by Ilsa J. Bick
Jack pointed with his chin. “Lowry, go with him.”
Amir’s eyes followed Lowry as he crossed the threshold then slid back to Jack. “You don’t trust him. I can appreciate that. On the other hand, you are not the only one dodging bullets.”
He had a point, Kate thought. But she also knew Lowry wasn’t entirely correct. The ambush couldn’t be a reaction to her finding out about the deal the villagers had made about their boys. No one could be certain she would find out, and in the general calculus of Afghanistan—sadly—dancing boys weren’t worth a bunch of dead American soldiers.
Which meant the ambush had to have been organized ahead of time. Her finding this complex had nothing to do with it. Although...now that she really thought about it, why call attention to the village with an ambush? Gholam was a puzzle, too. His reaction seemed genuine. Maybe he really didn’t know. If this was true, then—that Gholam wasn’t in the loop—who was calling the shots here?
“There.” Gholam practically flounced back in, Lowry a step behind. The major waved his cell. “I am documenting everything. Do not think I will fail to report this to my superiors.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack said, dryly, “I guess it would be kind of hard for you to avoid doing that, considering I’ll be doing the same.”
“So, what’s our next move here?” Lowry asked. “If there are more tunnels, we just do a Yogi Berra and hope for the best?”
“What? What is this Yogi Berra?” Gholam scowled. “Is this like your Smokey Bear?”
“Baseball player.” Canteen in hand, Jack knelt beside Tompkins. “Catcher for the Yankees and then went on to manage the Mets. He was famous for saying obvious things.”
“Oh.” Gholam still looked confused. “Such as?”
“Such as what to do when you get to a fork in the road.”
“Oh,” Gholam said again. “What does this bear say you should do? At a fork?”
“Ah, well, when you come to a fork,” Jack said, holding the canteen steady while Tompkins took several grateful swigs, “you take it.”
“Yes. Of course.” Gholam frowned. “But which side? Right or left?”
“Forget it,” Lowry said then added, “Sir.” He looked at Jack. “Captain, do we know there’s a fork to take?”
“Always with this fork,” Gholam said.
“What are they going on about?” Amir muttered.
“Only Yogi Berra knows for sure,” she said.
“We have a few options,” Jack said to Lowry. “Some are already in play.”
In play? She studied Jack’s face, which gave away nothing. What had he set in motion?
Pederson spoke up. “How much time do we have before reinforcements get here?”
“Ours or theirs?” After taking a quick swallow, Jack capped his water bottle. “We can assume theirs are on the way or already here. As for ours, Kimball was killed before he got a message. We could try the radio now, but with all this rock, no one’s going to hear us until we get to an exit. The more out in the open we are, the better our chances. Tompkins, Kate says you know a way out?”
“Yeah, I marked the way to the closest.” Having struggled to his elbows, Tompkins was fending off Six’s ministrations. “I’m okay, boy, down.” To Jack: “The way out’s plenty big, sir. There’s a road for vehicles and a footpath, sir. Should be open enough to get out a distress call.”
“Unless someone’s waiting for us to try just that,” Pederson put in. “They already targeted our radio man.”
“We have to hope there isn’t anyone waiting, and that we don’t have to trigger another booby trap,” Jack said. “Even accidentally on purpose.”
“Down with that, sir,” said Tompkins. “Hooah.”
Chapter 9
Dead Man
“Uhhh.” Kate heard that, felt her throat move, the air sigh through lips coated with dust. She lay on her left side in an awkward sprawl, a big bulky something…backpack…dragging on her bawling left shoulder. For a bewildered moment, she thought, Afghanistan? But the taste in her mouth was more metallic with no lingering tang of char and spent munitions, though there was a weird odor, very faint. Locker room. Where was she? A moment later, the ground shifted and shimmied; a cascade of grit and debris rained, pattering on stone and nipping her cheek.
There was a whimper close by. A moment later, something warm and moist nudged her cheek, and her nose wrinkled at the odor of dog.
“Dax.” A croaky little whisper. Cracking an eyelid, she found herself staring up at a pair of amber eyes—and to the dog’s left, a pair of brown ones. Her own widened, and she sat up fast, too fast as it happened. Her vision blinkered and swam, and she winced as pain, sharp as barbed flechette, pierced her left temple. Her shoulder and neck complained, too, and she shrugged out of the pack. Her neck stopped yammering, but her shoulder did not.
“An?” She remembered now. An had hesitated then slipped back, as if waiting for Kate to make up her mind. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” The girl’s hair and face were ghostly, dusted with a thick layer of grit. Clutching a lit headlamp in one hand, she’d draped her other arm around Dax’s neck. “Why is the cave still shaking? Is more going to fall down? You wouldn’t wake up, I got scared, and…and…” She pointed. “You’re bleeding.”
Her left shoulder. She probed the wound. Her right hand had no true feeling, but when she took her hand back, the fingers were slick with blood and gluey tufts of down fill.
“It’s a burst injury. The head of the humerus is intact as is your ulna and radius. The capsule seems undamaged as well. You will have a helluva bruise and need stitches.” Jack sounded like a tech doing a systems check, or a computer reporting on its own status and making recommendations. “You might consider wrapping that up before you do anything else. Lucky you had on your parka. It could’ve been much worse.”
“What happened?” An asked.
“Booby trap.” Wincing, she craned a look. That metal slab had shifted position and moved enough to one side for her to see a long, black, and very empty throat. “That’s connected to the switch. Pull the switch, the door opens.” And out comes all this rock.
“Oh.” Then, An gasped as the ground twitched and small rocks tick-ticked against stone. “Then why is there still shaking?”
“I don’t know.” She palmed her aching head. Many more hits like this, I’m putting in an order for a titanium skull.
Jack piped up. “Not a bad thought, except I wouldn’t give Vance any ideas. He might decide to pull a Dr. Frankenstein, and one day I wake up in a whole new you. How are you feeling? I know that’s subjective, but your levels of stress hormones are sky-high.”
Maybe because I have something to be a little stressed about. Not the least of which was that Jack seemed to be turning into her personal HAL 9000—active when she was not, now able to monitor her status. Where would it stop? Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe this would go on, just so long as she didn’t endanger the mission. Whatever that was. How long was I out?
“About twenty minutes.”
She digested this. That was actually a pretty long time.
“And the second time in less than twenty-four hours you’ve gotten a nasty knock on the head. Seriously, Kate, how bad do you feel? Because you don’t look good.”
Thanks for the confidence booster. She wondered how Jack could know what she looked like. No matter how palpably she felt his presence, he was a product of her mind, not a separate being. You’re inside my head. You tell me.
“As I said, pain is subjective, however…” Jack seemed to go away for a second, a sensation that was hard to describe but felt a little like a withdrawal, a drawing inward the way another person might, pulling her attention away from the outside world to meditate. Then Jack was back. “You’ve got a cerebral contusion in the occipital lobe and a contra-coup injury to the left frontal cortex. A concussion, in other words. Do you need me to do something about it?”
“What?” she blurted, aloud. “What do you me
an, do?”
“Yeah, what are we going to do?” An’s voice was tight and thin. “We can’t get out and we can’t get to the others, and Wynn had the map.”
For all the good that had done him. “We’ve got choices.” What had Jack meant? What could he do? She groped for her own headlamp knocked askew in the cave-in. Her head ached too much to think about strapping it back on right that second, and there were odd white spangles bursting across her vision like sparkling fireworks. A wave of nausea swirled.
“Let me help.” Then a few seconds later, Jack said, “There, how’s that?”
Better. She felt…better. Her head still ached, but the fireworks had stopped and it no longer felt as if someone was bashing the top of her skull in with a brick. What did you do?
“Goosed your endorphins as well as raised the circulating level of serotonin in your brain to constrict blood vessels,” Jack rattled off as if he were a neurophysiologist. “Same principle for cutting through a migraine.”
Ah. This was getting downright spooky. On the other hand, she knew much of what Jack was talking about. She’d studied up on concussions for her EMT certification. In preparation for her MCATs, she’d also completed courses in physiology, anatomy. It was therefore entirely plausible that anything Jack knew was what she already did.
Maybe.
Then, she noticed something else. Her tracker was off. Again. She waited a beat and when the beacon did not blip on again, she thought, Jack?
“Holding for the moment, Kate. They’re…preoccupied.” Jack seemed to ponder his choice of words. “Making repairs.”
Everything inside her went cold. If she were dispassionate about it, she could see the logic: make sure all systems were go then worry about the fine-tuning. In a way, the body itself wasn’t much different. Cut a finger, and platelets and white blood cells rushed to the scene, histamine was released, capillaries constricted, clots formed, subepithelial and epithelial cells began to knit themselves together a layer at a time because the body was itself a complex biological machine. Repairing her now was just another order of magnitude—and she, a different, more complicated organism, with her DNA chips, the biobots themselves, the nanocircuitry. Get her into good working order, and then they could worry about the tracker.
Unless, she thought, you get yourself into so much trouble they know they need help. They’d fight to the death to gain control of that tracker. Or maybe they’d shut her down, knock her out, put her conscious mind on standby while they remained active. Look at Jack, after all.
“Mac?” An prodded.
“I’m thinking.” An understatement, and a problem that would have to wait. “Okay, let’s take a look.” Still seated, she aimed the beam toward where the handcar had been. Crap. A slew of rubble blocked off the tunnel from the ceiling all the way to the bottom with more rocks spilled in a wide fan. She thought the blockage must be pretty dense, too. Like jamming a cork into a bottle.
“I already told you the way was impassable.” A note of mild reproach in Jack’s voice. “It’s the same behind you, too.”
Trust but verify. But what was that odd locker room odor? She aimed a look to the right. The switch was gone, buried under the slide. Paulsen had been standing right there, too. Angling the light, she probed along the bottom of the pile. Then, she thought, Old gym socks.
“What are you looking for?” An asked.
“Just checking things out.” Best not to mention that Paulsen was a grease smear under all that rock and would stay there until his bones were dust.
She turned away from the wall and studied the other two junctions. They were still open. Which means Door Number One or Door Number Two. But which one should they choose? The whole thing reminded her of that old Indiana Jones movie: He chose poorly.
“What are we going to do?” An darted a fearful look at the remaining tunnels. “How do we know which one to take?”
Instead of answering, she turned to look behind them. Jack was correct. The way was completely blocked. “Why do that?” she murmured.
Misunderstanding, An answered, “Probably wanted to make sure we suffocated or died of thirst or something. What does it matter?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it.” Jack?
“Well, we already know McGillivray was into games and now we know he’s vindictive.”
“More games?”
“Who do you keep talking to?” An asked.
“I’m just thinking out loud. Helps me work things out.”
“Oh.” An hugged herself. “Well, it’s kind of weird.”
Honey, you have no idea. What had Jack meant by vindictive?
“In my opinion?” Jack thought a moment. “McGillivray figured anyone who didn’t know about the booby trap or the right way wasn’t someone he wanted running loose. But that doesn’t mean McGillivray wasn’t above playing more games. Meaning, there are likely to be other bad choices.”
Terrific. Although time was also a factor. Given how long ago McGillivray planned that booby trap and the condition of the slab and frame, it was a miracle the door hadn’t rusted shut. Aloud, she asked, “What about the others, An? Have you heard anything? See any light coming through gaps in the rock?”
“No. Even if there were, what could we do? They’re behind there and we’re out here.”
She could probably move the rock. Given enough time.
“You really do need to make tracks,” Jack said.
Oh ha-ha. Pushing herself to a stand, she held herself still a moment as the room tried to tip her back onto her ass and her stomach crawled up her throat.
“Mac?” An clutched her arm as Dax nosed her right thigh. “You going to be sick?”
Jesus, I hope not. Tacking on what she hoped was a reassuring grin, she patted Dax. She would’ve patted An, too, if she thought that would help. “I just need a second.”
“It’s the concussion, Kate. I might be able to…” Jack trailed off.
What? The question hadn’t quite evaporated in her mind when her vertigo vanished.
“Better?”
Much. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he’d done, but she swallowed that back. Knowing wouldn’t change anything anyway. But if Jack…if the biobots could also manipulate her physiology… It means they’re treating me like a machine, too, doesn’t it? She watched as Dax, toenails ticking, nosed along the rubble near the right wall, close to where the switch had been. Could they switch her off, shut her down?
No, I don’t think they’d do that. They need to keep me in good working order. Her tongue skimmed her upper lip and she tasted wet salt from sudden beads of sweat. Not like they can pick up and move. Yes, but what if they grew to the point where they could take over all her conscious functions? Jack was already a personality. What if, one day, they decided they wanted to drive?
“Mac?” An, tugging the hand with no feeling. “Are we going? Which way?”
Eenie, meenie… “Tunnel on the left.”
“How do you know? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Grab your pack and come here.” Hefting her own, she strode to the tunnel’s mouth and waited then gave the girl a tight smile. “There, feel the air? The cave’s still breathing. That means there’s an opening somewhere.” She didn’t mention that opening might be the size of a straw. She noted, too, how the direction had changed because Wynn had been correct. The barometric pressure was rising, forcing air in, not out. That was good. She pulled in a lungful, allowed the air to concentrate over her tongue. Wet, she decided, and a little fusty. She thought about the odor of guano she’d caught before. If there were bats going in and out…
She frowned, suddenly. Straightening, she turned, head cocked, tasting the air. That weird smell was back again, a little stronger, too. Like a boys’ locker room. Sweat and… Her eyes dropped to Dax, still snuffling along that right wall. Dax was interested in—
Oh holy shit.
At the look on her face, An froze, her pack half-on, half-off. “Mac?”
That locker room smell. Three large strides, and Kate was across the room. The stink of sweat socks because he was scared, he was terrified, he was…
“Paulsen?” She dropped to her knees next to the dog. “Paulsen?”
Chapter 10
“Mac, how are you…” An’s voice was breathless with disbelief. “What are you doing?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of wondering myself, Kate,” Jack said.
Her answer sufficed for both. “What does it look like?” A lot of the rock was easy, small crap she could toss aside, but now she was into the real meaty stuff with which even Arnold Schwarzenegger might trouble.
“Yes, but how?” An asked. “How are you able to move those? They’re so heavy.”
She didn’t bother with a reply. Nothing she said would make sense anyway. She’d also reached the point where only her right arm mattered. Her left, already bloodied and aching, couldn’t help her anymore. While she couldn’t lift and heave and hurl stone across the room, she could make her right arm into a kind of backhoe. Diving her hand behind a blocky boulder easily the size of An, Kate raked back and sent the boulder crashing to the tunnel floor to join an ever-increasing tumble of stone. “Paulsen? Can you hear me?”
Having asked the same question a half-dozen times already, she didn’t expect a reply. In fact, she’d slotted her arm behind another boulder when a voice, plaintive and small, drifted up. “Yeah? W-who—”
“Mac.” Pausing, she sucked down air. She was blowing hard from all the work and sweating. “How bad are you hurt?”
“Why are you helping him?” An’s voice had risen a notch, taken on a rough, almost venomous quality which, Kate realized only belatedly, was rage. “He’s one of them.”
“He’s a person.” She saw that An’s delicate features glistened with angry tears. “I’m a medic,” Kate said. “I can’t just leave him here.”
