DOM#67A
LOSTON, COLORADO
AD 1999
10:43 AM TUESDAY
***ALERT MODE***
Adam came up against yet another dead end.
He cursed under his breath. This was getting them nowhere.
Behind him the two Controllers - two women who were the Recovery team’s most capable members - shuffled uneasily.
Adam stared at the blank wall before them for a moment before turning around once more. "Let’s go back to the entrance," he said.
He had a feeling that waiting was the only thing he could do at this point.
***
Fran screamed as the woman opened fire. Luckily for them, the woman came in shooting blind, firing round after round into the room. Then Fran felt John stiffen beside her, and was sure he had been hit.
He hadn’t, though. She had felt his muscles clench as he threw his heavy flashlight at the woman. The thick steel cylinder collided with the barrel of the Uzi, knocking the woman’s weapon upward and sending her next shot into the ceiling.
The flashlight hit the ground with a heavy clatter, and the bulb shattered on impact, pitching them all into darkness.
Fran felt John grab her hand and pull her to the floor, then they both rolled under a bed. She felt him pushing her shoulders as above them the black woman continued to fire, the bursts deafening and the light blinding in the close quarters of the room.
Oh, well, thought Fran. With any luck the woman before them would be just as confused by her own fire as Fran found herself.
Fran felt John push her again, and finally realized he was trying to get her to crawl back to a stony outcropping she had earlier noticed in the back of the room. Perhaps that would provide some cover in this place that had abruptly become a whizzing arcade of death, a shooting gallery with real ammunition in which she and John served as the ducks lined up in a row. She moved with him, keeping her head low as gunfire sounded, immense in her ears, her hearing assaulted by the deafening thunder all around.
Bullets zinged around them, ricocheting off the walls, and Fran realized that even in the small area hidden behind the vertical shelf of stone, it would only be a matter of time before some bullet bounced into their hiding space and she or John - or both - were hit.
***
Malachi kept running from the four Controllers on his tail, the breaths surging in and out of his lungs in what felt like ragged chunks of wood that had been set ablaze. Cramps gripped his side, and he didn’t know how much farther he could go at this sprinting pace.
He fell suddenly, rolling and shooting behind him as he did. The sight of the four Controllers scattering into offshoot tunnels gratified him, but he had no time to enjoy the tiny respite. He jumped to his feet and continued running.
He turned and ran again, hoping the elevator was still on his level, not knowing that Jenna was even now riding it up to the top of the shaft. But even if he had known, he would have run there anyway, for all other avenues of escape had been closed by the Controllers who now followed him.
He turned another corner and saw the open shaft before him. Saw the cable that trailed below the elevator. It was reeling upward, a sinuous snake clamped tight to some anchor high above, rippling slightly as it moved upward with the lift.
Malachi risked a look back and saw the Controllers still close behind. He had gained a bit of a lead, but had nowhere near the time he would need to recall the elevator. So he didn’t bother to try. He kept running instead, and when he got to the shaft he pushed off from the lip of the tunnel, jumping desperately for the cable.
He caught it, and held tight. His grasp slipped on the cable and he thought for a moment that he was going to fall as he scrabbled for purchase on the thickly wrapped wires. Then his hands caught on frays and a few roughened edges on the black cord, and his short descent abruptly ceased. The elevator - so far above him that he couldn’t see it – rose, and drew him up with it.
Malachi looked down and saw his pursuers appear at the shaft opening. He opened fire, gripping his rifle one-handed as he let forth a few short shots, and the Controllers disappeared back into the shaft like rats in their holes.
He looked up again, and saw the next level approaching.
***
In the lift, Jenna raised her gaze. The top was approaching. Beyond that hung the icicles, crystal teeth in the maw of a giant, a golem fashioned by some long-gone artisan out of stone and earth and clay. They glimmered as with saliva, bright and shimmering, water dripping steadily off their wickedly pointed ends.
***
John popped open the rifle, checking how many shots he had left.
One.
Shots still blasted all around them, ricocheting nearby, threatening their miniscule area of safety behind the rocky outcropping in the cave. He cursed inwardly. He had done pretty well during the evening, considering that he hadn’t seen action in years. Even still, some of his habits were bound to be rusty.
Like remembering to keep on top of your ammo count.
Beyond the stony outcropping he and Fran hid behind, the black woman continued firing, sharp staccato bursts that were too close for comfort. One of the bullets ricocheted within inches of John’s face, heating the air beside him.
John shot blindly in the direction of the doorway, hoping to get a lucky shot in. But Lady Luck was not interested in assisting his aim, it seemed, for the woman didn’t even pause in her firing. John thought furiously, then pulled Fran close to him.
"Can you get to the tunnel from here?" he asked. He practically had to yell to be heard over the din of the shots, but he knew the sound would only carry as a distorted noise to the shooter; she would remain unaware what was being planned.
Fran nodded. The gunfire continued, but John noted that the woman wasn’t coming any closer. She probably didn’t know if they had any weapons or not. But soon enough she would realize that her fire wasn’t being returned, and would begin a cautious advance. When that happened, they were as good as dead.
"I’m gonna rush her," said John. He felt Fran stiffen beside him, concerned, but there wasn’t any other choice. "When I do, you get into the tunnel and run left. Do not touch the walls. As soon as you’re out of firing range, turn on your headlamp and run as fast and as quiet as you can. Okay?"
Fran pulled John next to her. "What about you?" she asked.
"Don’t you worry. When you get to the T-intersection in the tunnel, stop and wait for me. No matter what happens, just wait for me, okay?"
Fran nodded. John kissed her in the dark. Her lips sought his at the same moment, and he was struck by an odd feeling of destiny, as though all this was supposed to happen. He only hoped that their kiss wasn’t the final touch of doomed lovers, a Romeo and Juliet whose lives were torn apart not by feuding Montagues and Capulets, but by something much more cruel and less easily-defined. Still, the feeling demanded that he add one more sentence to his instructions, one more line of dialogue that might have been plucked from any of a thousand melodramas, but that he meant nonetheless, from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head.
"I will come for you," he said.
He still didn’t know what had happened in Loston, or why these people were out to kill him. But now wasn’t the time to find out. Now was the time for action, for survival.
He separated from Fran, pulling away slightly in preparation for the coming movement.
"When I leave, you count to three and go, stay on the right, because I’m rushing her left, okay? But don’t go until I leave, okay? No matter what I say, stay here until you feel me move away."
Fran nodded again, a movement he felt more than saw, almost preternaturally aware of her closeness and position next to him. Is this what love does? he thought. Takes someone we know and makes them so close they are a part of us?
Then he thought, And then they are taken away. He pushed that pessimistic line of thought away, shoving it out of his mind with all the force of his will. They would live. They had to live.
"All right," he said to Fran. Then in a loud voice, he screamed, "Now!"
He felt Fran stiffen beside him, reacting automatically, but she caught herself before leaping into the room. Good girl, he thought.
The woman in the door fired several rounds at his voice, then stopped shooting, listening for the sounds of a hit. In the silence, John removed the coil of rope from his shoulder, then took off his jacket before repositioning the rope so that it was still on his shoulder, but not blocking his movement in any way. He threw the jacket across the room and to the left, then ran out to the right.
The woman in the door heard the sound of the jacket and opened fire again, masking John’s movements as he rushed her.
It was a risky move, one that he never would have tried if the situation didn’t force it on him. Too many ways it could go wrong. She might sense the decoy and fire at him as he rushed. He might miss her in the blackness. Fran could rush out and get hit in continued fire, or trip on the coat that John had thrown in the middle of her intended escape route. Too many ills could come of his move, a crazy, desperate escape attempt that no sane man would engage in if he could avoid it any other way.
But he had no alternative.
***
Fran felt John leave as more than a physical departure. The sensation was a painful psychic rift that she felt at the center of her being, where she held her most delicate and painful and wonderful secrets. He scampered away, and Fran wanted to reach out, to hold onto him and wait for eternity together.
But then something inside her rose up, pushing aside the romantic notions and making room for her steelier side. This was the feeling she had when she buried the cleaver in the head of Nathan’s killer, or rather the lack of feeling. Fear, love, everything shut down as her instinctive animal self rose from within and took calm control of her body. Life was all that mattered now, a life with John, a future with him. Which would not happen if she lost control, if she surrendered to the panic that gripped her in the moment of his departure.
She counted to three and then ran, staying low and trying to weave around the two cots she and John had moved next to each other to sleep on. She heard a grunt in front of her and the firing stopped, signaling that John had gotten to the woman; he had not been killed on his headlong flight into danger.
For a moment she thought about helping, then realized that her aid would be useless. She had seen John in action, and knew that if he couldn’t handle the woman, neither could she. Her presence would only distract him, perhaps fatally. So she ran down the tunnel, turning on her headlamp as she did.
And being oh-so-careful not to touch the walls.