“Dorian!” Victor yelled, his heart hammering in his throat. “Evie? Can you hear us? We need the light!”
More dirt showered down over them. Victor reached out in the dark for Saskia, wanting the comfort of knowing he wasn’t alone. His hand graced against her arm, and she grabbed it, squeezing it tight.
“I hear you!” Evie shouted back. Victor let out a long sigh of relief. “I’m bringing the light over.”
“Go,” Saskia said in a shaky voice. “I’m fine. Get the light.”
Victor moved toward the sound of Evie’s voice. More dirt and mud and debris rained down on them.
“This tunnel is going to collapse,” Saskia breathed. “We have to get out of here.”
“As soon as we get the artifact,” Victor responded into the darkness.
“The extraction team will never make it in time!”
A thin beam of blue light spilled over the top of the debris pile.
“Oh, thank god,” Saskia said, dropping Victor’s hand. She scurried over the pile, sending dirt and scrap metal sliding down. In the light, the dirt falling out of the ceiling looked like rain.
“Victor!” Evie called out as she helped Saskia over the mound. “Hurry! We’ve got to find a way out of here. Dorian says there’s a closer exit at the end of this tunnel, but we have to hope it’s not blocked.”
“That’s a relief.” Victor heaved himself up onto the debris pile. It trembled beneath his weight. “But we’ve got to grab the artifact. The fighting’s too bad up there. It’s all on us.”
Evie frowned, her face carved into strange shapes by the light. “The artifact? There’s no way. Owen made it clear we weren’t to touch it ourselves. And I know he would want us to put our safety first—”
Victor scrambled up beside her, panting a little. He looked down at the other side of the pile. What little of it he could see was clear. “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “We’re going to have to risk it.”
Evie stared at him with big shining eyes. Dirt crumbled around them.
“Are you serious?” she said.
He nodded.
Together, they scrambled off the top of the pile. Evie swept the map around until she found Dorian and Saskia.
“We have to get the artifact,” Evie said to Dorian. “Without the extraction team.” Victor braced himself for Dorian to protest, but Dorian just closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
“Owen’s going to kill us,” he said.
“We don’t have a choice,” Victor said. “We’re the only ones who can do it.”
“Do you even know where it is?” Saskia said. “Your map wasn’t exactly … exact. I mean, I don’t know if this tunnel is going to—”
Another explosion. Victor felt this one in the marrow of his bones.
“Yes!” Dorian shouted. “Look, we don’t have time to stand around discussing it. I’m in!”
Evie tossed the map to him, and he bolted forward, lifting it high, shining it along the right-hand wall—what was left of it. Something deep inside the earth groaned, a sound like a giant waking.
For a paralyzing moment, there was nothing but darkness and blue light. And then something caught. A flash, like a fire flickering in the distance.
Dorian slid to a stop, swinging the light around. Another flash, brighter this time. It refracted the weak blue light of the map, throwing it in strange, iridescent shards around the tunnel. For the first time, Victor felt like he really saw where he was. He saw the destruction wrought by the explosions. Saw the deep gouges in the clay walls. Saw the constant, showering dirt.
“That’s got to be it,” Dorian said. “Victor, get over here and help me.”
Dorian handed off the light to Evie, and she held it up. The refractions shimmered everywhere, dancing like butterflies. The artifact jutted out of the wall. It looked like a glass cylinder, maybe twenty-five centimeters in diameter.
All this trouble for a tube of glass.
“Let’s hope this thing won’t kill us,” Dorian muttered.
The ground shuddered, sending with it a surge of dirt. Victor wiped it away from his eyes. “I’m willing to risk it.”
“I guess I am too,” Dorian said as the tunnel trembled again.
Victor stared at the artifact, his eyes stinging from the dirt. He took a deep breath, conjured up all his bravery.
Then ran over and grabbed hold of it.
He was prepared for it to burn his skin down to the bone. Instead, the artifact just felt cool and satiny to the touch. He pulled.
Nothing happened.
Dorian grabbed ahold of it too, then muttered, “We’re in this together.” Then: “Pull!”
They pulled.
“We can do this,” Victor said. “Count of three.”
Victor pulled with all his strength, his fingers pressing hard against the artifact’s smooth shell. Beside him, Dorian groaned in exertion and then let out a string of profanity when the artifact remained in place. Victor released his grip and stumbled backward.
From deep inside the tunnel came a low, harsh creaking.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Evie said. “We’ve got to get out of here. If we can’t even pull it out, we’re never going to be able to carry—”
A sound like an explosion tore through the tunnel, and the ceiling shoved downward in an explosion of dust. Victor ducked, hitting the ground hard, his ears ringing. He lifted his gaze, panic squeezing his chest tight. Evie was right. They had to get out of here before the whole tunnel collapsed.
Dorian was the first one up, scooping out the dirt around the artifact with his hands. “Come on!” he said. “I bet it’s just wedged in there.”
“He’s right,” Victor said, getting shakily to his feet. He peered up at the ceiling, pressing dangerously low. “We don’t have any other choice.”
“Digging is going to take too long.” Saskia brushed past him and walked over to Dorian. She put one hand on his arm, and he stopped and looked at her. In the aftermath of the explosion, everything was too quiet.
“What do you suggest, then?” he said bitterly.
Saskia pulled her rifle around on its strap. “If it’s wedged in there,” she said, “we need a lever to help pry it out.”
“You’re going to shoot it out?” Dorian said icily.
Saskia released the rifle’s magazine, dumping her ammo to the ground.
“No,” she said.
“You need a fulcrum,” Evie said, suddenly understanding Saskia’s plan. “Victor, help find a rock. Something to balance the gun on.”
“It needs to be the same height as the artifact.” Saskia was field-stripping her rifle, sliding the barrel away from the stock. Victor whipped his head around, following the path of the light from Evie’s projection. She stopped it on a particular triangular-shaped rock a meter away from the artifact.
“How about that one?” she asked, just as Victor said, “That’ll work.”
They glanced at each other. Evie smiled at him, remembering all those hours spent combing over the rocks on the beach, making miniature mountains for his holo-films.
“Well, let’s move it into place,” Dorian said. The three of them circled around the rock and shoved. Unlike the artifact, it scraped easily across the debris.
The ceiling shrieked, sank a few centimeters lower.
“Hurry!” Evie called out to Saskia, who was balancing a loose piece of the tunnel’s metal reinforcement on top of the rifle stock.
“I’ve got it.” She darted over to the rock just as Dorian and Victor shoved it into place. Dirt fell down around them as the ceiling dropped even lower. Gunfire rang out on the surface.
Saskia jammed the piece of metal under the artifact, her face twisted in concentration. Sweat gleamed in blue drops on her forehead as Evie directed the light toward her work. Then Saskia picked up her rifle and wedged it under the metal, the two pieces balanced like a child’s toy on top of the rock.
“Okay,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Here
goes nothing.”
Another shower of dirt. Another creak of the ceiling.
She pushed down on the makeshift lever, and the artifact jumped in the wet dirt. Evie let out a whoop of celebration, but Saskia was still pressing down on the lever, wiggling it back and forth.
“Here, let me help,” Dorian said, and he added his strength to Saskia’s. Once again the artifact jumped, this time sliding forward from its place in the wall. Clumps of mud showered down around it. Saskia pressed on the lever with her foot, and the artifact tilted downward.
“We’ve got it!” Dorian said.
“Victor, don’t let it fall!” Saskia added, and Victor darted forward just as the artifact finally slid loose on the back of a mudslide. It landed easily in the crook of his arms, not heavy at all. He was also relieved that it didn’t burn through his clothes or otherwise seem to immediately poison him.
“Good thinking.” He glanced up at Saskia, but she was staring at the wall, her eyes wide.
“We’ve got to go now,” she said.
And then Victor saw it. The crack where the artifact had been. And in the blue light, it was deepening.
“Straight ahead!” Dorian shouted. “If it’s blocked, we’re screwed, but we’re not getting out otherwise. Evie!”
But she was already in front, running with the map hoisted over her head. Victor cradled the artifact against his chest as his feet pounded through the mud, his head tilted down to avoid the constant cascade of dirt.
“The shelter tunnels are better reinforced!” Dorian called out. “We get to them and we should be fine. But we’ve got to run!”
Everything was rumbling. Clumps of dirt exploded around Victor. One landed on his head, showering him in dust. He spit it out, kept running.
“I see it!” Evie screamed. “The exit!”
And then Victor saw it too. A door. This one hadn’t been blasted away, although it hung open, revealing a sliver of light on the other side. The emergency lights were still up.
The earth groaned again, then roared. Dirt was piling up around them.
Evie flung the door open, flooding the collapsing tunnel with eerie white light.
Victor dove forward, the artifact pressed to his heart, eyes shut in a wish for safety.
The sound of the earth caving in was like the end of the world. Evie lay on the grating inside the shelter tunnel, listening to that sound echo around her. Mud and debris spilled in through the open door, piling up on her like a grave. But the shelter tunnel’s infrastructure held.
Dorian cursed softly when the collapse ended, when they were drowning in silence again.
Evie pushed herself up to sitting and tried to wipe the dirt out of her eyes—but there was dirt on her hands, and it just made things worse. Her eyes stung and watered. Her mouth was full of mud. She spat a stream of it onto the grating.
“Spartan,” Victor was saying into his communicator. “Spartan, come in.” A pause. He clung to the artifact like a lifeboat. At first glance, it looked like a piece of polished glass. But as Evie stared at it, she saw a glow inside, pale and opalescent.
She shivered, trying not to consider what it might be doing to him.
“Owen!” Victor shouted. “We got it!” But he fell silent again, and his expression changed. Darkened.
Things had gone bad. The explosions. The gunfire.
The collapsing tunnel.
But at least Owen must still be alive, Evie told herself. At least all of them were.
“Understood,” Victor said, then tapped the side of his helmet. He looked up at the others.
“What’s the word, great leader?” Dorian said.
Victor, to his credit, ignored this. “We reconvene at the new campsite,” he said. “Things … didn’t go well up there.”
“Can we get to a safe exit from here?” Saskia asked.
Dorian felt around on the ground, his head lolling. “Where the hell’s the map?”
“I still have it,” Evie said. The lines glowed softly in the emergency lights. Funny how brilliant they had been in the absolute darkness. She handed it to Dorian, who drew it out, the pattern of tunnels crisscrossing.
“Looks like we can get out at Rue Chêne,” he said. “That’s not bad.”
Evie frowned down at the map. Rue Chêne. It was on the edge of the woods, so they’d be trekking quite a while to get to the campsite. She glanced over at Victor again. The artifact glowed faintly against his hands.
“Are you okay holding that?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool to the touch. Want to feel it?” He held the tube out, and it threw off cataracts of rainbow lights.
“Be careful,” Saskia said in a low voice. She looked up at the others. “I think we need to decide how we want to carry this thing. Victor, Dorian—you’re the only two who have had contact with it so far.”
Dorian gave her a dark look. “So what are you saying? We get the honors of being expendable?”
“What? No.” Saskia glared at him. “I’m just saying, if the two of you hold it, that minimizes the exposure to the group.”
“It hasn’t done anything to me so far.” Victor shrugged.
“It could eventually.” Evie frowned, considering her words carefully. She hoped her suggestion wouldn’t turn out to be a terrible one, but she also knew they had to get out of the tunnels fast. They couldn’t stand around arguing about who deserved exposure. “That might be a reason for us to take turns carrying it. Even if it hasn’t done anything now, long-term exposure could cause problems. Like radiation, you know.”
The group fell silent. Evie looked over at Saskia, who was frowning, her brow furrowed.
“Maybe,” she said.
“I’ll take it for now,” Evie said, swallowing a lump of fear. She held out her hands and accepted the strange glowing object from Victor. He was right; it was cool to the touch. Lighter than she expected too.
They set out, moving quickly through the shelter tunnels. Evie cradled the artifact against her chest and felt the rattle of something inside it. Not the light: That stayed put. But there was something else, something small and possibly broken, something that clinked against the glass with each of her steps.
She didn’t want to think about what that something could be.
When they made it to the exit, Evie handed the artifact off to Dorian, since Saskia would be leading them through the woods. He looked down at it, frowning.
“A lot of effort for something so—” He stopped. “You ever been to the art museum in Port Moyne?”
Evie nodded, then laughed a little, despite everything. “Yeah. It’s like those blown glass sculptures they have, isn’t it?”
He tilted the artifact; the thing inside slid back and forth, moving invisibly through the light. “Let’s hope it actually is some ancient alien crap, huh? If ONI wants it so bad, then it’s got to help us out somehow, right? Use the Covenant’s own obsessions against them.”
Evie thought about the explosions, the incessant rattle of gunfire. Things going bad, all so they could get ahold of this tube of glass. “Let’s hope so.”
Saskia and Victor led them up the stairs; Evie followed behind Dorian. All of them had their rifles out.
Saskia kicked open the door. Evie ducked her head against the unexpected flood of sunlight.
“Ugh, I miss the rain,” Dorian muttered. The artifact shimmered in his hands.
“That thing is a freaking beacon,” Evie said.
“No kidding,” Dorian said. He shifted around, grabbing for his bag; spangles of light flashed over the soft blowing grasses. “Good lord,” he muttered.
“Let’s keep moving,” Victor said. “Dorian, try to hide that damn thing.”
“Oh, I’m trying.” Dorian crammed the artifact into his bag, but only about half of it fit. He sighed, wrapped his arm around the exposed half.
They made it to the woods without incident. There was a quietness out there that Evie didn’t like, especially given that it wa
s a late-season sunny patch. Normally insects and animals would be wailing from their invisible spots up in the trees, a sense of the world emerging from its rain-soaked cocoon.
But today: silence. Silence, and the occasional whiff of smoke.
Still, they made it through the woods without incident. No sign of the Covenant anywhere. But as they approached the campsite, Evie felt a queasiness in the pit of her stomach. It was quiet here too.
“You want to be the one to hand it over?” Dorian asked Victor, pulling the artifact out of his bag. “Since you did most of the hard work?”
Victor only shook his head, though, looking grim.
Dorian offered it to Saskia. She wrinkled her nose. He turned to Evie.
“Walk it in for us,” he said. “We did good, and this plan would’ve never gotten off the ground without you.”
He knew something was wrong too. She could hear it in the forced chipperness of his voice, the strained edges of his smile. And that was why she took the artifact from him, balancing it on her two palms, blinking down at the fragmented light. Even with the streaks of mud their fingers had left on the glass, it glowed like starlight.
They stepped into the camp, Victor leading the way. The queasiness in Evie’s stomach turned sour. Her hands were shaking. She peered up at the tattered lean-tos, the precious few tents from the emergency drop.
At the emptiness.
And it was empty. Not entirely, but enough to be upsetting. The few people who were here were sitting in the mud, not speaking. Almost all of them were dotted with rough splotches of MediGel or biofoam, their expressions slack. Dubois was among them, and he lifted one hand in grim greeting.
“Oh my god,” Saskia said.
“Owen told me it had gone bad—” But Victor didn’t finish, just shook his head.
Evie curled her fingers around the artifact. Light bounced across the camp, and soldiers turned toward them, as if noticing them for the first time.
“Is that it?” Dubois called out. “Is that what we were fighting for?”
“Where’s Owen?” Victor said, too loudly.
Evie found it hard to fill her lungs with breath. She cradled the artifact close to her chest, aware of everyone staring at it, their expressions wary and dark.
Meridian Divide Page 11
