by David Webb
“Insurance,” Nicholas said. “Just in case.”
“Stop wasting time and get out of here, Aniya.” William placed a hand on her cheek. “You have to run, and you can’t do that while carrying me, even if you managed to free me.”
After a long pause, Aniya nodded slowly and stood up, tears beginning to form. “I’m going to find you again, I promise.”
But as they turned to leave, the bullet-ridden door between Aniya and her pursuers began to open.
Aniya winced and prepared for the worst, but Nicholas grabbed the handle, pulling the door in the opposite direction. He gritted his teeth. “Guess all that bricklaying paid off after all. Go!”
William looked up and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing? They’ll kill you. Get out of here!”
Aniya stared in horror. “I can’t leave you too, Nicholas.”
“Too late for that. I’ll stay with William and keep him alive. Either that or die with him.” Nicholas grunted and dug his feet into the floor. “Of course, if you don’t get moving now, it won’t matter.”
“No, you can’t.” Aniya held back tears as she tugged on his shoulder. “You have to come with us.”
“He’s made up his mind, Aniya.” William pushed her away. “Stay out of the Hub. Promise me you’ll never go near that place.” He looked at Roland. “Take care of her.”
“What are you waiting for?” Nicholas shouted. “Grab my pack and go!”
Aniya bit her lip and jumped out the open door that Roland held, grabbing Nicholas’s rucksack as she went. She quickly found out why the Silvers had not bothered to run around to the other side of the train car as she tumbled down a very steep hill, landing unceremoniously at the bottom on top of a trash heap, Roland crashing down next to her.
She looked up at several beams of light shining down from the top of the hill.
“You might as well come back up, Ms. Lyons.”
A voice came from the blinding light, and a man stepped in front, a black form silhouetted by white light.
“You’ll save us some time and you some energy. Not to mention I missed dinner for this, and I do hate missing my meals.”
Aniya fumed. She turned, but the way up in the opposite direction was equally steep. The trench continued to her left and right, but it was too long of a stretch to run in the open. She would only be target practice for the dozens of officers on the ridge above.
“I’ll tell you what. If you come up now, I’ll let one of them live. I’ll even let you choose. Your brother, your friend, or your lover. It’s up to you. Of course, if you choose your brother, I still have to torture him anyway, so you could put him out of his misery and pick your boyfriend. And your friend? Well, you and I both know he’s not making the cut either way.”
There was no way out.
“Of course, we could just shoot you from here, but then we’d have to come down and get you, and that’s too much work. Besides, then we wouldn’t be obligated to keep any of you alive, so I wouldn’t make us resort to violence if I were you.”
He was right. Their escape was over.
“Make your decision, girl. I have nothing to lose, while you, on the other hand . . .” The voice chuckled. “The clock is ticking.”
Aniya looked down, resigned. She placed a hand on the rock and dirt in front of her and began to climb.
The man chuckled. “A wise choice.”
But then, an ethereal noise sounded from the top of the ridge, then mutated to a boom that vibrated the ground beneath her feet.
At the same time, the world went dark again as the lights on the officers’ heads shut off suddenly.
“What just happened?” Aniya asked, too stunned to take advantage of the sudden darkness.
An order came from above. “Find her!”
“Don’t know.” Roland grabbed her hand. “Let’s go!”
Aniya felt her hand being tugged, and the shock faded. She turned and ran as fast as she could, blindly running down the trench.
After a moment, Roland stopped and turned to the side of the trench, crawling up the hill in a spot that seemed to rise on less of an incline than the rest of the steep ditch. Aniya followed close behind, ignoring the dirt and rocks that Roland inadvertently pulled down from above.
Finally, they reached the top, but they had no time to rest. Some of the Silvers had jumped into the trench, but it seemed that most of them had followed their progress from above. They were just a stone’s throw away.
Aniya and Roland turned and ran back into the trainyard, vaulting over crates and bowling through empty boxes. The small army chasing them may have been better trained, but their body armor kept them from moving as freely as the two young adults running for their lives.
They reached the train tunnel and stopped. The gate in front of the entrance was locked and wrapped in barbed wire. The chain link gate was several feet tall and spanned all the way to the top of the entrance, leaving no room to climb up and over to the other side.
Their only way out was sealed.
Aniya’s hopes fell. The adrenaline, the excitement, the thought that they could have made it out alive slowly deflated.
Next to her, Roland’s head began to droop, but only for a moment. He grabbed Aniya’s hand and took off running again.
“Where are we going?”
“The caves.”
Aniya pulled her hand away from Roland. “Even if parts of the caves are still open like William said, the only entrance we can get to from here is completely caved in. Gareth watched it happen himself.”
He grabbed her again. “Shut up and run!”
Frustrated and desperate, Aniya picked up her speed again and followed Roland to a dark corner of the trainyard. With a look back, she noticed that despite their moment of rest at the gate, the Silvers had fallen far behind.
Roland halted in front of a dilapidated, boarded-up passageway. He kicked away rotted wood and continued inside, Aniya close behind.
Only a few seconds later, their progress was halted by a large pile of rubble and debris blocking their way.
Aniya sighed. “There you go. We made it about fifteen feet, and sure enough, the tunnels are closed, just like Gareth said.”
“Start digging.” Roland seemed to ignore the dejection in her voice and started tearing away at the pile of stone and dirt in front of him.
“Exactly how far do you think you’re going to get?” Aniya threw her hands in the air. “You know what’s behind that dirt? More dirt.”
Roland did not answer, but kept pulling away at the heap in front of them.
“Roland, stop.”
He refused, and Aniya could hear the Silvers getting closer.
“Roland—”
Aniya froze. From about six feet above Roland’s head, Aniya could see a soft yellow glow. She grabbed Roland’s shoulder and pulled him away from the debris.
“Look up.”
Roland finally listened and followed her instruction. He looked up but said nothing, instead frantically grabbing at the pile once again. This time, however, rather than pulling the loose stones away, he grabbed at the debris firmly in place, pulling his body up the pile.
Aniya followed suit, climbing up the small hill toward the light at the very top.
Roland reached the top first and poked his head through what looked to be two feet of clearance between the top of the dirt mound and the ceiling of the tunnel. He squeezed through to the other side and reached a hand back over for Aniya.
Aniya reached up to grab his hand, but no sooner did his hand close around hers than another hand gripped her right ankle, this one holding on much tighter.
“Pull me up!”
Roland reached down with his other hand and grabbed Aniya’s wrist, now pulling the weight of his friend and the officer that had a tight grip on her ankle.
Aniya swung her free foot around wildly but hit nothing.
Suddenly, the world began to shake violently, and Aniya’s cries for help were drowned out by a thundering noise
that roared in her ears as the ground vibrated against her chest, bouncing her body against dirt and rock.
It was all Aniya could do to hold on tight to Roland’s hand as she shook helplessly. With her free hand, she shielded her face from rocks that shook loose from the cave ceiling, plummeting toward her relentlessly.
Above the din, she heard one of the men below let out a howl of pain as a rock struck an exposed area of flesh.
Aniya let herself hope again as she realized her escape.
Risking a rock to the face, Aniya looked around, desperately searching. Finally, she spotted a large rock near her free hand. She mustered all her strength and pried the rock loose from the pile, throwing it down behind her with a grunt.
The clang of stone on metal rang out, and Aniya’s ankle was suddenly free.
“Now, Roland!” She screamed as loud as she could as the thundering noises grew louder.
Aniya’s body shot upward toward the gap in the ceiling, hurtling through the gap and past Roland. She fell several feet before her head hit the ground, and she lost consciousness.
15
“Get out of here!”
Aniya’s hand radiated warmth as Nicholas held onto it. She looked into his eyes as he begged her to leave him to his death.
But his eyes faded to black, and his face disappeared. All she was left with was the void, though her hand still pulsed gently.
Memories flooded her mind, the escape, the struggle, the fall. But all she could think about was the crushing fact that Nicholas was gone.
Aniya’s eyes fluttered open, her head spinning. Thanks to a torch that flickered on the tunnel wall nearby, she could see Roland crouching over her, his face basked in a yellow glow. A glance down revealed that his sweaty hand clutched hers, knuckles white.
The shaking had stopped, and the tunnels were quiet.
“What happened?”
Roland traced his thumb across her forehead and pulled it back so Aniya could see her blood on his skin.
“You fell. I was worried, but the wound didn’t look very deep, and your breathing seemed normal.” He wiped his thumb on his pants. “Your heart rate is fine, so we can get moving as soon as you’re ready.”
Aniya sat up slowly, staring past Roland’s head at the dozens of lit torches that lit the walls of the tunnel. “How long has it been?”
“A few hours. I tried to wake you up earlier, but you were out. The good news is that no one is following us. The bad news is that it wouldn’t have taken long for them to clear a path with their equipment, so my guess is that they’re regrouping at another entrance. We’ve bought some time, but not a lot.”
“You know,” she said, surveying the tunnel ahead, “for a destroyed tunnel, it seems like it’s in pretty good condition.”
Roland shrugged. “I guess everyone just assumed that it was a lot worse than it actually was. I’m just happy it’s here and we’re still alive. But we might not be if we stick around here much longer.”
Aniya realized that Roland was still holding her hand. She gently spread her fingers, and he quickly let go.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said with averted eyes.
“Thanks, me too.” She looked around. “What happened to my pack?”
“You lost it in the scuffle. We still have Nicholas’s pack, though.”
“I guess it’s better that we have his anyway. He had the radio.” Aniya took the pack that Roland offered her and opened it, ignoring the pit inside her heart. Inside the pack were a few packages of mole jerky, a canteen, the radio, and another small device. This item was a black cube enclosed in a glass case. On the cube was a switch with a label that read “prime” and an adjacent button labeled “fire.”
“What do you suppose this is?” Aniya turned the device over in her hand.
“A trigger to a bomb?”
Aniya smirked. “Nicholas is a smart guy, but I don’t think he would know how to make a bomb, let alone find the materials for it.”
“Gareth would probably know what it is.”
“Maybe, but he was pretty clear that we shouldn’t go back for a while.”
Roland nodded. “Speaking of, we need to get going.”
“We can’t rest for just a few more minutes?”
“I would love to,” Roland said, “but we have no way of knowing how long it will take them to get into the tunnel, whatever route they take.”
Aniya placed the device back in Nicholas’s old pack. “How will we know where to go? It’s not like the Web is easy to navigate, especially in unmarked tunnels.”
“I’m not so sure they’re unmarked.” Roland turned and started walking along the tunnel. “They had to use these caves to hide fighters and move from sector to sector unnoticed. Not to mention these caves didn’t always belong to the rebels. There has to be some kind of map or system.”
“How do you know so much about these tunnels?”
Roland seemed to ignore her question. “Better question is why are the torches lit?”
Aniya chose to let it slide and looked around at the dirt walls. The hanging torches supplied ample light, a welcome change from the pitch black.
“And who do you think lit them?”
Aniya shrugged. “There’s no way anyone could survive in these tunnels very long without food or water.”
After a moment, Roland gave a shrug as well. “In any case, the Hole is on the very edge of the Web, so it should be fairly easy to guess which way we need to go. It doesn’t look like we’ve hit the main tunnels yet, but when we do, we’re probably directly opposite whatever tunnel will take us to the Hub.”
“But if it’s so obvious to us, won’t the Silvers figure it out?”
“My experience with the so-called Glorious Bringers of Light is that their minions don’t really think for themselves. They’ll follow whatever order they’re given, even if it means their death, but they aren’t trained for strategic thinking.”
“What exactly is your experience with the Lightbringers?”
“Shh!” Roland suddenly stopped and pressed himself up against the tunnel wall.
Aniya grabbed the nearest torch and pulled it away from the wall. But it offered resistance, and when Aniya looked closely, she saw a wire attached to the torch and disappearing into the cave wall. She pulled the torch away harshly, snapping the wire, and shoved the lit end of the torch into the dirt, smothering the light. She then joined Roland in what she hoped was a stealthy position.
After what seemed like several minutes had passed, Roland relaxed and stepped away from the wall.
“What did you hear?”
“It sounded like footsteps. It was probably a mole, but it seemed louder. In any case, we’re safe for now. If it were the Silvers, we would have seen their lights. Plus, we’d be dead by now.” He turned to Aniya. “You didn’t hear anything?”
She shook her head. “Blame it on the head injury. Pretty sure there’s some dried blood in my ears.”
“Attractive.” Roland smirked and continued. “If it makes you feel any better, whoever lit those torches is probably not any threat to us. During the Uprising, the Lightbringers tried to avoid the caves at all costs, though I’m sure they’ll make an exception for us.”
“Why wouldn’t they come inside? They have plenty of light.”
Roland stopped and pointed toward Aniya’s belt. “Turn on the radio.”
Aniya grabbed the radio from her belt and turned the dial up. The device immediately screeched and warbled, and she dropped it to the floor, covering her ears and wincing.
The sound subsided as Roland picked the radio up and turned it off. “Their radios are useless in the caves. When the Lightbringers first ordered the excavation of these tunnels, they installed a communications device that boosted radio signal in the caves. During the Uprising, the rebels altered the device and made it emit a bubble of electromagnetic energy. It interferes with radio frequencies and messes with their lights. As long as they stay in the sectors, the wall
s of the sky ceiling cuts off the interference, and they’re fine. But they can’t step foot in the caves without putting themselves in danger.”
“You could have just said that instead of making me find out the painful way.” Aniya snatched the radio back from Roland.
“I would have tried it anyway. I wasn’t sure the technology survived the war. Now we know.”
“Is that what happened earlier in the trainyard? How their lights went out?”
Roland shook his head. “I doubt it. This is more like the tech the rebels used during the Uprising, electromagnetic bombs made for a single burst to completely disable electronics. But those were huge devices. I’m not sure who would have any of those, especially since the components used to make those bombs were destroyed after the war.”
“Nicholas would know,” Aniya said quietly. She had made fun of his technological prowess for as long as she could remember, but she would give anything to have him with her in the caves now, going on and on about the latest developments in microprocessing.
Roland seemed to sense her uneasiness and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Finally, Aniya spoke again, ignoring the pang in her heart. “So these tunnels were actually their idea?”
“These used to be mines,” Roland said, as he turned to walk again. “A lot of the equipment the Silvers use is forged from the metals found in these tunnels. When the rebels took over the caves, they became a symbol of rebellion, and that’s why their destruction signaled the end of the fight against the Lightbringers. I guess it crushed spirits enough that no one ever got close enough to realize that the apparent cave-in didn’t extend past the entrances.”
Aniya shook her head. “Where did you learn all this? In Assembly, all they would ever tell us about is a short rebellion and the Lightbringers’ victory. My parents wouldn’t even explain it. I thought it was strictly forbidden to discuss the Uprising.”
“Gareth told me everything he knew. He was convinced that the next generation would have the same idea at some point, and he said we needed to learn from his mistakes. He still thinks we can win.”
“Was he one of the rebel leaders?”
“He was a field medic, so he rarely fought, but he was there from the beginning. He knew Salvador personally.”
