John stood and helped her carefully to her feet.
"Are there any other places I should worry about?" she whispered.
"Just don’t go near anything made of dirt."
Fran looked up and down the tunnel. "Don’t touch the dirt. Right."
John turned away from her and began leading again.
"This whole damn place is made of dirt," she said to herself.
***
Malachi’s brow furrowed in concentration as he looked at the map, searching for the exact spot. The people had all funneled out of the room ten minutes ago, not so much as sparing a glance in their direction, and now he, Jenna, and Deirdre stood in front of the empty school gymnasium, studying the overhead map that the townsfolk of Loston had left on when they left to begin their search.
"Well?" asked Jenna.
"They’re in the mountains," said Malachi.
"Then let’s go."
"I want to figure out where in the mountains they are," replied Malachi. "Now shut up and let me think."
Jenna quieted. Deirdre was already silent, standing wordlessly as a dark ghost, holding a Uzi she had also brought with her to Loston, though until now it had been stowed under her heavy coat. She hadn’t used it before, preferring the shotgun, but since the town was on alert now, greater firepower might be required. She held the weapon at ready, able to fire it in an instant. More than likely the inhabitants of Loston wouldn’t pay them much attention at all, but if they should become
aware
of the visitors in their midst...well, Malachi was glad that Deirdre was keeping her weapon ready.
Suddenly a voice, dry and hard and sharp as obsidian, slashed through the open space of the auditorium. "Who are you?"
Malachi turned to see a woman, face stripped of all emotion, entering the gym through a side door. She wore a pair of blue jeans and a striped blouse, a name pin with "Mary" scribbled across it her only adornment.
Deirdre answered her by pulling the trigger of her Uzi. The spray of bullets literally cut the woman’s head off. The body fell to the floor, and before it had even hit Malachi had turned back to the map. Mary’s death meant no more to him than would the death of a fly. Less, in fact, for the Lord had made flies, but only the Devil had been involved in Mary’s birth.
"Got it," he said at last.
"Where?" asked Jenna, her voice still slushy from the beating John had given her.
"The mines," answered Malachi.
"Why there?" said Jenna.
"We know he’ll be in the mountains. The mineral deposits will make long-distance tracking impossible. And if he goes to the mines, there’s machinery that will further mask their locations."
"Would either of them think to go there?"
Malachi strode to the door of the gymnasium.
"The girl wouldn’t. But him...I don’t think he could think to go anywhere else."
***
John helped Fran onto the lift, steadying her. She looked down, and John saw her face pinch with fright. He didn’t blame her; the same feeling had swept over him the first time he looked down while riding the mine elevator. The floor consisted of a steel reinforced mesh that allowed plenty of space to look down and see....
Nothing.
The mine shaft appeared to descend for thousands of feet. And the truth was it did. Bare rock walls could be seen for a few feet below them, but those walls rapidly disappeared in the awesome darkness that waited below, like the wide-stretched maw of some forgotten beast of stone.
Fran took off her jacket and he followed suit.
"Hot," she murmured.
John nodded. "It’ll get hotter the deeper we get."
He hit the lift button, and the elevator began its descent, jerking into motion in and causing the cage to swing on its cables. Fran clutched him for a moment, her eyes darting in all directions like those of a trapped animal. The swaying steadied somewhat, but never truly ceased as they descended, and once again John was impressed by Fran’s ability to deal with whatever came at her. Certainly, she looked on the edge of panic, but she had not yet succumbed to it as so many would have done already in this situation. Indeed, John himself had done so earlier, when he had shot Dallas, and would have surrendered utterly to madness and certain death had she not pulled him to her and in so doing yanked him back to comparatively rational thought.
Dallas. He still could not believe that he had shot the boy. He knew that the reaction had been one born of deeply inculcated habit; that rational thought had not been a party to the choice to fire. Nonetheless, the boy’s injury rested heavily upon John’s mind. He hoped the boy was not dead.
But then again, if he was, the night had shown that death was no longer the one-way portal he had understood it to be for so many years. Indeed, as they descended John fully expected to see Dallas waiting at one of the tunnels they passed on their inexorable trip downward. He would not have been surprised, for shock and surprise had been thoroughly burned out of him, at least for the time being. Too many strange events had happened to allow such emotions to continue.
Evidently, however, that was not the case with Fran. She looked up, and John felt her gasp again. "Wow."
John looked up, too. He had seen it before, but the sight always invigorated him with its beauty. Icicles glistened above them, hanging in impossibly long shafts, a small but steady drip of water coming off the tip of each one. They clung to the ceiling of the vertical shaft in silky, crystalline shards, ranging in size from inches to a hundred feet, from centimeters in diameter to many inches across. Again John felt as though he were in some gaping mouth, looking up now from the monster’s gullet to see a glimmering network of pointed teeth above.
"That’s a hundred years of miners breathing and steaming in the bottom of the mine. The moisture comes up and hits the ceiling of the shafts, and that’s what you get."
As always, he tried use his helmet light to pierce the darkness that clouded the crystalline stalactites. His headlamp was reflected back at him from a million reflective angles, creating a blossoming web of fiery luminescence that in turn gave birth to thousands of stars that hung above and around them. The resulting light created blurs in the gleaming icicles, so that he could not be sure whether he was seeing reality or merely a reflection when he looked at the glittering teeth. It was an awesome sight, and not a little frightening because of the sheer immensity of the hanging crystalline growths.
The icicles extended dozens - and John knew in some cases hundreds - of feet, ending finally at the top of the shaft, which had been dug far above them to accommodate such accumulations. The elevator cables were woven among the tops of the stalactites, then anchored in the rock at the ceiling of the shaft. Together, ice and steel blended in a strange hybrid of the natural and the synthetic, a metallic spiderweb encased in ice.
The crystals disappeared in the darkness above them as John and Fran continued to drop, passing level after level of mine shafts. But the surreal spell they wove stayed with them far after the teeth were swept from sight and eaten by the ever-present darkness.
"How far down are we going?" asked Fran.
John frowned. He had planned to drop only a few levels, but that didn’t seem right. Something seemed to be pulling him ever lower, and suddenly John knew what his subconscious had been trying to tell him. It had been years since he had spent any time in the mine, but not enough time had passed to cleanse his subconscious memories of the important details of the mine’s layout.
"We won’t go all the way," he said, "but a bit farther. There’s an old rest station with some cots. We can use them to get some shuteye."
"I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep," said Fran. She tried to chuckle, but to John’s ears it sounded more like a gasp.
He put his arm around her and squeezed, feeling her mold herself to him in response, holding him tightly. He well remembered his first trip into real battle. The fear, the tension, the exhilaration when he survived. He was amazed at how well Fran was holding up. But he knew that as soon as she laid down, she would fall asleep as her body’s automatic systems took over. Emotionally charged and mentally wired or not, the human body could only stand so much exertion before it fell into dreamless sleep.
"You’ll be surprised," he answered, and squeezed her again as they continued their descent into the belly of the mountain.
***
Malachi pulled the police cruiser off of the main street, scanning the street signs with Jenna in the back seat and Deirdre running point. He had memorized the directions to the Resurrection Mine - he thought the name strangely apropos - and now drove through the town in the early morning light of the sun, or at least what the Controllers called a sun. Malachi knew it was nothing of the sort, but it shed light and he didn’t care about it beyond that.
He supposed he could have gotten to the mine more quickly had he used the siren, but he didn’t wish to draw attention from the wraithlike walkers that drifted across every street. As long as they appeared to be following a search pattern, they should fall beneath the awareness of those around them. But sirens might just jerk them into attention, and attention was something Malachi wished to avoid. He knew he could not die, but he could certainly be inconvenienced, and even inconvenience at this time could not be permitted. The end was too close, the work to which he had been ordained almost finished, and he would let nothing hinder him or even set him back a few minutes.
All around them, the people of Loston glided from house to house, from tree to tree. The very old stood without aid of walkers or crutches or chairs for the first time in years, while the very young pushed through underbrush with a determination and focus that belied their years.
Malachi knew what it was: Adam and the Controllers had put the people on full Alert. All through the town, people would be searching for John and Fran while the Controllers tried to home in on Fran’s beacon in an attempt to rescue her.
Malachi smiled, moving the cruiser forward a bit faster. He knew that Adam was doubtless aware of his presence in the town; or if he was not, that he soon would be. But he also knew that Adam would be confined to the patterns and protocols that had been in place for centuries. Those would obstruct Adam’s movements and restrict his ability to act. Therefore Malachi had the advantage in this situation, and could act more freely than could Adam, his old friend and mentor.
A young woman walked into the street ahead of him. She looked up as Malachi approached her in the cruiser, then looked straight ahead again and continued walking, perhaps confident that he would stop, or, more likely, in her present state of mind she was merely unaware of the threat that the car presented.
Malachi, feeling confidence rise within him like a fountain of living water, gunned the engine. The car hove forward with a slight screech of burning rubber. Jenna screamed in the backseat as the car hit the girl. Malachi hadn’t had time to move the car to anything resembling its top speed, but still the impact was hard enough to grab the girl in an invisible but tight grip and then flip her over the top of the car.
Malachi hit the brakes and looked in the side mirror. He could see the girl behind the car, twitching, then sitting up. He looked out the side window. A woman, no doubt the girl’s mother, watched him impassively. Malachi looked away from her, then put the car into reverse. He slammed the accelerator down, and the tires spun in the loose gravel below them before biting down and throwing the heavy cruiser backward with another lurch.
It knocked into the girl, pushing her down under the heavy-duty tires of the police car, crushing her below. Malachi jammed the brakes a second time, halting with the front right tire still resting on top of the girl. His smile grew wider: as a real person the girl would forever be a soulless failure. As a speed bump she was actually quite serviceable.
He looked out the window again. The girl’s mother watched him for a moment more, then her visage changed. Malachi knew the look was not one of a parent angered by the sudden and unfair loss of a child, but rather the look of an extermination machine which has finally sensed a threat.
The woman ran to Malachi’s car. He looked around as she approached. There was no one nearby. He waited until the woman got close, then rolled down the front window.
Her arm snaked in, grabbing him by the hair and yanking, trying to pull him out of the car. But seconds after it touched him her hand drew back as though the woman had been bitten by a cobra. She shook her head and her eyes cleared momentarily of the gauzy veil that had been draped across her mind.
Malachi gave her no time to come to an understanding of the situation, but quickly drew his gun and jabbed it at her face. He felt the barrel punch through her teeth, shattering them, and then came to a stop inside her mouth. He pulled the trigger, then laughed as the woman fell in a heap beside the car, laying only inches away from her daughter, who was mangled but still twitching below the front tire of the cruiser.
"Why did you do that?" asked Jenna from behind.
"Because it was fun," he replied.
He gunned the engine and continued on to the foothills.
CONT HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
Adam saw another screen go blank from the corner of his eye. When he looked over, the word "OFFLINE" was playing across its surface.
"Replay that one," he told Jason. "And enlarge it."
The scene came on again, a first person point of view that showed a police cruiser with someone inside. Someone close, someone familiar.
"Malachi," Jason whispered.
Adam and Jason both watched as Malachi pulled his gun and jammed it at the camera. He pulled the trigger, then the screen went black.
"Damn," said Adam.
"Well, there’s some good news," sighed Jason wearily. They’d been up forever, it seemed, watching the crisis worsen in Loston. Fatigue had filled Adam’s mind, scratching at his eyes and causing them to blur, but now his gaze sharpened somewhat in surprise at his compatriot’s statement.