by S A Shaffer
“Welcome to the lava tubes, David.” she said.
He looked back at the floor, and realized he stood on molten lava frozen solid with the passage of time and the cooling of temperatures. He looked back at the wall.
“Did lava do all of this?” He asked.
“It’s really not my area,” Mercy said, “But I imagine that if molten lava formed this tube when it was forced between the rock strata by the eruption of the volcano, it had enough heat to melt the metal ore right out of the rock.”
“Gilding the surface.” David said with a nod. “It’s beautiful in a… terrifying sort of way.”
“Which way do we go?” Mercy asked, looking up and down the tunnel. “We can’t get out the way we came, at least not until the morning sanctuary meeting.”
“Bethany and Francisco will be wondering where we are right about now.” David said. “What direction would you reckon that is?” He pointed his torch down the tube to the right of the stairway they’d descended.
Mercy looked up. “Um,” She put her hands out and turned several times, apparently working her way backward till the last time she’d seen the sun. “I can’t be sure, but either west or south.
David nodded. “That’s what I thought as well.” He said. “Toward the police station. I say we go that way. If Inspector Winston is down here, we might find him that way. In any event, we can always come back here in a few hours and wait for the entrance to open again.”
Mercy agreed, and they struck out along the tube in the direction they guessed led toward the police station, though after the tunnel curved and turned, and after so long in the darkness, they couldn’t be sure which way they traveled. Mercy clung to David’s arm with a vise like grip. Several times her heals caught along the uneven floor and she used his support to keep from falling. Twice David bumped his head on the tunnel ceiling when he failed to notice the height of the tunnel drop away. He found it difficult to look both up and down at the same time when there was only light enough to illuminate the ground. After thirty minutes of careful walking, they heard the trickle of water from up ahead. A few minutes later, they came upon a stream flowing down one wall and burbling across their path before disappearing beneath a crack in the rippling basalt floor. The flowing water drew wildlife. Fat mole crickets with oversized eyes and clear carapace bodies that revealed internal organs hopped along the narrow stream and nibbled on mold, moss, and lichen.
Mercy stepped around the crickets, apparently trying not to squish them. David looked up as he stepped over the stream—something he learned to do after the second time he bumped his head—and saw grass blowing in the breeze along the roof of the tunnel. It struck David as strange to see grass growing on the ceiling and swaying in a breeze he couldn’t feel. He pointed the torch up and realized he was mistaken. It was not grass.
Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of harvestmen clung to the ceiling like a thick carpet, their long spindly legs looking like shoots of grass.
“Oh,” He said. “That’s why it was moving.”
Mercy looked up and squeaked. She dug her fingernails into his arm. The harvestmen and mole crickets disappeared as they walked further and further away from the stream, though that did not stop Mercy from looking up every few seconds. After another fifty strides or so, the tunnel forked. David pointed his torch down each fork, but both extended further than the light illuminated. After some little consideration, David chose the left tunnel, as the right had a fine layer of mold along the path that appeared untouched by footprints. If anyone had been down that tunnel within the past few weeks, there would have been evidence. David’s confidence grew as they continued down the left path when he saw a clear footpath along the center of basalt. Fallen rocks lay to one side or the other and David even found the butt of a cigar. At one point Mercy thought she might have heard something, but after a few minutes of listening and hearing nothing, they continued. Ten strides later, a blinding light flooded the tunnel. David shielded his eyes from the display. He heard boots scuffing rock in front and behind him.
“Who are you?” a voice called from the direction of the blinding light. It sounded calm and collected.
“At the moment,” David said, “We’re lost. Who are you?”
The voice chuckled. “You’re here because you’re lost. We’re here because we don’t want to be found. What an interesting paradox.”
“What’re your names?” Another voice said, this one rough and suspicious.
“David Ike, at your service.” David said. He wanted to reach into his coat to unholster the gas pistol Francisco taught him to conceal, but as one hand shielded the light from his eyes and the other held a flashlight, he doubted he could retrieve his revolver without arousing suspicion. In any event, he knew he couldn’t aim with the light in his eyes.
“Of course you are.” The suspicious man said. “And who’s she supposed to be, the Mrs.?”
“Take them.” the calm voice said.
David felt rough hands grab his shoulders and tie his arms behind his back. They took his father’s pistol, but not without a few remarks about its quality. The man that searched Mercy for weapons visibly blushed as he rifled through her folds of skirt. Then, their captures guided them down the tunnel, past a row of lights that had previously blinded David and Mercy. Once past, David perceived about a dozen men, all of them armed. The group huddled around him and escorted him and Mercy a few hundred strides further along the tunnel. As they walked, David watched a faint light grow from a dull glow to as bright as day. The men shoved him through a crevice in the rock into a massive cave a dozen fathoms across and as many high. At least a hundred men filled the cave floor and a hundred more peered down from chambers and overhangs along the cave walls. Their captors frog-marched them to the middle of the cave where three men stood around a flat stone that acted as a table, clearly the leaders. The three men turned and faced David. All three appeared somewhere in their forties and each bore the bearing of an armada man.
“What’s this about then, Charlie.” The leader in the middle said. “Find this couple making love in the caves?”
The men laughed.
“Not exactly,” Charlie said. His voice matched the confident man who’d first called out to them in the tunnel. In the light, David saw the fellow for what he really was: a dirty man of 25 with several weeks of unshaved face and a crop of greasy brown hair. Every man in the room looked the same, though each of different ages and bearings. Only the three leaders bore trim faces and combed hair.
“We caught them exploring the sanctuary passage.” Charlie said. “The lad says his name is David Ike.”
The leader on the right laughed. “Don’t they all?” He said as he stepped closer to David and examined his face.
“And how about the lady?” The center leader said. “What’s she got to say for herself?”
“I’m called Mercy.” She said.
“A pretty name for a pretty girl.” The center man said. “We’ve never had a pretty girl in the caves before. Should we invite her to stay lads?” He asked with his hands outstretched.
The men roared with a mixture of whistles and jeers.
“She can room with me.” A man called from above. “I don’t mind.”
Mercy stood tall under the barrage of catcalls and hazing, but David had seen enough. He twisted his ebony wrist and snapped his bindings like a piece of straw. In the next moment, he reached out and grabbed the closest leader by the throat and lifted him several inches off the ground. The man grabbed David’s wrist and gasped for air, but David maintain his grip. All the men around him drew weapons and lunged for him.
“Move and he dies!” He said. Then he pulled down his sleeve and revealed his mechanical arm. Several of the closer men gasped as they threw up signals for the crowd to halt.
“That’s an ebony arm.” The leader in the center said.
“It is.” David said.
One of the men nearest him shuffled back a few steps.
“Now, let the girl go,” David said in a slow firm voice, “and I’ll let your leader live.”
“David! Stop!” A man said from the outskirts of the cave. He had just entered through another passage with a score of men. The sound of his voice gave David pause.
“David, put the man down. He’s not your enemy!” The man said again, as he fought through the crowd. He pushed to the front and David gasped.
“Inspector Winston?!” David asked. The man looked haggard, but his face and eyes were still the same.
“Yes, David.” Winston said. “Now trust me. Put that captain down. He’s not your enemy.”
David hesitated a moment, but then set the leader’s feet on the ground and released his throat. The leader shuffled back a few steps, choking and rubbing his sore skin. Some of the men surrounding David drew weapons again and moved to take him, but the center leader held up a hand.
“Wait.” He said, holding up his hand. “Winston, you know this man?”
“He’s the one I told you about.” Winston said. “He’s the one who can take down Blythe.”
The room echoed with murmurs as the men talked amongst themselves.
“You got my message then?” Winston said. “The one in the paper?”
“Yes, well, Mercy found it, actually.” David said. “You remember Mercy, Don’t you?”
“Mercy? Aren’t you dead?” Inspector Winston asked.
“I faked my death to escape Blythe.” Mercy said.
“Wish I’d thought of that.” A man said from the crowd around them.
“That will do lads,” the leader in the center said. “Go about your business while we talk with Mr. Ike and Ms. Mercy.”
The men dispersed into packs of ten or twenty around the cave’s circumference, but anyone that watched could tell they were still listening.
“Charley,” The leader David had held hostage said as he continued to massage his throat. “Go back to your post, and later on you and I are going to have a chat about properly securing prisoners, one you’re not going to enjoy.”
Charlie nodded and took his men back out of the cave.
“I put that note in the newspaper through one of my contacts with the Voxel.” Winston said. “I thought you might find it, because I remembered how you found Ms. Samille’s death notice.”
David nodded. “We found it, but we had a hard time parsing it out.” He said. “Most of our team is still up searching the old city, and by now they’ve probably noticed our absence.”
“Sorry for the puzzle pieces,” Winston said. “Most of us down here are wanted men. We can’t afford to advertise in an obvious way.”
“I suspected there might be a dozen or so of you down here, but who are all these people”
Winston pointed to the three leaders around the table. “These are the ring leaders of our merry band. This is Admiral York.” The man in the middle nodded in acknowledgement. “This is Captain Pellión.” Winston pointed to the man on the left who thus far had said nothing. “And the man you tried to strangle, that’s Captain Hobs.”
Hobs gave David a tight smile.
“I know your names.” David said. “Each of you. You’re all well known for your strategic brilliance and military prowess.”
The men looked away with bitter expressions.
“Quite,” Winston said. “That’s what they used to be,” Winston continued, “but when Blythe took power, he cooked up false charges of sedition, murder, or embezzlement to send them to prison.”
“Why?” David asked.
“To shut us up.” York said. “We were the last of the armada officers warning of an impending attack from Berg and Viörn. Our superiors wouldn’t listen to us, and when Blythe replaced walker, we lost our last ally.”
“And you came here?” David asked. “Why?”
“It was the inspectors who came here.” York said. “We didn’t know about this place till we each received secret messages or visits from one of the inspectors.”
David turned to Winston. “So you knew about the lava tubes all along, even back when you led me through the police station?”
Winston nodded. “A few of us did.” He said. “All of us close friends of similar mindsets.”
“But what drove you down here?” David asked.
“The purge.” Winston said. “After I heard Blythe took power, and after you discovered it was he who committed all the murders, I knew my days at the station were numbered. That night, the night after the census, I collected some supplies and disappeared into the tubes. It was well I did, for less than a week later, some guardsman came to the station and started asking around for me. I even spotted some spying on my flat. I knew I made the right choice when Blythe removed the Capital City police commissioner based on the most ridiculous accusation. There’re a dozen inspectors here who fled into the tubes not long after receiving threats or refusing bribes, or perhaps they had the simple misfortune of knowing me. You see, I knew Blythe’s dirty secrets because I worked his case. He’s gone to great lengths to bury me, and anyone I might have talked too. Some of my friends are dead.” Winston said as he bared his teeth. “Money is passing under police station tables like you would not believe. Blythe’s already replaced a good portion of the officers and chiefs, the rest he’s bought outright through his new commissioner. So we hid. I’m not proud of it, but we had little choice. We invited others to join us who we knew were under similar persecution.” Winston gestured to the armada men.
“What about everybody else?” David asked. “There must be several hundred men in here.”
“Just over a thousand, actually.” York said. “They are all sorts. Many of them are men who served under us in the armada. Many are veteran soldiers cast aside for serving disgraced commanders imprisoned on false charges. A few are doctors and pharmacists who spoke out against Blythe’s miracle drugs. All have the same enemy and the same oppressor. We call ourselves The Forgotten. We were Alönia’s finest, yet we were cast aside. Each of us was top of our respective professions, but all our hard work and profits were assigned to others when we dared to contradict the speaker. We built Alönia, but Alönia forgot our labors.”
A murmur rose throughout the cave as men agreed with York.
“I wondered what had happened to you that night, the night of census when you ran out of the station to try and stop it. For seasons I presumed you were dead too, but then I saw your name in the paper.” Winston said. “I saw that Blythe accused you of the murders he committed, but I had no way of finding you after you left Thornton. That’s why I placed the advertisement in the paper.”
David nodded as everything fell into place, and he understood the situation. “We were discovered during Thornton retreat.” He said. “We barely escaped with our lives.”
“I gathered as much, but I knew that you were the only one who could remove Blythe from office.” Winston said. “That’s why I risked the advertisement to find you.”
“Me?” David said. “But that’s why I was trying to find you! I’ve had the entire Underground looking for you for whole seasons.”
“Who’s the Underground?” York asked.
“Well, we’re rather like yourselves.” Mercy said. “Except better funded and with infinitely better living conditions.” She glanced around the cave and wrinkled her nose.
“More than a decade ago, the founder of the underground foresaw the approaching storm and the failure of Alönian politics.” David said. “He started a secret organization to counteract the inevitable.” David proceeded to sum up the basics of the underground without betraying any sensitive information. “I told them you were the linchpin to accusing Blythe.” He added to Winston once he’d finished explaining.
Winston laughed. “And how would I do that? I can’t even show my face above ground without somebody trying to shoot it off. You’re the genius.”
David messaged his head between a thumb and forefinger. All the day’s excitement and success leached away with the Inspector’s words.
“Well, I had a plan.” David said. “But it dried up in Thornton when they discovered me.”
He sighed. He didn’t know exactly what he expected Inspector Winston to do once they found him; He just thought a Capital City inspector would know how to charge a man with murder. At the very least he hoped Winston would share with him the burden of unseating Blythe, but it seemed that the inspector, like everyone else, hailed him as a miracle worker. He felt like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat.
It made David wonder if this was what his grandfather felt like the day of the Protectorate War? Was this the burden of command everyone spoke of? Why did it keep falling to him? Blythe had played his hand well. The only people who knew of his villainy and cared to do anything about it were either powerless or pushing up daisies, and everyone had turned to a lad barely 20 cycles old simply because he shared blood with the houselands greatest hero. But, after all, he was an Ike, and he had one idea left, one rabbit still in his hat.
“We do have one other option, a long shot. Could you get us into the Police station?” He asked Inspector Winston.
Inspector Winston paused to consider it. “I could get a few in. They patrol during the night and day now, but it’s possible. Why do you ask?”
“If we could get into the station,” David said in a contemplative tone, “we might be able to find Ms. Paula’s evidence. That is, if Blythe hasn’t already destroyed it all.”
“Evidence?” Winston said.
“Yes, our last hope is to make a formal charge through the assembly.” David said. “They’re the only ones who have the power to convict Blythe, though, it would take some cajoling to turn the Equalist assembly against their savior, especially with such and outrageous assertion. And, in the event that Blythe is removed, the Speakership would fall to his first aid until his district’s next election. That means time is short.”
