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Run Page 28

by Michaelbrent Collings

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.

  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 nee
d 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.

  DOM#67A

  LOSTON, COLORADO

  AD 1999

  10:46 AM TUESDAY

  ***ALERT MODE***

  The cable pulled Malachi to the next level. He almost jumped off automatically, then realized that a free-hanging cable would provide no leverage with which to push off, and he would not jump but fall, a swift flight to the bottom of the shaft, to the center of the earth where he would be dashed to pieces, never to return. Unlike most of Loston’s inhabitants, he could not come back to life if he was killed. The divinity that protected him from direct attack was also his weakness: he could die, so falling was not an acceptable option.

  He swung the heavy cable back and forth like a child’s swing, using his body to push jerkily back and forth. The cable
whipped back and forth, and the entrance to the mine level he had just passed slowly sank before him. Malachi doubted if he would make it to the next level - one of the Controllers might shoot him long before he got there, sending him plummeting to his death in the deep bowels of the earth - so he let go.

  He almost didn’t make it, throwing his gun as he fell so it landed in the tunnel, and then grabbing onto the lip of the mineshaft floor with both hands. His shoulders felt as though scalding acid had been poured over them as the full weight of his wiry body pounded downward, wrested from gravity’s grip by his own muscle and will.

  He pulled himself up, gasping as he lay in the mouth of the tunnel, one arm hanging over the edge into nothingness.

  What now? he asked himself.

  What now?

  ***

  One level below, the four Controllers watched the wire reel past. Then one of them - Elijah, the senior Recovery officer - signaled for the group to move forward. All of them jumped almost as one, grabbing onto the wire and hanging on one-handed, rifles aimed steadily upward.

  Elijah saw Malachi’s arm and fired. The other three followed suit and fired as well, the sonic blasts dislodging bits of dirt from the sides of the shaft. The silt fell on them like black rain, and the arm disappeared.

  Elijah hoped they had managed to hit Malachi, but doubted it. The bastard was slippery. Besides, Elijah could remember when Malachi had been a Controller and the head of the Recovery Operatives. He hadn’t trained Elijah, but Elijah knew from Reco-Ops myth that Malachi was the best.

  No, not just the best. The best ever. Someone capable of wiping them out. And they didn’t know how many of them would be allowed to kill him, even if they were so lucky to get in a position where such became possible. Because his genetic makeup was something so rare that most of the Controllers would not be able to harm him, even if it meant dying themselves instead.

  Stopping him would be hard.

  Maybe impossible.

  ***

  Jenna stumbled as the lift jerked around her. The cage rattled and the cable below it tautened suddenly, as though something below was suddenly pulling on it. The motor whined above, sending eerie echoes down the shaft that sounded like the shriek of a baby being sliced with razors. Jenna had heard a baby dying that way once. Malachi had done it, had killed a child and brought back a video reproduction of it, played on the primitive media of that time and place. A videocassette, showing him killing the infant, draining it of blood, and kissing the dead child on the mouth after it was all done, after the cries had ended and all was celestial silence. She shuddered.

 

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