by M. R. Forbes
They knocked on the door of each of the cubes, moving out of sight while they waited for an answer. They repeated the effort four times until no one responded. Then Jonas used the master code to open the apartment to them, allowing them inside.
Hayden headed straight to the bedroom, opening the drawers to the wardrobe and rifling through the clothes. They were lucky to find a man lived here. The clothes would be a little big on Jonas, a little small on him, but they were better than what they had. Both stripped and changed in a hurry, leaving Hayden in a tight shirt that accented his gut and a pair of worn pants with holes in both knees. He also grabbed a second shirt to wrap the demon head in.
Then they returned to the living area. Hayden looked out at the strand, only a few meters below them. It was clear. He looked up, searching for the drones. They seemed to be gone. He took Baby and started slamming the bottom of the grip against the window.
The glass was designed to be resistant to impact, but it couldn’t hold out forever. By the twentieth blow a spiderweb of cracks had formed along the surface, and by the thirtieth, the pane finally surrendered. It didn’t shatter. Rather, the outer edge had bent enough that he was able to grab it and pull it inside.
He climbed through the empty pane, hanging from the edge and then dropping down into the strand. Jonas dropped his satchel down and followed, coming into the strand beside him.
“We make a good team, Sheriff,” Jonas said.
“Let’s keep it up,” Hayden replied. “This way.”
“Sheriff Duke! Don’t move!”
He heard the voice at the end of the strand. He rotated his head, finding Aarho standing at the intersection of the split, aiming her stunner at him.
“They took Natalia, Deputy,” he shouted back at her. “I’m not stopping for you or anybody.”
She tilted her head, tapping her chin against her badge.
“Sheriff?” Jonas said.
“Follow me. Don’t look back.”
Hayden broke away from Aarho. Jonas broke with him. She fired the stunner, two rounds, but they went wide, hitting the wall beside them.
He broke through an intersection, turned right and dashed across a split. He heard shouting as he crossed it, glanced over and saw another Deputy drawing their stunner. He didn’t notice who it was before passing into the next strand.
He turned left and then right, staying within the maze. He knew the strands better than anyone.
“Wait,” Jonas said as they passed a maintenance box. “In here.”
“We need to get to the Mansion,” Hayden said.
“We’ll never make it like this.”
Jonas had already stopped and was keying in the code for the box. It opened, and they both ducked inside.
“What are you thinking?” Hayden whispered.
“Listen for them. Take them by surprise and grab their stunners. I know you don’t want to hurt them.”
Hayden smirked. The kid was right. “Okay.”
They waited in the box. He was thankful for the chance to catch his breath as he kept his head against the hatch, listening for the deputies.
“Aarho, this is Chao. Do you see them?”
“Negative. I think he lost us.”
Hayden heard the muffled sound of the transceiver through the hatch. He handed Baby to Jonas. Then he tapped the inner panel to open the door.
Aarho spun as it slid aside, but he dove out at her the same way Francis had lunged at him. He grabbed her by the waist, tackling her and bringing her to the ground.
Her face twisted, and she threw a punch at him. He turned his face aside, letting it strike him on the side of the head before pushing against her shoulders, using his greater strength to hold her down.
She tried to shout. He braced her arms with his elbows and put his hand over her mouth.
“I don’t want to hurt you Cyn,” he said. “Please don’t make me.”
She kept squirming beneath him, trying to dislodge him, but he was bigger and stronger. He held her down.
“Get off her, Sheriff,” Chao said, coming up behind him. “Now.”
Damn it. Hayden glanced back. Chao was still a few meters behind him. He looked ahead. Aarho’s stunner had fallen behind her, only a long reach away.
“Why don’t either of you understand?” he said. “All I want to do is find my wife.”
“Why don’t you understand, Sheriff? You’ve put the entire city in danger.”
“I have? I’m not the one killing innocent people.”
“They were infected. Just like you’ve been infected.”
Is that what Malcolm was telling them? Had he convinced them the creature carried some kind of disease?
“The crew of the Pilgrim lost control,” Hayden said. “Those things killed them.”
“It’s our duty to protect the people of Metro from all threats. We aren’t supposed to like it. We’re just supposed to do it.”
“What if there’s another way? What if we can get beyond the perimeter and put the Pilgrim back on course?”
“There’s nothing beyond the perimeter,” Chao said. “Only infection and death. If Natalia did go out there, she’s dead, Hayden.”
“No. I don’t accept that.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”
Hayden felt his body begin to shake. He couldn’t accept it. Not now. Infection? It was a lie. Another damn lie. His eyes tracked back to Aarho’s stunner.
“Get up. I don’t want to use this on you. Please don’t make me.”
He tried to remember Chao’s marksmanship scores. If he recalled correctly, they were middling at best.
He dove forward, reaching for the stunner. Chao fired, too cautiously, the round hitting the ground a good twenty centimeters from his head.
He grabbed the stunner, rolling over to his knees as Chao fired again. He heard the slug whip past his ear at the same time he returned fire. One pull. Two. Both rounds hit their marks, causing the deputy to shudder and drop.
His marksmanship scores had been top of the class. There were reasons he was the Sheriff.
“Jonas, let’s go,” he said, grabbing Chao’s stunner and both of their badges.
The kid emerged from the box, glancing at the two downed officers. “We might really have a chance to do this.”
“Come on.”
He tucked the two stunners into his pants and started down the strand again.
26
It took nearly an hour to reach Block One. The other Law Officers had found Aarho and Chao by then and disabled their badges, but not before Hayden had gotten a decent picture of where each of the deputies had been assigned.
They weren’t anywhere near the Governor’s Mansion. Maybe they figured the last place he would go would be the lion’s den? Or maybe they just didn’t have enough Law left to cover everything? Bradshaw was down. Shanks was down. Aarho and Chao were down. That left Wilson, Hicks, Lahish, and six other deputies to cover all of Metro. It wasn’t enough at the best of times.
And these were hardly the best of times.
They monitored the split for a few minutes. The area was quieter than normal, but that didn’t surprise him. The fire at Block Twenty-two in conjunction with the turbs had probably driven them into their cubes. Or what if Engineering had called a Code Blue? Would Malcolm have left deputies off the call to keep an eye out for him, despite the shit he had given Hayden earlier?
It was a perfect storm.
“How do we know what we’re looking for in there?” Jonas asked.
“I’m hoping you’ll know when you see the place,” Hayden replied. “I already looked in the kitchen for the secret food stash.” He shook his head, feeling stupid about it now. “I didn’t find anything.”
“Pozz that,” Jonas said. “Do you know if the Governor has a terminal in there?”
“I’m sure he does.”
“It will probably be close to there, but out of sight.”
“Roger,” Hayden said.
“Let’s go.”
They hurried across the split, keeping the pace quick without breaking stride. They made it to the entrance, the sliding door opening before they reached it. The lobby was as empty as the streets. They reached the lift, and when it opened, they ducked in and hit the button for the sixteenth floor.
Hayden drew the twin stunners from his pants, ready for anything when they reached the top.
The lift slowed to a halt. The doors slid aside. The small foyer was empty.
“Nobody home,” Jonas said.
Hayden nodded. He wanted to believe they were having a bit of good luck after all of the lousy, but he didn’t trust it. What if the whole thing was a trap? What if they were waiting for them to go inside, and then they would be cut off and surrounded? The possibility existed, whether he liked it or not.
They approached the door. Jonas keyed in the master code, and it unlocked with a click. He smiled at Hayden, who stayed ready for anything as it moved out of their way.
He entered the Mansion the way he had been trained, sweeping the large room with his weapons before deciding it was clear. He continued to the hallway, past the bedrooms, checking each. All clear.
He reached the end of the corridor and the master bedroom. This one was locked.
“Jonas,” he said, calling him over.
Jonas entered the code. The door opened. They moved into the room.
Hayden swept through it, into the bathroom. The place was empty.
“I didn’t see a terminal,” Jonas said.
“There has to be one,” Hayden replied.
They walked back through the Mansion, covering the entire floor. There was no PASS terminal. There wasn't even a desk.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Hayden said.
Jonas eyed the room. He held up his hand, tracing the outline from the front door.
“What are you doing?” Hayden asked.
“Hold on, Sheriff.”
He walked back through the Mansion, tracing it. He stopped when got to the end.
“There’s a hidden room in here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. All of the blocks are laid out the same. Every cube. Every floor. There are some slight variations with corner units, but they’re all identical to one another. Except for this specific part of this specific building. It’s missing a space.” He walked toward one of the walls. “Right about here.”
He reached up and knocked on the wall. It sounded hollow.
Hayden smiled. “You’re a genius.”
“Just observant.”
“I’m going to guess what we’re looking for is there. How do we get in?”
“There has to be a secret panel or something,” Jonas said. “Feel along the wall.”
They both did, running their hands along the surface. It took a couple of minutes before Hayden found it, his fingertips brushing against the slightest change in the surface. A blue projection appeared on top of the wall. A keypad.
Jonas typed in the master code.
The wall clicked and swung outward.
There was no room behind it.
There was a lift instead.
“Where do you think it goes?” Jonas asked.
Hayden stepped into it. Jonas joined him there a moment later. The wall swung closed again. There were no buttons on the lift, though it was nearly identical to those in the blocks. It only made two stops, and Hayden knew it couldn’t go up.
“Down,” he replied.
They started to descend.
27
The lift came to a stop. The doors slid open, revealing a short, sterile hallway ahead of them. It was as vacant as the rest.
“Where are we?” Jonas asked.
“We have to be under the Block. Below the deck.”
Hayden couldn’t believe it. He had always thought there was no below the deck. How had they put a lift inside the Governor’s Mansion and kept it secret for all of these years?
Misdirection. Distraction. Everyone was thinking about the food the Governor might have in his quarters, not a secret passage to somewhere else.
There was a hatch at the end of the hallway. It was protected by another access panel, opened easily with the master code. It slid aside, revealing another long corridor that seemed to stretch forever.
“It must run the entire length of Metro,” Hayden said. He couldn’t see the end of it from where they were standing. “It could take hours to find anything useful down here.”
His heart began to sink. The discovery was incredible, but time had never been on his side.
“The most useful stuff needs to be close,” Jonas said. “The Governor isn’t going to be running under metro every time he needs something.”
“That depends on what’s down here, doesn’t it?”
“A terminal? It has to be close.”
There was a door a few meters from where they were standing. It was sitting slightly open, as though the last person in it had forgotten to pull it shut and it didn’t have the velocity to catch. They moved to it, pushing it open and looking inside.
The room was small; the walls surrounded with cabinets. Hayden pulled one open, finding hundreds of pages of files inside. From the yellowing of the paper and the smell, it was all very old.
He lifted one of the files out. It was a personnel record, stamped with the eagle icon. “Amanda Bennett,” he said softly, reading the first page. “She was the ship’s navigator. Thirty-four years old. Married. Two kids.”
“It’s fascinating,” Jonas said, standing by the door. “But not helpful.”
Hayden dropped the file and closed the cabinet. “You’re right.”
They left the room. There was another across from it on the right. They opened it and looked in. This one was filled with books. At least two or three hundred. Hayden looked them over. They appeared to be manuals and guides for different systems on the ship.
“Engineering sure could use these,” Hayden said. “Why are they being hidden down here?”
They left that room, glancing quickly into the next few rooms and continuing down the corridor. They started to hear a soft hum as they moved, coming from a corridor that branched away to the left. Hayden started following the noise, traveling another three hundred meters before pausing at a door. The noise was coming from behind it. He pushed it open.
The room had a small device in it, attached to a series of tubes that were connected to what appeared to be a large barrel of liquid. Dozens of other barrels were resting against the wall, along with a number of smaller containers.
“What is it?” Jonas asked.
“I don’t know,” Hayden replied. He went to one of the barrels and opened it, leaning down to smell. He shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“Alcohol,” Hayden said.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“But that would mean-”
“The Governor is also the Source.” Hayden paused, trying to understand the implication. The Governor was giving the youth of the Pilgrim drugs and alcohol? Why?
He already knew the answer. Control. All of it was about control. To keep the population from learning the truth about the Pilgrim.
“We need to keep moving,” Hayden said. “Let’s head back to the central corridor.”
“Pozz that,” Jonas said.
Hayden walked quickly back to the center corridor, stopping when he reached the intersection.
“What is it?” Jonas asked.
“If we go that way, it should put us below the Law Station.”
“So?”
“Those drones that killed the people on the roof. I’ve never seen anything like them before. They had to come from somewhere.”
“How could they come from Law if you’ve never seen them before?”
“Not from Law. From beneath Law. The Station has a garage in the back corner where we used to keep the transports and drones before they all either broke down or got scaven
ged for parts.”
“I’ve seen the doors to it on the east side of the Station.”
“Yes. The garage is empty now. It has been since my father was Sheriff. But what if the floor opens?”
“What would make you think that?”
“Metro isn’t what I thought it was. I don’t think it’s what any of us think it is. Not exactly. The fact that this place exists down here? I don’t believe the Station is where it is by accident. I’ve always thought it would have made more sense to be in the middle of the city near Medical instead of so far uptown. Unless it had another reason to be there.”
He started down the passage without waiting for Jonas. He broke into a run. He had to know if he was right about this. He had to know if his hunch was good.
There were a few more intersections along the way, but he had a good spatial understanding of Metro and was able to navigate below it to get where he wanted to go. The corridor ended in a large, secured door, again opened easily with the master code.
The door slid aside.
He had expected he would find a few drones. Some fresh equipment for the Governor to use in the event of an emergency. What he saw stole his breath away, rendering him static and speechless as he stared into the space.
There were drones. He had been right about that. Nine more of the machines like the ones that had killed so many people on top of Block Twenty-two. They were suspended in a pair of racks that sat on the left side of the large room.
Beside them rested three lines of armored machines, ten meters tall and vaguely humanoid, with thick legs and arms than ended in barrels for weapons instead of hands. There were a dozen in all, and behind them cages to climb to the top where a cockpit was visible, along with some machinery to load large cases of ammunition into the rear.
On the other side, armored vehicles of some kind, low to the ground, wide and angry looking, with three mounted turrets on the top of each, and again more support equipment nearby.
