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BRETT WALKED AND CROUCHED and crawled for two hours before he got his shaking under control. He was determined to be Brett again now, even if it was just in his own mind, but after so many years as Thirty-Nine, his brain was having a tough time getting used to it.
Would his wife call him Thirty-Nine? No, his wife would call him Brett. He had to be Brett again, because he feared his days were numbered. Call it a last act of defiance before the curtain came down on the pathetic mess his life had become.
Leader had had Forty killed without even thinking about it. He could still hear his screams, hearty to begin with, subsiding to groans as the last of the life had been beaten out of him.
If Leader could take the life of one of his followers so easily, then he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the lives of the others, the men he’d sent to dig the bomb-rigged earth above. He was a psycho, a sadist. Had to be. What was even more unnerving was that, in two hours of making his way through the SUICs dark and dingy tunnels, he hadn’t found any active dig sites. Since he’d made it out of Leader’s white-walled compound, the only other sign of Gang had been three explosion sites, where Gang had been, well, exploded.
So much for asking them if they’d encountered Rebels trying to talk them out of digging and into overthrowing Leader. He couldn’t ask body parts that, they had a habit of ignoring his questions. He had to remind himself he was no longer a Burier; his mission was now a grander one. One with the sole purpose of keeping Leader in power, in control. But in control of what? It seemed there were hardly any Gang left, and that was all thanks to Leader’s madness.
Being in Leader’s presence never got any easier. The first time he’d shared the air with Leader had been at his own branding ceremony. When he’d seen that red-hot cross coming at him, fear almost overwhelmed him. Fear was a powerful motivator. The fear of being burned, of feeling the pain as the sizzling gold was forced against his skin and the rock was pushed down onto it, and the fear of Leader, of standing so close to him he could smell him.
Brett had looked into his eyes, and though he was a small man, an aged man, malevolence crackled in the air around him, filling the atmosphere, putting you on edge. In fear of doing or saying the wrong thing, in case he thought it was worth your life.
He held a lighter aloft as he walked. The other two clinked in his pocket. He wouldn’t have to worry about being in darkness, but Leader had given him no water, and he hadn’t eaten for two days. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, his body feeding on what fat he had left to survive. He wasn’t worried about that. He was worried there might be no Gang left. He’d been sent to speak to the Diggers. If he went back and delivered the news that they’d all been blown up, it would probably get him killed. Like it was his fault.
A rat blocked the mouth of the tunnel ahead and he paused, pushing his body against the rough, hot wall. Watching it, waiting for it to make the first move. If it ran toward him, he’d probably scream, and if he screamed, the ceiling might come down. He’d feared rats even before he’d been sent down under the earth. He’d grown to be terrified of them in the time since. Everything about them made his skin crawl, and he’d had to touch the damn things, eat the stringy, chewy flesh and pretend to like it, because there was virtually nothing else to eat down here, apart from insects, and the small amount of rice they were rationed when Leader wasn’t in the mood to starve them.
He knew some of the Regulars said Gang were cannibals, that they’d eaten those they took during the killing days in the Cotton Cave. To his knowledge, no member of Gang had ever eaten another human. The thought of that was worse than the thought of eating rats, but he would eat rats to survive when there was no rice. He would never eat another human. Never in a million years. Besides, it was written in Leader’s rules: He who eats human flesh shall be stripped of his own. No matter how bad the hunger pains got, being flayed alive would never be worth it. He slapped his leg, and the rat scurried away from him. He followed cautiously, more afraid of the rat than bombs or disintegrating tunnels.
Three days. That was all he had. Three days to figure out who the Rebels were – if there even were any rebels – and take word back. It was impossible, there wasn’t a man in Gang crazy enough to think he could turn on Leader and live to tell the tale, but what else could he do but try? Once Leader had an idea in his mind, there was no changing it. If he marched back into Leader’s compound and told him he was wrong, that the only person intent on destroying Gang was Leader himself, he’d be deader than yesterday.
Maybe he could invent something. That might buy some time. But time for what? Time to let the (probably non-existent) Rebels overthrow Leader? He thought about what a world without Leader would be like and dismissed the notion. If there was a band of Rebels, they would be a small band. There was too much loyalty, too much fear, for Gang to turn their backs on what they’d signed up to. Even if there was a handful of men crazy enough to think they could stage a rebellion, could kill Leader, did he want to be ruled by them? Men who were even crazier than Leader was?
No, he didn’t. He moved through the tunnels quickly, growing to regret Forty’s death as he got deeper into the SUIC. He hadn’t much liked him, or trusted him, but at least he hadn’t been alone. The tunnels were spooky when you were alone and, after five years of having Forty beside him for every corner turn, to push or pull him through gaps he’d otherwise get wedged in, he was unnerved by his surroundings.
Never was that truer than when he noticed a thin stream of water outpacing him on a downward slope and caught the first whiff of the Water Chamber.
He was dying of thirst, and he was coming to a place with a wide, deep pool of water. Too bad there were dead rats, not to mention people, floating in it. To drink it would mean death: a cruel irony.
His pace quickened as he approached the least desirable place in the SUIC. He’d spent much of his time patrolling the tunnels surrounding the Cotton Cave, keeping an eye on things, doing Leader’s bidding. A very mundane existence. But he’d been glad when Leader had decreed there would be no more killing Regulars for sport. Unlike Forty, who’d spent hour upon hour talking about how many Regulars he’d killed, and what he’d done to their dead bodies.
Brett shivered at the memory.
He’d been terrified approaching the Water Chamber the first time. He’d heard it was a horrific experience. Twenty-Five had warned him to keep away from the water, saying there were a thousand corpses floating in it and a million rats around its edge. He knew that was an exaggeration. It had to be; there hadn’t been a thousand men down here, according to some of the old-timers. The thing was, he could deal with a thousand corpses, that wasn’t the problem. It was the idea of a million rats that made him so afraid. The thought of wading through a sea of them, having them run over his bare flesh, sink their nasty little teeth into him, terrified him.
They’d been through there twice. The first time had been horrific but, with Forty beside him, he’d had to portray a persona of confidence. Of unflinching bravery, even though his heart was missing every other beat. There were so many rats he hadn’t noticed the stench. He hadn’t even really noticed the water. They’d pushed through quickly, Forty’s persona of unflinching bravery not quite as polished as his. Coming back through had been easier; they were both too traumatized by their trip into the Gypsum Chamber to feel any emotion other than numbness.
This time, he had to do it alone. He would never do that willingly, but he had to make it through and out the other side, or he wouldn’t stand a chance of finding out the information he needed to save his life.
He held the lighter above his head. Where the reflection of the flame ended, a dark chasm replaced it. He heard the activity of many small feet. He also heard the steady drip of water. Water he knew he couldn’t drink.
He had nothing to burn except his cotton shorts, torn from the pants they’d sent him down in. A lamp might scare the rats into avoiding him but, when he weighed the idea of sacrificing his shorts and walking around naked, he decided not to burn them.
It wouldn’t matter anyway, not if there were a million of the little bastards in here. One scurried past him now, keeping close to the wall, scaring him half to death. And that was just one.
God help me, he thought. God help me.
****
THE CHAMBER OPENED out in front of him. The light from the lighter didn’t penetrate its farthest reaches, where the water stood waiting to claim its next victim. He took a couple of steps, then froze as a rat ran over his bare feet. He gasped, then let the air out in a warbling scream that swirled up and around him.
Keep moving, breathe, he told himself. But when he took a deep breath, he gagged on the combined stink of stagnant, polluted water and rotting flesh.
He covered his mouth and nose with one hand and moved as quickly as possible, kicking rats away as he went. He had to uncover his face to place a hand on the wall, so he could trace his progress, and he breathed as little as possible, feeling his temples pounding as his frantic heart raced, as his brain flooded his body with chemicals that were like a big neon sign flashing DANGER DANGER DANGER.
He went deeper, seeking only the exit to this place. Gradually, he made out the body of dark water ahead of him.
It was like a dark, starless night sky. He told himself not to look, to focus on the wall and finding his way out, but the wall took him closer to the malevolent black pool, and he glanced at the water, unable to stop himself.
He caught sight of three or four bulky shapes floating in it, but it was the rats that made him hurry. Hundreds of them, at the water’s edge, leaning out so far that they were falling in one after another. He hadn’t heard water dripping on his approach to the Water Chamber, he’d heard rats falling into the dark pool. There was always one more behind the one that fell in, ready to take its place, jostling, pushing, uncaring about the one in front or the one behind.
Finally, thankfully, he found the exit. He rushed through and fell to the ground, the air instantly more breathable thanks to the whoosh of an air hole ahead of him.
It felt like a victory.
Now, he just had to locate some Diggers, find out if they knew anything about Rebels, and take the news back to Leader.
To do that, he would have to go through the Water Chamber again. For now, he thought only of getting away from there.
****
WHEN HE COULD GO NO longer, Gabe stopped. Bodge had cried and moaned and begged him to stop, for almost two hours, but he knew they couldn’t. They had to get away from the Rebels, had to make sure they didn’t get caught up in the fighting.
That was the reason he ignored Bodge’s pleas, ignored the fact he was almost hopping along behind him now, his ankle too sore to bear weight.
Maybe it was broken, or maybe it was torn ligaments. He repeated a mantra inside his head as they moved through the maze of tunnels: Cruel to be kind. Cruel to be kind.
His intention of saving the fuel in the one remaining lighter forgotten, he held it above his head, cursing every time it went out, knowing each curse probably made Bodge more afraid, and not caring.
They needed to put distance between themselves and the Rebels. Get to the Water Chamber and through, and on to the Cotton Cave. He had to deliver Soames’s message, let them know trouble was headed their way and that Soames’s dying wish had been for them to rise up, to kill Leader and take control of the SUIC before he destroyed it. And when they did, he could find Soames’s place in the Cotton Cave and locate the gun.
Would he feel safer, more in control, once he had it? He thought so, but that was for later. Now, he had to stop. His lungs were burning, his body was on fire. Added to that, he could smell the Water Chamber. Every inhalation made him more nauseous.
“Thank you, Gabe,” Bodge said, panting.
He thought Gabe was stopping for him. His limited understanding made him think everything was about him. Gabe envied him, envied that he was the center of his own universe.
He didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. He stood as close to the air hole as he could, trying to breathe the untainted air that came from above. It was minutes before his breathing slowed, his lungs stopped burning, and he felt calm enough to ask Bodge if he was okay.
“There’s a really bad smell, Gabe.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Gabe laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Maybe the Rebels had lost their battle, or at least some of their men. That could mean Gang was heading back to the White Wall Chamber to tell Leader what had happened, and that meant they couldn’t stop for long.
“My ankle hurts real bad.”
“You’re doing great. You’re really brave.”
“I’m being brave so’s we can get to the Cotton Cave. There won’t be people fighting there too, will there?”
“I don’t know, Bodge.”
“But do you know what it is? Did you cut one, Gabe?”
He wondered if Bodge had ever cracked a joke to him before. He didn’t think he had, and he clapped his meaty shoulder.
“Good one, buddy.”
Bodge beamed, his teeth shining like diamonds.
“I do know what it is. It’s the Water Chamber.”
“Is that a bad place?”
“Well, it’s no vacation beauty spot, but we’re not going to hang around. We’re just going to get through and out the other side. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m brave, like you said.”
“Good man. It’s not as bad as the Gypsum Chamber. At least you won’t boil your liver in the Water Chamber.”
Bodge giggled. That was good. He had no clue of the horror that was just around the next corner. If he could stop Bodge from seeing the corpses in the water, he thought he’d cope. He wasn’t scared of the rats. In fact, he’d probably be delighted to see so many. Catching rats made Bodge proud. Perhaps that was why he didn’t remember coming through it before. There was no way around it, so Bodge had to have negotiated it on his way deeper into the SUIC.
“You’re ready, I’m ready, so let’s do this.”
He spoke without humor in his tone, trying to portray grim determination, trying to drive home to Bodge that this was serious business. The heat in the Water Chamber wouldn’t kill them like that in the Gypsum Chamber. It wasn’t so hot that they’d boil inside their skin, but there were other dangers.
There was the danger of being driven insane by the stink of decay, of crumbling into a shivering heap with rats swarming over you in the fog of steam that rose from the water.
There was the temptation to drink that water, even though you knew it would taste foul and probably kill you.
And, of course, there was the possibility of running into Gang. Crossmen.
“Listen to me, Bodge. You have to stick to me like glue when we get in there. You can’t go after the rats.”
“But I’m good at hunting ‘em, and I’m hungry.”
“I know you are, but there could be Crossmen in there, and it’s hard to see.”
“We have our light.”
“The water is hot, and that makes steam come off it. That’ll make it tough for us to see where we’re going, so we’re going to stick close to the wall. I’m not even going to take my hand off the wall, and I want you to put your hand, the one that isn’t hurt, on my shoulder.”
“Like before?”
“Yes, Bodge. Like before.”
“Okay.”
“And you promise you won’t go after the rats?”
Bodge heaved out a sigh. “If you say not to.”
“I do say not to, and I’m serious. Okay?”
Bodge nodded.
When Gabe turned away, Bodge put his hand on his shoulder and they turned the corner, on their way to what he thought was the last big obstacle to them reaching the Cotton Cave, and delivering Soames’s message.
****
AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED the threshold into the Water Chamber, he felt Bodge’s grip tighten.
“Ow Bodge, not so hard.”
“I can’t help it,” Bodge said, his voice muffled because he had his bandaged hand over his mouth. Gabe wished he could do the same, but he knew he had to keep the lighter lit. He thought if he didn’t, Bodge would flip out. He had to keep his right hand on the damp, coarse wall too. It anchored him to his surroundings, made him feel he could make it through the cloying air and the rats. Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, not afraid of humans in this place, because they were used to feeding on them. He felt one nip at his ankle and shook his foot to scare it away, a cry of disgust escaping him.
He held the lighter up, trying to see how far they had to go, but it was useless. Rats swarmed about their feet, and steam hung like a sodden fog in the air, condensing on his skin and running down his body: the world’s most disgusting sauna.
Bodge was right up against him, an overgrown shadow, clinging to the back of him. “Are we nearly out the other side? I feel chucky.”
“Keep moving with me, and don’t vomit on me, please.”
He was going to say more, tell Bodge things were already bad enough, but talking meant an open mouth, and more ingestion of the fumes that were making his eyes sting.
He moved as quickly as he could, relieved that Bodge had kept his promise not to go after the rats. He seemed to be too busy trying to squeeze his fingers through the flesh of his shoulder but, after asking him two more times to relax his grip a little, Gabe gave up.
“Okay.” Silence for a few moments, and Gabe thought Bodge was beginning to slow.
“Keep moving, Bodge.”
“It’s not so bad, Gabe. Don’t worry.”
He was amazed at Bodge’s statement. Ten more steps, he told himself, and counted them off. Then he repeated the action, and repeated it again, but still the steam wasn’t thinning.
“What’s that, Gabe? Is that the water?”
“Don’t look at it, it’s dirty.”
“We can’t drink it?”
“No.”
“And we really can’t catch the rats?”
“No, Bodge. We have to keep moving.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“Tell me your name.” He was trying to distract Bodge from his urge to hunt rats, but more than that, he was trying to distract himself, disconnect himself from the fear that threatened to overtake him.
“You know my name already. It’s Bodge.” He sounded confused, but not nearly as afraid as Gabe was.
“No, Bodge. Tell me your real name.”
“I don’t know, Gabe, I don’t know.”
“You know what my real name is?”
“Gabe, it’s Gabe.”
“No, Bodge. My real name is Joshua. Joshua Gable. That’s why people call me Gabe. It’s my last name, only shortened.”
They struggled on, and the steam started to thin. They were almost there. Another thirty paces, and they’d be out.
“I can still call you Gabe, can’t I?”
“Yes, we’re almost there, buddy. We’re almost there.”
Ten or so paces later, they were there. The wall disappeared from under Gabe’s hand, and they emerged into a tunnel that sloped up and away from them.
They didn’t notice the slope or have a chance to be relieved about making it through the Water Chamber, because there were two men in front of them.
Two men, and four corpses.
****
AFTER GETTING OUT OF the Water Chamber, Brett, or Thirty-Nine, or whoever he was, sat down to rest in a hollow that had been dug out of the wall. It was equidistant between the place he exited the Water Chamber, and an air hole that pushed hot air down into the SUIC from a world he hardly even remembered. He remembered his wife’s big blue eyes, and certain other parts of her that he hoped never to forget, but not a whole lot else. That was one of the things he hated about being down here – how easy it was to forget the things that were most important above – but he couldn’t spend all his time thinking about it, feeling sorry for himself.
Leader had given him three days. After that, he would send one of the guards out to find him, and if he did that, then it wouldn’t matter what he was calling himself. He’d be spending a lot more time in the Water Chamber, reunited with Forty.
As he recovered from the hell of the Water Chamber, he heard voices. Two men. He risked a quick glance out and saw them. They didn’t look familiar. One was a big black guy, and the other was a white guy with long hair that hung down in his eyes. The long hair made him think they were Regulars. The dark skin of the other made it difficult to tell in the low light of the tunnel, but Brett didn’t think either of these two had crosses on their foreheads.
He listened, trying to hear what they were saying. They stopped the other side of the air hole, the whoosh of air muffling their conversation.
Brett stayed right where he was. They could be Rebels, heading toward Leader’s compound, a vanguard scoping out what was ahead. There might be fifteen or twenty more right behind them. The black guy could be Gang, he supposed, on his way to tell Leader he’d found a way up to the surface. Then he supposed something else: that was never going to happen. Same as a Regular and a Gang man traveling through these tunnels together was hugely unlikely.
He hung tight, and after a few minutes he heard them start moving again. He listened to them talk as they passed his little hollow without giving it a glance.
The first voice was slow. “I’m being brave so’s we can get to the Cotton Cave. There won’t be people fighting there too, will there?”
People fighting. There won’t be people fighting.
That meant something. That was significant. He felt excitement swell in his chest, and he listened hard. This might be the news he needed to take back to Leader. But there was nothing more. They cracked a joke about farting, and then one of them talked about how bad the place they were headed was. And about the rats. That last made Brett shiver. He hated Leader for sending him through that place.
He pushed the thought of rats from his mind and listened to the two men. The snippet of conversation he’d heard made him certain they were both Regulars. Gang were assured in their speech, safe in the knowledge they had an army to back them up. These two didn’t sound assured, they sounded terrified. Brett could understand that. They were headed into the Water Chamber, after all.
One issued a warning to his friend, talking about Crossmen. He was talking about Gang, Brett realized. It didn’t sound like they were part of any conspiracy behind their effort to get through the Water Chamber. In fact, the black guy had sounded relieved to be leaving the fighting behind, like he wanted no part in it.
Was the fighting between Gang and Regulars? It wasn’t easy to hear of Gang fighting, maybe needing backup, while he was here, hiding from a couple of harmless-sounding Regulars.
The sound of their voices decreased when they turned the corner, and Brett climbed out of the little hollow and followed them.
He paused when he reached the corner around which they’d disappeared, listening intently, trying to block out the continual hum of air flooding from the air hole nearby. He couldn’t hear them, so he gathered all his nerve and crept toward the entrance to the Water Chamber, moving soundlessly through the dark, his heart beating fast against his ribs. He didn’t dare fire up a lighter in case they looked back and saw it.
He focused hard, in the hope he’d hear them say something else about the fighting, but he heard nothing. Thinking they were out of earshot, he turned to leave, but paused when he heard raised voices. One of them asking the other his name. Bodge, if he heard it right. And the other, the one doing the coaxing? John Gable, or Joshua, or something similar.
Massive fear in the voice, as it grew harder to hear. They were moving again, away from him, and he felt empathy for them. No one should have to suffer the Water Chamber. He would have to go through the trauma of it again, but before he did, he would have to travel deeper into the SUIC, find other Gang, and learn more about the fight they’d spoken of.
They’d inadvertently helped him; there was something going on Leader would want to know about. He wasn’t simply being paranoid, something was brewing.
He turned and left the Water Chamber behind him, firing up a lighter, and heading deeper into the SUIC. He’d figure out what was going on, and when he told Leader, he’d be rewarded.
****
GABE AND BODGE FROZE. The two men did the same, their eyes wide. One tall, one short, both with long beards and even longer hair. They were both wiry, and they were both traumatized. Gabe could tell from the look in their eyes that they’d experienced terrible things down here. They looked like would-be murderers, mafioso caught in the act of transporting victims to go sleep with the fishes, or with the rats and the other bodies in the deep pool inside the Water Chamber. But the trauma and terror in their eyes wasn’t because they’d been caught with the corpses. No, it was something more than that, and Gabe thought the thing that inspired their terror was probably also the reason the men at their feet were dead.
When all four alive men froze, one of the bodies continued to roll, and Gabe had to sidestep it. He watched it as it passed. Eyes wide open, staring, fixed. Definitely dead, there was no doubting that.
The body clipped Bodge’s damaged ankle as he tried to move out of its way, making him yelp in pain, and causing its direction to change. It rolled into the wall, coming to a stop before reaching the entrance to the Water Chamber.
Gabe held the lighter at chest height. No crosses on their foreheads, but the corpses at his feet made him wonder if he should try to get a rockknife out of the bag slung across his shoulder before the men came at them.
All this happened in seconds, and before he had a chance to make up his mind, one of the two spoke.
“It’s okay, they’re not Gang.”
It seemed they’d been undergoing the same thought process Gabe had.
“They’re like us, Gabe,” Bodge whispered. “They can help us find Rosselli in the Cotton Cave.”
Bodge’s mention of the Cotton Cave and Rosselli caused an immediate reaction. They straightened, and one of the other bodies rolled over twice before coming up against a rock and stopping.
The taller of the two spoke, his voice laced with weariness and fear. “Why are you going to the Cotton Cave? Why do you want Rosselli?”
Gabe chose his words carefully, deciding to say nothing about the bodies. “We have a message for him, from Soames.”
“Soames?” Both men’s eyes widened at the mention of the serial killer’s name, curiosity seeming to dampen their fear slightly.
“Yes, Soames,” Gabe replied. Bodge, behind him, remained perfectly still.
“How do you know Soames?” the smaller man asked.
“We met him near the Cemetery, and he asked us to deliver a message. To Rosselli.”
The taller of the two took a step forward. “Soames has been missing for months. Gang killed him.”
“Not true.” Gabe switched the lighter from one hand to the other and placed the bag on the ground. “He gave us rockbowls, water, rice.”
“You could have found that stuff. Anyway, we’re busy. Can’t you see we’re busy?”
The edge of grief in the short man’s voice told Gabe they were not killers. Their air of twitchiness wasn’t due to them being caught getting rid of victims. It was fear, heartache, stress.
The bolder of the two men spoke, arming sweat from his face. “You can’t go to the Cotton Cave, it’s not safe. The guards won’t let you in. Wouldn’t matter if they did, because Rosselli isn’t there.”
“Can you take us to him?”
“Can’t you see we’re busy?” the short man said again, and his friend spoke up. His friend seemed to be holding himself together a little better.
“You want us to leave these men here, so we can take strangers to Rosselli, when we don’t even know your intentions?”
Gabe offered his hand. “My name is Gabe. This is Bodge. We don’t intend to do anything to harm Rosselli, or you, or anyone in the Cotton Cave.”
Bodge stepped forward, finding his voice. “I want to live in the Cotton Cave, and maybe even make some friends. I’m good at catching rats.”
Both men had taken a step back when Bodge stepped forward, looking at him with tension in their postures. When they heard him speak, they relaxed, sensing nothing to fear in his approach.
Their haunted look persisted as they glanced at one another, before finally taking turns shaking Gabe’s offered hand, and introducing themselves as Carmichael and Steele.
Steele said, “Trust me, Bodge. You don’t want to be in the Cotton Cave right now.”
“Why not?” Gabe asked.
Carmichael gestured to the bodies. “Tell me what you see.”
“I see dead bodies.”
Steele nodded at the corpse that had rolled past Gabe and Bodge. “That’s my brother, Tom. He was only twenty-three.”
“What happened to him?”
“The rats, it must have been the rats,” Steele said, shaking his head and closing his eyes.
“Some sort of plague,” Carmichael said. “It’s sweeping through the Cotton Cave, like having to worry about Gang blowing the place up wasn’t bad enough.”
Gabe leant down to look closer at Steele’s brother, holding a hand in front of his nose and mouth. “What do you think it is? Rabies?”
Steele shook his head. “All I know is one day he was fine, and a day later he was dead.”
“It’s not rabies,” Carmichael said. “Rabies isn’t catching. This is, or at least I think it is. An average of three men a day dying, and more getting sick all the time. I think it’s the plague. I think the rats brought the plague in.”
Gabe spoke cautiously, for fear of upsetting them even more. “So far as I know, plague isn’t catching either.”
Carmichael looked anguished. “But it’s the fleas. They must be jumping from one person to the next.”
“How long?” Gabe asked.
“Huh?”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since around the time Gang started trying to blow the whole place up.”
“Listen, we need to get rid of these bodies before they start stinking the place up.” Carmichael crouched next to the body that had rolled up against the wall and pulled it away, turned it, then started rolling it toward the entrance to the Water Chamber.
“That’s my brother you’re talking about. It’s my damn brother.”
Gabe was surprised that Bodge didn’t flinch at the curse word.
“You’re taking them to the Cemetery?” Gabe asked. “There was a major collapse back there, I’m not sure you’ll be able to get through.”
“No.” Carmichael shook his head sadly. “We gotta get rid of ‘em quickly. No time to go all that way. There’s probably already more waiting for us.”
“What then?”
Carmichael nodded in the direction of the Water Chamber. “We gotta dump ‘em in the water. Wish we didn’t, but there’s no time.”
Gabe considered the situation. “If I help you, will you take me to Rosselli?”
“Yeah,” Carmichael said, sounding defeated. “We’ll take you. But it wouldn’t matter if you had a message from God himself. The end is coming, and there’s not a whole lot we can do to stop it.”
****
THE TWO REGULARS HAD spoken of Crossmen and fighting. Crossmen had to be Gang, Brett was certain of it. It was too much of a coincidence to be otherwise. Who were they fighting with? That was the question Brett couldn’t answer, and now, as he raced along the narrow tunnels, relieved to have the Water Chamber behind him, he felt his loyalty to Gang flare.
These were men like him. Men who just wanted to belong to something bigger than themselves, who sought safety in numbers. He hated that Leader had sent these men into danger, digging toward death, toward the destruction of the SUIC, their home. But he didn’t hate these men. He didn’t agree with some of the things they’d done in the Cotton Cave – they’d shown their subhumanness back then – but that had been a long time ago.
Now, he feared for them, for their safety. Was there a group of Rebels ambushing Gang and, if so, who the hell were they? Disaffected Regulars who’d left the Cotton Cave for the far reaches of the SUIC and formed an alliance through their shared hatred toward Gang and Leader?
He rushed past an air hole, then stopped abruptly. His eyes widened. His mind raced. His jaw went slack and hung open like a dog’s in the midday summer sun.
Could it be other Gang, like Leader had suggested? Men who were so afraid of digging, so afraid of Leader’s bullshit plan, that they’d decided they had no option left but to kill Leader, take control of the SUIC to stop the bombs? Surely not. That would be sheer madness.
It would be easier to throw themselves into the dark pool in the Water Chamber, get it over with quickly, because it would be over for them, once Leader found out who they were. Disobeying his orders, tattling on your partner: those were digressions punishable by death. Trying to kill him? That was a sure-fire way to get your skin peeled off while you were still alive to feel it, to have your eyes popped while they were still in your skull, to have your bones dislocated from their sockets one by one, and probably ten other punishments that would lead to death, but slowly. Oh, so slowly.
The heat rose almost imperceptibly as he rushed on through the SUIC. He hadn’t noticed his body temperature increasing but now, as he skirted a minor cave-in and turned a corner, a wall of heat slammed into him, and again his jaw dropped, as he realized he’d completely forgotten about the Gypsum Chamber.
They hadn’t made a big deal of it to Leader, but coming through last time had been a close-run thing for both Forty and him. True, it would have been an easier death for Forty if he’d just sat down in the Gypsum Chamber and let the heat overwhelm him, but he hadn’t known that. He’d thought Leader was going to reward him with all the riches in the SUIC, not have two guards pummel him to mush and throw his corpse into the hell-pool in the Water Chamber.
He stopped, hesitant to go toward the small opening ahead of him. Last time he’d been in there, he’d been okay for maybe five minutes, and then everything had gotten hazy. Dots had danced in front of his eyes, his body felt like it was ablaze, and he’d felt his organs wavering, deciding whether to quit on him or not.
He’d made it through, and hadn’t Leader told him he’d been brave for doing it? For serving the greater good. He clung on to that praise, and high praise it was, coming from Leader. But Leader didn’t know, couldn’t know, how bad the Gypsum Chamber really was, and now, as he crossed the threshold and saw the first of the towering crystals ahead, felt that wall of heat squeezing him, constricting his life and trying to snuff it out, he had a thought.
It shouldn’t be called the Gypsum Chamber. It should be called the Chamber of the Monster. The heat was like some malevolent-yet-invisible beast, sucking the life from anyone who dared approach it, and yet here he was, risking his life in an attempt to save his life.
Madness really, he thought as he fought to breathe, taking twice the number of breaths he’d needed on his approach to the chamber, fighting to keep his way lit, the lighter going out every few seconds. But that was a good thing. It gave him focus as he fought on, determined to make it out. He wanted to know what was going on, who was fighting, what it meant for Leader, what it meant for him, and he thought the answers lay on the other side of the monstrous space.
Yes, it was no longer about finding out what Leader wanted to know. He wanted to know too, needed to know what he was risking his life for.
Were there any loyal Gang left? Or were they turning against Leader now, in what felt like the SUICs end days? Were the Rebels made up of Regulars, taking advantage of the fact that most of the Crossmen (as he’d heard Gable call them) had been blown up?
The lighter went out at that moment, probably saving his life. He focused on it, re-lighting it, moving on, watching it. It was staying lit longer now, and that meant there was more oxygen in the air. He was nearing an end to this torture. He was going to make it past the monster that guarded the answers he sought.
He glanced up and noticed something white ahead of him. The bones of the men the monster had taken. But it was getting easier to breathe, and he sped up, rushing past his fallen brothers, and finally out of the Gypsum Chamber, leaving the monster behind.
****
AFTER ESCAPING THE peril of the Gypsum Chamber, he found a second wind. He redoubled his efforts, running through tunnels that got lower and lower as he went deeper and deeper, following the twists and turns, wondering whether he was getting close to the Cemetery, to the end of the SUIC.
As much as the thought of hundreds of graves chilled him, it would be a relief to stand upright, for the low ceilings meant he was bent almost double, and that was a bitch on his lower back.
These were tunnels dug by SUIC men. Generations of them. Not by their jailers, so far above. These tunnels had been dug by men searching for somewhere to hide, somewhere to live, away from the brutality of Gang and what they did to Regulars in the Cotton Cave. Shame flared in him at the realization he was part of that, part of the reason men came all the way back here, where there was hardly any air to breathe, just to escape the terror they’d inflicted on the Regulars. He’d only been trying to live, to survive. It had been him or them; he’d had to prove himself by killing at least one, and he’d done that when a new arrival had refused to give up the things he’d been sent down with, right there in the small circle of light below the shaft. There had been a group of them, and he’d delivered just one kick. The others had been way more brutal. He’d seen another new arrival, another Regular, hiding in the shadows, but he’d let him be. Didn’t that make up for what he’d done?
He rounded a corner and saw two men lying side by side, flat on their backs. He approached them cautiously, seeing the hole in the rock to their left. It angled sharply upward, a heap of shattered rock beside them that they’d chipped and hammered away with tools the ancients would have used. Handaxes, hammerstones, knives shaped from rocks.
He stood over them. No blood or bruises, except for their hands, which were bloodied from digging up. These were not Rebels, or Gang who’d been in a fight. These were men loyal to Leader and, looking closer, he saw they were Leader’s final two recruits, Eighty-Three and Eighty-Four. An image of their branding ceremony flashed into his mind, of Leader calling him and Forty forward and telling them they were to be Buriers. It seemed so long ago.
“Hey, wake up.”
Both men woke with a start and sat up.
“All power to Leader,” they recited in unison, registering the cross on his forehead. It was an old greeting, a sign of loyalty to Leader and to Gang. It told him they were friends, that they believed the same thing: Leader knew best. That his plans and instructions were always the right ones, to be followed unquestioningly.
Brett glanced at the hole and the debris, calculating their dig site couldn’t go more than ten feet up. Ten thousand still to go, before they’d feel the sun on their blackened faces. He thought they would die of exhaustion long before they made it, if the bombs didn’t get them, or the whole place didn’t fall in and bury them first.
Were Leader’s plans the right ones? Did he really think they could find a way to the surface through the bombs? Or did he know his plan was doomed to failure, sure to eventually cause a chain reaction that would bury them all?
Brett didn’t return the greeting. “You seen or heard anything strange just lately?”
“Like what?”
“Leader sent me.”
Hearing this, both men stood.
“He thinks a group of Rebels are looking to overthrow him, maybe even kill him. He sent me to find out what’s going on.”
“No shit?” Eighty-Three asked.
Brett noticed how his hands curled into fists at a perceived threat to Leader’s safety. It struck him as ironic, when Leader seemed so determined to kill them.
“I heard a couple of Regulars talking. They came from this direction. Said there was fighting back here. You heard anything?”
“No, man. We’ve been up in that damn hole. Only made thirty feet, but we’re trying.”
Farther than Brett had thought. Still a long way to go. He nodded. Looked left and saw their tools. Those tools would make great weapons. A teardrop-shaped handaxe, a large hammerstone. He couldn’t take them and leave these men with nothing. Not if they were digging.
A thought occurred to him. “You wanna come with, help me look for the Rebels?”
The men looked at one another before Eighty-Four spoke. “Better not. He told us to dig, so we’re gonna dig. We got another ten feet to make before we can go back to give him an update.”
“He didn’t say you should tell us to stop, did he?”
Brett thought Eighty-Three sounded hopeful, but he couldn’t pretend he had the authority to make them stop digging. If he told them yes, Leader had sanctioned him to give new orders, and they returned to the White Wall Chamber and told Leader that, he might be dealt the same fate as Forty.
“No, he didn’t.”
The shoulders of both men dropped. “Okay, well, maybe you ought to get moving. Go find these sons of bitches and deliver some justice, Leader-style.”
“Yeah.” Brett glanced at the handaxe again. “Maybe I should.”
He left them then, the sound of grunting and cursing as they climbed back up into the hole echoing down the tunnel after him.
He wished he could have made them stop digging, turn their tools into weapons, and save themselves from the inevitable. He heard ticking inside his mind, time running down, running out, and even though he knew he was imagining it, it seemed to get louder as he continued on his way.
****
AT THE SECOND DIG SITE he came to, he found two more men who introduced themselves as Fifty-Four and Fifty-Five, and told him proudly that they’d dug seventy feet up into the rock. Next to the heaped rock was a pile of dead rats. They were upbeat, hopeful about their chances, and covered from head to toe in dirt. Their faces were so filthy, he couldn’t make out their features. Most other Diggers hadn’t made it past twenty or thirty feet before triggering a bomb and going to meet their makers, so Brett was greatly impressed.
When he told them he’d come directly from Leader, and innocently asked why they weren’t digging, they took his question badly, like it was an accusation.
“We got our reasons,” Fifty-Five said, sneering and making a point of turning his back.
“Yeah, and you don’t look like you got a whole lot of digging behind you,” Fifty-Four added.
“Hey, I’m not accusing you guys. Leader sent me out to search for Rebels. He thinks there’s a group of them, trying to kill him.”
The men looked at one another with questioning eyes.
“You know something?” Brett asked.
“We heard a group pass by. Maybe two, three hours ago.”
“How many?”
“Four, five.”
“You hear them talking?”
“No, we were up in the hole. We don’t spend less than twenty hours out of every twenty-four up in that hole. Heard some whooping and hollering, that’s all.”
“We thought maybe someone found a way to the surface, so we came down to see what all the shouting was. Figured no one could have dug all that way.”
“Unless it was us.” Fifty-Five clapped his partner on the shoulder and grinned. Even his teeth were dirty. Fifty-Four clapped his shoulder right back. They were good partners, unlike he and Forty. Brett wondered if they were twins.
“Yeah, unless it was us. By the time we got down, there was nobody here.”
“Which way did they go?”
The two pointed in opposite directions, then Fifty-Four, the slightly burlier of the two, punched his fist into his palm a couple of times. “What’s Leader going to do about it?”
“I bet it won’t be pretty,” Fifty-Five said. “In fact, I bet they won’t be pretty by the time he gets done with them.”
Brett nodded. “Gotta figure out who they are first. Heard two Regulars talking about a fight on my way here.”
“You think that’s what the whooping and hollering was about?”
“Could be. Listen, I better keep moving, figure out who these guys are before they get to Leader.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Fifty-Five said, offering his hand. Brett shook it, but when he tried to let go, Fifty-Five gripped more tightly. “Listen, the guards on his compound will make short work of them, but you tell him if he needs someone to bash some heads together, he should call on us. We’ll stomp them into the ground.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“And here, take this rockknife, and get a rat and some water down your throat. Look like you could use them.”
“I could use some water, thanks.” After gratefully taking a drink of water, refusing the rat offered to him, and shoving the rockknife as far down into his cotton pocket as it would go, he left them behind. He was deep into the SUIC now, and it felt good to have a weapon. There couldn’t be much farther to go before he made it to the Cemetery, and somewhere between there and here, some sort of fight had taken place. But what if the whooping, hollering men were headed in the opposite direction? He decided quickly: he would continue toward the Cemetery to see if he could find the scene of the fight. If he found nothing, he would turn around and head back.
He walked on, acutely aware of each passing second, glad to have found Gang who were strong and determined. When he heard the explosion, ten minutes later, he wept for his brothers.
****
IT WAS ANOTHER HALF hour before he stumbled across the scene of the fight.
His bare feet ached, his head pounded, his shoulders hurt from holding the lighter aloft, but his pain was nothing to the suffering he found in a circular opening piled high with rock.
He counted the bodies. Eight in total. He went from one to the next, stooping close, holding the lighter in front of each face, opening their eyes, checking for a pulse.
They were all Gang, all marked with a cross that was identical to his. They’d felt the same pain he had when Leader had pressed that heated piece of gold between their eyes.
They were his brothers, and they were dead. Bloodied, savagely beaten, massacred. His heart ached for them.
Why were they all together, in one place? Had they gone against Leader’s orders and been digging together? It looked like that was the case: there was a high pile of rock on the far side of the clearing that blocked the tunnel that led deeper into the SUIC. That didn’t matter, he knew he need go no farther. He’d found what he was looking for.
He reached the sixth of the eight men and stooped beside him. When he held his light close to the man’s face, he saw the appalling damage he’d sustained. His skull was caved in on the right side, exposing brain underneath.
As Brett rose, the man groaned and opened one eye.
“Holy shit, you’re alive.” Brett knelt beside him.
“Seventy-Six,” the man whispered.
He nodded. “Thirty-Nine.”
Seventy-Six obviously didn’t know how bad his injuries were, because he tried to sit up. Unable to find the strength, his face dropped into the dirt, into the large pool of blood that had spilled from the wound in his head.
Brett leaned close to him, lowering himself onto his stomach, the blood sticky beneath him.
“Talk to me, Seventy-Six.” He knew it was useless. The man’s brain had to be scrambled. He was on the edge of death, clinging to life by sheer luck.
But he did speak, and his slow, whispered words chilled Brett.
“Eight men. We, we killed two. Others killed us.”
“Who were they? Regulars?”
“Two Regulars, six Gang. Gang did the killing.”
Brett looked around at the other bodies, knowing two of them were traitors. His hands and arms and legs and stomach were covered in blood. He wiped sweat from his face, grimacing at the coppery, sharp taste of blood.
He lowered himself once more, and Seventy-Six opened an eye. Brett wondered whether he could see him, or whether he was just reacting to his presence.
“They wanted us to join them.” He gave a small cough, and Brett felt blood speckle his face. “Said they’re gonna kill Leader, said we should help them.” Another cough, and this time blood oozed from his mouth. “We told them to go fuck themselves.” He smiled now, and Brett smiled back, wondering if the man could even see his smile.
He put a hand on Seventy-Six’s shoulder. “You did good. You did the right thing. Listen, I gotta go.”
“Help me.”
“I wish I could. You don’t know how much I wish I could, but I gotta go back, before they get to Leader. I have to warn him.”
“You don’t understand,” Seventy-Six forced out. “A rock. Get a rock.”
Brett recoiled. “No, I can’t. It’s not right.”
“Don’t leave me here, like this, in the dark. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.”
His open eye fixed on Brett’s, and now he could tell he could see him. He hadn’t been prepared to beg for his life to the Rebels who’d been intent on killing everyone here, but he was begging Brett now. Begging him to end his suffering.
“I don’t want to die alone,” he whispered. His hand found Brett’s.
Brett looked off to his left and saw a large chunk of rock, smeared with blood. Probably the rock they’d used to smash Seventy-Six’s skull.
He freed his hand from Seventy-Six’s.
“Okay,” he said, tears standing in the corners of his eyes. “Okay.”
****
ONCE IT WAS DONE, HE left quickly. Killing a man was a hard thing to do. He told himself Seventy-Six had been dying anyway. He’d asked Brett to end his suffering.
What the Rebels had done to those men was barbaric, but at least two of theirs had been killed. He wouldn’t think of them as Gang. They had the cross on their foreheads, but they’d turned their backs on Leader, and on Brett. He felt no empathy for the two that had been killed. They were his enemies now, they were Rebels.
He had the information Leader had sent him to find. He’d been given three days to find it, he’d done it in one. He just had to make it back and deliver the news to Leader, then he’d be okay. Leader would spare his life, because he’d done what was asked of him. He’d followed Leader’s orders without complaint, unlike the Rebels, and he had the information Leader needed to protect himself. The great man had been right all along.
Six Rebels. Four Gang, two Regulars. Leader’s guards would have no trouble against six men, no matter how desperate they were. He wouldn’t let them off easy though. No, he’d have them captured and made an example of. Brett didn’t want to imagine the finer details of that punishment.
It would be brutal, but they deserved brutality for what they’d done. It was savage, animalistic, like so much of life down here, but turning your back on your vow to serve Leader was bad enough. Killing your brothers was infinitely worse. They’d broken the rules, and they deserved every moment of the punishment they had coming.
He’d been fortunate not to run into them on his way deeper into the SUIC. He would have to be careful on his way back, but he must hurry. Leader needed to know they were coming, and he needed to know before they arrived.
The Regulars he’d heard, what were their names? He couldn’t remember, after the trauma of the Gypsum Chamber, the Monster Chamber, finding the bloody fight scene and Seventy-Six begging him to end his life. One of them had sounded like an overgrown kid, asking if there would be fighting in the Cotton Cave.
The fact those two were headed there didn’t bother him, despite its proximity to Leader’s compound. He knew those guys weren’t Rebels: they’d spoken of the fighting like they wanted to avoid witnessing more of it.
It sounded like they’d seen the fighting, the ambush and massacre of Gang by the Rebels.
How had they not become victims? He guessed they’d hidden, like he had from the two of them when they’d been approaching the Water Chamber.
The thought of the place made him shiver against the muggy heat of the SUIC. He didn’t want to go through there again, but he knew he had to. There was no way around it. Same as there was no way around the Monster Chamber. He had to make it through those hellish places and deliver the news, then maybe Leader would give him clean water to drink, some rice to eat, time to rest. Maybe he’d even give him a room inside his white walls for saving his life. Or even do the thing Forty had been so convinced he would: make him his right-hand man.
A distant rumble made him increase his pace. Those rumbles meant only one thing: more Gang dead. How many were left?
He wondered how far ahead of him the Rebels were. Probably already through the Water Chamber. He knew they’d made it past the heat of the Gypsum Monster Chamber; he’d have stumbled across their bodies when he’d come in the other direction if they hadn’t. Once he made it through the Water Chamber, his chances of running into them would decrease. He’d be back in the main part of the SUIC, where there were many tunnels a man could use to get around.
He made it past the monster quicker than he had before, emerging from the stifling heat with a blinding headache that he knew must be due to dehydration. He stumbled on, determined to get through the Water Chamber and back to Leader.
It was close now. He could hear rats, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of tiny little feet, converging on the place in the tunnels that adjoined it.