Rick nods at Glenn, and the younger man flips down his visor.
And then the threesome slip out of the room and start down the corridor toward the ramp.
*
For almost ten excruciating minutes now, in the lowest level of the subbasement, Bruce and Gabe haven’t budged from their places against the gritty cinder-block wall adjacent to the holding chamber.
The Governor paces in front of them, wielding the katana sword, moving in and out of pools of dirty light from hundred-watt safety bulbs, mumbling to himself, his eyes glassy with rage and madness. Every few moments, the muffled voice of the woman—barely audible behind the rolling door of the service area—murmurs cryptically. Who the hell is she talking to? What kind of malfunction is rotting this lady’s brain?
Bruce and Gabe await their orders but decisions are not exactly forthcoming: The Governor looks as though he’s battling his own demonic voices, trying to cut both the air and his problems to shreds with the saber, every once in a while snarling a garbled, enraged, “Fuck … fuck … how could … fuck … how the fuck could this…?!”
At one point, Gabe ventures a suggestion: “Hey, boss, why don’t we focus on them prisons down by Albany? There’s a bunch of them over by—”
“Shut the fuck up!” The Governor paces. “I’ve got to round up new biters for the fights now! I’ve got to find new fighters! FUCK!”
Bruce chimes in: “Boss, what if we—?”
“FUCK!” He swings the sword at the air. “That fucking bitch!” He turns to the garage door and slams his boot as hard as he can against the rusty metal panels. The thing booms, leaving a dent the size of a pig belly. Gabe and Bruce jerk at the noise. “FUCK!—FUCK!—FUCK!—FUCK!” The Governor turns to them. “OPEN IT UP!!”
Bruce and Gabe exchange a quick, heated glance, and then Bruce goes to the door, kneeling and grasping the lower edge in both hands.
“I want to see her fucking guts spill out all over the ground, damn it,” the Governor growls. The door squeals up and the Governor twitches, as though a bolt of electrical current is coursing through him. “STOP!”
Bruce freezes with the door half up, his big hands welded to the edge. Both he and Gabe twist around and gaze at their boss.
“Close it,” the Governor says, his voice back to normal as though a switch has been thrown.
Bruce looks at him. “Sure, boss … but why?”
The Governor rubs the bridge of his nose, rubs his eyes. “I’m going to…”
The men wait. Another fleeting glance exchanged. Bruce finally licks his lips. “You okay, boss?”
“I’m sleeping on this one,” he says softly. “I don’t want to do anything I’ll regret later.” He exhales a long breath, stretching his neck muscles. Then he turns and starts walking away. “I gotta go over all the angles,” he mutters as he departs, not even looking at them. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
He vanishes around the corner at the end of the corridor, passing out of the gloomy light like a phantom.
*
“WAIT!”
The voice pops out of the shadows behind the escapees, from the depths of the corridor, and at first Martinez is sure they’re busted and his plan has gone all to hell before they even had a chance to take a single step outside.
“Please stop!”
The three men jerk to a stop near two intersecting tunnels, the back of Martinez’s neck prickling. They whirl around one by one—Martinez, then Rick, and then Glenn—each man breathing hard, hearts pumping, trembling hands going for the grips of their firearms and weapons. They squint to see who it is, a shadowy figure approaching quickly, passing under a yellow cone of light.
“Hold on,” the young woman says, the light illuminating the crown of her head, the shimmer of blond hair in a French braid, the tendrils hanging down across a girlish face. Her lab coat positively glows in the dull light of the passageway. She approaches, out of breath.
Rick speaks up. “What is it, Alice? What do you want?”
“I was thinking about it,” she says in a shaky voice, catching her breath in the murky, airless tunnel. Somewhere not far from there, one level up, outside the vestibules, the wind hums through empty bleachers and gantries. “If you’re going,” she says, “I want you to take us with you. Dr. Stevens and me.”
The men share tense glances, but nobody offers a response.
Alice looks at Rick. “Wherever you’re living has got to be better than this … and with your wife pregnant, I’m sure you could use us.”
Rick chews on this for a moment. Then he proffers her a thin smile. “I’m not arguing with that. We’d love to have you. In fact—”
“Okay, guys and gals,” Martinez breaks in, his voice as taut as a piano string. “We need to go now.”
*
They hurry down a branching tunnel and then down a long ramp, the clock ticking. They end up in the fetid darkness of the subbasement. Glenn has a sketchy memory of where Michonne is being kept—he’s thrown off a little by all the garage doors that look alike, the maddeningly similar scars of ancient grease and grit—but he remembers being dragged around this sublevel. They eventually find the last narrow warren of service bays and pause.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just around this next corner,” Glenn whispers as they huddle in the shadows of two intersecting tunnels.
“Good,” Rick utters softly. “We get her, and we get the doctor, and we go.” He looks at Martinez. “What’s the distance to the doc’s place and then to the fence? Is there an easy way out?”
“Hold it!” Martinez thrusts a gloved hand in the air, his voice a loud stage whisper. “Hold on … quiet. Stay back.” He cautiously peers around the corner, then looks back at the group. “I’d be shocked as all hell if the Governor didn’t put a guard where he’s got your friend.”