Shade's Children (7 page)

“They’re alive!” said Ninde, sounding very surprised. “I think.”

“Where?” asked Gold-Eye nervously. The feeling of security he’d had with Ella and Drum was significantly lacking with just Ninde.

“I can’t tell,” replied Ninde, letting her tooth-marked knuckles fall away from her mouth. “It’s really hard trying to connect with them at the moment. And people are always much more difficult than creatures. People think too many thoughts at the same time.”

“Must be back there,” Gold-Eye reasoned aloud, pointing back toward the sea. “We wait for them?”

“I don’t see why we should,” said Ninde. With the realization that Ella and Drum were around somewhere, she seemed to have come back to her normal, dangerously impetuous self. “We know where we’re supposed to go. Manhole twenty-five on South Drain Twelve.”

“Manhole twenty-seven,” said Gold-Eye firmly. “Better wait.”

“Whatever manhole it is,” said Ninde. “We’ll waste time if we just wait here. The others could have been washed miles away or into a side drain. They can meet us there.”

“No. Better wait.”

“You can wait if you want,” said Ninde. Turning away from him, she started chewing on her knuckle again, forehead deeply creased in concentration.

Thirty seconds later, her forehead smoothed out and she stopped chewing.

“There’s nothing between here and there anyway,” she announced confidently. “So I’m going. It’s what Shade calls initiative, Gold-Eye. If you’d been around longer, you’d understand.”

She started walking away—and the light went with her. Gold-Eye looked at the flashlight hanging from his own wrist and saw only the faintest red glow across the filament of the bulb.

When he looked back up, Ninde was invisible in the darkness, the beam from her flashlight reflecting from the water in front of her. He could hear her splashing though—growing fainter as the distance increased. Then she stopped, and the light wavered back toward him.

Gold-Eye hesitated, knowing deep inside that it was more sensible to wait for Ella and Drum. But the dark pressed against him, the noise of the flowing water seemed louder…and the light was turning away again….

He took a step forward, forcing his legs against the current.

“Wait!” he called, and the blessed light swung around toward him, reflecting in glittering patches of gold across the water.

“Looks like they both survived,” said Ella, crouching over the patch of slime underneath the broken ladder. “There’s two sets of fresh bootprints here, where they must have slid down using a doubled-over rope. One standard—Ninde’s. And Gold-Eye’s runners. He didn’t have time to wear in new boots.”

“So where did they go?” piped Drum. He was leaning against the side of the tunnel, obviously weary. Blood still trickled from scratches on his hands and head, and like Ella, he was wet from head to foot.

“Good question,” said Ella. She got up and waded toward the Main Junction, holding the witchlight to light up slime patches farther up the walls. Like Drum, she’d held on to the ladder for long enough to survive the first shock of the flood, and then managed to keep her head clear of the secondary rush that carried them down the tunnel.

Ten feet on, she stopped and moved the witchlight closer to the wall. “Yeah—fresh handprints here. They’re headed toward the Main Junction. Probably planning to go on to South Drain Twelve. That’ll be Ninde’s idea, no doubt.”

“Will they wait?”

“I doubt it,” replied Ella. “Gold-Eye might, but Ninde is just too curious—and she never seems to believe anything bad is really going to happen. Depends too much on her Change Talent for warning.”

“Water,” commented Drum.

“Yeah,” said Ella. “I don’t think she really believes water dulls her Talent, either. But it will be particularly bad in the Main Junction…. I doubt she could sense four maniples of Myrmidons in there. We’d better get a move on…if you can.”

Drum nodded and pushed himself fully upright, flexing his arms and legs so the muscles rippled from top to bottom under the cloth.

Ella hadn’t waited. She was already wading steadily up the tunnel, as high up the curve as she could go to avoid the slime. Drum sighed and launched himself after her, noting where she slipped and trying the other side.

“Sure nothing there?” Gold-Eye whispered, crouching close to Ninde just back from where the Main Drain opened out into the Main Junction. Water lapped at his knees, back to the steady trickle it had been before the flood. “How big is it?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Ninde snapped, her voice loud enough to echo out, making Gold-Eye wince. “And it’s just a big pool, about as big as a football field.”

“A what?” asked Gold-Eye.

“You really need to watch some videos back at the Sub.” Ninde sighed, confusing Gold-Eye even more.

“Anyway,” she continued, “all we have to do is go out, turn left, and keep close to the wall. There’s a walkway on the edge. It might be underwater a bit. And it’s not very wide.”

She indicated an armspan, flashlight flickering across the ceiling and, for a moment, out into the Main Junction.

“If you fall off,” she added, “swim. It’s very deep. You ready?”

Gold-Eye nodded, thinking of long-ago swimming lessons in the Dorms. Which were more about developing muscles than really learning how to swim…

Ninde stood up and stepped out diagonally from the tunnel to hug the wall of the Main Junction pool. Gold-Eye followed quickly, anxious not to lose the light.

It was much cooler here than in the tunnel, cold radiating off the deep water only one false step away.

Ninde shone her flashlight ahead, and Gold-Eye saw the steel mesh of the walkway just underwater, following the wall. Then Ninde shone it up and the beam vanished into blackness without lighting up anything. Similarly, when directed out across the water, it caught ripples for only ten or twenty feet before drowning in darkness.

“Come on,” said Ninde, unnecessarily, since Gold-Eye was so close behind he was practically her Siamese twin.

They moved into the vast, watery chamber cautiously. After a few yards, they started passing other tunnels coming in from the east, so there wasn’t even a wall to lean against. Gold-Eye, whose balance had always been perfect, found himself mistrusting it, and a litany began to run through his mind: “If you’re going to fall, fall in a tunnel, not on the deep side…. If you’re going to fall, fall in a tunnel, not on the deep side….”

He was so busy thinking this, he ran into Ninde when she stopped, almost causing them both to fall in the deep side. Surprisingly, she didn’t cry out or swear at him—instead she half turned and whispered, “Did you hear something then?”

“Did you hear something then?” Ella whispered to Drum as they stood at the entrance to the Main Junction.

“Two things,” whispered Drum, his voice clear as a bell even when he whispered. “Someone moving on the lower walkway…and someone or something…on the higher crosswalk. Just shifting position, I think.”

“Do we rush? Or creep?”

“Hard to…” Drum began. Then two screams suddenly pierced the lapping of the water. “Rush!”

Both jumped easily around the corner, running along the walkway with the ease of long familiarity, water spraying as they ran.

Gold-Eye and Ninde screamed as Myrmidon witchlight suddenly flared above them and the creatures’ silver nets came floating down….

Desperately Gold-Eye flung himself backward—into the water. Strong currents dragged at him, trying to take him down to deeper tunnels. But he held on to the walkway.

Ninde threw herself forward, and the falling mesh took her around the feet, its strands melting together instantly to form a solid mass of sticky plastic.

She rolled onto her back and tried to draw her sword to cut the catch rope that would drag her up…up to the higher crosswalk she’d forgotten about.

Gold-Eye looked up too, trying to locate the enemy as he dragged himself hand over hand along the walkway. Myrmidon battle sound boomed everywhere, echoing, multiplying, and confusing him. A harsh, discordant mixture of shouts and growls, of deep and terrifying noise.

Then he saw them—a full maniple, stretched out along the crosswalk above him like shooters on a range. The three net throwers were already winding in—and Gold-Eye realized that one of them was winding in Ninde.

The other four Myrmidons carried broad-bladed axes. All seven wore black, banded armor, unadorned save for the fluttering squares of black metalcloth on their mighty shoulders, declaring that they belonged to the Overlord known simply as Black Banner.

“Help!” screamed Ninde as the catch rope went taut. Effortlessly the Myrmidon at the other end began to pull her up, while the other net throwers reloaded their tubes to have another shot at Gold-Eye.

“Gold-Eye!” screamed Ninde again. She had her sword out but couldn’t flip up enough to get a good swing above her rapidly ascending ankles.

“Gold-Eye!”

Gold-Eye looked at the other net throwers. They would be reloaded in a few moments…but Ninde…the Meat Factory…

With a shout, he flung himself onto the walkway and rushed toward Ninde, the narrowness of the way forgotten, sword in his hand…and then he was jumping up, hacking at the rope, screaming at the Myrmidons….

Ninde was screaming too, the Myrmidons boomed louder…and still the rope wouldn’t cut….

Then another sword whistled over his, cutting through the catch rope with a
crack!
that seemed to stop all other noise…and Ella was there, and Drum, picking up Ninde like a small kitten under his arm…and…

“Run like hell!” shouted Ella, her sword blade glittering gold in the witchlight from above. “That way!”

They didn’t stop running until they were a hundred yards down South Drain Twelve. Ella had picked it unerringly, despite their mad, splashing rush almost halfway around the entire Main Junction, pursued by the shouts of the Myrmidons on the crosswalk and the soft popping of their net guns.

Twice they’d almost been netted, but always the swords rose and fell and the catch ropes parted—leaving them to hobble on as best they could with the matted plastic dragging on hands or feet. And Drum still carried Ninde, whose legs were totally encased in the foul stuff.

When they finally stopped, he laid her down across the drain, so the water poured over her legs. Gold-Eye wondered at that, expecting her to shriek again, but she was silent. Then he realized that Drum wasn’t punishing her—the running water was slowly dissolving the net material. Small pin-holes were appearing. Over the next ten minutes, they would become larger holes, joining together until what had been a solid mass of plastic was no more.

“So you decided not to wait,” panted Ella. She stood with her sword in hand, facing back the way they’d come. “I presume your Talent told you we were still alive?”

“Yes,” said Ninde very quietly. “Sorry.”

She moved her legs a little, and the plastic snapped farther apart. Impatient, she struggled to get up, but Drum pushed her back down with one finger.

“Let it all dissolve,” he piped. He had one foot in the water too, where the corner of a net had struck his boot.

“We’ll talk about what you should have done when we’re back at the Sub,” Ella continued curtly. “You too, Gold-Eye. Just be thankful that we weren’t washed too far away to help you in time. Or drowned.”

Gold-Eye nodded vigorously, eager to show that he totally agreed with Ella. Ninde didn’t say anything. Head down, she watched shreds of plastic fall apart in the flowing water.

“I don’t suppose anyone managed to count manholes?” Ella asked. “No? I guess. I’d better go back to the junction and do it myself.”

“I go,” volunteered Gold-Eye, keen to make amends.

“No,” said Ella. “There’s a slim chance those Myrmidons might risk the lower walkway. They will enter shallow water sometimes. I’ll be back in five minutes. If you hear me screaming, run.”

No one said anything as she splashed away from them, back toward the Main Junction. Her body melded with the darkness until only her witchlight was visible—a ball of golden light that seemed to dance of its own accord across the tunnel.

“How water not get you?” Gold-Eye asked Drum in the now oppressive silence. The big man was as obviously unimpressed with Ninde and Gold-Eye as Ella was.

“Held on to the ladder till it broke,” Drum replied after a long pause. “Most of the first rush was past then, so we could swim. Grabbed another ladder about half a mile east.”

It sounded simple, the way he said it so matter-of-factly. But Gold-Eye had been farther up the ladder. He could imagine the terrible force of the water hitting full-on, the lack of air, the ladder breaking—and the frantic struggle to break through to an air gap, not knowing if one even existed…

He didn’t ask any more questions, so they sat in silence till they heard Ella coming back, counting manholes.

“Fifteen…sixteen…okay, on your feet! Drum, check my count from that last one, sixteen.”

The drain grew smaller and seemed to slope upward after manhole twenty. At manhole twenty-seven, Ella stood on Drum’s shoulders and lifted the manhole cover a few inches, just enough to let sunlight stream in through the crack. Noise came too—the three-part whistle of a pair of red parrots, and the distant chuckle of wibewa birds.

There were no creature sounds. No crash of Myrmidon hobnails or Trackers whistling. Just the birdcalls and the breeze. Even those faded for a minute or two, leaving an eerie silence.

Ella lowered the cover, and Drum knelt so she could jump down.

“It seems okay,” she said. “Ninde, see if you can pick up anything.”

Ninde complied in silence. This time she did break the skin on her knuckle, blood slowly welling out of the joint to mix with spittle, running into the corners of her mouth.

“Nothing,” she said finally, without her usual confidence. “Maybe the water…”

“We’re a fair way from the Main Junction,” said Ella. “So unless we’re right next to the University Lake—which we shouldn’t be—I think we can assume that Shade was right about the Death Markers.”

“Rest for a while?” asked Drum, though it sounded more like a firm suggestion than a question. He didn’t wait for an answer before leaning back against the tunnel wall, his knees bent to keep everything but his boots out of the water.

Ella hesitated, seemed about to say something, then knelt as well and fumbled at one of the pouches in her belt.

“I’d better take care of those cuts in your hands,” she said, rummaging in her first-aid kit for disinfectant and adhesive bandages. “We’ll rest for half an hour.”

Thirty minutes later, she was standing on Drum’s shoulders again, pushing the manhole cover aside and blinking in the full glare of the noonday sun.

Shielding her eyes with her hand, she did a quick 360-degree scan of the area, looking for any sign of creatures.

But there were none. Not even Wingers in the bright-blue sky. No black dots cruising like miniature storm clouds.

The manhole was on the side of one of the narrow roads that ran right through the campus. Here, the road was lined by centuries-old oaks that cast a shade on road and footpath.

Behind Ella, the Great Hall rose above the trees, its stone walls, slate roof, and grinning gargoyles a strangely fitting setting for the Myrmidon Barracks it had become. But there should be no Myrmidons there today…no sentries on the steps, no banner bearers in the clock tower….

Newer buildings rose up in front of Ella—ten or so, mixing the architectural styles of sixty years or more. She looked at them carefully, mentally matching them to the map she’d memorized back at the Sub.

Shade’s old laboratory was in the Department of Abstract Computing, an ugly six-story block of gray concrete and mirrored windows. It was about two hundred yards away through the maze of mismatched buildings, twisting, narrow roads, hedges, and lawns.

There was another building Ella’s eye lingered on, though it was not part of her mission. The University Regiment armory, a triangular sandstone building positioned at the edge of the campus. The Overlords’ creatures collected and presumably destroyed pre-Change weapons when they found them. But there were weapons locked away securely in underground armories, Ella knew. She had studied books and manuals on everything from machine guns to explosives in the hope of getting some one day. Even in the absence of creatures, though, she couldn’t get into the armory….

“All clear?”

Drum’s high-pitched reminder made Ella start guiltily. She answered by pulling herself onto the road, quickly tying her rope around an adjacent steel bicycle rack, and lowering it back down.

Ninde and Gold-Eye came up first, using Drum as a ladder. Ella motioned them into the shadow of the nearest oak, just in case Wingers did pass overhead.

Drum pulled himself up last, the rope straining. He looked about, then lumbered across to the shade of another oak nearby.

Ella recovered the rope and joined him. Gold-Eye and Ninde looked at her expectantly from the other tree, awaiting orders.

“That’s the building we want,” she said, pointing. “The gray one with the weird windows. Shade’s old lab is on the top floor. There shouldn’t be any creatures around, but we still have to be careful. If anything does happen, try and get back here and then return to the Sub. Just make sure you wait till after sundown to cross the Main Junction, so the Myrmidons will have gone. And try and stay in the shadows when moving here. We don’t want any Wingers dropping in.”

“Pity we have to stay in the shade,” said Ninde, looking out at the sunshine reflecting from the windows, sparkling down through the leaves, lighting up everything so cheerily. “I’d like to get a tan.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve recovered,” said Ella, only half sarcastically. She touched the trunk of the oak, feeling the carved scar where two students had declared their undying love on some long-ago sunny day. That was all gone, she told herself, and trying to half live in those times like Ninde only got you a ticket to the Meat Factory. Still, Ella sometimes envied the ability of the younger girl to just forget and enjoy the sunshine….

“Let’s go. Stay close to the buildings.”

They made it to the Abstract Computing building without mishap. As Shade had said, the Death Markers—steel poles adorned with the dead Myrmidons’ insignia—were up all over the University. A small cluster of them was driven into the footpath right outside the building. Many more of them bloomed like strange plants on the lawns that ran down from the Great Hall to the University Lake. In a day or two, they would be collected up and the insignia taken to who knew where.

The main doors to the Abstract Computing building were locked, but Ella—well briefed by Shade—took them around to a side door, which was propped open with a brick.

She opened it—and recoiled, startled by sudden hissing.

“Ferret!” she exclaimed, stepping back to free her sword. Then, “No…cat…” as a large ginger tomcat streaked past her, zigged at Drum, zagged between Gold-Eye and Ninde, and disappeared under a hedge across the road.

Swords went back into sheaths, but everyone’s heart was beating more than the exercise demanded as they climbed up the stairs to the sixth floor, the reek of a tomcat’s proud home filling their nostrils. Fluorescent lights, activated by motion sensors, flickered on as they climbed.

At the fifth-floor landing, a rusted ovoid with jointed metal legs lay in one corner, a hole in its middle revealing circuit boards and plastic cable.

“One of the robots Shade used to get himself out of here fifteen years ago,” commented Ella, turning it over with her foot. “Or to get the computer out of here, I mean. It’s smaller than the ones he’s got now.”

“Less legs,” said Gold-Eye, shuddering. This one had only six. The ones he’d seen in the Sub had eight.

The fire door on the sixth floor was closed and locked, but Ella produced a key from an inside pocket of her coveralls with a flourish.

“Proper planning,” she said, turning it in the lock and pushing the door open—just as the fluorescent light in the stairwell went out, leaving them in darkness. If the room beyond had windows, there was no sunlight coming through.

As Ella reached for her witchlight, a red laser flicked on from ceiling to floor, lighting both room and landing with a red glow.

Motes of different-colored light followed the laser down—and there was Shade. Except he didn’t look quite the same. Less real, more like an out-of-focus photograph in three dimensions. More like an electronic thing…

His voice was different too. Flatter, without human timbre and somehow rather whining.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”