City of Ruins

THIRTY



They bring in a vehicle like I’ve never seen before. The Vaycehnese have special equipment for dealing with tunnel collapses and cave-ins and people trapped below ground.

The guides couldn’t request it until they knew we were alive—a stupid rule, I think. But Bridge explains it to me.

The entire city’s in chaos at the moment. A death hole has opened in a far section of Vaycehn, a section that has never seen death holes before. This death hole is huge, and it has swallowed an entire block. The rescue efforts are concentrated there; the bulk of the equipment is there.

The rest of the equipment is reserved for just this kind of emergency, but it gets prioritized. The equipment goes where human life is threatened first—where the Vaycehnese know that human life is threatened—and then it goes to the other areas.

We weren’t a priority because they hadn’t heard from us.

No one had until I started climbing out of that damn hole. The angle of that opening made voices from below impossible to hear. And there were no guides with us. Apparently, they had been waiting on the surface until an hour or so before we were scheduled to leave. Then they returned below.

So when the groundquake hit, our guides were above ground and nowhere near the opening. Ilona has no idea if they even tried to find us. She doubts it, but she’s checking into it.

Of course, they admit nothing.

They did send a message for assistance, but got none because they had no idea if we survived. Then they contacted Ilona and asked her if she wanted them to wait. They were itching to help with the rescue efforts elsewhere.

She gave them what for. But before they even contacted her, the guides with medical training left so that they could help at the death hole.

Apparently, that’s procedure in Vaycehn. Whenever a death hole opens, the most experienced emergency personnel and people with medical training flock to that site and help as quickly as they can.

It’s a coordinated effort—”a beauty to behold,” Bridge said to me with more admiration than I wanted to hear. Tourists and outsiders were left to their own devices, while the locals helped each other.

I was trembling with fury by the time I figured that out.

Or maybe just exhaustion.

The minute Ilona heard my voice, she ordered the guards to get the rescue equipment. They were already on it. Once they knew the outsiders were in trouble, they didn’t want to seem callous. But it still took some time for the Bug, as they call the rescue vehicle, to get to our location.

The Bug is amazing. It is tall—three times the height of an average human—but relatively thin. Its center is a pod with clear openings all around. The operator is completely visible.

Its sleekness reminds me of a single ship—at least in the pod part. But the sleekness ends with the pod. The rest of the Bug is all mechanical legs, with many joints, “like spider legs,” Bridge says, marveling again.

I take his word for it. I’ve never seen a spider.

The pod has legs on all sides. I count twenty, but I’m not certain because of the way they bend and hang and change. The Bug smells hot, and it groans as it moves, as if each bend in the legs needs lubrication.

One of the operators—a man whose name I didn’t catch—tells me that sound is normal. It enables people inside caves and near the Bug to know when the Bug is coming. The sound also informs people to stay out of the way.

It walks across the surface to get here, picking its way over the rubble with a delicacy that belies its size. As it comes, I talk to the guides. Or rather, Bridge does and I listen. The guides still have trouble seeing a woman as the leader of our small group—although they seem to be afraid of Ilona now.

I wonder what she has threatened them with.

The guides say that the Bug fits only four people, including the operator. I have left eight below.

“All right,” I say after it becomes clear that the Bug will have to make three trips below just to get my people out. “Kersting, Quinte, and Seager come out first. Roderick and Mikk come up last. You got that?”

I say this last to the operator. He shakes his head—our names are difficult for him.

Ilona sighs with exasperation and writes everything down on one of the passes we were given long ago. “You give that to them,” she says to the operator.

He looks at Bridge, as if Bridge would contradict her.

Bridge takes the paper and hands it to the operator. “You must give that to them,” he says, as if Ilona hasn’t spoken.

She makes a sputtering noise. I put my hand on her arm. She glances at me, then rolls her eyes.

I hope no one else saw that. Right now, we need the Vaycehnese and their expertise.

The operator nods and gets into the Bug. He looks like an organic part of the machine, sitting in the very center, his hands on controls that look like miniature versions of the legs.

It’s rare that I see a vehicle I cannot drive, but the Bug is one. I have no idea how he controls the legs, given that they each have such individual movement. He walks it over to the opening that I scrambled out of not long ago.

Then the Bug spreads its legs over the opening, using ten of them to surround the oval. The pod centers, then sinks inside. Other legs move inside with the pod, gripping the walls—or so one of the guides tells Bridge— while the ten legs remain on top for what seems like a very long time.

One by one, the legs disappear. I hurry toward the edge, but someone grabs my arm.

It’s one of the guides. He frowns at me. “You cannot go there.”

“I want to watch,” I say.

“It will take no time. You could get hurt.”

I shake him off and hurry to the edge. I can see the ends of three legs, disappearing along the slope.

If the Bug is already hard to see, then it’s near the bottom. The guide is right. I could get hurt if I remain here. I hurry back to my people.

My heart is pounding. My fatigue is in the background, a steady thrum, but it has receded. The water and that little bit of food have helped.

Maybe I’m acclimatizing to the heat.

Or maybe I’m just ignoring it all because of the emergency.

Less than five minutes later, the Bug returns to the surface, coming up the way it went down. Leg after leg pops out of the hole, gripping the edge. Then the pod comes up, followed by the other legs.

This time, the Bug does not disengage itself from the opening. Instead, it leans the pod over one side and touches the pod to the ground. A door opens, and Seager steps out. She looks bewildered. She puts a hand over her face, shielding her eyes from the bright light. She is covered in blackness.

She stumbles as she steps away from the pod. Ilona heads over with water and food as Quinte comes out, then Kersting, who raises both of his arms over his head in triumph.

The Bug doesn’t wait. As the three of them step away from the pod, the door closes.

Then the Bug centers itself over the hole again, and repeats the entire procedure.

I let out a small sigh of relief. My people are going to get out. I’m not going to lose any team members today.

And considering how careless I’ve been with this underground work, that’s damn close to miraculous.

* * * *