DOM#67A
LOSTON, COLORADO
AD 1999
10:30 AM TUESDAY
***ALERT MODE***
John’s eyes snapped open suddenly, and he had to stifle the urge to scream as a monster swam into focus before his eyes.
Sharp teeth that were a mile long, beady black eyes that seemed to swallow up the dim light that came from his flashlight, a mottled black and pink nose that wiggled cutely....
Wiggled?
John blinked, and realized he was nose to whiskers with a mine rat. It looked the same as other rats he had seen, though smaller and apparently more friendly. He pulled back slowly, though, not wanting to startle the rodent that was illuminated dimly by the flashlight below the bed. He doubted rabies was a danger with subterranean creatures - at least, he had never heard of a miner dying of hydrophobia - but didn’t want to chance being bitten, all the same.
The little creature just stared at him, nose wiggling. It’s tiny tail - a puff of fur that resembled a brown dandelion - twitched once, then it turned around and scampered off the bed, running through the door and disappearing in the blackness beyond.
John looked around, smiling at the cute little animal as it retreated. Only gradually did he become aware that there were several other rats in the room, appearing from cracks in the walls and running out into the corridor.
His smile disappeared, replaced by a frown.
He got out of bed, trying not to wake Fran up. She reached out to him in her sleep as he left, but he gently pushed her hand back to her side. Better that she keep resting, if she could. The more sleep she had, the better she would be able to function when they finally had to emerge from this underground oasis, to weather the fearful realities outside.
He grabbed the flashlight off the floor and walked into the tunnel, shining the light before him like a pale spear. His heart sank at the sight which greeted him there.
The tunnel was alive with rats. Millions, it seemed, literally stampeding down the shaft.
John raced back into the sleeping area and sat down hard on the bed. He shook Fran once, sharply, and began putting on his shoes.
"Fran, get up!" he shouted.
Her eyes blinked sluggishly. "What...."
"Get up, Fran. We have to go."
She caught the urgency in his voice and sat up immediately. John admired the way she threw off sleep so quickly, stepping into her shoes beside the cot and lacing them up before he had even gotten his on himself.
"What’s going on?" she asked.
"I don’t know," answered John. He watched another fluffy-tailed rat race by and disappear into the tunnel, joining its brothers and sisters in a brown stream of panic. As he watched, the stream slowed to a trickle, then disappeared entirely. But the fear he felt did not disappear. It grew only more intense as the flood of rodents dried up.
"I don’t know," he repeated. "Something bad."
***
Deirdre glided down the tunnel. A small light illuminated a tiny sphere around her, but she turned it off and watched for other lights every couple of hundred feet, disappearing into the darkness as completely as a specter in a haunted house.
She hadn’t found anything yet. In another couple of minutes she would go back to the elevator and try a different level.
Then she heard voices.
***
Malachi turned a corner, following the indications of the jewel he once again held. He was so intent on following his course that he cried out in surprise when he abruptly turned a corner and came face to face with two men.
In the instant that he dropped the tracker and raised his gun, it registered who they were.
Controllers. A Recovery crew, from the looks of their garb.
He fired at the same instant as they did, all three throwing themselves in different directions at the same time, trying to evade the spray of bullets that came from Malachi’s gun and the weird blasts that came from those of the Controllers.
***
Jenna turned around. She couldn’t find anything, and would have to give this level up as a lost cause. She wanted desperately to be the one who found them, though. She wanted to kill John, then Fran. She would bring back Fran’s heart to Malachi, and redeem herself for her earlier mistakes.
She wanted to redeem herself. Redemption was what every single one of Malachi’s followers dreamed about.
They were Fanatics, and all Fanatics wanted redemption, followed by death.
She reached the elevator shaft and punched the button that would call back the lift from the lower levels of the mine. After several minutes, she realized she had closed the wrong circuit, causing the elevator to descend instead of rise.
She cursed softly and hit the other switch. The cable in the open shaft before her began to spool up.
***
Malachi fled down the hall, turning back and forth, taking corridors at random in the hopes of losing his two pursuers. He glanced back and saw that the two Controllers he had bumped into had been joined by two more, a man and a woman. All four opened fire on Malachi. Their guns weren’t the primitive ones he was using. They were pulse pistols, each holding an electromagnetic charge in the handle that shot out thumps of concentrated sonics. If one hit him, he would fall to the ground, twitching and immobilized, very possibly permanently paralyzed.
He knew they wouldn’t kill him, but he wasn't sure exactly how important his bodily integrity would be to them. They might not have any problem with cutting his legs and arms off and taking him back to Controller Central like that.
After all, that was what he had trained them to do, back when he had been Adam's second in command.
So he ran as fast as he could, dodging the blasts, feeling the air heat around him, feeling dirt rain down on his head as the blasts pummeled the tunnel's ceiling and walls.
***
John handed Fran her jacket. They both wore their helmets again, but hadn’t yet turned on the lights. The only illumination came from John’s flashlight, which still shone brightly. Apparently they hadn’t slept long enough to kill the heavy duty battery, for which both were now grateful.
John picked up his length of rope, slinging it over his shoulder, and they stood, ready to go.
He looked at Fran, shining the light under his chin and making a spooky face. She smiled at the antic, but was again struck by the premonition of doom that had ceased her before, outside Gabe’s house, when John's face had looked like a skull to her. He winked, but fear gripped Fran in an unrelenting grasp.
John took her hand and turned with her to the door that led to the tunnel.
And in that moment the black woman, one of Malachi’s supporting players in this shadowy play of death, stepped in the room and opened fire with an automatic weapon.