by S. D. Perry
“Excellent!” Harper was grinning, Jonah could hear it in his voice. “Mr. Maiava, right? Am I pronouncing that correctly? Come on out; we can have a little talk.”
Jonah took out his pocketknife and slipped it deep into his boot. He left the shotgun and his pack in the tree, sliding down the fibrous trunk on his soles. From the way the soldiers were scanning, they weren’t sure where he was. He took several big, hurried strides closer to the trucks before he stepped out from beneath the dark canopy.
“I’m unarmed,” he shouted, and put his hands up, and started walking, ignoring the pain of the small folded knife behind his heel. If they were planning to sit and wait for her to get back, Lara would know something was up when he didn’t answer the radio.
And if they’re going in after her?
He couldn’t predict what they would do. Miguel was alive—that mattered. As long as there was life, there was hope.
* * *
Lara Croft’s bulky friend had given up without a fight. That was the problem with self-proclaimed good guys, they could be as brave as lions but they always caved as soon as you pointed a gun at someone else. Weak. Reddy patted him down while Ace kept his Ruger aimed at the pilot. As soon as Reddy gave a thumbs-up, Harper climbed out of the truck, gesturing for the rest of his team to join him. There were six of them here, all of his best plus a lantern-jawed sniper from his B team, Smith.
“Smith, Reddy, tie them up. You’re going to babysit. The rest of you, get ready to drop.”
Lucas Reddy frowned, but nodded along with the others. Harper knew that Reddy wanted in on the hunt—everyone was riled up after the shoot-out with the druggies, and the unfortunate loss of Dixon, retired from the team by a wild shot—but Smith wasn’t smart enough to play tactics if Croft somehow got around them. One of the top people had to stay behind, and Reddy was a big guy, like Smith, the better to help haul them back out once Croft was dead.
They broke out the equipment, drop lines and helmets, tapping mics and loading mags. They had night-vision gear but it was first gen; Hux said it was useless without ambient light, so they’d left it on the plane. They had a few infrared scopes for the rifles, but no one wanted to lug in a rifle. Besides, Croft would be wearing a light. The Dozen all carried nines, but each had their own preferred make—Glock, SIG, Ruger. Mitchell carried a CZ 75B. Sergei, their top shot, used a Springfield XD. Hux passed out boxes of rounds.
Smith and Reddy had zip-tied the prisoners’ hands behind their backs. Both men were sitting cross-legged on the rocky dirt a few meters in front of the trucks. Harper walked over and crouched in front of Lara’s special friend. The guy was built like a tank, tattoos all over.
“Jonah, right?” Harper said. “We know she’s in the tunnels. When is she due back?”
The big man shrugged. He looked angry and disgusted but not afraid, at least not for himself.
“I can still kill your pilot,” Harper said, more patiently than he felt.
“Can’t see my watch,” Jonah said. He had a mild voice.
Harper glanced at his. “It’s 2245.”
“Ten, fifteen minutes,” Jonah said.
Harper studied him. Jonah gazed back, his dark eyes giving nothing away, his face impassive.
“Seems pretty fast,” Harper said, probing for a tell. “Not a lot of time to sightsee. She’d have to be running.”
Nothing. Jonah could have been a statue.
“What do you say, Miguel?” Harper asked. “They give you an ETA, for when to have the plane ready?”
The soft-faced pilot shook his head, not looking up. “I told you. They said fuel up and wait, that’s what I know.”
Through the exchange, Harper kept watching Jonah. It bothered him that he couldn’t tell if the man was lying. If Croft was really going to be back that quickly, they should stay close, save themselves from having to chase her through a maze. The Dozen were itching to go in, but as far as he knew, none of them had any kind of actual caving experience. His own was minimal. Croft was a mountain climber and had worked underground digs before. She had famously taken out most of a squad working at a tomb in Mongolia, sneaking up behind them through the dark passageways, choking them out, cutting their throats. Granted, they’d been locally trained, but the environment was the point: she would have an advantage.
“You worrying about your odds, going in after her?” Jonah asked.
Harper felt a flush of rage at the calm curiosity in his voice, at the fact that the other man had read him so easily. He leaned in close. The words spilled out like acid, flowing without thought. “No, I was thinking that when she hears we’ve got you, she’ll surrender without a fight, and whoever gets to her first is going to thoroughly enjoy their work. Mitchell likes to use knives, that’s her thing. My man Hux is a hands-on type; he’ll shoot her down and then choke her, or beat her to death. Sergei’s your best bet; he’s a real professional—probably a double-tap to the back of the skull and he’s out. Ace, though, he’s got a taste for the ladies. And you’re lucky that Reddy’s not going in, he likes a little bit of everything.”
He lowered his voice, grinning in a clench. “Between you and me, I think a lot of my people only took the Oath so that they could punish sinners. Trinity’s been divided about your friend’s meddling, but I’m not. We’ve come here to eliminate a mass murderer and an enemy of God, and we all want to claim the glory. If I happen across her first… well, who knows what I’ll do?”
Jonah’s brow had knotted up, and Harper felt an instant of triumph that he’d finally broken through the man’s unflappable calm—until he realized that the look on his face was pitying, his eyes sad.
“You seem really angry,” he said. Sympathetically.
Harper stood up, the heat of his rage snapping off. Waste of time, talking to a dead man.
Who is literally wasting your time. Trying to keep you from acting.
“Drop in two!” he called, stalking toward the open pit. They would go in. And as soon as Croft was dispatched, he would let Reddy work out his frustrations on Jonah and the pilot. The great thing about the jungle was that there was no need to hide bodies; corpses could be picked clean in a matter of hours, the bones dragged away and crunched into pieces for the marrow.
If Dr. Dominguez is successful, nobody will even be looking.
He told Reddy to monitor the radio and keep in touch, then moved to the stony rim of the natural well, clipping onto his line. Was it his destiny to bring an end to the Croft line on the eve of a new world? Or would one of his team get to her first?
No matter. As long as it was done, he was good. No more men were going to be lost, ever. Lara Croft was going to die painfully and lie rotting in the cold dark. The Blue Labyrinth would be her tomb.
* * *
When she reached the low chamber that had all of the tunnels branching off, Lara carefully studied the labyrinth drawings in Mateus’s notebook, comparing them to the black openings on every side of the rocky room. There were seven passages. Mateus had marked Xs and tapering points for all but two, one a descent to the west, the other opening curving back north. She spent only five minutes checking out the western option—after ten meters, the passage stopped, all but for an abrupt opening in the floor. It looked like a steep drop down to one of the pools at the bottom of the labyrinth, thick with the stench of ammonia and wet rot. Lara saw movement in the water meters below, a wriggling shadow, and heard bats rustling, and the whisper of bugs. It was interesting that the pool chamber north of her had been mostly devoid of life, and this one had a thriving ecosystem yet was farther inside. This section of the labyrinth must open into a passage that accessed the higher tunnels. If the northern passage didn’t check out, she would come back and see if there was any way to climb down for a look.
The northern passage was another crawling climb. She kept at it longer than she should have, but its slight incline was encouraging. It finally curved straight up and into a slick-sided well, ten meters tall and too wide by half a meter
for her to push herself up. She stared up at the well’s opening, scowling. She could hammer her way up but it would take too long.
You might want to consider putting in the time. You’ve just used up another ten minutes, plus whatever it takes to get back.
She closed her eyes, bringing to mind the rough cross-section of the labyrinth that Marin had drawn. No. If she came up here, she’d be in the thick of the maze. It had to be her last resort. She’d go back down to the bottom, keep heading south, the direction of her destination. She still had some distance to cover before she was beneath the rooms, and there was clearly more than one way up.
She crawled back to the central chamber and hurried to the western opening over the pool, leaning down to assess. There were a few hundred bats, hanging and crawling along the ceiling amid the calcite stacks, cheeping, pooping—and a thick column only a meter away, beneath the rough edge of her tunnel. Better to climb down than get wet.
Lara lowered herself down from the rim of the hole, swinging her legs under the rocks, wrapping them around the column. It was a trick, letting go of the lip. She tried to think of it as an opportunity to test her core strength, and muscled herself to the column, hugging the cold, slimy rock.
She clambered down quickly and took in the chamber— rough, newer, many of the more delicate calcite formations broken and washed to the sides. The southern wall sloped to the floor but where they met there was a jagged opening about two meters high and three across. A trio of bats dropped from the ceiling and flitted for the hole, disappearing into the black. There was a soft, consistent echo of high-pitched squeaks and small movements all around her.
Lara followed the bats, doing her best to minimize stomping the delicate food chain into goo, stepping wide. She kept her bow in her hand, ready to duck if the screamers started in, ready to shoot if they showed up and wouldn’t run from a shout or a hand clap.
The opening connected a short, wide tunnel with a chamber twice the size of the others she’d seen, the light from her headlamp not touching the southern end. The ceiling sloped upward from where she stood, perhaps five meters overhead, to at least twenty before it disappeared into darkness. There were bats and pale bugs and a lake of shallow water, pitted with deeper holes, and more signs that a roaring flood had been through sometime in the not too distant past.
Lara started across the chamber, and was just climbing over a large broken pillar when she heard the rasping chirp of a screamer, off to her right, low.
She turned, bringing the bow up—
—and saw a white salamander sitting at the still water’s edge, a big one. White wasn’t quite the word: parts of it were translucent. She could see some of its bones along its back and tail, opaque rings beneath the pale wet skin. The creature was nearly a meter long, although more than a third of its length was a whip-thin tail. Its legs were better developed than the average salamander, still thick but longer. The creature had long, wide jaws and pointed teeth; flared, quivering nostrils and tiny pits instead of eyes. It cocked its head in her direction, swinging its albino face to the side, chirping again, a small trill of sound.
A dozen bats dropped and flew away, heading south.
Amazing. For a troglobite, it was a giant. And salamanders weren’t known to vocalize the way frogs did; they didn’t make a lot of noise. Lara stomped her boot into the squelching floor, making a weak thump. The animal swung its head in the other direction, now chirping with each breath, the sound getting louder.
“Hey!” Lara shouted, and the salamander dropped its jaw and screamed, piercingly, a furious, high-pitched shriek.
Lara ducked as more bats took off, a hurricane of ultrasonic screeching and crap raining down as the frightened animals flew south, the salamander’s wavering echoes chasing them out.
The screamer turned and ran straight up the western wall, flattening its body, wriggling quickly between the muddy rocks. It disappeared into a crevice.
Lara let out a breath. Okay, there’s that. So long as the creatures ran away when confronted with a noisy unknown, all was well. What a noise, though, so much sound from such a small throat. Highly effective for herding bats.
Lara picked her way through the cavern, the southern wall slowly coming into view—and it was beautiful: a long, forty-five-degree slope of rough wall, stretching up and up, a few short vertical pitches but nothing she couldn’t handle or go around. Water trickled down in places, patches of muddy seep. She couldn’t tell where the bats had gotten out but there were passages up high; she could see the openings in the rocks. Fifteen minutes of brisk climbing and she’d be at the lowest.
And you’ve come far enough to be at least near the rooms. High above, but not far ahead.
She slung the bow and grabbed her axe, using the spike at the end to steady herself against the layered, clammy mud as she found holds, pushing and pulling herself up the long slope. Quickly falling into the work, Lara focused on the climb. She was better than halfway to the first opening and carefully skirting a chest-high chunk of stone when she heard several chirping salamander cries. To her right and below, but on the slope with her.
Lara looked down. Three of them had assembled about ten meters away, pale, wet skin splotched with mud, their strange heads cocked and listening. One of them crawled closer, chirping.
“Hey!” Lara called, and the creatures flinched, and then all three were screaming in response. One turned and fled, moving nimbly over the rocks, still shrieking. Another stayed put. The one nearest took a step closer.
“Back off!” she shouted loudly, drowning out the din, and both of the salamanders turned and darted away—
—but there was more chirping now, rattling, rasping, breathy. Lara looked up the slope and saw two more of them had appeared, perched on the rocks ahead of her, small, sharp teeth glinting in the light. The head of a third bobbed up from a pool of shadow.
The runners had turned around, and started chirping again. Their tails flicked, the tips high. It seemed they were figuring out that her commotion wasn’t followed by any action.
Lara flipped the pick and hammered at a rock in the slope, the adze striking the chunk of limestone with bright metallic sounds. She shouted at the same time, and the added vibrations did the trick. The salamanders scuttled away.
She started climbing again, watching out for company this time. She didn’t like the creatures’ behavior. They had to be the top predator of this closed ecosystem. There were enough bats down here to support a sizable population, and they were showing clear evidence of a pack mentality. It wasn’t a good thing that they were only wary of the large animal that had dropped in to their habitat; they weren’t hiding, they were checking her out. She expected they would keep pushing to find out what she was—a threat or something they could eat. If enough of them attacked at once, she’d likely be bitten before she could drive them away.
Two meters up was a ledge, wide enough to stand on. She quickly pulled herself to the platform and climbed up, adjusting her balance; she was standing up straight on the long, tilted plane of shattered, rocky earth. She nocked an arrow and took a minute to catch her breath, gazing around at the cavern. It was surreal, like something from a Lovecraft tale—a massive underground chamber deep in the dark zone, fantastic mineral formations rising from an icy, eldritch lake. Moonless shores, indeed. She waited.
The blind creatures didn’t take long to approach again. They crept in from the shadows beyond her light, making their odd cries. Locating her. Each would stop and chirp and listen before suddenly darting ahead, scuttling like lizards, halting abruptly to repeat the process.
Lara raised the bow, sighted the nearest and hooked back the string, leveling her sight line. She stomped her foot, shouted wordlessly, “Yahh!” and released the arrow, her scream echoing loud through the high chamber. The salamander’s rounded head grew a shaft. It made a choking sound and collapsed.
Lara grabbed a second arrow, still shouting and stomping, found the next target atop a hump of rock, d
rew and released. The creature flipped out of sight behind the rock, screeching as it went over, its dying cry quickly coughing to a stop.
Lara nocked a third arrow, but they were all turning and scuttling away, convinced. It would be nice if they could pass the information along, but depending on their habits, she might have to repeat the performance. If they were as smart as they seemed, they’d quickly learn to avoid her.
You won’t be here long enough to train them. Move.
She didn’t backtrack to retrieve her arrows, instead throwing herself into the next jagged rise. It was abhorrent behavior, she knew, leaving anything behind in a cave, but going back down to get the arrows meant five more minutes, expending energy that was by no means limitless.
So when Trinity breaks the rules, it’s repugnant. You get a free pass on everything, because you’re trying to save the world, right? It doesn’t matter what gets destroyed or who dies, it doesn’t matter if you ditch every value you hold as a historian or as a scientist or as a human being. It’s an emergency, so nothing applies. That’s why it’s okay that you took that dagger: it was an emergency.
Lara sneered and grunted, pushing herself up another meter. “Not gonna fall for that one,” she whispered. Yes, it was an emergency. Shaming herself for taking license was a useless path. Dominguez’s motivations weren’t clear, but she knew enough about Trinity not to trust anything they were into. She needed to find the box before they did.
She scaled the last few meters to the base of the first opening, a long, low wedge of dark in the slope, stopping short to listen. There was a slight rustle, a few bats perhaps. She tossed the axe inside, grabbed the rim and pulled herself up with a grunt—
—and there was a trio of salamanders gathered near the axe, heads cocked. At the sound of her vocalization, they ran at her, shrieking.
Lara threw herself forward, into the oncoming things, shouting, landing on her hands and knees. They split to run around her, one snapping its teeth into the meat of her calf. It couldn’t close its jaws and immediately let go, but it had punctured skin. The biter followed the others over the edge of the platform and down, scuttling away, their tails winding through the rocks.
