by Simon Archer
“Unless he’s still on the Void somehow,” I suggested, furrowing my brows as I thought this over. “Hey, what if there were tunnels under there? Would that even be possible, with all the water? There wouldn’t be much sense having them in the first place if they didn’t connect.”
“I suppose it’s possible…” Malthe said, his voice trailing off as he considered this. “Yeah, yeah, it would be, I think. It would be hard, and it would take a delicate balance to make the air pressure work so no water leaks in, but it could be done, even with the older technology back when the tunnels were originally made.” His voice grew more and more excited as he went on, growing faster and higher pitched.
“Great, so that’s a possibility,” I said. “Just in case we come up short here. But hopefully we… Honestly, I don’t know what to hope for. If we find him down here, we’ve found him, but even then, that’ll mean that you’re not our secret weapon anymore. They have someone just as good… or something that lets him evade detection.”
“Or he just got lucky,” Malthe suggested. “It could happen.”
“Either way, let’s just table this until we know more,” I decided. “This is taking up too much of my brain space, anyway.” That came right on time because Clem came to a halt, and the rest of us followed suit.
“You should be there right about now,” Malthe told me.
“Yeah, I think we are,” I said, shushing him and moving up to stand next to Clem.
We were at the very edge of the block’s end, up by where a lot of people liked to go to the beach. It was a popular weekend destination, the best on the north shore. There was a long block of restrooms for day travelers needing a pit stop between the boat and the air car. Or home, if they were lucky to live close enough.
“Is this it?” I asked Clem, a little confused.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know it looks funny, but the entrance is hidden below. I had my guys tear up the floor to find it. It’s how we’ve been getting a lot of different places in the tunnels after the collapses.”
“Okay,” I said, a little surprised but intrigued, nonetheless. “I guess it would make sense to have an entrance out here. Popular tourist attraction back in the day.”
Clem shrugged. “Still is. The tourists are just from other parts of Termina.”
“I always kind of wondered why outsiders never came to visit us,” I said, and everyone looked around at me blankly. “I mean, we always say no one from here ever wants to go into the outside world. So why doesn’t the outside world come to us?”
Clem shrugged. “I always assumed they just couldn’t afford it.”
“Well then, why not lower the prices? It’d bring in more money than not doing it at all,” I argued back.
“They probably can’t even take time off. Or find a way to get here,” Clem shot back. “These people just, like, farm and stuff all the time. And there aren’t that many of them.”
“Still, you’d think someone would show up every once in a while,” I said. “I’m just saying. It’s kind of weird.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Clem said, and it was. But I shook my head to clear it, trying to get everything but the current situation out of my head. “Okay, follow me.” Clem ducked through the bathroom entrance and inside the place.
At first glance, it was a modern public restroom, like the millions that graced Termina’s streets, if a little nicer. At least that was before you noticed all the damage done by what Clem and his crew had done to uncover the tunnels below.
“What the fuck did you do to this place, man?” I asked him, looking around at the wreckage. All the tile was ripped up to reveal a giant gaping chasm in the center of the damn thing.
“It’s the best we could do,” Clem said with a casual shrug. He walked over and picked up a coil of thick rope, one of many that rested alongside the chasm. There was an assortment of grappling hooks, pitons, and climbing harnesses as well. With practiced ease, he wound the rope around one of the intact support pillars in the room, cinched it with a perfect knot, and handed the rest of the coil to me.
“I thought you said this was an entrance?” I asked him. “It looks more like you just blasted through the floor.”
Clem shrugged again. “Well, it’s funny that you mention it. There was a large steel door here when we pulled up the tiles, more like a maintenance hatch than anything else. But whatever had happened, the security systems and the hydraulics to open it were toast. We had no choice but to blast it away.” He grinned. “The upside is that this goes straight down to a train station, so it’s way faster than the last two times we’ve been down there together, at least theoretically. We’re known for having things go horribly wrong, after all.” He shot me a sly grin.
“Well, let’s not do that this time,” I said shortly, grabbing a firm hold of the rope and stepping up to the chasm. While the extra climbing gear on hand was nice, none of us needed it. We binders had the strength and power gained from our soulbonds, and my girls not only had their inherent foxgirl supernatural qualities but the ability and training I passed to them through our bonds. “First me, then Clem, then the foxgirls, and then you, Semra, you’re the rear.”
“I’m usually the rear,” Clem protested.
“Your leg’s still half busted,” I reminded him as I tossed the rest of the coil down into the darkness below.
“Fine,” he relented.
“Alright,” I said, tightening the rope so that there was no slack. “Let’s go, then.”
6
Inch by inch, I slipped myself further and further down the rope and into the gloom of the chasm. There was nothing near me, no walls or anything like that. I reached out in all directions with my limbs to make sure, but there was nothing. I was just dangling in the air, however far from the ground, unable to see anything but the spot of light way up above me that I knew to be coming from the top of the chasm, leading into the bathroom. For a while, I saw five little oval specks all around it, my teammates’ heads all looking down at me. But after a while, those disappeared as well, and then the light itself became just a speck off in the distance.
“How’re you doin’ down there?” Clem called after what felt like a long while but could’ve just been a minute for all I knew. His voice echoed throughout the great open space. I took a few moments to answer, gathering my energy, breath, and balance.
“You didn’t tell me it would be this far,” I called back up. “When does it end?”
“It takes a while,” he yelled back, his words reverberating on all sides of me. “Just keep going. You’ll get there.”
“You okay, Nic?” Malthe asked me in my ear after that. “Can you still hear me?”
“Yeah,” I whispered as I continued inching down the rope, utilizing every bit of strength I had to keep myself up. “I’m fine, and I can hear you, for now. Can’t talk right now.”
I gritted my teeth and grunted as I slipped down a bit further than I was comfortable with. My palms were starting to hurt from the rope burns even though I was wearing high caliber gloves. I must’ve been dangling there a while, then.
Then, finally, the tips of my toes touched the ground, rocky at first, but then steady. Then came the rest of my feet and the whole lot of me. Once there, I released the rope and spread out my arms, wringing out my fingers and breathing a sigh of relief that I was safe on solid ground again. It would be one helluva ride climbing back up, but I didn’t want to think about that now.
“Okay,” I called back up to my teammates, cupping my hands around my mouth to make the sound carry farther. “I’m here. I’m on the ground. Clem, you can come down now, if you can manage it with your leg, that is.”
My words echoed all throughout the place. I heard the swish of the rope being pulled back up, meaning they’d heard me. Undoubtedly on a delay, I then heard Clem calling back to me.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Joch,” he called, and I could practically hear the grin in his echoey voice. “I’ve done this more than
once in the past ten days, and my legs are getting better each day. Just make sure you’re there to catch me, all right?”
I knew he was joking on that last bit, but I took him seriously. I pulled my flashlight out of my tool belt now that my hands were free hands and shone it around. I was in what seemed like a long, deep cavern. Off in the distance to my right, a rectangular shape that I imagined to be the train loomed.
“You there, Nic?” Malthe asked in my ear, and I breathed another sigh of relief that he was still there. “You doin’ okay, boss?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I told him. “Very glad to be on solid ground, at least for now, and glad you’re here. Can you still see us on the map?”
“Yeah,” Malthe reported. “You’re further down than the rest are, and Clem’s between you and the others.”
“You can see depth now?” I asked, surprised. When we’d gone down there the last time, Malthe had only vaguely been able to see where we were on the map of the island, since it only read surface level locations.
“Oh, yeah, I worked that out with Clem so we could help them out more when his team was working down there,” he explained. “I was able to tweak the tech a bit, make it work better.”
“How’d I miss all this?” I asked, more to myself than anyone else.
“Well, you’ve been really busy, boss,” Malthe said almost tentatively as if he didn’t want to offend me. “We’ve barely seen you the past week or two with how hard you’ve been workin’ to get Achilles to squeal, not to mention keeping all the rebuilding and reorganization projects going. That’s a lotta work for one man.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I admitted as Clem came sidling down the rope next to me.
“Beat ya,” he taunted, giving me a grin to match his tone before.
“How d'you do that so fast?” I asked him.
“Practice makes perfect.” He shrugged and let go of the rope. “Plus, it only feels like forever the first time. It didn’t actually take you that long. A few minutes, maybe.”
“You could’ve given me more of a warning,” I scolded.
“Now, that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?” he asked, elbowing me in the ribs good-naturedly.
“I suppose not,” I said, giving him a sly smile back. Then I cupped my hands around my mouth and called up to the foxgirls again, “Hey, we’re done, we’re both here. You three can come down now, then Semra.”
I wanted to leave a binder up there last to round out the tail of our group just in case someone came looking for us. We were going after the most dangerous man in the world, after all, even if he wasn’t the best fighter himself. His defense was still impeccable, and he seemed to command more than just blind obedience in his followers. They believed in his message, whatever that was.
I still couldn’t quite figure that part out. These guys hated tech, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what their goal was, what they wanted, and that’s what I’d been trying to figure out in my sessions with Achilles.
But he gave me nothing. Nada. His soul was practically a blank slate, as far as the spirit world was concerned, and that was troubling for obvious reasons.
“Okay, we’re coming,” I finally heard Kinley call back down to us, probably because my voice carried up to her on a bit of a lag and vice versa.
“You gonna help them?” Clem asked as the rope sidled back up, no doubt being pulled by one of the foxgirls.
“Of course,” I said. I’d focus on them, lend my skills over our bond to make sure that they didn’t fall. The foxgirls were physically skilled, no doubt, especially Cindra, who had managed to break out of a metal binding chair all on her own when I first met her. Still, I had better training from my days as a TelCorp binder, and our bond allowed me to impart some of that training onto them, if only for a moment.
Soon, I could tell through the bond that Cindra was making her way down to us, though I couldn’t see far up enough to tell by sight. I could sense her anxiety, her elevated heart rate, but also the thrill she was getting from being up so high. I gently guided her, not overbearing, so that she was still in control, but there to help in case she needed me.
But she didn’t. She was just fine on her own, strong and resilient for years of training on her own to prepare for the day she was snatched by Elias’s version of TelCorp. Now that I was observing the climb closely, it turned out that Clem was right. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, though she moved slower than I had. It only felt like an eternity in that moment.
“Man, that took forever,” Cindra said when she released the rope, out of breath and grinning.
“It didn’t take as long as you think it did,” I told her, taking the rope from her. “How are you feeling?”
The grin never left her face as she said, “Pretty good, actually. That was kind of fun when you look past how terrifying it was.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I laughed. Then, cupping my hands around my mouth for the third time, “Okay, whoever’s next can come down!”
“Okay,” Kinley called back on a similar delay to the first time, and soon after that, the rope sidled upward again.
I felt Kira get on the rope this time. And she definitely needed more help than Cindra had. Of all the foxgirls I knew, Kira was the least foxgirl-like in terms of physical acumen. All foxgirls had almost superhuman strength, while a rare few, like Cindra, had truly inhuman might. But Kira was more delicate, having grown up protected by the stronger Kinley.
Even so, what Kira lacked in physical strength she made up for in intelligence and organizational skills, skills a company like TelCorp needed desperately, but that wasn’t going to help her here. While she was still stronger than most regular people, most regular people weren’t cut out for this kind of activity.
She slipped not long after she got on, but I was there with her in spirit and guided her hands back to the rope, so she didn’t fall too far. We heard her scream, and my heart skipped a beat, several, even, but I knew she was fine. I was with her every step of the way.
“What’s going on?” Cindra asked, whipping her head around from Clem to me and back again. “What’s happening to her, is she okay?”
Clem looked to me, too, with worry in his eyes.
“She’s okay,” I said steadily, without taking my eyes off the rope up ahead, though we couldn’t actually see Kira yet. “Just a little slip-up. She’s recovered, but I need to keep concentrating.”
Cindra swallowed hard and nodded weakly, letting me continue my work.
“Okay,” I murmured several moments later when Kira appeared up above us, a small speck crawling down the rope one centimeter at a time. “Okay, she’s getting there.”
Kira was still struggling, I could feel it, but she was getting into a rhythm now. Then she looked down to see us, no doubt realizing that I could see her through our bond, and froze, paralyzed with fear now that she realized just how far down the drop was, how high up she was, and how far she had left to go.
“No,” Cindra murmured as if Kira could hear her. “Don’t stop. It’s going to be okay. You have to just keep going.”
Through our bond, I coaxed her similarly. She resisted at first, completely frozen with her fear and anxiety, but I convinced her to continue, reminding her that I was right there, and Cindra and Clem were as well. We wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
Then, bit by bit, centimeter by centimeter, she started making her way down the rope again. Finally, she reached the ground, shakily reaching out for me, stumbling in my direction. Clem caught the rope as she let it go, and Cindra squeezed her shoulder. I took both her hands in mine and squeezed, tight.
“See, you got here alright,” I said, giving her a warm smile and meeting her watery eyes. She’d probably been crying when she fell or when she froze. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you. None of us would.”
“I know,” she whispered, her voice as shaky as her hands were. “There’s just something about heights…” Her voice trai
led off, trembling, and she pressed her small body against mine, wrapping her arms around my waist. I returned the gesture gladly, pulling her to me tightly.
“It’s okay,” I murmured in her ear, burying my face in her hair. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
After a few moments, she released me, and Clem called up to Semra and Kinley.
“We’re all good here!” he yelled. “Next up.”
Kinley was next, and though she wasn’t as strong as Cindra, she still needed significantly less help than Kira. I guided her steadily, making sure she didn’t fall, following her every step of the way, but she made it down without any slip-ups.
“That was fun,” she grinned, but seeing the look on Kira’s face, she dropped the subject.
“I don’t want to do that ever again,” the smaller foxgirl said, crossing her arms and staring down at the ground.
“Well, you’re going to have to go back up,” Kinley reminded her, but Cindra gave her a sharp look, prompting an equally sharp reply. “Oh, don’t baby her. She can handle it, can’t you, Kira?” Kinley placed a protective arm around her longtime friend, who smiled back at her weakly.
“Yes, I can,” she admitted. “I’m just sour is all.”
I laughed. “You can all handle anything, I’m sure, though I wish you didn’t have to.” Then I cupped my hands around my mouth for the final time and called back up to Semra. “We’re all good here. You can come down now!”
And she did. It didn’t take long. Semra, like Clem and me, was trained for this. She made quick work of the rope and clapped her hands together when she was safely on the ground.
“Well, what are we all standing around for?” She grinned at us. “Let’s get cracking!”
“You don’t want to rest?” Kira asked incredulously. “Even for a minute?”
“Oh, I thrive on shit like this,” she said.
“It’s true,” Clem shrugged, “she does.”
