"If you get him a dead serpent," I said, "I think he'll give you anything you want."
We climbed down the ladder to the catwalks and began a gear check. I noticed an unpleasant smell, but Szandor got the worst of it. He nearly slipped as he came off the ladder.
"Ugh! What did I just step in?"
Meat shined his flashlight. Diego squatted down right over the spot with his own.
"Do you really wanna know, kid?" said Diego.
"I dunno, do I?" said Szandor with rising disgust.
"You stepped in a big old pile of shit, kid," said Diego.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" said Szandor, now scraping his boot on the edge of the catwalk. "Even at nearly the fucking Center of the Earth I'm stepping in dog shit." His previous good mood at his upcoming birthday was disappearing rapidly.
"This isn't dog shit," said Diego, poking the scraped mound of feces with a pen; a pen I hoped no being ever used again. "My guess is ghoul shit."
"That's a use of your tracking abilities I never thought of," I said. "Shit identification. I mean, the more I think about it, it makes sense that you have that skill. But I never would have come to that idea on my own."
"Sometimes it's a shit job," said Diego with a huge grin. "But I'm guessing it's ghoul shit. Unless some human came and did it, but I doubt it. Pretty sure. Ghoul shit."
"So like, some ghoul came and took a dump by the ladder?" said Szandor.
This is where Jericho came over to see why we weren't checking gear. He came in on the conversation on that note. "What?"
"We have some ghoul feces at the bottom of the ladder here," said Meat.
"Why?" said Jericho. He looked specifically at Diego.
"Most creatures do this sort of thing to mark territory," said Diego. "But harder to say with ghouls. I don't have much experience with them, but all I've ever heard was that they were savage. Like animals more than people. But we saw them even talk yesterday. So maybe them taking a dump here is more significant."
"So what do you think it means?" said Jericho.
Diego looked back toward the scraped pile of excrement. "I think it's a warning."
"A warning... with poop?" said Delilah.
"I think they were trying to say that they can get to us," said Diego.
"I imagine they can't communicate with us in very elegant ways," I said. "I doubt they could write us a message."
"And no one saw this on their watch shift?" said Jericho.
He looked around, but we all shook our heads.
Jericho shook his own head angrily. "I don't like this sort of failure."
"You had a watch shift too," said Szandor. "We don't know when the ghoul shitter came by. This could have been on your watch."
Jericho shot Szandor a glare, but said nothing. He walked off angrily. "Let's get on the move, people!" came his bellowing voice.
The katana was in a section of pipes and tunnels that were as much a rat's warren as anything up above us. The difference was that they were wider. They were not huge and cavernous like most of the Undersystem so far, but it made sense that Jack would have been moving through tunnels that would fit his size. Unfortunately, all these tunnels curved and often doubled back, weaving their way around large pipes, occasionally showing us a grate or access to one of the pipes. We did find some areas of natural rock caverns, so we guessed that the builders had to design their tunnels around the spaces that were already here.
"What if the katana is in the pipes?" said Szandor. He looked down into one pipe through a grate. A trickle of water went through the pipe, but we had no idea when and if that trickle might change to a roaring gush once we got inside.
"It's possible," said Delilah. "Hard to tell with this. What I can say is I'm now getting an active signal from it. So instead of having the area where it disappeared tagged from Paulie's system, I have an actual location. It also means that the tracker wasn't destroyed, it just was located in an area blocking its signal."
"My katana might still be okay?" I said. I had given it up, expecting that Jack had dropped it in some hole halfway to Hell. My ears perked up with the possibility I might get it back.
"Maybe, who knows?" said Delilah. "The tracker might be the only part that survived."
"But are we going to have to go into the pipes?" echoed Szandor. "That's the real question."
"If we have to," said Jericho seriously. "Whatever it takes."
"But we will make sure that's our only recourse before we do it," said Meat, softening Jericho's words. I couldn't tell if this was Meat wanting to take control or trying to smooth over some of Jericho's leadership mistakes.
Szandor rolled his eyes. "Let's just find this thing." He started walking.
Diego patted Szandor on the back and joined him. "Welcome to life, kid. The people at the wheel are just as bad as the rest of us. Maybe more so."
Jericho fixed Diego's back with a death stare.
Delilah let out an uncharacteristic giggle and covered her mouth. We all walked on, leaving Jericho glaring at everyone before he trotted after us.
Belly of the Beast
Remember that horror movie where all the protagonists split up and everything works out great and nobody gets killed?
No? Me neither.
Splitting up when hunting a monster that can easily kill any one of you alone is a terrible idea. It's dividing all your strength and handing it to the creature on a silver platter. You're begging for problems and in return you're not getting much of an advantage other than a faster or broader sweep. Meanwhile the creature can hunt you down one by one. The risk does not equal the reward and it's a recipe for a bloodbath.
So of course we split up.
We had come to a crossroads - well, another split in the tunnels, and once again left or right was somehow a hard decision to make. We knew that the katana was close, within fifty yards according to Delilah and her trackers. What we didn't know was which of the two tunnels we had before us was going to get us there. The left path sloped downward while the other on the right climbed upward and narrowed. There was another one of those strange symbols etched in Avalon Brass in the wall at the intersection.
Our group's official tracker Diego crouched down, examining the floor. After a minute of shining his flashlight at details that were meaningless to me and repositioning himself for a better view, he shook his head. "Not much to say. Ghouls have been by here in both directions, maybe in the last twenty-four hours. But as to Jack... I have no idea. There are not enough signs here to say one direction is better than another."
"I am beginning to wonder if your reputation for tracking expertise is ill-founded," said Jericho imperiously.
"Look, I said earlier that I am probably not the best guy for this," said Diego. "There's too much water down here and it's very likely Jack swam a good chunk of the time. I can't track swimming. But the bigger deal is that we haven't even seen Jack. We don't know for sure that he's been anywhere. It's extremely hard to pick up the trail on a creature I've never seen, and it's nearly impossible to pick up a trail when I don't even know for sure I've been anywhere it's been. I can't get a trail when there's no trail to be had!"
"I think -" started Jericho.
"Tracking isn't magic," said Diego. "I'm an expert, yes, but I don't do things dramatically different than what you've done when you're on a hunt. I am just damn good at it, I notice details other people don't, and I've got a helluvalot of experience. But don't ask me to do the impossible and then be an ass when I can't do it."
"I'm going to back Diego here," said Meat. "I'm glad we have a tracker in our group, but there are still reasonable limits. If he can find nothing here, there may just be nothing to find."
Jericho shrugged off Meat's comment. "Then we split up."
There was a collective groan.
"We will cover more ground," said Jericho.
"It's possible both tunnels lead to the same place," said Delilah.
"Yes!" said Szandor. "I agree with that idea. We should ab
solutely not split up."
"Then we will have a two pronged assault," said Jericho. "Something I would be interested in even if we had confirmed both routes are valid."
"One team as bait, the other actually killing the monster," grumbled Szandor.
Jericho's anger flashed. "What did you say? I'll remind you that you are pledged to -"
"We said no obvious suicide runs," said Meat simply.
Jericho's glare turned on Meat. "We also said we're willing to risk our lives to kill the beast. Or has cowardice entered the hearts of hunters these days?"
"Careful isn't cowardly," said Diego. "That's the whole point of what we do. We're careful, we get the lay of the land, we pick our advantages. We're not obsessed to the point of death wishes. We're not thrill seekers. We're not reckless jackasses that just charge ahead into danger hoping to get lucky."
Meat, Delilah, and I all immediately stared at Szandor.
He rolled his eyes. "Point taken, guys."
"We are still splitting up," said Jericho, his voice icy, almost through gritted teeth. Jericho normally was scary and intimidating. But Jericho pissed off at people disagreeing with him just fifty yards from his obsession was even scarier. He looked like some wrathful god.
"Okay, let's divide the team based on assets -" started Meat.
"Team One: Diego, Szandor, Meat," said Jericho coldly. There was no subtlety in this division. These were all the people who had just disagreed with him. None of us failed to grasp that fact. "They go left. Team Two: Myself, Mikkel, Delilah, Fala -"
"I shall join Team One," announced Fala. "The breath of the spirits whispers from the left."
"Then we'll switch the teams -" started Jericho.
"We are on team bait," said Szandor.
"Either you need to respect her decision and acknowledge that these are two teams with equal risk," said Meat, "or you need to admit that you're using those you don't like as fodder."
"And the latter means I walk," said Diego.
"Me too," said Szandor.
"It goes without saying that if you're using us as just fodder, this mission is over," said Meat. "We joined this team on good faith. We knew there was risk, but it was acceptable. If we found our faith betrayed, that's it."
Jericho appeared to grind his teeth for a moment. "Fine. Fala, you go with them."
"Of course," said Fala with a smile, seemingly untroubled by the discussion.
"But we go in dark," said Jericho.
"Understood," said Meat. "Thermals only, everyone."
I put on my night vision goggles as we turned off our LEDs and flashlights. Everything was now shades of green and black.
"Let's keep radios silent as possible," said Meat. "If there's a problem, let's trace our steps back here. Understood?"
Everyone nodded and we began getting ready to split up.
"Good luck on Team Bait," I said to Szandor.
"Yeah, good luck on Team Tyrant," said my brother. "Watch out when walking behind him. You don't want the stick up his ass tripping you when you walk."
"Once in a lifetime opportunity, right?" I said, trying to get our minds back on what was important.
"I hope so," said Szandor, but there was nervousness in his voice.
I gave my brother a fist bump before following Delilah and a still-fuming Jericho. I didn't like splitting up and I didn't like leaving my brother behind. When it came down to it, he was the only one I trusted to truly have my back. Likewise, it was my job to have his back; I was his Big Brother. Everyone else might be comrades, but I'm not sure I could trust them to the level I could my brother. Of course Meat was trustworthy and would come to my aid, but he still had the idea of acceptable losses. I had met Delilah once before and she seemed solid, but we were hardly close. Diego seemed okay, but I had just met him. And Jericho and Fala were not inspiring any confidence at all. With my brother going the other way, I wasn't convinced my back was covered anymore.
Jericho took the lead while Delilah looked at her scanner. She had her goggles adjusted so that she had one eye in her thermals and another looking at the scanner readings, probably to avoid talking to Jericho or making eye contact. This also kept her from talking to me, but that was probably fine. I'd expect any sort of lack of focus from us would be a sign of mutiny to Jericho and he'd have us keelhauled.
Our tunnel was as dirty as any we had seen so far on our expedition, perhaps more. There were small puddles of water collecting at the lowest point in the passage, which was in the center of this round tunnel. The walls were even thicker with grime than usual because of this dampness; after touching the wall to steady myself my fingers came off with a thick layer of dirt that I wiped on my jacket. After the intersection, this tunnel began curving to the left. This was a good sign. As it continued curving, there was a greater and greater chance that it led to my katana. We followed it for a few minutes. As Delilah indicated we were getting very close, we began to slow our steps and focus on silence rather than speed. She indicated that the tracker said the signal was coming from our left, on the other side of the wall.
Everything seemed to be going well for Team Tyrant, right up until the moment when it all went badly. We weren't attacked by some monster and we didn't fall into a trap. No, we were thwarted by simple architecture. This tunnel didn't lead to the katana. We followed that curve and with a sinking feeling saw that it ended in a sharp right - away from the katana. We looked down the passage that went to the right and saw that it went straight for about as far as we could see without doubling back or having any side passages.
We all cursed, even the super serious Jericho. What we did have was a large grate at the turn in the tunnel. Covered in the thick, wet dirt that covered the walls, we could see between the slats in the grate that it looked to our left, down into the chamber we had hoped the tunnel would take us. There were a number of large bolts on the grate, so we could take it off with some effort. But before we thought about removing it, we looked through the grate into the chamber, because we saw movement. Below us in that chamber was the other team.
We had a front row seat to everything going wrong.
My brother and his team had descended down the left passage, the incline continuous as the tunnel changed from a smooth, constructed passage to a rougher, more natural tunnel. The rock walls had been gouged and ripped by friction. It also was wetter than Team Tyrant's tunnel; the descending floor was covered with mold and slime. Water dripped regularly from the ceiling, making the slime even slicker. A damp smell so much stronger than any of the other tunnels rose up from the bottom, getting stronger with each step.
Szandor was the first to slip on the slime. He caught himself on the wall but warned all the rest about the poor footing. Slick slime on a steep incline; it could have easily been a hunter slip 'n slide with the wrong move. They took it slowly, hands on the dirty walls to maintain their balance.
Unsurprisingly, morale was low on Team Bait. They were all on this team because they had pissed off Jericho. Szandor disagreed with this assessment. As he stated loudly, they were on this team "because Jericho's an asshole!" Diego laughed and Meat rolled his eyes, but neither of them could disagree with this statement. Fala said nothing, keeping her role as the ghost that haunted the group by trailing behind and not engaging with them in any way.
There was a feeling of uneasiness across the team. Szandor had been sarcastic in calling it Team Bait, but that name struck them as uncomfortably true. They knew that Jericho had no additional knowledge, that he really didn't know if this was a better or worse path to take. But they couldn't shake the feeling that Jericho had sent them into a trap. Fala's accompaniment helped that feeling a little, as Jericho would not cast away his favorite so easily, but on the other hand, he had tried to not let her go without him. She didn't seem worried or otherwise bothered that Jericho was not with them. She was almost happy, which just annoyed the rest of them. They were trying to be silent and move quietly, but Fala hummed a happy tune. There were whisper
ed admonishments to get her to stop, but she just kept humming. If they hadn't been trying to be quiet, there would have been yelling, and I know my brother did consider knocking her out "for the good of the team."
The descending tunnel eventually ended in a landing where there was an opening to the right. Through the opening was a large, cavernous room. I've used that word before to describe some of the Undersystem interiors, but nowhere else was this term so appropriate. The chamber they had entered was not made, it was instead a natural rock cavern. The ground here was more level. It was uneven in places, with water pooling in depressions, but it was otherwise nothing like the descending passageway. A few improvements had been made to try to integrate this with the manmade tunnel system, such as adding in overflow grates and pipe exits, but this was definitely a place that existed long before the city above. Stalactites and stalagmites had grown in the corners, water dripping from the former into still pools of brackish water. That foul smell was even stronger here.
There were two major features of the room. First was a crevice at the far end of the room. Something had long ago broken the rock, creating an enormous crack. The crevice was enormous, a yawning opening that descended rapidly into its own tunnel. The other feature was right in front of the crack. This was a section where the ground was more even, almost flat. It was covered with random debris. Not the sludge and rock you might expect of a natural cavern. If we had been above ground, I would say this was almost trash. But down here it was out of place. There was no way it had gotten here by accident; someone or somethings had dropped or placed that debris.
Weapons out, my brother and his team slowly and carefully walked into the room. Typical hunter style: check the corners, find out if there was any danger, expect an ambush, ever on alert. Finding the katana took no time, Szandor found it easily on the top of the scattered debris. It was intact, but it was covered with a dark, sticky ichor that Szandor didn't want to touch. He also wondered if the blade had rusted or corroded in all this water and slime. He still picked it up, knowing I would want to make the final call on whether to get rid of the sword.
Jabberwock Jack Page 17
