Beneath his foot, a rectangular panel about the size of a coffee table had depressed perhaps half a centimetre below the level of the floor. Bale stood perfectly still, the weight of his entire body and his forty-kilo backpack running through his right leg. He did not relish the idea of seeing Docker’s face if he called for assistance, but Bale had sufficient imagination to suspect that this might not be the only trap in the cavern.
The expression on Docker’s face when he finally arrived, accompanied by Roman and Emir, was fairly close to what Bale had predicted. A whole range of criticisms and exclamations relating to carelessness, incompetence, and stupidity probably passed through Docker’s mind, but all he did was stare at Bale’s foot from a reasonable distance.
Emir circled Bale delicately, his eyes running across the colourful mosaic. The light shifted slightly on the tiles.
“There’s another panel there,” said Emir, pointing to a long white space circling from the apple to the cavern wall. “And one there.”
Emir’s eyes scanned the floor again, seeing the defensive pattern around the door.
“One more there, and there,” said Emir. “The rest is clear.”
Roman leapt over the hidden panel, landing easily on the other side. She walked over to the cavern wall to investigate the doorway.
“I think this leads into the complex,” called Roman.
Emir crouched a few feet from Bale, touching the floor lightly with his fingertips. He pressed his ear to the tiles, listening to the faint mechanical kinks below ground as Bale breathed gently in and out. He could hear the ripple of components shifting with Bale’s slightest movement.
“A weight-based system,” said Emir. “Linear, not dichotomous. We’ll have to match the weight of Bale and his pack, I’m guessing to within a few kilos, with no more than a half-second delay.”
Emir glanced around, making quick calculations. He looked up as Docker leapt over the panel, sticking a solid landing on the other side. Docker turned to look at Bale.
“We’ll pick you up on the way back,” said Docker flatly.
Emir’s head snapped up, and Docker returned his gaze coolly.
“We can’t afford to leave three packs behind,” he said.
Emir glanced at Roman, whose gaze remained fixed on the shadowy entrance. She gave no indication she’d heard Docker, but her lips were pressed tightly together. Bale nodded, keeping his voice steady.
“Yes, sir,” said Bale.
Docker looked firmly at Emir.
No questions. No complaints. You had your chance
.
Emir could feel certain things inside him unravelling as he felt himself crossing ethical boundaries he hadn’t realised were there. That was the problem with letting your body do things without sufficient intervention from your brain. Actions which, in and of themselves seemed quite small and innocuous, sometimes created a completely different, disturbing picture when you stepped back and saw the panorama. It was easier not to know, not to care, not to make that judgement, but Emir was beginning to feel like a child stuck in a narrow pipe, unwilling to move forward, unable to turn back.
Emir stepped carefully towards Bale, as close as he dared.
“We’re coming back for you, okay?” said Emir.
“Of course,” said Bale, taking slow, shallow breaths.
Emir had always found Bale to be somewhat distant and humourless, with a manner which seemed to aspire to permanent, calm stoicism. But right now, the façade was cracking off in distracted chunks, and Bale looked like a man about to plunge into a sacrificial cenote, but determined not to look worried about it.
Emir shifted his pack and reached behind his collar, quickly untying a thin, knotted cord. He removed a simple leather string from around his neck, with some kind of charm threaded on it. Emir pressed it into Bale’s hand.
“I’m coming back for that, okay?” said Emir firmly.
Before Bale could make a rather obvious, if ungracious, observation about the feasibility of this, Emir had already turned and leapt over the panel. He strode past Docker without a backwards glance, joining Roman by the doorway. Emir noticed that her face was turned away towards the shadows, and she had put on her sunglasses.
Docker walked over to Bale and leaned close.
“If Arlin gets to the tree before we do, none of us go home,” said Docker, his voice low. “You understand?”
Bale kept his eyes fixed on the far wall, his hand resting on the holster at his side.
“Yes, sir,” said Bale.
Docker nodded and strode away, leaving Bale to stand his lonely vigil.
15
Luke was worse than a rag doll, worse than a narcoleptic sausage dog, worse than a culinary-inspired genetic experiment with boneless eel. He was completely unresponsive and Chris wasn’t sure if he was breathing. She had heard Docker’s taunting call and had been sorely tempted to scream out insulting replies about the value of his word and the virtue of his mother. But that would have given away her position, and she was too busy prying Luke from the clutches of his backpack.
Join us
. It was always such a tempting invitation.
We have money, supplies, and tranquilliser darts
. There were certainly times when Chris would have found those handy. Especially at the cinema.
However, there were so many reasons not to trust Docker, not the least of which was the SinaCorp brand. She would not die under their banner, for their agenda, and she would not allow Luke to become another SinaCorp casualty. For some reason, she had half-expected Emir to step in, to come to their rescue. She knew she hadn’t done anything to deserve his goodwill, but somehow she had expected better of him.
Chris patted Luke urgently on the cheek.
“Luke,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”
His breathing was faint, and Chris could feel his heartbeat speeding, then stuttering, through his thin, cotton shirt.
“Come on,” said Chris. “It was just a dart.”
Not a bullet
, she thought.
It could just as easily have been a bullet, and then things would be very, very different right now. She had been careless, and it was by Docker’s choice alone that Luke wasn’t dead right now. Despite everything else, she would remember that.
Chris pulled up Luke’s eyelids and stared into unmoving, glazed eyeballs. She pressed an ear to his chest, listening to the faint, irregular beating of his heart. She closed her eyes for a moment, almost expecting to hear the clunking gears of a heart somehow broken. There were probably things she should have said, should have asked—it wasn’t enough that he had kept walking beside her. She owed him more than that.
Chris sat up, despair mingling with a trace of panic. Around her, silent trees stood in glassy repose, while a creamy quartz crocodile squatted lazily nearby. For some reason, it had been given dark, slitted pupils. Chris shivered, trying to push away the sense of surreal detachment starting to creep over her.
She sat still for a moment, focusing hard on the facts. She wasn’t an ex-Marine, who could just toss Luke over her shoulder and forge ahead. Nor was she a heartless mercenary who would just leave him behind. But she refused to be an angsty romantic, melodramatically entombed with Luke’s body for eternity. She was a biologist with a barely recognised, but nonetheless rigorous, degree in cryptobotany, and a distinction average in herbology.
Chris picked up the tranquilliser dart from the tiles, taking a tentative sniff of the moist tip. She rummaged through her backpack, fumbling with various pockets and zippers as she plunged her arm into its depths. She pulled out bag after vial after scrunched-up tissue, finally withdrawing a handful of pungent leaves. She took a deep breath and held it, crushing the leaves in her fist.
She waved the long yellow leaves around Luke’s face, covering her own nose and mouth with a rumpled shirt. As the stinging vapours wafted around them, Luke twitched slightly. He jerked suddenly and drew a choking breath, his eyes fluttering open. Chris quickly stuffed the leaves back into her pack and held down Luke’s shoulders as he jolted again. He sucked in a deep breath, with pupils that would have incriminated him at any random roadside test.
“Ngrh—” snorted Luke, trying to sit up.
“Easy,” said Chris, still holding him down. “Just lie still for a minute.”
“Why?” slurred Luke. “Am I missing limbs? Just tell me. Wait, no, don’t tell me.”
Luke looked down blurrily, trying to make out his extremities.
“Kidneys…” said Luke, his head sinking back onto the floor.
“You’re fine. You were hit with a tranq. Just take slow, deep breaths and relax.”
Luke closed his eyes and let the feeling in his limbs slowly return. He felt dizzy and energetic at the same time, like the sensation of physical lightness you get when you rise from the water after a long swim. He waited until he was confident his body was actually there, then sat up and grabbed his pack, swinging it onto his shoulders.
“Did I miss anything?”
“SinaCorp came and went, but nothing dramatic happened,” said Chris. “There was a bit of taunting, they went that way, and everything’s been quiet.”
Everything remained quiet as Chris and Luke padded in the direction Docker had taken, past amethyst wisteria and flocks of rotund parrots cut from vibrant green jadeite. Luke’s gaze followed the mosaic, wending its way through images of sky and sea, stars and fields, storm clouds drenching parched lands. In intricate detail, grassy tendrils pushed through sods of loam, and herds of wildebeest dotted the rolling hills. Massive trees reached skyward, while a pair of eyes stared out from the green. Luke slowed, studying the ground more closely.
In the mosaic, on a section of rippling green, slitted eyes peered from beneath a massive sprawl of gnarled brown tree roots. Tracing his gaze over the floor, Luke could discern the faint outline of a shape, paler tiles alluding to the presence of long, winding coils falling about the base of the tree.
But why hide the image of a snake in a mosaic?
, wondered Luke.
His steps slowed further as he and Chris followed the thick trunk of the tree, past dividing branches and rich, glossy leaves. Suddenly, Luke caught sight of movement ahead through the trees. Chris had spotted the same thing, and she pulled Luke behind the trunk of a granite redwood. They waited, crouched and barely moving, but heard nothing.
Chris peered out from behind their cover and saw a figure kneeling on the ground alone. It was Bale, his hands clasped in prayer, his backpack lying on the floor beside him. After a beat, Chris stepped out, taking a few hesitant paces towards him. Bale’s eyes flicked open briefly to fix Chris with an expression of faint distaste, then he continued to pray quietly.
Luke noticed that Bale knelt in a large halo of shimmering red and black tiles—the single ripe apple on the tree. Further beyond, he could see an opening in the wall, like a howling mouth in the rock. Chris took a few steps closer.
“You might want to stay there,” said Bale, not opening his eyes.
“If this is a trap, I don’t get it,” said Chris.
In a blur of movement, Bale flicked out his gun and aimed it squarely at Chris, his eyes opening slowly.
“How about the part where I shoot you both?” said Bale, his finger tight on the trigger.
Chris looked past the gun, at Bale, and saw the expression in his eyes, like a man wearing concrete shoes on a bridge.
“They left you behind, didn’t they?” said Chris “What did you do? Lose a shoe?”
Bale had, in fact, lost his helmet in the tunnels, but he doubted this was a major factor in Docker’s decision. After all, it had been dark, the floor uneven, and Roman had kept stepping on his heels.
Bale curled a lip and swiftly re-holstered his gun, clasping his hands again.
“Just go,” said Bale.
Bale felt no need to go out in a blaze of glory, and to his disappointment he did not feel particularly ready to go at all. But a little peace in his last moments would have to be enough.
He knew they weren’t coming back for him. If they succeeded in passing through three deadly challenges to reach Eden, they certainly weren’t going to trudge back through them to pick up the guy who’d trod on a trap. And no one would send a rescue team down an unimaginably long, crumbling shaft to bring him back. It wasn’t economical. It sent the wrong message.
Chris’s eyes dragged down Bale’s tense form and saw the line of shadow neatly surrounding him on the floor. Her eyes widened in realisation, and instinctively she took a step back. The corner of Bale’s mouth dragged up in a bitter smile, then faded.
“If you taunt me, I
will
shoot you,” said Bale.
A pang of something like anger tightened around Chris’s heart.
“What kind of trap is it?” asked Chris.
“Deadly, I’m sure,” said Bale.
“I mean, is it explosives, or spikes, or giant pizza blades—?” began Chris.
Bale’s fingers wrapped around his gun again.
“If it’s blades, then maybe if you rolled and ran… Or spikes, then you could jump and roll,” continued Chris, taking a step forward. “Or maybe if you jumped and we pulled you—”
“I think I’ll take my chances with divine intervention,” said Bale.
Luke stepped towards Bale.
“Prayer might save your soul, but it won’t save your life,” said Luke.
Bale looked up at Luke, his expression softening slightly. The bitterness and bravado faded, leaving him looking tired and drawn.
“The priest,” said Bale quietly. “Forgive me for my transgressions. Would you perform last rites for me?”
Luke glared down at Bale, his eyes hard. An internal firestorm had been whirling on the plains, but now it was bearing down on the townsfolk in a monstrous inferno.
“No,” said Luke. “I’m going to stop you from bloody dying.”
Luke ignored Chris’s startled expression.
Too much Cassia leaf vapour
, thought Chris.
“How much do you weigh?” demanded Luke.
Bale stared at him.
“We need to counterweight the pressure plate, don’t we?” said Luke.
“Seventy-six kilos,” said Bale. “And a forty-three kilo backpack.”
“You’re not supposed to carry more than ten percent of your body weight,” said Chris. “But I guess if SinaCorp cared about operational health and safety, they’d have had a workshop on pressure-plate traps.”