Max nudged me and said—
BREAK
“Why didn’t you put a stop to it then?”
He’s just out of sight, beyond the harsh glow of the lamp above me. I squint but can’t see anything but blurry darkness.
I huff out a breath. “Because, she didn’t need to be stopped. She needed to be followed and gradually talked to.” I glare in the direction of the voice. “If you took any recent psychology class, you’d know that someone who just experienced significant mental or physical trauma, you don’t just tackle them and tie them up. That doesn’t help. You need to—”
“I’m well aware of the steps, Ms. Williams,” interrupts the man beyond the light. His tone is sharp, cutting me off instantly. “What I’m asking is…why didn’t you put a stop to her if you knew she might be a threat?”
“I’ve been sitting here under this damn light for hours.” I swallow, and my dry throat makes an audible click. Gods, how long has been since I drank anything? Too long to remember.
The man beyond the light doesn’t say anything for a while. A while that’s probably only seconds, though feels like days.
“Answer the question first, Ms. Williams, then we’ll take a break.”
I wanted to bash his brains in, whoever he is. The effects of whatever drug they gave me had worn off long ago and now my anger flares like the deep fires of Earth’s core.
But…I’m thirsty, so…
“I didn’t take her out because without her, we’d never find our way out.”
“And why is that?”
“Because…she wasn’t human.”
Silence for a beat or two.
“But you didn’t know that at the time.”
I shook my head, wincing when I shifted my weight on the wooden chair, the cuffs digging further into my wrists. “No. Not right away.”
Another few beats of silence.
“Very well. I’ll send someone in to take you to your cell. There you will find several bottles of water and a meal. This interview will continue in the morning.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
To this, he says nothing, and I soon hear the clank of a metal door shutting.
Moments later, a squealing sound filled the room followed by swift, but heavy footfalls. Then a huge mountain of a woman steps into the light. Her face is set in something between detachment and boredom. She helps me to my feet without a word. My spine pops like someone twisting a roll of bubble wrap. The strength in my legs is so fleeting, she needs to practically hold me up. Once I regain some balance, she gives a surly grunt and leads me out of the room.
We step into a dimly lit concrete corridor. Cracked and moldy concrete. The lights above, as sparse as they are, flicker sporadically. Somewhere, water drips. My boots scuff along the gravelly floor as the giant woman pulls me onward by a chain wrapped around my waist.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who these people are. But it feels like some kind of filthy purgatory. A place where people are taken to be questioned, then killed.
For all I know, that’s exactly what it is.
The corridor branches off into three separate halls. The big woman leads me down the one on the right. Soon enough, rusty metal bars line both sides. Like prison cells. My heart thrums and my stomach churns. My muscles twitch, nerves sizzling. I don’t want to be put in one of these cells. I can’t be put in one. They’re too small and the air reeks of spoiled milk. I spot more than a couple corpses in a few cells we pass by.
Thankfully, we don’t stop at any of these cells and round a lazy corner to a slightly better hall. Well lit and not quite as filthy and full of death. Still dirty, though, and I caught glimpses of rats scuttling about.
We climb a mild incline and at the top stands an open cell door. This one isn’t rusty, and the floor is actually solid concrete rather than gravel or broken rock. The air is also warmer and void of any stenches, save for dank, wet stone.
Before I enter my new home, the giant woman stops me. I almost resist, then I feel her unlock the cuffs and take them off. Instant relief followed by pain. Before I can do anything, she shoves me into the cell and shuts the door with a violent clank. I turn, and she’s already walking away. Not a word, not sound, other than the heavy footfalls, from her.
I sigh and face my cell. It’s not exactly tiny, but smaller than I’d like. At least there’s an enclosed bathroom area so no one can watch me pee, or whatever. Regardless, this isn’t what I find myself gaping at. It’s the 10 bottles of water lined up like sentient soldiers on the shelf near the bunk. It’s the Styrofoam container on the lower bunk, which lazily fills my nostrils with the smell of onions and some kind of meat. Hamburger? I don’t know. All I want to know is how it tastes and how much water I can drink. Because…shit, I’m so thirsty.
It’s the very first thing I do. I grab a bottle of water, unscrew the cap, and chug down the entire bottle until it’s empty. I toss the bottle aside, burp, and drink about half of the second bottle. Then I sit on the bunk, stomach grumbling. Opening the Styrofoam container, I gape at the meal they provided. Which, oddly enough, looked too damn delicious. It was indeed a hamburger. In the portion sections were onion rings and a side of coleslaw.
My mouth waters and I devour the food. Not even sure how long it takes me. The food, although probably not all that gourmet, tasted amazing. I eat until the entire container is clean, then polish off my second bottle of water. I drink about a half of my third bottle before tossing the container in a small trash can and lying down on the bottom bunk of the bed.
After a few minutes of staring at the top bunk, I get up to pee. When I return to the bunk, I drink more water and lie back down.
It isn’t long before the slow, gray waves of sleep lull me into oblivion.
I don’t know how many hours I’m out, but it’s not long enough when I’m shaken awake.
Groaning, I squint up at the broad face of the giant woman who escorted me to the cell. Without a word, she pulls me out of bed, makes sure I’m steady, draws my arms behind my back, and wraps the cuffs around my wrists. Though, not as tight as before, which I silently thank her for. Maybe this isn’t some kind of torture place and they really need to know things. Maybe they’ll let me out after I tell them everything.
As much as I hope for this, I know better.
There’s just a bad vibe running through all this. It trembles the walls, the very floor. It soaks into my sweaty skin and wraps around my thundering heart. It cinches tighter and tighter the closer the big woman leads me to the room where, no doubt, my interviewer waits.
Yes. I know better.
Everything is dark when I enter the room. An odd odor I don’t remember from before slips into my nostrils. Something I can’t place. And as the woman leads me onward, I wonder how she can even see through the thick soup of darkness. But, somehow, she does, and I’m carefully seated in the chair. The cuffs get taken off and my arms, very gently, are coaxed behind the back of the chair where the wrists are once more bound in cuffs.
I sigh. Even though the cuffs aren’t digging into my wrists, I hate the cold feel of them against my skin.
A sharp click, and the light above me flickers on. It buzzes for a moment, gradually falling silent.
I didn’t know what to expect, but it isn’t this…
In front of me, on a small table, is the severed head of one of the mutated Velociraptors from the…that place. That place I don’t want to ever visit again. I stare at the protruding teeth, the cloudy glaze of its eye…the blood…
Then, the man says, “Is this what the raptors you talked about look like?”
I manage a breath and nod.
“The mutated ones, as you said?”
“Y-Yeah.”
“Ms. Williams, we are about to begin the second half of our interview, are you well rested?”
I shrug. “As best as I can be, I guess.”
“You have been asleep for nearly two days.”
I blinked. “What?”
/>
“A common reaction to the drug we had to inject you with in order to get you here. It should be worn off by now.”
“What the hell did you inject me with?”
Only silence answers me.
“Let’s get back to our interview, shall we?”
Huffing out a breath, I shrugged again. “I guess.”
“So, before you needed a break, you were telling us how you nearly beheaded a mutated Spinosaurus and that your leader, this… Hannah…was acting a bit insane. You also said she wasn’t human.”
Did I? Shit, I can’t fully remember everything from earlier. The drug they gave me…it truly messed everything up.
“Sure,” I say.
“So, you don’t deny Hannah wasn’t human?”
I frown. “At least…that’s how it seemed, I guess.”
“So, now, you’re not sure?”
“I don’t know.”
He falls quiet for a moment and the table with the raptor head on it is pulled into the shadows.
“How about you tell us the rest of what happened. Maybe then it’ll come to you for certain.”
I hate this. All of it. But I have no choice.
I drew in a breath and…
9
We trudged through what might as well have been a rainforest. Although, it wasn’t all tropical. I spotted more than a few very large oak trees. Granted, their leaves were 10 times bigger than what you’d see on the surface, but…yeah, they were oak trees.
Before, I never knew green was a smell. But in that place…that’s all I could smell. Flora and fauna and grass and just…green. It was so strong to almost be noxious.
And through it all, Hannah hurried a good 50 feet ahead.
“Incoming private communication,” a monotone voice said.
“I just chatted with Max,” Megan said. “But I want to see what you think. Do we take her out, or try to talk to her? Pat my shoulder to take her out, shake your head to talk to her.”
“Private communication has been deactivated.”
I shook my head and glanced to the right. Megan gave me a nod.
Well, okay then. Apparently, they were making decisions through me? It felt weird, but maybe a good thing? I didn’t know, nor did I dwell on it for long. What mattered was catching up to Hannah and talking to her. I needed to get her to calm down and just…talk.
So, I sped ahead of the other two, quickly closing the distance between Hannah and me. No more than three feet away, she spun. Her mech-clad hands wrapped around my throat. I didn’t feel anything, but that did little to quell the terror scuttling through me like tiny spiders.
Through the speakers, I listened to Hannah’s ragged breathing.
Then she let go, turned, and continued on her way.
I stood there a moment, not really sure what to do. But I did. I knew…
I closed the short distance, but before I got close, I said, “Thank you, Hannah.”
She didn’t stop, but I noticed her pace slowed a bit.
I quickly thought up something else to say. “You risked your life, but that’s all done now. You’re a hero, but if we work together, we’ll make it out of here.”
As before, only silence greeted me. But I took the slowing of her pace to a casual walk to mean something. At least I hoped so. She could shoot me with a laser blast at any time. Not sure if it’d kill me, but it’d definitely make things horrible.
I carefully walked beside her, nearly matching her stride as birds sang in the tall trees above. We did that for a while. Only sounds were of breathing. Either hers, or Megan’s, or Max’s, or my own… I couldn’t tell.
Then, finally… “We’re all gonna die here.”
I glanced at Hannah. “Not if we find another tunnel out. You said—”
“I lied. We’re stuck in here and there’s no way out.”
I hoped that was just the crazy talking.
“No,” I said. “There has to be another way out of here.”
“If there is,” she said, “we’ll die before we find it. Can’t you see? How have they lived so long? It’s because this place is huge. For all we know, it spreads below the earth across the world. A flat Earth, I guess you’d call it. All those people weren’t crazy after all. There is a flat Earth, only its inside the global Earth they live on.”
“I don’t understand.”
She grunted. “No one ever does. Listen, this place is too big. Another tunnel could be anywhere. It would take a lifetime, probably more, to find it.”
“What if there’s more than one, though? I bet if we keep—”
“Of c-c-c-course there’s m-m-more than one. B-B-But, but…but.” A few clicks. “But, in all likelihood, they’re scattered few and far between.”
I blinked and glanced at her.
Very faint, Max whispered, “What the shit?”
“I think there’s a problem with comms,” Megan said.
I didn’t believe that at all. The truth was obvious. Unexpected, and a bit sad, but obvious now.
I stopped Hannah from walking. “You’re an android?”
Hannah didn’t answer. Instead, she faced forward and hurried onward.
“If there’s no way out,” I said, “then where are you going?”
Again, she slows. “Getting away from the dead monster back there. There’s g-g-g-g-going to be a lot o-o-o-of things t-t-t-t-taking advantage of an easy meal.”
Made sense, except for her stuttering.
“Are you an android?”
She quickened her pace. “Never mind that. Hurry. The scavengers will be coming through.”
Very faint, Max said, “Well son of a bitch.”
The truth was, people stuttered sometimes, but not as mechanical sounding as Hannah. Not with a weird buzzing sound. All of that alone was suspicious. Then, given her sudden change in behavior…
But then again, how was I supposed to know? I never met an android. Or if I had, I didn’t know it. Which lead to a new fear. What if a lot of people I knew were androids? How many had already been integrated into society? Christ jumping on lily pads, I was so confused.
I caught up to Hannah once more.
“Okay, look, you can drop the charade,” I said. “I know you’re an AI. A droid. You can stop acting now.”
“I d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t know what y-y-y-y-you’re talking about.”
So much buzzing going on in her voice now. Clearly distressed.
“Stop,” I said, as firmly as I could. Trying something…
Hannah didn’t stop, though.
And…fail…
“Incoming private communication.”
“Wen,” Megan said. “If she’s a droid, you need to fall back. Those things are unstable most of the time.”
I wanted to tell her no but didn’t know how to private message her. So, I shook my head, hoping she’d see it.
“Private communication has been deactivated.”
If she saw, I had no clue. I needed to go with what was right. Or what I felt was right, anyway.
Once more, I matched Hannah’s pace.
“Okay,” I said. “Look, it doesn’t matter if you’re human or not. We’re in this together and we’ll get out of this together.”
Hannah stopped so suddenly I found myself a good few feet ahead of her before I realized it. I stopped and backstepped to join her. But she only stood there. I couldn’t see her expression through the mech. Nothing. All I saw was something humanoid standing in the midst of a strange forest out of time.
“In this together?” she finally asked, facing me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Humans lie.”
“Most do, yes. But I’m telling the truth. I will never leave your side. You’ll never be alone.”
“You…will never leave me?”
I nodded. “Never. What do you say? Should we give it our best and find another tunnel?”
She’s very quiet for a long time. Max whispered something, though I couldn’t figure out what he s
aid. All around us, birds and strange reptiles shrieked and sang. A yellow frog hopped out of the weeds and climbed up the nearest tree. It was as big as my head, that frog.
“I’m only a partial droid, you know,” Hannah said. “Some of my human traits are still here.”
I never heard of an android hybrid, but…
“Okay. You’re still Hannah in my book.” I paused, then added, “Can you calm down a second, so we can all talk?”
She doesn’t move and soon enough the other two join us.
“You really don’t think there’s another tunnel?” Megan asked.
“The likelihood is dismal,” Hannah said. “We’d have better luck digging through all the rock from the tunnel we came from.”
“Why don’t we do that?” Max asked. He and Megan were still somewhere behind us.
Hannah didn’t answer him. Instead, she continued onward.
“Or just walk away,” he said. “That’s cool too.”
I waited for Megan and Max to catch up and we followed Hannah as she stormed ahead.
We were almost caught up to her, when something large crashed through the woods right in front of us. The ground quaked, broken branches flew in every direction. A few smacked into us, but with the mechs, we still stood without harm.
“Holy nutbugs,” Max shouted. “What the fu—?”
“Quiet,” Megan said. “I think it was carnosaur.”
“A carno—huh?”
“Just shut up. Everybody stay low. It might not have seen us, so we don’t want to draw any more attention.”
I crouched, gaping in the direction the carnosaur had gone and the destruction it left behind.
“It smells the dead Spinosaurus,” Megan whispered. “Hannah was right about the scavengers.”
“I know I was right.”
I looked to find Hannah standing no more than six feet from us.
She sighed. “We should keep moving.”
“Are droids supposed to be in command?” Max seemed to muse.
“Who said I was a droid?” Hannah stepped closer, stopped. “I stutter when I get nervous or scared.”
“And…you’re not scared anymore?”
Below The Earth Page 9
