The Plague Forge [ARC] (20 page)

Sensing her desire to proceed, Pablo took point and stepped into the darkness. The pile of rubble that led down to the cavern floor was slick with runoff water and loosely piled. Each treacherous step he took created a small avalanche of rocks and pebbles that made so much noise she doubted any creature within the cave remained unaware of their presence. Despite that, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon a slow and quiet approach. Tania followed, trying to step where he had to minimize further rocks to no avail. By the time she reached the bottom, Pablo had moved off a few meters and busied himself sweeping his flashlight across the cave’s interior.

Instead of joining him, Tania moved to a position roughly opposite his and studied the dark cavern with her own beam while Vanessa trudged down the steep gravel mound.

Though no expert, Tania decided the bulk of the cavern was indeed natural. A vaguely spherical pocket within the mountain that had probably never been discovered or explored before now. The shell ship, assuming that was what had landed here, had punctured the face of the majestic Flatiron mountainside and then continued inward. A similar-sized hole exited out the back of the pear-shaped room into a tunnel that went back and down fifteen meters before curving out of sight. The walls of the tunnel were decidedly different from the walls of the cavern—smoother, rounder. There were no other exits Tania could see, although some of the crevices in the ceiling and floor looked deep enough to possibly be natural ways in or out. There must be some way out, as water had not pooled on the floor. She wished she’d studied more geology, but she knew enough to recall that most cave systems were carved by the flow of water over countless millennia. Other than the water dribbling in the entrance, she saw no signs of running liquid inside. No stalactites or stalagmites, no smoothed surfaces. Perhaps, she thought, there’d simply been a pocket of rock here more brittle than the surrounding material, and the shell ship had somehow targeted it, knowing it could crash through and burrow within.

Worry about it later,
she told herself. “Only one way to go,” she said, careful to keep her voice just above the sound of the trickling water. “Pablo, take point?”

He nodded and began to move, setting the pace at a patrol-like walk. His flashlight was attached to the barrel of his rifle, which meant whatever he illuminated was also where he aimed, so Tania made an effort to keep her own focus elsewhere, complementary to his. Vanessa, again bringing up the rear, added no light to the effort. Tania glanced quickly back to see why, and saw that the woman was keeping her focus entirely on the way they’d come. In that moment Tania felt a sudden sense of oneness with her “crew.” They were working together instinctively and it felt good.

The tunnel curved left and downward, a slow, graceful curve as if the solid mountain rock had been nothing more than moist soil. She tried to picture the shell ship burrowing through here like a worm. Other than a light dusting of rocks and gravel on the tunnel floor, there was no real evidence of its passage save for a somewhat regular pattern to the shape of the rock walls around them. The surface resembled churned water frozen instantly, and when Tania allowed her eyes to defocus slightly in order to take in the entire space, she thought she could detect a slight corkscrew pattern on top of the vague waves.

Heat and humidity began to climb, the farther inside they went. At first she welcomed it after the thin mountain air outside. But twenty paces in she found her breaths coming in conscious draws, and an uncomfortable sheen of sweat began to make her formfitting suit itch anywhere it was slightly loose.

Ahead of her Pablo came to a stop. He didn’t look alarmed, but something had given him pause. Tania pressed forward until she saw it, too. A fork in the tunnel.

“I didn’t expect this,” Pablo said when she came even with him.

She managed a nod, leaning against the wall so she could catch her breath. The first dull pain of a headache began to build behind her eyes. The elevation, she told herself, and then the rapid shift from cold to hot. It was too much. “Ugh,” she muttered.

Vanessa’s hand was on her arm. Light, then a fierce grip. Tania felt herself falling, being pulled backward, dragged by both arms. “What’s happening?” she said. She thought she said, for her own voice sounded distant. The floor of the cave scraped against her suit’s air pack.
Don’t damage that,
she thought dizzily,
I might need it
.

Her headache subsided as quickly as it had come on. Her breathing, too, seemed easier. Pablo and Vanessa were leaning over her. “What happened?” she asked.

“Sorry, it’s my fault,” Pablo said. “I didn’t think …”

“We walked beyond the aura,” Vanessa said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m infected?”

Vanessa nodded. A shiver flickered across Tania’s entire body; panic welled in her gut like water rushing from a broken pipe, filling her from the center.
The aura. How easy to forget.
Her hands shook despite every effort to still them. She’d been stupid, in a situation where it could mean her life.
Focus, dammit.

“Keep calm,” Pablo said. He looked at Vanessa. “Take her back?”

“Good idea—”

“I’m fine,” Tania said. “Just … give me a minute.”

She concentrated on her breathing and did her best to ignore the dull pain in her skull. A sense of grief began to rise in her with the realization that she’d have this for the rest of her life. Just like Karl, SUBS was in her now, held in stasis by the aura but by no means cured. She’d have to take pills every day for the headaches, pills that weren’t easy to find. There might not even be any on the
Helios
.

Tania groped through her mind for the last time she’d been truly calm, and a scent came to her. Chai. With it, inexorably linked, came Tim’s face. His twinkling eyes and goofy smile, his
calm
.

“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s manageable.”

“You’ll have to stay here,” Pablo said.

“No,” Tania replied, sitting up. “I just need to put the helmet on and reseal my suit. Go back to breathing scrubbed air.”

“I mean,” Pablo said, “we’d understand.”

Vanessa helped her to a stand. “He’s right, we can scout the tunnel system.”

Tania waved them both off. She slipped the helmet off her belt loop and pulled it back over her head. The seal back in place, she waited for the HUD to indicate the breather met operating parameters and flipped on the external speaker. “Really, I’m okay. I got careless there and started thinking I was one of you, I suppose.”

Her crew mates exchanged a glance. Whatever silent exchange passed between them, apparently it came out in her favor because Pablo resumed his lead and Vanessa motioned for her to follow him.

At the fork in the tunnel he went left. Soon, though, the passage narrowed until it became clear it would taper down to an end. Pablo backtracked and tried the right passage. Tania followed, the dull ache behind her eyes no worse than a fading hangover now. As long as she had other things to occupy her mind the pain was barely noticeable. And yet, despite it being manageable, she could feel the apprehension in her step that hadn’t been there before. The brush with infection somehow focused every possible hazard like a laser beam that slowly burned away her resolve. Here she was, thousands of miles from the safety of Camp Exodus and the Elevator, in an unexplored cave deep below a wilderness, a thin suit standing between her and the worst plague in human history. Violent creatures, fueled by that virus, could lurk around any corner. They could even be armored, transformed into efficient killing machines instead of just primal subhumans.

The gun in her hands suddenly seemed a pathetic joke in comparison.

“Hold on,” Tania said, stopping.

Pablo spun in an instant, the beam from his light almost blinding her before he corrected the aim. “Problem?”

“I just,” she paused. “I just need to make some tweaks to the suit’s configuration.” A lie, but better than telling them she’d suddenly become terrified. She pretended to study the HUD for a moment, while internally she forced herself to do what had worked just minutes ago: summon Tim’s face. He was like a rock that represented her normal life. A life of science, logistics, and the occasional political row. Up in space, with him and Zane and everyone else, she never felt like she was pretending. She’d trained to be there just like she’d trained to be here, but she knew now that this was merely a role she had to fill. It wasn’t what she was meant for.

But she had trained. She could do this. She would.

Tania might be isolated from the environment in a suit, but she could turn that into an advantage the others didn’t have. Belatedly she remembered her suit had position tracking sensors. They logged her movements automatically, and with a few tweaks could be made to display a 3-D map of her route. Not very useful in space save for post-mission review, but here it could mean not getting lost. She felt mildly ashamed that she hadn’t turned it on earlier, but they’d only made one right turn so far. That should be easy enough to remember.

On the HUD she also saw an option to adjust the suit’s audio. She selected it, then ramped up the gain on the external microphone to nearly maximum. “Keep very still,” she said.

Her companions stopped fidgeting.

Somewhere ahead, below, came the sound of what could only be a power source. Constant and deep.

“We’re going the right way,” she said flatly. “I’m tracking our path now, so we can find our way back out. Keep moving.”

The tunnel went on and on. Pablo always kept to the right unless a splinter tunnel in that direction ended. Once he led them down a passage that looped back around on itself, at which point Tania explained her mapping capability. She hadn’t realized it until then, but Pablo had been making scuff marks on the floor of the tunnel each time they took a turn. Even after her admission, he kept doing it.

Compared to the hot humid air within the tunnel, Tania found the processed, computer-controlled air of her suit’s breather unit a marked improvement. Each step beyond the aura came more easily than the last, and after nearly thirty minutes of walking she finally felt comfortable again. The winding, forking tunnel had led them almost two kilometers from where she’d begun tracking. The path followed no pattern she could discern, but it had an organic feel to it as opposed to just a random collection of curves and branches. She began to suspect the path followed some route through, or around, a particular composition of rock within the mountain, like a mine that followed a vein of gold.

She heard the scraping sound before the others.

“Pablo,” she whispered. Then, realizing her mic hadn’t picked up the word, she said his name albeit with a low volume setting.

The immune dropped to one knee immediately. His light illuminated a curve in the tunnel ahead, silhouetting him. He glanced back at her.

Tania moved up next to him and lowered her volume to the minimum. “My suit is picking up something ahead. Sounds. It could just be a bat or something.”

He nodded. For the first time she noted signs of fatigue on his face. Sweat drenched his skin and clothing. Noticing her concern, he took a sip of water from his water bottle and offered a reassuring smile. Then he put a finger to his lips and continued deeper into the cave.

At a sharp turn in the tunnel Pablo stopped cold. Tania crept up to join him, crouching and aiming her weapon only after she’d leaned out past him.

Ahead, a subhuman stood next to the rugged cave wall. Man or woman Tania couldn’t tell. It had long hair that hung in matted, filthy strands. Its body was barely more than skin and bone. Naked and filthy, the figure reminded Tania of horrifying photographs she’d seen from the Holocaust. It stood shoulders slumped and head down. Despite being illuminated by Pablo’s light, it did not turn to face them. Instead it walked into the cave wall, bumped into it forehead-first, stumbled back a step, and then repeated the process. Again, and again.

“What’s wrong with it?” Vanessa asked, moving into position next to Tania.

Pablo shrugged. “What isn’t wrong with it?”

“It looks half dead already,” Tania noted. “Maybe it’s blind. Or exhausted, mentally and physically.”

Vanessa shifted so she could keep her guard up on the tunnel behind. “What do we do?”

“We kill it,” Pablo said.

His tone left no room for debate. Tania wanted to suggest they try to walk past it, but she knew the danger was too great. Once it noticed them, if it had the strength left it would try to attack. “It’ll make a lot of noise, shooting it.”

“No point in wasting a bullet,” Pablo said. Then, “You might want to back up.” He stood and slipped his rifle over his shoulder. Face hard with grim determination, he stepped out from the corner and closed the gap between himself and the creature in three quick steps.

Tania couldn’t bring herself to look away. She watched Pablo step in behind the creature. In one swift motion he gripped it by the right shoulder, reached around its head with his left hand, and at once pushed and twisted. The body counterclockwise, the head clockwise. There was a sharp crack, then the subhuman went limp. Pablo held on, keeping it upright, as if the thing weighed no more than a backpack of clothing. He eased the lifeless body to the ground and laid it on its side, facedown.

Tania swallowed hard, willing away the lump that had formed in her throat. Try as she might, she simply couldn’t let herself see the beings as anything other than human. When she caught a glimpse of Pablo’s face, what she saw surprised her. Grief, anger. He felt the same way she did; he’d just somehow figured out a way to bottle it. It was there, though, in his narrowed eyes, the thin line of his lips.

Pablo came back to them, pulled the rifle back down from his shoulder, and looked at each of them in turn. “Not much farther now.”

“How do you know?” Tania asked.

“That thing was trying to get to the end, too. It was drawn here, and it knew it was close or it would have lain down and died already.”

His voice held a certainty that left no room for argument. “I hope you’re right,” Tania said.