Further and further up they rose, as the water poured into the cavern, roiling in a storm of roaring water and smashing the Scarab like a toy ship. Finally, they reached the top of the archway and hung there like an overloaded spider while the water below churned higher and higher. Finally, the torrents became streams, and the streams became trickles, and then the seals hung open beside empty channels.
Chris held onto Emir tightly, her feet dangling high above the deep, frothing waters.
“Thanks,” said Chris breathlessly.
There was a loud creaking from very nearby.
“You might want to save that for later,” said Emir, suddenly aware that the surface of the door was moving.
As the mass of water crashed and spouted against the towering gates, the giant stone clockwork started to move. A grinding filled the cavern as cogs turned and levers shifted, shaking off dust as they ground into motion. Emir gritted his teeth as his grappling hook suddenly dropped several metres, stuck in a wheel that was now slowly turning. He shifted carefully, trying to keep Luke balanced on his shoulders. He ignored the blood running down his arm.
Chris will absolutely kill me if I drop him
, thought Emir, a trickle of sweat running down his neck.
The door suddenly shuddered, and Chris gripped Emir’s waist tightly as they started to sway. A series of resonant booms rolled through the cavern, like the sound of gigantic bars being retracted down the length of the doors, and the final gate began to swing open. As the mechanisms unlocked, the force of the pent-up water pushed the doors slowly open. The dribble of escaping water quickly became a rushing flood, as the doors were pushed further apart by the unstoppable surge. The massive gates swung open into darkness, and the cascade of water spilled out into an endless, gaping chasm—a spectacular waterfall crashing into the abyss.
Emir and Chris clung to the open gate as it swung out over the void, the water gushing far below them. The spray from the wash as it charged past the doors rose in a mist, sending tiny rainbows drifting through the air.
The sweeping water drained over the edge until finally the cavern lay empty, aside from the stone pedestal and a silent ring of water. As the mist gently faded, Chris and Emir looked out across the underground abyss and saw a wide shaft of light drifting down from somewhere unimaginably high above.
Illuminated in the pale beam was an island. A spire of rock rose from the darkness, blooming out into a flat island of greenery, alone in the emptiness. Perhaps once, the entire expanse had been land. And perhaps once, it had lain on the surface of the world, bathed in sunlight and rain. But now, it was a sunken world, crumbled away except for this one living plateau.
From a distance, the island appeared to be a lush tangle of grasses, vines, and trees. Towering trees billowed upwards, exploding into fractal plumes of leaves and lignin. Gnarled branches reached out and intertwined with neighbouring trees, forming living castles roofed in leaves. The island rippled with silvery greens and rich browns, awash with earthy palettes. The garden stood in silent wait, undisturbed and slumbering.
A single, thin, hanging bridge stretched across the darkness, from the lip of the cavern to the edge of the island. Wooden planks and fraying ropes hung motionless in the airless void. It could have been a postcard for a surrealist photography exhibition.
“Is that supposed to be Eden?” asked Chris.
“I was kind of hired as muscle,” said Emir. “But from experience, I’m guessing we’re supposed to cross that bridge.”
Although Emir had seen many extraordinary things during his employment, gazing across the void now at the brimming green island, speared in a shaft of dusty light, this felt different. Everything seemed more vivid, more real, like removing foggy, scratched goggles and seeing the crisp details of a vibrant world. Knowing that Chris was gazing at the same spectacle, feeling her heart pounding just like his, realising that she was forming the same memory of this place, this moment, filled Emir with an overwhelming sense of being alive.
Emir’s eyes lowered to Chris as she clung to him, her eyes shining with deep, familiar longing as she stared across at the knotted web of distant vegetation.
Chris could almost feel the prickly grass beneath her feet, the tangled branches twisting above her head, a million undiscovered mosses, ferns, and conifers surrounding her like a botanical buffet. A lifetime of study, an encyclopaedia of journal papers, a cornucopia of funding grants, lay only a frail rope bridge away.
And a cure for her father.
Everything she thought she wanted lay just out of reach, like a sword trapped in stone, waiting for the right hand to release it. Chris looked at Luke, his face inches from hers, his eyes closed, water dripping from his lank hair. She had made her choice.
“Emir, can you get us down?” asked Chris.
Emir flicked his wrist, and the grappling wire slowly unreeled, lowering them level with the cavern floor, but still hanging over the chasm. Chris clung to the mechanisms protruding from the stone door, climbing carefully back towards the cavern, wet shoes squelching over levers, wheels, and ledges. Emir followed, carrying Luke over one shoulder. His hands and feet moved over the stone with confidence, like a mountain goat crossed with a spider, finding crevices Chris couldn’t even see, much less reach.
Chris tried to ignore the violent shaking of her knees as she shuffled closer to the cavern, her pale fingers gripping the cold stone. Her limbs felt weak, and she was starting to shiver in her soaking wet clothes. It was a damned big door.
“Are you okay?” called Emir.
“Fine.” Chris pressed her forehead against the stone. “Just need to catch my breath.”
She focused on the muddy, red floor of the cavern, forcing her stiff fingers to grasp the next handhold, and the next. Finally, her misshapen boots touched down on the gritty floor, and she stumbled forward with relief. A moment later, Emir leapt across the last gap and landed beside Chris. The gouging rush of water had cleared the cavern of everything aside from the pedestal, and the ring of water still rippled slightly from the disturbance.
There was an intermittent rumbling rising through the ground, and the chamber gave an occasional, disconcerting shudder. Phrases like “compromised structural integrity” and “geological instability” skittered through Chris’s mind like rats across the deck of a ship.
“Do you think the water dislodged something important?” asked Chris.
“I think we should get out of here A.S.A.P.,” said Emir.
Emir flicked his wrist, and the grappling hook released from the door, whipping back across the cavern and into the waiting slot. Emir laid Luke gently on the ground as Chris pulled rolls of wet bandages and wads of sopping leaves from her satchel.
She knelt beside Luke on the damp, sandy floor, trying to ignore the part of her that felt like it was slowly choking. Luke still hadn’t moved, and only by leaning in close could Chris tell that he was still breathing. Barely.
Chris could deal with blood—it was a consequence of hiking through foothills, crawling through undergrowth, and climbing things that for structural reasons probably shouldn’t be climbed. But looking at the blood before her, so much blood, Luke’s blood, soaked through his shirt, still pulsing weakly from his flesh, it bit through her like teeth clenching onto bone. It was such a vivid, living red.
“Let me help,” said Emir.
Emir had dealt with bullet wounds before. Early on in his career, he’d been surprised by the frequency with which his occupation involved being shot at, particularly in parts of the world with reprehensibly lax gun laws. Fortunately, his reflexes had so far ensured that he’d never been hit, but his colleagues had not always been so lucky.
He remembered the first gunshot wound he’d ever seen. A shotgun blast to the abdomen. There hadn’t been much left of her between neck and knee. But that had been a long time ago now, and he had seen many more bullet wounds, many more bodies since then. He’d become fairly good at identifying all kinds of injuries: pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun. He’d also become pretty good at knowing when something could be done, and when something couldn’t.
“Let me do it,” said Emir, as Chris peeled Luke’s shirt away from the wound.
“No, just…just hold him up.” Chris squeezed the water from a wad of gauze.
Chris recognised the look on Emir’s face, the brooding posture, that aura of distance that descended on him when his thoughts were miles away. There was a haunted flare in his eyes, as though he were staring into the bowels of hell and seeing himself chained to a rock being disembowelled by first-year science students. She had seen a hint of it that day when Emir had shown up again at the university, out of the blue, or so she had thought. There had been a hardness that hadn’t been there before. She watched Emir’s eyes now, as he looked at the crimson burst on Luke’s flesh, and it was like staring into the eyes of a stranger. Those eyes had seen things that Chris shuddered to imagine.
Emir lifted Luke gently as Chris pressed a handful of scrunched, maroon leaves to the ragged bullet hole, carefully winding bandages over Luke’s torso. As she rummaged through her bag for more bandages, Emir slid a dropper from his sleeve, squeezing three drops of clear liquid onto Luke’s lips.
“What’s that?” said Chris sharply.
She sensed the moment of hesitation.
“It’s for the pain,” said Emir, the dropper vanishing with a flick of his wrist.
“Did SinaCorp tell you that?”
“Kind of…”
“Ever tried it yourself?”
“Did you want me to?” said Emir quietly.
“So, for all you know it could turn you into a zombie?” said Chris.
Emir thought about this.
“I don’t know why SinaCorp would want to make zombies…” said Emir carefully, aware that this could lead to a very long, loud reply.
Chris leaned over Luke, trying to mop some of the water from his face.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out,” said Chris quietly.
Luke’s lips moved slightly.
“There’s nothing there,” he whispered.
“Luke?” Chris swept the damp licks of hair from his face.
“Just darkness,” murmured Luke, his eyes opening just a crack.
“You didn’t die,” said Chris. “You were just unconscious. I think it’s supposed to be dark.”
“Are we in a hospital?” asked Luke, his voice barely audible.
“Uh, not yet,” said Chris. “We’re working on it.”
“Chris,” mouthed Luke.
She leaned in close to Luke, wrapping her hands around his, frightened by how cold his fingers were.
“Your plans need work,” continued Luke, his voice so soft that Chris’s ear was almost touching his lips. “You’re supposed to get rid of the bad guy first.”
The space of a heartbeat was all it took for her to see the direction of his lidded gaze. Chris and Emir spun around simultaneously, but it was too late.
Neither of them had seen the figure rising from the ring of water, calmly dripping like something dredged from the deep. Both of them had been too absorbed in their own thoughts to notice the figure stalking silently towards them, trailing salt water. By the time they reacted, Marrick had already drawn and aimed her gun, standing impassively in a thoroughly soaked, expensively tailored suit.
Several thoughts raced through Chris’s mind, one of which was surprise at how long Marrick must have held her breath. Then again, SinaCorp might have designed some kind of cybernetic implant which enabled staff to breathe underwater. After all, what was the point of immortality if you could still drown in the bathtub?
Emir’s attention was focused on only one thing, and that was how to get the gun away from Marrick. Luke, meanwhile, was busy bleeding to death and being completely unsurprised by anything happening around him.
“Your gunpowder’s wet,” said Chris.
“SinaCorp guns can fire underwater,” said Emir, not taking his eyes from Marrick’s weapon.
“Seriously?” said Chris.
“Business fosters innovation,” said Marrick.
“Save it for your sweatshop banner,” said Chris.
The cavern gave an uneasy shudder, and a chunk of rock fell heavily onto the sand beside Marrick. She didn’t flinch, her gaze locked dispassionately on Chris and Emir.
“Emir,” said Marrick. “I’m not going to negotiate. I have very simple instructions. Cross the bridge, and bring me the payload from the Tree of Life within five minutes, or I’ll shoot her. Your time starts now.”
“Emir—!” began Chris
But he was already gone, racing across the red grit towards the precipice. Chris turned balefully towards Marrick, stabbing her with a malevolent glare.
“I can promise you, people like you don’t live forever,” said Chris. “And when people like you finally fall, it becomes legend.”
Chris turned to watch as Emir ran towards the brittle bridge, her heart fragile with fear. She could imagine the swaying rope bridge disintegrating beneath Emir as soon as his foot hit the first decaying plank, sending him plummeting into the darkness. She held her breath as Emir reached the bridge, anchored on a spit at the edge of the cavern. He hesitated only a moment, absorbing the length, breadth, and composition of the bridge in a single glance, before stepping onto it, one hand gripping a strand of rope that masqueraded as a safety rail. The bridge swayed and creaked, but held.
Chris watched as Emir picked up speed, graceful and surefooted as he raced across the narrow bridge, suspended over the chasm. Chris’s lungs started to ache and she realised she was still holding her breath. Only when Emir’s distant figure disappeared into the island’s tangle of greenery did she slowly exhale.
“He’ll go far,” said Marrick. “If he survives. But people around you don’t tend to, do they?”
“I could say the same of you,” said Chris.
“Not that it’s necessarily your fault,” continued Marrick. “Your sister, your mother, your father, the priest, Emir…Everyone who tries to help you ends up getting killed. I wonder if they felt it was worth it.”
“You know,” said Chris bitterly. “That would have so much more impact if you weren’t the one doing most of the killing.”