A Girl Called Badger

FIVE



Wilson waited in a sleepy, pre-dawn mist near the old building. The white haze obscured the village from sight but not sound.

He listened to villagers starting the day. From the way the boys shouted the old chants it was definitely Hausen at the front of the morning run.

Wilson drummed his fingers on the handle of a sledgehammer. He wore his normal hemp clothing and a white bandana around his neck. Over one shoulder was a coil of rope and on the other a rucksack.

He opened the cylinder of the freshly oiled pistol. Mast had advised him to keep only five chambers loaded. The pistol’s hammer rested on the empty one.

He heard quick footsteps and Badger ran out of the mist. She held a two-meter sharpened stick and wore three knives in her belt.

Wilson pointed at the stick. “Why’d you bring that?”

“I have to teach you everything? This is for your little pets. If you move slowly they can’t see it coming, then SQUISH. No more spider.”

“As long as I don’t have to look.”

She giggled. “You’re just like a girl!”

Badger rummaged through the rucksack of Wilson’s supplies. For her part, Badger had brought a pack holding a water skin of spruce tea, bread, a blanket roll, a lantern, and five candles.

“Wait,” said Wilson. “Is anyone going to miss you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. They’re all used to my disappearing act.”

Wilson opened the door to the empty building and walked with Badger to the dark corner at the back.

“Here’s how we get to the tunnels,” he said.

The wooden panel was the same as he’d left it weeks ago. Wilson kicked it to the side and pulled up on the squealing metal hatch. His sledgehammer and Badger’s stick tumbled down the shaft and cracked on the concrete darkness.

Wilson lowered his lantern. He climbed down the ladder and caught the packs Badger dropped to him.

She jumped the last few rungs and picked up her spear. “Having fun yet?”

“Keep that away from my face, please––I’m very attached to it. My face, that is. I’ll carry the lantern and sledge, just watch my back.”

“There’s another ladder. Do we keep going down?”

“We’ll try this floor first. Let me check the air.” Wilson took a small metal box from his pack and spun a crank.

“Does that thing even work?”

“Don’t know, but it can’t hurt. It doesn’t show any warnings. That could be good or bad.”

A floor plan on the wall next to the ladder showed a grid of corridors and rooms.

“This doesn’t help,” said Wilson. “There’s no description of anything.”

“Lead on, then.”

The pair walked through the corridor, Wilson with the sledge over his right shoulder and Badger with her spear. The lantern illuminated the floating motes of dust kicked up by their feet.

A door on the right was marked “Lab A108.” Wilson put down his lantern and lifted the sledgehammer.

“Cover your ears!”

“Try the handle first, Samson.”

Wilson twisted the lever and the door swung inside. Low counters and cabinets lined the walls of the room. Broken glass and strange metal shapes littered the floor and surfaces. A sharpness burned at the back of Wilson’s throat.

“I’m not getting glass in my feet,” he said.

They found similar rooms, all full with shattered glass containers. Among these were a few smaller closets with shelves of brown and clear jars, cracked dishes, and brooms.

The corridor turned right and continued fifty meters to another door. It was orange and sturdy and painted with a symbol: a black cluster of thorns on a yellow triangle.

“Wait,” said Badger. “I’ve seen that before. Those three animals that tortured Mina had it on their faces.”

Wilson nodded. “It does look the same. I’m sure they just copied it from a pile of junk or showed it to the local gibbering idiot of a medicine man.”

Below the circle of thorns was a line of black letters––“Biohazard Level 4 HAZMAT Suit Required.” In the wall next to the door handle was a keypad.

Badger pulled at the handle. “How can we get in?”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Tell me why, genius.”

Wilson sighed. “Biohazard means harmful to life.”

“But it’s been three hundred years!”

“So the room might be safe now. But they locked things in there for a reason and we can’t risk it.”

Farther down the corridor, Wilson found a metal door and smashed the lock with a deafening clang. Inside were metal cabinets and clear, cracked containers. On racks inside the cabinets lay narrow cylinders and strange green masks. He opened another cabinet and scattered clouds of dust. Inside were yellow suits, boots, and helmets with visors.

“Look at that!”

Badger sneezed and looked back at the door. “Just stupid priest clothing.”

“No, they used it for something else.”

“Petting spiders?”

They continued down the corridor and passed a pair of rooms with dank odors. Badger opened the next door marked “Lockers”. Something small and black skittered from the light.

“Wait! Hold the lantern.”

Legs spread as wide as a dinner plate, the spider froze in a corner. Badger moved the spear slowly at first, then jerked her arm forward. She waved the spider’s long-legged body at Wilson and flung it across the room.

He stared at the red smear on the wall. “What on God’s green earth is there to eat down here?”

“There’s always something crawling in the dark. I bet they eat other spiders. Or they heard you were coming and wanted to throw a party.”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

Most of the narrow beige cabinets in the room were shut. Dusty white clothing and papers covered the floor. As Wilson looked closer he noticed a nameplate on the face of each cabinet.

The first held a pair of women’s shoes, a long white coat, and dark, folded clothing. A box and a framed photo were on a shelf sticky with cobwebs. The subjects in the photo had completely faded to gray blobs. Inside the box were tarnished earrings and a necklace made of tiny white spheres. A yellowed card slipped into view from under the necklace.

“What’s wrong, Will?”

“It’s my mother’s name––Mary Abrikosov. This belonged to her name-giver.”

Wilson put the small box in his pack. He lifted up the clothing and sneezed at the dust. A few crumpled sheets of paper and a book lay underneath. Only a hand-written note was legible.



Mary,

Please come and talk with me about the situation. Many of us have been affected by the fighting and I can try to help. In case you haven’t heard, my new office is B102.

Zhang Ming



The book in Mary’s locker was titled “Applications in Bioengineered Capacitance,” and she was listed as one of the authors. Wilson placed it in his pack.

“We need to find room B102,” he said.

“Fine,” said Badger. “But do you have to read everything?”

“Just give me another minute.”

Most but not all of the nameplates on the lockers were from the registry of founders. Lee Wilson––his name-giver––didn’t have a locker, and neither did Zhang Ming or Bryant Chen.

Wilson found a locker for “Michael Wong.” He smashed the lock with his hammer and a few pictures floated to the ground, the subjects faded to white. Apart from gray dust, all that was left inside the locker was a wooden box.

Wilson opened it and sniffed the contents. “Some kind of rolled herb.”

“You mean ‘herb’ herb?” asked Badger.

The brown cylinders crumbled to dust as Wilson touched them.

“It’s definitely not that,” he said.

On the side of the box he found a stained card with an elegant black script––”Sgt. Michael Wong, A158.”

“What room is this?”

Badger sneezed. “One-four-zero, I think ... stop!”

She held up her palm. Wilson waited quietly until she relaxed.

“Sorry. Thought I heard something.”

They walked through the dusty hallway to A158. The door was labeled “Survival Tactics.” Badger opened it with slow-moving fingers as Wilson held the lantern.

The room was filled with overturned desks and display screens. None activated on touch. On a desk at the back lay a metal sign with the text “Sgt. Michael Wong” along with scattered, framed pictures. Wilson opened the drawers with a squeal of rusted metal.

“I changed my mind,” said Badger, looking back at the door. “This was a bad idea.”

“Found something.”

Wilson placed a flat wooden box on the desk and opened the lid. The material inside was soft and red, and held the deep outline of a handgun. The box also contained a small leather pouch and a paper box filled with firearm rounds.

“Nice!”

Wilson pulled the pistol from his belt and opened the cylinder. The rounds slid easily into the empty chambers.

“Loaded for bear!”

“Oh really,” said Badger. “Just don’t shoot me with that thing.”

“Baby, if I shoot you it’s on purpose.”

“Heard that before. Seen it happen too.”

Wilson put the extra rounds in his pocket along with the cleaning tools. A rectangle of paper lay at the bottom of the box. He read the simple handwriting out loud.

“To Mike from JG.”

He thumbed through a pile of books on another desk. All were on microbiology and pathogens.

Wilson sighed. “Let’s go.”

Outside the room they turned right, then right again.

“Are we heading back?” he asked.

Badger nodded. “There’s another tunnel up ahead.”

Further along, rock and white material from the ceiling blocked the passage. In the flickering light Wilson saw an opening to the left. Text on the wall read “USAF SPC Facility B” and a black arrow pointed into the shadows.

“I guess we go that way,” he said.

“What does the magic box say?”

Wilson wound the handle. “Nothing.”

Walking became less safe and avoiding twisted ankles a priority. Earth and concrete had spilled through the crumbled ceiling and the floor had cracked in waves.

There were no doors. Wilson had a feeling they were stumbling down the throat of a giant, dead beast. In places, the wall was in good condition and he saw a painted eagle or a stylized circle, all symbols from the founder’s temple. After stumbling over hundreds of meters of broken rock, their path ended in a pile of gray slabs and tumbled granite.

Wilson sneezed. “Dead end.”

Badger raised a hand. A sound came from behind them––a whispering scrape, a leaf across pebbles.

“No going back.” Badger jerked a finger at the rubble. “That way. The hole.”

“But it’s too–”

“Just do it!”

Wilson shoved the sledgehammer through a gap in the rocks and crawled through with the lantern in one hand. He squeezed between the corridor wall and a granite boulder by turning sideways, but in the flickering light could see the gap narrow ahead of him.

“MOVE!” Badger yelled. She pushed on his feet.

Wilson twisted out of the straps of his rucksack and slid forward. He gasped as the stone scraped off the skin on his chest and pelvis. Badger squeezed through behind him.

The crevice twisted down, to the right, and after ten meters Wilson crawled into the open air. He scrambled to his feet and helped Badger from the rock pile. Her backpack was missing and her jacket and trousers were ripped. Stone dust and grit covered her from head to toe.

“Stop staring,” she said.

They crouched behind a large rock a few meters from the hole.

“What’s back there?” he asked.

Badger pulled out her knives. “Don’t talk, just get ready.”

Wilson put the lantern on the concrete floor of the corridor. He squatted behind the rock close enough to rub shoulders with Badger.

He’d dry-fired the pistol weeks ago. If it didn’t work now, it wasn’t going to work ever. He thumbed the lever for the firing pin backwards until it locked and held the grip with both hands.

Time passed and the lantern burned steadily. The silence began to bore Wilson. He wondered about the last owner of the pistol.

Badger touched his arm. Her eyes were shut and the scars stood white on her face. She slumped to the ground and began to shake.

“Don’t do this, Kira!”

Wilson laid his pistol on the rock and held Badger’s head off the ground. He tried to remember the code. Short short long long long, yelled Reed’s voice in his head. Under Badger’s left sleeve he found the center of the scar. After he pressed the sequence twice she stopped shaking. Wilson wiped his forehead and glanced back at the gap in the rubble.

The eyes of a massive reptile shone in the lantern-light. The monster was at least three meters in length and brown with a yellow stripe down the body. The broad head was over a foot long with a wide, closed mouth. The four clawed limbs were splayed apart on the rocks like a desperate climber.

His right hand was pinned under Badger so Wilson grabbed the pistol with his left. He aimed down the barrel and pulled the trigger. A click. The lizard flicked a tongue and moved toward him with fast, jerking steps. Wilson pulled the trigger again. Another click. Sweat stung his eyes and he breathed out a ragged sigh.

In the next instant a deafening gout of flame erupted from the barrel and the pistol kicked hard. The lizard scrabbled for the hole in a spray of grit and pebbles. Wilson aimed for the body and fired again.

The first shot had dulled his hearing and the second wasn’t as loud. The monster was nowhere to be seen.Wilson held Badger with one hand and kept the pistol aimed at the hole in the rocks with the other.

After a minute her muscles stirred and lips moved, but Wilson heard nothing but a ringing in his ears.

“What?”

She grabbed his neck and he felt warm breath on his cheek.

“I said, you could wake the dead!”

“Are you okay?”

Badger shook her head. “Can’t hear you.”

Wilson helped her to stand. He searched his belt for the reload pouch and replaced the misfires and two empty casings. The lantern still guttered on the corridor floor, and he wiped drops of blood from the glass. The walls and floor were splashed with blood and a trail of drops led to the hole in the rubble pile. Wilson would have looked for the lizard––the pistol gave him a strange confidence––but Badger pulled at his arm.

They stumbled over the uneven floor and squeezed past crumbled walls to a pair of doors labeled “USAF Space Command Facility B Authorized Personnel Only.” Badger pushed against the door but it didn’t move. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply for a few seconds, and strained against the metal. With a scrape the door opened part-way. Badger squirmed through the gap and Wilson followed. On the other side a pile of dirt and stone pressed against the door. Badger pushed the door back into place with a screech of metal on stone.

Wilson touched the scratched steel of the door. “How did you do that?”

Badger wiped a hand across her forehead. “That’s my secret.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Just my ears,” she said. “That stupid cannon ... wait, you’ve got a nasty cut on your face.”

“Kiss it better?”

She groaned. “Are you serious?”

“Always. We’ve made it to Facility B, whatever that is.”

The tunnel looked in better shape than before, but in places the ceiling had partially collapsed. A tumble of granite rock came from offices on the right. A few doors appeared undamaged. The first was labeled “Wellness Evaluation B175.”

Inside, Wilson’s lantern threw light on a few desks and oddly shaped machines. White squares and debris from the ceiling covered everything. Against the opposite wall stood a few gray cabinets.

“If this is a ‘wellness’ room maybe there are ‘wellness’ supplies,” Wilson said, stepping around chairs and desks. The cabinets were labeled “VO2” and held nothing but strange masks and tubing.

“Found something.” Badger stood beside a white metal box fixed to the wall. A red cross marked the front.

“That’s a priest’s sign,” said Wilson.

Inside the box were instructions for treatment and a few medical items. A “Sterilizer” packet tumbled out but was filled with a hard, useless square. Badger ripped a cloth from a white paper envelope and held it to Wilson’s cut. He secured it by winding a long bandage around his head and tying a priest’s knot.

“The rest of the supplies are too old.” Wilson poured white powder from a yellow “Aspirin” packet into his hand. He touched it with the tip of his tongue then spit on the floor. “Let’s go.”

Badger pointed at papers stacked on a desk. “What about those?”

Wilson leafed through a number of folders. “Logs of physical activity. Look, here are vital signs and other measurements.” He stuffed a few of the sheets inside his coat. “I wish I hadn’t lost that backpack.”

“The lizards might give it back if you ask nicely.”

The pair walked out of the room. Scratching and scrapes came from the other side of the jammed metal doors at the end of the corridor. Farther down, a door with the sign Kinesiology B173 had become wedged in a crooked frame. Even Badger couldn’t move it. They passed other rooms, one labeled Biochemistry B171 and others Endocrinology B178 through B168.

At an intersection in the corridor, an arrow under the text “USAF Hyperion” pointed to the left, while an arrow labeled “Virology” pointed ahead. The passageway on the right side was blocked with concrete and fallen rock.

“Which way?” asked Badger.

“Straight for now. Tell me if you see a floor plan.”

Wilson felt his pockets for the hand-cranked air tester, but realized it was in his pack under the rubble.

“What do you think they eat?” he asked.

“Does what eat?”

“The range lizards.”

Badger pointed at a tail sticking from a crack in the wall. “That.”

“Mother of–!”

Badger sighed. “Please tell me we’ll find one living thing in these tunnels that doesn’t scare you.”

“Are there rabbits?” asked Wilson. “I’m not scared of rabbits.”

“Ha!”

“I just really hate rats.”

“You get used to them. Add some hot peppers and they taste fine.”

“That’s it. I’m going to be sick.”

Wilson took her hand and she didn’t pull away. They continued down the corridor and passed a collapsed cafeteria. Wilson saw an intact door on the right, with Virology B148 printed on a metal sign.

Badger shoved the door open with a grunt and shadows scattered. She reached to the floor and held up a dusty green rucksack.

“How about this?”

“Kira, you’re the best.”

In the room were metal desks and several file cabinets. Many of the drawers yawned open, empty and toothless. On the walls were large diagrams of chemical structures. Next to faded pictures on a desk a nameplate read “Dr. Gregory Allen.” Wilson opened all the desks and felt inside each cabinet drawer.

Badger held up a few papers. “Take a look at these.”

The images had only faded slightly and had a medical theme. One showed a man’s arm next to a thin white cylinder. In another, blue-gowned men bent over an operating table.

Wilson tapped the photo. “They’re cutting into his arm.”

“A name-giving ceremony? With all these people around?”

“This is from the old days. Everyone got their real names when they were born. No, it’s probably to put in or take out that implant.”

Wilson flipped through the sheets of paper. He found unfamiliar diagrams of the human body, line charts, and pictures of men in a forest connected to boxy, silver machines. Men ran through fields and climbed a mountain ridge. A group of men in swimming briefs stood beside a lake. Wilson held his fingers over a few wooden buildings and it looked like the lake on the other side of Old Man.

Badger scraped the point of her knife across a desk and yawned.

Wilson rapped his knuckles on a locked metal cabinet, without looking up. “If you need something to do, open this drawer.”

Badger yanked it off with an explosion of dust and paper. The passage of time had left only a ghost of text on the pages.



... of the President, all military bases including Altmann have been on lockdown since ... H1N2 betavirus cases in Denver and Boulder ... family members not already ... for 8 hours, the incubation ... Continuity of Operations ...



Another sheet was filled with lines. Wilson recognized addresses––the old way to organize and locate places. Everything went into the rucksack.

They moved back into the corridor, Wilson with the lantern and Badger holding a table leg as a makeshift club. After what seemed like hours of stumbling over the uneven floor of the tunnel, Wilson spotted the rusted sign of a floor plan on the wall.

“Over here!”

Bits of rust fell to the ground as he moved his finger along the sign. “We’re probably here.” He traced a right angle. “The main entrance is back the way we came.”

Badger kept her back to him and watched the corridor. “Not a good idea.”

“Okay––this symbol is a stairway. We could go down a level, double back, and use another set of stairs to go up.”

Wilson held the pistol as he opened a door marked “Stairwell Access.” It opened easily and they moved carefully down the dusty steps to the Level Two door. Badger kicked it open and brown rats scrambled for cover.

She held her nose. “More of your lizard food.”

“And I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

He used a white handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose from the stench of ammonia. Rats scrambled into the dark and spun tails into holes as Wilson and Badger followed signs along the tunnel to “Hyperion.” After a long walk and a half-dozen squashed rodents they came to an intersection.

“What’s that read?” asked Badger.

“Engineering and Test Platforms. It means lots of machines.”

They turned right toward “Test Platforms” and met another jumble of earth and rock. Badger scrambled through a gap at the top and helped Wilson down the other side. Soon, however, a solid mass of stone halted their progress. In this small section of the tunnel a few metal doors reflected light from the lantern. Badger pushed her shoulder into the first and it scraped open.

The pair stepped into a cavern so large the lantern’s light failed to reach the far corners. Brown paper boxes were piled in the middle, many crushed by fallen rock or covered by white ceiling tiles. A series of numbers lined the right-hand wall and extended into the dark. The sets of three digits began with “001” and increased by five each time. On the wall below each three-digit number was a strange pattern of connectors and plugs.

Wilson had a feeling something was missing and walked deeper into the cavern. His feet left gentle billows of dust in the air. On the left wall he spotted two horizontal black slabs covered with gray powder and rock.

“A casket!”

Badger sneezed. “A what?”

“A casket. Don’t you remember your name-giving?”

“No, just what you and Reed have told me about it.”

A red label had been pasted across the top of each black slab. Wilson wiped the powder away. The label read “OUT OF SERVICE.” Cables webbed from the sides of the two slabs to ports on the wall.

“Do you think there’s anything inside?” asked Badger.

Wilson clicked a few buttons on the sides but nothing happened. “There’s no power, so it can’t be alive.”

“Just answer the question.”

“The warning label probably means these are broken. Whoever took the rest of the caskets thought these were worthless. Or too much trouble.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Badger. “Stand on this one and I’ll help you jump to that window. That’s where we have to go, right?”

Wilson peered up at a dark, square opening high on the wall. “You’re right. That’s probably Level One.”

He cleaned dust and debris from the top of the casket. It was wide enough for both of them to stand side-by-side. The number “051” flickered on the wall as he set down the lantern.

“That’s got to be two meters over my head. How do we do this again?”

Badger knelt and cupped her hands. “Put your right foot here––it’s the stronger leg––and hands on my shoulders. When I count to three, jump and grab the edge.”

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“1 ... 2 ... 3!”

Wilson jumped for the window. Badger’s lift gave him extra reach and his hands found the edge. He pulled himself up and onto a table and knocked over several apparently delicate items in the process. He dropped his pack, uncoiled the rope around his body, and lowered one end. When he’d pulled up the lantern he looked around the cramped room. It was mostly broken tables and cracked displays. Someone had been in a hurry just like the rest of the complex.

“Don’t leave a girl waiting!” Badger yelled from below.

Wilson tied a bowline around his waist with one hand and flung the rest of the rope down to Badger. He lay on the floor and braced his feet on the wall beneath the window.

“Now!”

The rope tightened and Wilson pushed hard with his legs. A few seconds later Badger’s hands appeared and she pulled herself over the edge. She landed hard on Wilson’s chest and knocked the breath out of him.

She hovered close, her face inches from Wilson’s nose. “What was that sound you made?”

“I’ll be okay ... just need a minute,” he squeaked.

“You’re a strange cat,” said Badger.

She coiled the rope and waited for a bit, then helped him stand up.

“Ooooh, much better,” said Wilson. He waved at the consoles in the room. “I guess they monitored the caskets from here.”

“Or prayed for their souls.”

Vast piles of wiring and a few dead consoles were behind the door to the right. Wilson held the lantern and pistol while Badger opened the only other door. Outside, more rats ran for the shadows or disappeared under piles of ceiling panels.

A stylized mural faced them across the corridor. From his astronomy text Wilson recognized the solar system. The sun in the center had been replaced with a white-headed eagle. On the wall below was “USAF Hyperion: Reach For The Stars.”

They searched through meeting rooms, bare offices, and rubble-filled chambers. Luckily, none of the tunnels on this level were blocked. At last they arrived at a door labeled “B102.”

Badger pointed at the number. “Is this it?”

Wilson shrugged.

A fallen cabinet blocked the door from the inside. Badger squeezed in first and Wilson followed her through the narrow gap. The floor squished and felt slippery under his feet. A thick, tangible stink clouded the air.

Badger coughed. “I’m seeing double! Make this quick.”

The lantern glowed over a table, a large desk, bare shelves, and the yawning doors of empty storage cabinets. Rectangles of faded writing and gray ghosts of pictures lined the walls.

Badger pointed under a table. “Something right there.”

Wilson holstered his pistol and covered his mouth and nose. He knelt and saw an edge of yellow paper in a brown pile of animal waste. He groaned and pulled a folder from the moist goo.

“I don’t believe it!”

Both scrambled into the corridor and sucked in deep, gasping breaths with hands on their knees. Wilson shook the folder to get some of the solid material off and Badger yelped.

“Don’t get that on me!”

“Sorry.”

The folder was marked with the same old symbols as the walls and a stack of white pages lay inside. Much had been washed away or stained.



CLASSIFIED

Project Hyperion is a Joint Task Force …

… USAF 3rd … Development Center …

… in cooperation with 4th SES, Schriever AFB …

… Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirkland ...

… second decade of operation. Challenges …

… US Army ... Survivability of …

… exposure to viral and chemical ...

... percent. The volunteer-inhabited ...

... three years of perfect operation. ...

… maintenance-free energy …

… production and heat ...



Wilson put his back against a corridor wall and groaned.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s so much going on I don’t know where to start.”

“What IS going on here?”

He pulled off his gloves and sighed. “So much is missing.”

“That’s because it’s covered in brown–”

“No. I mean, the implants. Where’s the connection?”

The lantern that Badger held guttered and threw wild shadows.

“I’d better light this,” Badger said. She opened the glass door and stuck a rolled paper into the flame.

“Wait! Put that out!”

Badger smothered the paper with her hand. “It’s just a scrap. I found it in a desk.”

“Let me see.”

Wilson unrolled the thin sheet.



Z,

The brown-outs are making this serious. I had to use Versed or he’d be in constant seizures. Schriever has the shutdown sequencer but like you said, all lines are down including milcom. I have to risk it and send someone by ground. We’re not black-tagging another one, no matter what.

––Greg



Wilson held up the paper. “I can’t believe you almost burned this. They had a patient with the same problem.”

“How did they fix it?”

“I don’t know, but this mentions a place called Schriever.”

“Where’s that?”

“I have no idea. I’ll have to study these pages.”

She pulled Wilson through the passage and around a corner. Next to a doorway they found another floor plan. Wilson looked over the layout and tried to orient himself.

“Maybe this way?”

“Get your hand-cannon,” Badger whispered.

Wilson turned. “It’s not a can–”

Down the corridor a pair of circles reflected candlelight. They didn’t blink and jerked forward.

“Move!” Badger yelled.

A black mass slammed into her and knocked both of them backwards. The lantern flew from Wilson’s hands and he curled up on the floor to protect his face and belly. The range lizard hissed inches from his face. He instinctively raised his left arm and yelled as the lizard bit down. Wilson pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed wildly. The reptile freed his arm in a gush of blood and scrabbled away.

Wilson felt lightheaded. A detached part of his mind wondered if the lizards hunted by smell or sight. He lay on his side and stared at a shard of rock covered in blood. Was it his?

Something crunched like a fresh head of lettuce. He turned to see Badger hunched over a motionless range lizard. She pulled her knife from the eye socket with a spurt of blood.

The light from the broken lantern dimmed orange then everything went black.

“Fantastic,” Wilson tried to say, but all that came out was a mumble. His left arm was numb and he held it close to his stomach.

Badger grabbed his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

He shivered. “Bitten. Cold.”

“Where?”

She felt his legs and arms in the dark then opened his jacket.

“I can do it,” Wilson said.

He pulled his arm out of the sleeve then took a packet of sterilizer from his belt.

“I need some cloth.”

Wilson opened the sterilizer packet with his teeth and shook the powder over his arm. With his other hand he rubbed it into the bite wounds. Cloth ripped in the darkness and he felt something wrap soft fabric around his injured arm.

“I can do without an undershirt,” Badger said.

With her help Wilson got to his feet and they stumbled along the uneven floor of the passage. After a few twists and turns in the labyrinth of tunnels, Badger stopped. Wilson heard metal scrape over stone.

“Was that a door?”

“Yes,” said Badger. “Wait until I close it.”

Wilson reached into the dark and found a wall. He put his back against it and slid to the floor.

“I need your sparker,” said Badger.

Wilson searched his pockets for a long, desperate moment, then sighed. “It’s gone.”

He felt Badger move her fingers over his belt pouches. “It’s not here?”

“No. Back under the rubble. Along with the candles,” he said.

He couldn’t hear anything for a long moment and Badger didn’t speak.

“Kira,” he whispered.

Warm fingers touched his hand. “Stay here. I’ll look around.”

“Don’t go.” Wilson shivered. “It’s getting cold in here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? I can’t feel my arm and I’m freezing. Both of us are buried alive with no water, food, sparker, candles, or way out. I’m a stupid showoff apprentice, who’s now buried alive with the only girl he ever really cared about. That’s what’s wrong.”

He felt Badger’s arm on his shoulder.

“There’s something I have to tell you. Just listen.”

She began to recite:



Hold on to what’s good,

Even if it's a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe,

Even if it's a tree that stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do,

Even if it's a long way from here.

Hold on to your life,

Even if it's easier to let go.

Hold on to my hand,

Even if someday I'll be gone away from you.



Wilson was quiet for a long moment.

“I’ve never heard that before,” he said.

“My mother used to say it to me every night. It’s a prayer. Or a way to make children sleep.”

“Am I your child now?”

“No.” She sneezed, then giggled. “No!”

“Tell me about her. Your mother.”

Badger didn’t say anything. Wilson was about to ask her again when she began to speak softly.

“I remember helping her pick tomatoes in the fields. I stepped on a few and she yelled at me. Another time the older children put a bucket of water over my head and my mother gave them hell. She always sat with me until I fell asleep. My father never spoke much. He smelled like a tree because he carved wooden animals.”

Wilson rubbed his chin. “My father made a tiny crossbow for my birthday. All the parts worked perfectly but I broke it playing outside. He said I was a bad kid and he wouldn’t make another one.”

“What did you do?”

“I figured out how to fix it,” said Wilson. “That’s what got me interested in machines, at least at first. I thought I’d grow up to be a metalworker like him.”

“Some things break and can’t be fixed,” said Badger.

“I know. Those things ... I wish I could go back and change them.”

“The past is the past,” said Badger. “But you can change the future. Look at us.”

Wilson laughed. “Right, look at us! The star-crossed–”

Her breath was on his face. They pulled tight against each other and kissed like parched travelers who’d found a cold stream of water. At last they parted, reluctantly.

“Now I feel much better,” said Wilson.

“Me, too. How’s your arm?”

“It’s better. I can move my fingers.”

She untangled herself from Wilson’s hands. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait! It’s pitch black in here. How can you see?”

“It’s a hunter’s trick.”

“Teach me.”

“Listen Will, it takes time to learn.”

“What else should I do, Kira? It’s either that or I make rude paintings on the wall with my spit. And when I run out of spit–”

“Fine, fine. I get the point. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone, especially Simpson. Slow your breathing to once every ten count. Think about a really bright light and say:



Eyes made of light

Eyes made of sun

Eyes made of moon

Restore my sight



The door scraped and Wilson was left alone in the dark. He slowed his breathing and repeated the words over and over. He tried to imagine staring into the sun on a hot summer day.

After several minutes he realized his eyes were closed. When opened them, the room was still dark but not midnight coal like before. He could see the outline of a desk and a table. He kept visualizing sunlight and saying the four lines, but the room didn’t brighten much more. Even after he stopped focusing, the room didn’t return to black and he could still see those vague shapes.

Wilson took note of his inventory: one coil of rope, bundles of papers in an old backpack, one hunting knife, one throwing knife, six rounds in the pistol and thirty-three reloads in a belt pouch. Another pouch held a sterilizer, two painkiller packets, and three bandages.

He had no water to mix with the painkiller, but his arm had begun to throb with a sickening pain. Wilson ripped a corner of the packet with his teeth and poured the contents into his mouth. He swallowed the fine powder and coughed.

A knock came from the door and he pulled out the pistol.

“It’s only me,” said Badger. “Lizards don’t knock.”

Wilson stood up and walked to the door, his legs trembling from the painkiller.

“I’m impressed. Can you really see anything?” asked Badger.

“Black blobs on a background of black blobs.”

“The light is better in the tunnel.”

The corridor was a brighter shade of gray. Wilson followed Badger around the corner of the passage. The broken lantern lay beside the dead range lizard. Wilson kept his pistol out and held Badger’s hand as he edged around the corpse.

They passed door after door through the tunnels but didn’t stop.

Wilson squeezed Badger’s hand. “I hear something.”

“It’s only dripping water. Come on.”

The sounds came from a black pit that yawned wall-to-wall in the tunnel floor. Wilson couldn’t see the bottom of the pit or the far side.

“How do we get across?”

“We’re not going to cross it, we’re going down,” said Badger. “Tie your rope here. I’ll go first and help you.”

She disappeared into the pit. Wilson tapped gloved fingers on his knife hilt and watched the gray blob of the passage behind. After a minute he heard a faint whisper from Badger.

“Now!”

Wilson wrapped the rope around his middle. He gripped it with his good hand and leaned over the pit. Badger must have climbed back up, because he felt something guiding his feet to safe ledges. After a few minutes of slow descent over the pile of stone and crumbling earth, he made it to the floor of another tunnel.

Wilson rubbed the fingers inside his gloves. “Is this Level Three?”

Badger shrugged and climbed back up the stone pile. After a moment the rope twitched and dropped. Wilson finished coiling it just as she reappeared.

“This way,” she said.

Badger led him through another gray blob of a tunnel. The echo of water became louder. Next to a black opening in the tunnel wall Wilson’s fingers slid across bubbled and peeling metal. He shoved his face close enough to read the sign.

“Reservoir Access?”

“It’s a way out,” said Badger.

She led him to a concrete pier where a lake the color of midnight spread in all directions. Cold air heavy with moisture touched his face. A droplet of water smacked the surface of the lake and a faint echo bounced from the far wall of the cavern.

“This place is huge,” said Wilson. “But how does this get us out?”

Badger squeezed his hand. “Trust me,” she said, and began to unbutton her jacket.

“You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”

“Clothes will get soaked and drag us down. I don’t want to lose my knife, either. Strip and wrap everything in your jacket.”

“Yes ma’am!”

Wilson peeled off his outer clothes and shoved his trousers, moccasins, and belt in his backpack. He covered the backpack with his leather jacket and tied everything together with part of the climbing rope.

Badger used the rest to tie her bundle. She stood and held the bundle at her chest, naked except for white underwear bottoms.

Wilson pulled his shirt up. “Wait! You can wear this.”

“Don’t bother, I’m not cold.”

They waded into the cool water and Wilson drank a handful. It tasted strange and slightly metallic. He splashed behind Badger, holding his bundle out of the water with his good arm. The bottom was flat under his feet but slick, so Wilson walked carefully. Badger balanced the clothes on her head with both hands and stayed close to the right wall. The water deepened until it splashed just below Wilson’s chin.

“Can you feel that?” Badger’s voice echoed faintly. “Stop for a second.”

Something tickled the hair on Wilson’s legs.

“The water’s moving,” he said.

They followed the current, wading for what felt like hours. Ripples on the lake’s cool surface were the only clues to Wilson that he moved at all and hadn’t been struck blind.

His good arm burned with exhaustion and the lizard bite started to throb again. Wilson let the bundle of clothes and backpack float on the surface. With each step on the flat, slick bottom he expected a sudden drop-off but it never came. The level of the water remained constant, and at his neck.

“Get ready to swim,” came the echo of Badger’s voice.

The current pulled harder at his legs and Wilson floated more than walked. The bottom sped beneath his toes. A glow came from downstream, enough to light the curved walls of a tunnel overhead. The walls quickly flashed past him in the strong current and Wilson heard a low roar of falling water. The sound grew in volume until there was nothing else.

The tunnel abruptly curved to the left and he was blinded by intense light. Wilson closed his eyes. He immediately flew weightless into space and plunged underwater.

The white froth tossed him in all directions like a puff of dandelion in the wind. At last Wilson kicked to the surface and gasped for breath. Through the searing, painful light he saw trees and splashed toward the shore.

Soft mud squished between his toes. With his hands shielding his eyes Wilson searched the wide surface of the lake.

In the west, the sun turned the clouds shades of pink and orange. Pine forests lined the banks and the high and steep slopes of Old Man rose on his left. Across the lake, a spume of clear water roared from the granite mountain and foamed in white, angry waves on the surface.

His bundle of clothes floated by. Wilson grabbed it and tossed the soaked mess to the bank. He began to wade further into the lake when a dark shape broke the surface and rippled away from him.

Wilson waved his arms over his head. “Kira!”

The dark blob changed course and swam up with a relaxed, freestyle stroke. Badger rose out of the water holding her bundle in one hand and wearing only a smile.

“If I live to one hundred I’ll never see a better sight,” said Wilson.

She put her arms around his neck and gave him a long kiss.