ve had what you might call premonitions, that some of my followers will turn against me, and that wouldn’t do. That really wouldn’t do.”
He shook his head, looked down at the dusty ground.
“You can tell me if you’ve heard rumors. I understand if you’re scared, that’s only natural, but someone like you, someone who could survive the Gypsum Chamber? Well, you shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Let me tell you a little secret.” He walked behind Thirty-Nine and whispered into his ear. “Sometimes, those explosions scare me. When the rumbles roll through the SUIC, I wonder if this time will be the last, if the whole thing is about to come down on top of me. They come out of nowhere, don’t they?”
Thirty-Nine nodded, thinking, no, they come right from you, because if you didn’t have people digging, there would be no explosions.
“Makes me sad when they pop. Two more gone each time, but digging up is important. It might be the most important thing anyone down here ever did. Don’t you think?”
Leader placed a hand on Thirty-Nine’s shoulder, and he began to shake. He managed a single nod.
Leader let his hand drop, turned, and walked away. He went to the end of the room that was farthest from the doorway, to where another dark opening stood. As he disappeared through it, he called out to Thirty-Nine.
“I know Forty was lying about you.” He reappeared, carrying three lighters. “You’d never turn your back on me, would you?”
He shook his head, and a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. It tickled and made him itch, but he was too afraid to reach up and brush it away. He heard the guard who’d killed Forty return to his post outside with a grunt of acknowledgment to his partner.
“That’s what I thought. Hold out your hand.”
He crossed the room and stopped in front of Thirty-Nine. With his free hand, he traced the cross on his forehead. “This is too special, too important, to risk. You see, I always knew he didn’t have the constitution to dig. The balls, you could say. That’s why I sent him out as a Burier.”
“Yes, Leader.” He closed his eyes, wondering what would come next.
“Now, don’t take that as a slur on you. I knew you were loyal, totally committed to me. That you’d never turn away from me.”
Leader placed the three lighters in his outstretched palm and spoke quickly. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go out there, find any men who’ve turned against me. You have three days to bring back news. I want to know who they are. And please, don’t make me send men out to look for you.”
“Okay.”
“Ask the men who are digging. Ask them if anyone’s been talking trash about me. I bet that’s what they’re doing: scaring good men, trying to make them so afraid they turn their back on the greater good. Trying to turn them into traitors.”
He kept his silence.
“What are you waiting for? You know what you have to do, so get out there and do it.”
“Yes, Leader.” He jumped to his feet and left the room. Leader didn’t follow. He walked through the smaller room and out, past the guards, the lighters in his hands slippery with sweat.
****
“GABE, CAN WE STOP?”
“No.”
“Just for a little while?”
“Bodge, no.”
“But my ankle hurts.”
That much was obvious: his limp had gotten heavier as he tried to keep up. He’d gradually dropped back, until he was twenty feet behind Gabe. They were both exhausted, but he was determined to keep them moving. They had to make it to the Cotton Cave before the Rebels, before the assault on Leader’s compound began. He wanted to make sure he had enough time to find the gun, get the lay of the land, figure out an escape route, before the carnage and killing and mayhem began. Maybe if the Rebels did start a war, soldiers would be sent in from above. More likely, they’d just leave them to kill one another down here. What did humans care about what subhumans did to one another?
“I know your ankle hurts, but we don’t have time to stop. We have to get to the Cotton Cave so we can deliver the message for Soames.”
Now, Bodge did stop, and Gabe walked another ten feet before noticing. When he did, he turned and went back. He found Bodge sitting on the ground with his head hanging between his knees.
“Bodge, get up.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Get up, Bodge. We don’t have time for this. Are you mad because I didn’t tell you about the message, is that it?”
“No. I want to go live in a connumity, that’s all.”
“We still have to make it through the Water Chamber before we get there.” He was surprised Bodge hadn’t reacted badly to the revelation of an ulterior motive behind his desire to return to the Cotton Cave. Bodge’s reason for sitting down wasn’t due to him feeling betrayed by Gabe. It was due to pain, pure and simple.
He let the lighter go out. Its flame had gotten lower, the first signs it was running low on gas soon followed by the flame sputtering, the lighter making small, breathy, popping sounds.
“Please Gabe, you know I’m scared in the dark. Please, turn on the light.”
Gabe flicked the lighter back into life. The flame was one third its original height, and not yellow, like it had been. Now, it was blue. It cast very little light in the long, narrow tunnel.
From somewhere ahead came a continuous whooshing sound: cool air being forced down an air hole. It was hot by the time it traveled two miles through the earth and it condensed, making the walls wet and the tunnel humid and steamy.
“Bodge, listen to me. This lighter’s almost out of gas, and we need to save the other for emergencies. You understand?”
Bodge shook his head and stared at his swollen ankle.
“What I’m saying is, once this lighter runs out of gas, we’ll have to walk in the dark, because we need to save the other for when we really need it. Emerging seeds, remember?”
“I don’t wanna walk in the dark.”
“So get up. Come on. Let’s go.”
Bodge only let his head drop. Gabe heard sniffles, and sat down next to him.
“I know you’re frightened. I am, too. But if you don’t get up, I’ll have to leave you behind, and I don’t want to do that. We promised we were going to be brave.”
In the low light, he saw Bodge nod. He got to his feet and offered his hand.
Bodge didn’t take it. Instead, he fiddled with the end of the rope that was coiled around his waist. “Is it dangerous in the Water Chamber?”
He pondered the question. Bodge looked up, their eyes meeting. There was silence between them, just the steady whoosh of air ahead, the dim light like a strand connecting them.
The Water Chamber was almost as dangerous as the Gypsum Chamber, but for different reasons. The smallest of the SUICs chambers, at fifty meters across, it was a natural low point where water collected.
Gabe had come through it when he’d been looking for escape. He’d been lost in the darkness, wandering, sometimes crawling, through the maze of tunnels. At potential weak points in the SUIC, the World Alliance had braced the ceilings using timber arches. Gang had removed much of the timber, using it as framing for Leader’s white walls. This had led to localized collapses in several spots on the approach to the Water Chamber.
The only way he’d found it the first time around was by following the water that trickled along the ground, but he’d had to double back on himself several times when he came to tunnels blocked by debris. When eventually he’d reached it, he was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, but he’d been able to stand upright. It was one of the few places beyond the Cotton Cave that a man could. More than once, as he’d stepped into the sauna that was the Water Chamber, he’d come close to stepping into a crevasse. He’d gone toward the lake at the chamber’s rear, at one point slipping several feet into a hole and only just managing to arrest his fall.
All around him, he’d heard the patter and squeaking of rats. Hundreds of them, gone there to drink. Himself parched, he’d knelt beside the water and put in a hand to scoop some up to wash his face. The water was almost at boiling point, but he didn’t care. When he’d dipped both hands in to rinse his face a second time, a dead rat had drifted into them and he’d screamed. Despite knowing the water was filthy, he’d lowered his face toward it to drink, and something else had bumped into him.
A human body.
He’d scrabbled back, away from the water’s edge, but he hadn’t screamed. No, he hadn’t screamed that time, because he’d been past the point where screaming was adequate.
He’d noticed the rancid stink of decaying flesh then, and spotted more corpses in the water, dark floating islands. The rats were feeding on them, leaning out over the water’s edge to snag their next meal and falling in, where they either drowned or boiled.
He’d been overcome suddenly, leaning forward to vomit into the water. While he’d been bent forward, a rat had run across his back toward the body, and he’d got out of there then, as quickly as he could. He’d known he was ready to lie down and die in that moment, but not there, not in that place.
Now, he thought about the men floating in that water. Had they gone there desperately searching for water, only to be poisoned by it? Had they taken their own lives by jumping into it?
Whichever it was, he wasn’t looking forward to being back there. At least this time they would have light. That would help them avoid the crevasses, and stop the rats from swarming over them. He didn’t have to look at the water, at the floating corpses, or the rats straining to get their next meal. He would have to make sure Bodge didn’t look, either. They would only need to be in there a couple of minutes. Only for as long as it took to get to the other side.
Even that was too long, but it had to be done. They had to make it through to the other side. When they did, they’d be just over one mile from the Cotton Cave.
“Gabe? Are you okay, Gabe?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You didn’t answer what I asked you. Is it dangerous, like the other place the Crossmen helped us get through?”
“Everywhere is dangerous if you’re not careful. But we will be, won’t we?” He’d regained his composure. “We’ll get moving now, so we make sure we still have light when we get there.”
“Okay, because we’re partners, right?” Bodge stood.
“You bet. Now come on, let’s go.”
They began walking again, keeping their backs to the wall as they passed the air hole to avoid getting burned by the gushing air.
Once they were past – Bodge still hobbling, Gabe wiping stinging sweat from his eyes – they slowed. The ceilings were lower here, and as they continued they first had to crouch, then crawl. As he began to wonder if they’d followed a dead end, the tunnel opened out.
“We haven’t heard any more splosions, have we?”
“No, Bodge, we haven’t.”
“Is that good?”
“It is. We don’t want to hear explosions, because they’re the most dangerous thing of all down here.”
“You think the Crossmen that helped us made the others stop digging up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think they’re probably just digging up somewhere else.”
It was strange, very strange, that they’d heard no explosions lately. He was certain the Rebels couldn’t have made it farther than them and killed multiple Gang members or persuaded them into their way of thinking.
No, what he thought was that Leader had probably identified certain areas of the SUIC to target, and concentrated his men in those areas. Earlier, he’d wondered if they might target one of the chambers and rig some sort of rope and pulley system to hoist men up to the highest point in the SUIC. Now, thinking about it, he wasn’t sure it would make much difference.
They had two miles of rock and earth to get through, rock and earth with explosive devices embedded in it, and starting a few hundred feet closer to the surface was unlikely to make any difference to their task.
Leader wasn’t stupid. Maybe he thought the bombs were more likely to be concentrated above the naturally-formed chambers and was avoiding them accordingly.
That was certainly the case in the Gypsum Chamber, although he supposed it would be pointless to send men to dig through its ceiling. The heat would kill them long before the bombs did.
The Water Chamber was a much better candidate, if Gang could stand being so close to so much decomposing flesh. It was hot and steamy there though, not conditions ideal for digging.
“Keep your ears open, Bodge. Not just for digging or explosions, but for any sign of Gang. The closer we get to the Water Chamber, the more chance we have of bumping into them.”
“I’m more scared of the Water Chamber than the Crossmen.”
“Me too, but we’ve got to go through. You know that, don’t you?”
Bodge nodded. “You think Thompson and the other Crossmen are good guys?”
“Probably not, buddy.”
“They coulda hurt us, but they didn’t.”
“Yes, I know, but I think that’s because they were thinking of themselves, not us.”
“What do you mean, Gabe?”
“Maybe they think, if we reach the Cotton Cave and tell people about their plan, more will join them and their fight.”
“Will they?”
“I don’t think so. You know how those men got to be part of Gang, don’t you?”
“No.”
“They had to prove Gang came first, and they did that by killing someone who wasn’t Gang. Mostly, that meant someone living in the Cotton Cave. That was how it worked, when I was there.”
“I don’t want to go there if they kill the people.”
“Soames made a deal with Leader, and they stopped. They don’t do that anymore.”
Maybe they did. Maybe the old rumors were right: they killed Regulars for meat. He didn’t think so. He thought they did it for sport.
“So, no Crossmen are good guys?”
“No.”
“Not even the ones who want to kill Leader?”
“No. As much as I’d be happy if Leader was gone, it would mean someone else was in charge.”
“Like Thompson?”
“Maybe, and Thompson doesn’t have a deal to let the Cotton Cave live in peace. If leadership changes, then everything else will change too. Even if it doesn’t, if Leader wins their war, Soames is dead. Leader doesn’t have to keep his deal anymore.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the Cotton Cave.”
Bodge looked sad. His dreams of a better life in the Cotton Cave were being spoiled by what Gabe was telling him. He wondered whether to reveal his plan, but decided against it. He didn’t want to raise his hopes. He knew it was a long shot. If he revealed it to Bodge, he would have to tell him that, too. Bodge was already scared, already doubting his chances of a better future, but he continued to trust Gabe. If he didn’t, Gabe thought he would stop, give up, and if he did that, he might as well be dead.
“It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
“Not if they hurt us.”
“They won’t.” Gabe stopped, and Bodge did the same. He reached up and placed a hand on Bodge’s shoulder. “I promise, everything will be okay for us.”
Bodge nodded, but Gabe knew the chances of them getting out of the SUIC were slim, and the chances of them getting killed were high.
He pictured the wide-open space around the SUIC entrance. The blazing lights that burned like suns above, making it impossible to hide in the open landscape. It was deliberately open, so the guards could see anyone who made it out of the hole. Not that anyone ever had.
If Gabe and Bodge stuck their heads out of that hole, they wouldn’t ask questions. They would take their lives in an instant to stop the threat and send a strong message back down into the hole into the bargain.
The integrity of the SUIC was the most important thing to the humans. Any revolt by the subhumans would be swiftly, and mercilessly, dealt with.
Just what the hell was he doing? Leading Bodge to his death most likely, after promising to look after him. But what other option did he have?
Chances were, it was die down here, or die trying to get out. His mind was made up. He would rather die trying.
****
IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR before the lighter died for good.
When it happened, Bodge said, “Gabe”, in a voice that sounded like wonderment. Like he’d seen something that took his breath away.
“You’re okay.”
It was funny how darkness made a person feel exposed. They’d been talking normally until the veil of black came down. Now, Gabe was whispering. It was probably a good thing: they’d become complacent. They were not hearing digging, or explosions, or anything really, other than the steady hiss, every so often, of air whooshing through the inlet holes.
They stood completely still. Bodge reached out and found Gabe’s hand.
He almost went against his better judgment, almost pulled out the other lighter to calm Bodge, whose breath came in short, staccato-like bursts of exhalation. But the darkness, their stillness, brought Gabe’s hearing up, like turning a volume knob on a stereo, and he heard something a few tunnels ahead.
They were still a couple of miles away from the Water Chamber, so this was something else, or someone else.
“Bodge, I can’t turn on the other light. I think I hear something, around one of these corners.”
“Is it Crossmen?”
“Probably. Let’s head toward it, but take it nice and slow. Okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
They crept along the tunnel, Gabe trailing a hand along the wall to see where it ended and another began, tapping his foot ahead of him every few steps, searching for holes.
As they reached a turn, the sound of digging and voices became clearer. He pulled at Bodge’s shoulder, and he leaned down in the darkness to let Gabe whisper into his ear.
“I think they’re just around this corner. When we reach the end, I’ll squeeze your hand twice, like this.” He gave two quick pumps on Bodge’s hand. “When I do that, stop, and don’t say a word. Okay?”
Instead of answering, Bodge replicated the double-hand-squeeze signal to show he understood, almost crushing the bones in Gabe’s hand into the bargain.
They moved slowly, listening to the voices in the darkness. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded like there were several of them, and yet he could hear digging now, despite the conversation.
He’d wondered whether Leader had concentrated men in specific parts of the SUIC, whether he’d had his men identify spots they thought were promising candidates to dig. Places where they thought there might not be bombs. This sounded like a yes to that question.
They reached the corner. He felt the wall under his right hand disappear and gave two quick squeezes on Bodge’s hand. Bodge halted instantly and crouched, making himself as small as possible.
He listened to the voices, trying to count how many there were. He thought four. Still, the sound of rock chipping against rock continued above, so he figured there must be five or six men here, taking turns at digging.
Abruptly, the digging stopped. A minute later, two new voices joined the conversation.
“This is stupid.”
“You calling Leader stupid?”
“No, but we’re never gonna dig through two miles of rock. It’d take a hundred years.”
“Maybe it will, but that’s what we were sent here to do, so we gotta do it until we get told otherwise. And there’s only one man can tell us otherwise.”
“Oh yeah? So why aren’t you doing it, instead of sitting there yakking while we risk getting ourselves blown to bits?”
“I’ll take my turn.”
“You bet you will. I’m ready for a rest. And another thing: If you’re so gung-ho on Leader’s instructions, you should be digging your own hole, instead of muscling in on ours.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you two. We agreed it’s safer this way. If there’s an explosion up in the hole, it will likely only take two of us out.”
“Russian roulette.”
“I know, but it gives us a chance of surviving long enough for Leader to realize it’s not going to work, to tell us to stop.”
“He won’t ever do that.”
“How do you know, Sixty-Two? You don’t think he’s gonna let all his men get killed, do you?”
“That would be crazy. He’d have no followers. No Gang.”
“Exactly, so let’s just take our time, and maybe we’ll all get out of this alive.”
Gabe inched forward and peeped around the corner. He saw burning lamps, constructed from cotton wrapped around rocks, and in their glow, six men sitting in a circle in front of a pile of rubble. They’d formed a kind of collective, going against Leader’s instruction to dig in twos.
That alone was likely to get them in serious, perhaps even fatal, trouble. They were working on the assumption that, once enough men died, Leader would call off the dig, give up.
Whichever of them had called it madness had been right: it probably would take one hundred years to chip through two miles of rock, even without the bombs interrupting.
He tried to recall whether he’d taken any other routes around this part of the SUIC, and came up empty. They couldn’t fight these men. Bodge wouldn’t fight. It would be Gabe versus six, and he didn’t like those odds.
He stood, wondering what to do. He didn’t think Leader was about to stop the digging, and they couldn’t wait around for them to blow themselves up. All it would take would be one of them to come around the corner looking for privacy to urinate, and they would be discovered. And six men meant lots of urinating. The tunnel Bodge and he stood in reeked of it. He had to figure something out, quickly.
Even if they could stay, wait for them to detonate a bomb, he didn’t want to be near any blast. The whole tunnel could come down.
Voices came from behind Bodge. Light flared, and he saw Thompson leading the group of Rebels toward them.
“Well, look what we have here.” Thompson clapped Bodge on the shoulder, knocking him into Gabe. “I thought you guys would be long gone.”
A shout came from around the corner. “Who’s there? Show yourselves.”
Thompson looked at Gabe, gave a what-you-gonna-do shrug, and led his band of Rebels around the corner, Gabe and Bodge trailing behind them.
The four men who’d been sitting were now on their feet. Two had climbed back up into the hole. They hadn’t heard the commotion below, or if they had, they were ignoring it. The dull thud and chip and scrape of rock on rock went on unabated above. Gabe looked at the gaping black maw of the hole that started at shoulder height and shivered. It was like looking into the mouth of some great beast.
He pulled Bodge to the rear of the group as one of the men approached. “I see you’re Gang, but I don’t see you digging. You Buriers?”
Thompson held his hands out to the sides. “You see any dead bodies? Funny, because I don’t see you digging either.”
He stood tall, asserting himself – his presence, his alphaness – in the tunnel which, although it widened into an almost-circular opening, was cramped with so many people jostling for space. The scent of body odor and urine was overpowering.
“Oh, we’re digging.” He pointed up with one finger. “Or are you deaf as well as ugly?”
The placating voice from earlier spoke up behind him. “Calm it down, fellas. We’re on the same team.”
Thompson stepped forward, leaning close to the man, and said, “Leader sent men to dig in twos. I see four, and I hear two more. What gives?”
The man ignored his question, letting his eyes drift over the faces of the group of Rebels. Gabe lifted a hand and pretended to be scratching at his forehead. The man’s eyes moved quickly on, but stopped when they landed on Bodge.
“The black guy at the back has no cross.”
“He’s with us,” Thompson said, not missing a beat.
Gabe felt Bodge lean into him.
“You’re walking around here with a Regular?”
It was a derogatory term, in Gang eyes, a way of calling those who weren’t part of Gang inferior. In Gabe’s eyes, Bodge was ten times the man any of these would ever be, and he wasn’t even a man yet. When one of the four non-diggers approached, Gabe stepped between him and Bodge, forgetting about covering his forehead.
“We got two Regulars here,” the man said, his voice almost trembling with feral excitement.
That told Gabe they’d be in serious trouble if Thompson and the others weren’t here. And wasn’t that a bizarre thing? To be protected from Gang, by Gang?
“Back up, dickhead,” Evans said, walking from the side of the group of Rebels to stand beside Gabe.
Bodge flinched at the cuss.
The man with the placating voice stepped forward. Like most of the people in the tunnel, he wore a long beard, his hair was crudely shorn, he was lean and sinewy, and so filthy not even a thousand baths would make him clean.
“Come on, fellas. Why are we standing arguing like bitches? We got bigger things to worry about than a couple of Regulars.”
“Like digging a hole to nowhere?” Thompson asked.
The man who’d gone toward Gabe and Bodge moved away from them, switching his attention onto Thompson and speaking in a hopeful tone. “Well now, it’s not a hole to nowhere. It’s a hole to somewhere. Maybe to freedom.”
“Yeah, right,” Evans said.
The smile on Hopeful’s face first faltered, then vanished completely. He was sensing something out of the ordinary here, maybe a threat.
The small, wiry Rebel, the one who looked like he was missing his spectacles, turned to Gabe.
“It’s pretty cramped in here. Why don’t you two head over to the far side of the tunnel there?” He pointed at two of the other Rebels. “You guys go with. No point us all standing in one place, breathing each other’s farts.”
Gabe had thought he seemed out of place when they’d met. Now, he knew why. This man wasn’t brawn, he was brains. He’d formulated a strategy to give the Rebels the upper hand, by flanking the four Gang on either side. He was also putting Gabe and Bodge in a position from where they could flee if, or more probably when, fists began to fly.
Gabe, Bodge and the two Rebels did as he suggested. Bodge positioned himself in the tunnel that adjoined the clearing and peered around the corner.
“Listen,” Thompson said. “We all know you’re only gonna find one thing at the end of that hole, and it ain’t gonna be sunlight.”
“What’s it gonna be?” Hopeful asked.
Thompson splayed his fingers and said, “BOOM”.
Bodge flinched again, and Gabe reached across and took hold of his hand. “It’s okay, buddy.”
“I wanna go, Gabe. Can we go?”
“In a minute.” He listened to the voices in the clearing.
“You’re doubting Leader. You’re defying Leader, even by having those thoughts.” Hopeful didn’t sound so hopeful anymore. He sounded rattled, flustered. Exactly how Gabe thought Thompson wanted him to feel.
“You’re defying Leader, too,” Evans said.
“How so?” Hopeful’s voice was growing high-pitched. He was starting to sound like he was taking air from a helium-filled balloon.
“Leader sent guys out in twos,” Thompson said, “each pair to dig their own hole.”
“We’re just trying to stay alive.” Indignant, embarrassed, afraid.
“You’re defying him, and you’ll have to defy him a lot more if you really want to live.”
Hopeful missed the hint. “What makes you any different from us? There’s eight of you, counting the Regulars. I don’t see any of you digging.”
“And you’re not gonna,” Evans said. “We’re not afraid of defying Leader, and we’re not afraid of you. We’re here to ask you to join us, to help us do what needs to be done.”
“Which is?” Hopeful asked.
“We’re going to the White Wall Chamber, and we’re going to kill Leader. If you decide not to join us, then we’ll have to kill you, too.”
No more words were exchanged. No conversation, no questions, no reasoning. Only the sound of scuffling, of fists flying. Of a man hitting the ground and moaning in pain. Gabe pulled on Bodge’s hand, and they fled.