by JK Ellem
She reached the spot and kicked upwards bringing her shoulder up hard against the sheet of ice above. But it was too thick. It moved upwards slightly but remained firm.
Panic set in.
She tried again. She swiveled around and brought her feet up almost vertically and kicked as hard and she could with both heels. But her joints and limbs were numb and sluggish. Darkness edged the corner of her eyes, her heart thumping in her chest, fresh sweet air just inches from her face as daylight shone down from above.
It was no use.
She could feel her body begin to shut down, her determination starting to drain away. She was going to die alone, in the cold darkness of the river and no one would know or ever find her body.
Then it hit her.
She reached behind her and drew her katana. The blade shimmered in the water, the dappled light above dancing off the bright blade. She held the sword in both hands and brought the blade up fast, vertical, straight up like an ice pick.
The tip of the blade jarred into the ice, a few fragments tumbled down.
Nothing.
The feeling in her hands and arms were almost gone, she relied on sight to guide the sword. She hacked up and down in a dying frenzy, anger in her slowing heart.
Then pieces of ice broke apart and the katana broke through, puncturing a hole in the ice. She twisted the blade in her hands, widening the hole, cutting away the edges of ice. The hole was getting bigger. Spurred on she rimmed the hole with the blade, cutting away more ice until at last she kicked up and pushed her head through to the surface.
Magnolia’s head broke the surface in a splutter and she gasped, drawing precious air into her lungs.
Three, four, five gasps then she dropped her head below the surface and attacked the edge of the hole with replenished energy. Soon it was wide enough to fit her head and shoulders through.
For a full minute she tread water, face tilted skywards up through the small hole, drinking the sweet air in to her lungs. She threw one arm up and out of the hole and gripped the coarse ice so she wouldn’t sink. The river bank was only a few feet away.
She brought her sword up and out of the water and placed it on the ice near the edge of the hole. Slowly she pulled herself up with both arms until both shoulders were above the lip of the hole. She clawed at the ice with both hands, and slowly dragged herself out then rolled over onto her back on top of the ice.
Minutes passed while she just lay there, breathing, recovering, looking up at the sky.
She finally rolled onto her side, grabbed her sword and crawled across the ice towards the firm ground beyond.
Nine left.
6
THE GREEN LINE
The river had taken Magnolia further than she thought. The current had pushed her under the ice around a wide bend and just past a small footbridge. She emerged from the ice and crawled on her hands and knees up the cold mud of the riverbank and through a wall of river grass that offered some cover.
Her hands were numb and she shivered uncontrollably. A road curved in front of her that followed the bend of the river. There was a cluster of buildings on the other side of the road directly in front of her.
She rubbed her hands together, trying to limber up her joints and kick-start her blood flow again. She needed to move, run, to get her blood pumping after the fall into the icy river.
The fall? The frigid water had numbed her memory but it started coming back to her in small fragments. Someone had shot at her with something, something that had blown her off the bridge together with a chunk of the concrete ledge.
Something was wrong.
There weren’t supposed to be projectile weapons allowed in the Dominion, only bladed weapons. The rules were very specific. But someone had brought a weapon, a gun of some type into the Dominion, and had used it against her. There was no other explanation. Some bastard wasn’t playing fair. It changed everything. She could be killed from afar by someone she would never see until it was too late.
The road was clear but she hesitated. She needed to be more cautious, hide in the shadows, ignore the roads, but she was running out of time. How could she make up time by being more cautious? Caution meant slow, slow meant not winning, and that meant death. She needed to move fast but not get shot at again.
She looked at her wrist-computer, the gap between her and the pulsating red blip was wider now. The fall into the river had cost her valuable time and she estimated she was half a mile further from the location of the Orb than she was when she was standing on the bridge.
“Damn it!” She was disappointed at her carelessness. She was too confident, thinking she just needed to cross the arch bridge to the other side. Then it would be a short jog to the stadium.
The stadium. It had to be there. That’s what her computer was telling her.
Think Magnolia think! She berated herself again. There had to be another way.
She needed to problem solve it, work through the situation. What had her boot-camp instructor said? Things will go wrong. Your best plans will turn to shit. Deal with it or die. She liked Artes. He was young but tough as nails. His sole job was to meld a pile of murderous misfits into a combat-ready group of competitors.
Hidden amongst grass, Magnolia laid out the facts in her mind.
A sprawling university campus.
With a labyrinth of buildings, courtyards, roads and paths.
In a winter climate.
Snow and ice.
Where thousands of students must have attended long ago.
How did they move about if the place got snowed in?
Think!
Indoors? Stay indoors? But how do you move around? Between the buildings, when it was below zero outside?
Then it hit her and she smiled.
Tunnels.
There must be tunnels, utility tunnels used by staff or students or both. Underground passages between the buildings.
Maybe. Maybe not. It was worth a try. If there was a short-cut to other parts of the campus it could mean the difference between winning and dying.
But how was she going to find the tunnels if they existed at all? There would be entrances, within the buildings, deep down, in basements. But they could be anywhere and she didn’t have time to search every building.
Problem solve it. There is always a way.
Tunnels need venting, a way to expel air and heat. There had to be ventilation ducts or stacks, above the ground. Find a ventilation stack closest to a building and the chances are that building has a tunnel entrance.
Across the road a squat large building sat, it looked substantial, like it was important, like once it housed a lot of people. Surely, if tunnels exist then a building of that size would have one connecting it to the rest of the campus buildings.
Magnolia moved, fast, across the road, sprinting like her life depended on it, towards the building. She reached the side of the building and took cover behind the side wall. The sprint had done her good, she instantly felt warmer, getting her core temperature back up again, the frozen drowsiness melting away.
She moved slowly around the wall. There was an entrance, a low set of stairs and a ramp that led to a dark opening. The front doors had been ripped away. All the front windows were smashed. A steel shape sat on the ground to one side, near the path, upright, slits in the sides, dark green to blend in against the foliage.
A ventilation stack.
Crouching low she moved from behind the wall and up the stairs and into the building.
The floor was covered in glass and her feet crunched as she stepped into the gloomy atrium. There was no lights, no power. Just a corridor that faded away in front of her, on the right a lower area led to an open common room scattered with broken furniture, and rotting carpet.
She saw a stairwell to her left, concrete steps that led down into the darkness below. She found a small reception office near the entrance but the place had been ransacked. Dull light from the front broken windows of the building offere
d little, but she could see old computer screens and desks smashed and piled in the center of the room. Anti-Octagon graffiti was scrawled across the walls. She spent a few precious minutes in the semi-darkness tossing drawers, searching for a flashlight or something that could offer light.
Nothing.
She was going to have to descend the stairwell to find the tunnel entrance in the dark, not an option she was looking forward to.
Magnolia moved out of the side office and went down the first level of the stairwell, the light fading with each step she took. The next level below was almost in total darkness and she paused on the second level landing and listened.
It was quiet as a tomb. On the wall was a laminated sign, a map. It was color coded. Green, purple, yellow, red, brown, orange and blue lines ran across the map between the outlines of buildings. Each building was named. There was a red star with the words You are here showing the building she was in: Baker.
The green line started at Baker. She traced the line with her finger. She needed to get to the road that came off the arch bridge nearest the stadium. The closest building to that road had a blue line running to it. She had to follow the green line until it bisected the red line, then turn left and follow it until she reached the blue line. The tunnel then dog-legged on the map and stopped at a building called Cotting. If her calculations were correct she could travel the entire distance through the tunnel system and emerge near the road next to the stadium.
But she would be in total darkness. She needed to find a light, flashlight, anything otherwise she could get lost, disorientated in the pitch black and she may never get out of the tunnel system at all.
Magnolia stood memorizing the tunnel system map, and weighing up her options. Someone above ground had a gun. They had tried once to kill her. They would try again. She had no idea who they were or where they were. They could be a sniper, picking off competitors at will. Maybe her drone had given away her location. Maybe her drone was tracking her, relaying her shifting location back to the sniper in real-time so they could hunt her, stalk her, kill her.
In the tunnels she could reach the other side of the campus without being discovered, and her drone would not come into the building and follow her. She could move with complete stealth.
But, there was the darkness to contend with.
God knows what was down in the tunnels. Could be other competitors. Maybe they had found an entrance from another building, and were doing exactly what she was going to do. Maybe they had light and were better equipped.
The red blip pulsed on her wrist-computer. Time was ticking. She needed to make a decision.
She drew her katana and slowly descended into the darkness.
Nine left.
7
SPOILT CHILD
The green line was just visible on the floor at the bottom of the stairwell, thick gloss paint, three-inches wide. She looked back up the stairwell, layers of handrails zig-zagged upwards like an optical illusion, a square light seeping down.
The green line disappeared into the darkness down a narrow corridor. Piles of rubbish, leaves, twisted wires and material were scattered across the floor.
From the tunnel map, she just had to follow a straight line. The green line didn’t bend, curve or deviate. But in reality it might, any slight deviation in total darkness could mean she could end up anywhere.
Magnolia had only gone a few feet along the corridor when she heard the sound, from behind her. From somewhere at the top of the stairwell. Someone was coming down the stairs. She looked back and could see a flashlight, being shone down from above. The cone of yellow light rippled over the handrails and lower steps. Someone was looking down the stairwell.
Magnolia pushed back into darkness. She could see nothing ahead. The sound was getting closer, the light becoming stronger as the person descended the stairs. They had found a flashlight and intended to use the tunnel system as well. Maybe Magnolia could hide in the darkness, find a room and let them pass by, then fall in behind them and follow them at a discrete distance and let them light the way for her. Or just let them pass by, kill them and take their flashlight.
Feeling her way along the wall, Magnolia slid further along the corridor, the darkness complete now. Suddenly her fingers found the edge of a door jam. She ran her fingers along the door to where she thought the knob would be. She found the knob and twisted it but it held fast. The door was locked. She thought about trying to kick it open but the sound of splitting timber and a door ripping off its hinges would be deafening.
She continued past the door, feeling her way again with her fingers, going deeper into the tunnel. The air smelt foul, like backed-up sewerage. The tunnels probably feed all the waste between the buildings above.
Then another sound, from the stairwell. She turned and saw the rectangle of light at the bottom of the stairwell. The flashlight was sweeping back and forth. Any moment it would turn and illuminate the walls of the corridor where she was, revealing her as she stumbled along, a sitting duck. If it was the same person who had the gun she would be dead, they couldn’t miss in the confined space.
Magnolia sped up, then tripped over something hard but recovered. Somewhere water dripped, the sound magnified in the narrow space. Tiny clawed feet scampered past her, and she was envious for a moment of not being able to see in the dark like the rats around her. This was their domain not hers, the dark.
Then her fingers found an opening, a break in the flat surface of the wall, no door, just emptiness. She twisted inwards into the void, her katana piercing the darkness in front of her and her other hand groping like a blind person.
It was pitch black but it felt like a room. She could feel the darkness press in all around her. She shuffled forward. One step. Two steps. Three steps, then the tip of her katana clanged then skidded off something.
She reached forward and her hand touched long cylindrical shapes stacked vertically, cold and smooth. Pipes. She turned her head but couldn’t locate where the doorway was she had just stepped through. She stood perfectly still and slowed her breathing, the darkness total. She pivoted her body what felt like 180 degrees and waited, hoping she was facing the opening of the room.
Slowly the edge of the blackness took shape, vertical straight lines, rectangular. The doorway materialized out of the darkness, an outline of gray amongst a sea of black. The black outside the doorway was fading, getting brighter. Someone was moving along the tunnel towards her, getting closer.
The room around Magnolia came into focus, not as dark as before. She was in a small utility room, no bigger than five feet by five feet. Waste pipes hugged one wall. In the brightening gloom Magnolia realized there was no place to hide in the room. It was bare. No columns, no alcove, no structures at all.
Nothing. It was a dead end.
She was trapped.
And it was too late to get out of the room. The corridor was getting brighter by the second.
Magnolia flattened herself against the wall beside the doorway, her katana gripped in both hands, high and beside her head. If they stepped into the room she was going to cut them in two.
She held her breath.
A beam of light swept the corridor outside, past the doorway, paused, then returned. It did a slow sweep of the edges of the doorway, the beam partially cutting into the room. Then it angled fully into the room. A conical wedge of light parted the darkness, a large circle illuminating the far wall. Pipes crusted with ice crystals, shards of frozen water hung downwards from cracked joints.
Magnolia gripped her katana harder, tensed her arm muscles, ready to kill.
The noise was faint. Like the beating wings of a caged bird. The sound hovered just outside the doorway, unsure, undecided. Did the small room warrant looking into?
Yes.
The drone slid into the room at chest-height, its optic swiveled to the far wall, its digital pupil dilated in the darkness, assessing the content of the room. Slowly it rotated, towards where Magnolia hid, flat against
the wall.
But it never saw her. It never got a chance.
The blade of the katana blurred downwards, slicing off one of the drones thruster arms.
The drone screamed like a spoilt child, and pitched violently sideways, the other three thrusters compensating for the sudden jolt and loss of thrust. The beam of its spotlight scattered wildly around the inside of the utility room.
Magnolia cut again, taking off another thruster arm. The drone gave another high-pitched scream, its anger rising. It slammed sideways into the wall then bounced off into the middle of the room. Magnolia followed its erratic pitch with her katana, bobbing and weaving, trying to anticipate its erratic flight.
The drone’s evasive programming finally kicked in and it came at her, determined to get back through the doorway and away from the attack. Magnolia dropped her katana, handle down so the blade wouldn’t be damaged. She lunged at the drone, grabbing each of the two remaining thruster arms on each side of the body. The drone whined and pulled her nearly off her feet and sideways hard into the wall. She hung on and twisted with all her might, fighting the mechanical thing like it was a wild bird.
She slammed the drone into the wall, careful to avoid the spotlight that was housed under its belly.
Once. Twice. The metal case cracked as she bashed it and pieces flew off. The drones two remaining engines stopped and it lost all lift.
Magnolia held the drone for a second, its body just deadweight, then placed it on the ground, the light beam still strong from the spotlight
Now she had a light.
Nine left.
8
