The Plague Forge [ARC] (26 page)

They were in an office. A big one, yet somehow not pretentious. There was a desk at one side, covered with a handful of slate terminals and a few old-fashioned clipboards. On the wall behind it, a map of the water processing plant was dotted with green, yellow, and red lights. Most were green.

On the other side of the space were three love seats, facing one another around a rectangular faux-wood coffee table. The layout reminded her of Grillo’s office in Nightcliff, only larger and without the sterile cleanliness.

A man and a woman were standing near the couches, clearly surprised at the intrusion and perhaps, Sam thought, caught in the middle of a lover’s tiff or marital argument. Given their apparent age, Sam decided it was the latter. The woman’s face had tracks of tears running in two parallel lines down her cheeks. Her eyes were raw and red.

Skadz stood at Prumble’s right shoulder. Sam dutifully came to his left, drawing herself to her full height, realizing suddenly that the three of them must look like thieves or a hit squad. She waited for something, anything to happen, but the pregnant pause only went on. Five seconds.

Ten.

“Do you know these people?” the woman asked out the side of her mouth. She’d balled her fists, Sam realized. Her eyes were squarely on Prumble.

“It’s okay, honey,” the man said. “They’re old friends.” Despite the words he still put his arm out protectively, urging her to move a step behind him. The woman did so reluctantly. Her hands remained clenched at her side.

“Arkin,” Prumble said. “Sorry to drop in like this.”

“Prumble,” the man replied. “It’s been a long time.”

Prumble took a casual step farther into the room. Sam kept her gaze on the woman. Her bloodshot eyes darted briefly to Arkin, then to the comm on the desk, then to the far corner of the room. Sam stole a glance in that direction and saw a small safe embedded in the wall.

Out of instinct Sam turned and locked the door. Then she took in the room again, looking for anything that could become a weapon. Two sturdy umbrellas in a bin by the desk, a cricket bat mounted on the wall. Nothing substantial, then. Next she glanced about for another exit and found nothing.

Not good.

“Prumble?” the woman asked. “He’s Prumble?”

“Not now, dear,” the man named Arkin said.

The big man bowed to her. “I see my reputation precedes me. Does she know about the last time I was here? When you had a hood thrown over my head and hauled me in here at Neil’s beckoning?”

Arkin cleared his throat. “She does, actually. There’s no secrets between us.” He hesitated, his stiff posture relaxing slightly. “Sorry about how that went down, by the way. It couldn’t have been avoided. Platz didn’t need to know about our little side arrangement.”

“Forget it. A lot has changed since then.”

“Yes,” Arkin said. “I thought … well, everyone thought … you were dead. Or locked up.”

Sam kept her eyes on the woman, saw her flinch as if jabbed at the mention of captivity. Their eyes suddenly met, and the woman’s expression changed. Suddenly she was evaluating Sam, as if trying to gauge her weak points.

“On the contrary,” Prumble said, “I’ve been busy.”

The woman raised her chin. “Why are you here? Sneaking around, interrupting—”

“We need your help.”

Arkin motioned his wife to silence with a curt wave. He took a deep breath and addressed the trio now, not just Prumble. “You can’t stay here. You shouldn’t even be here. I’m sorry, it’s just—”

Prumble waved him off. “That’s not what I meant. But we’ve interrupted you in the middle of something important, obviously. My apologies. Is there somewhere we can wait, at least, until you can talk?”

“We can’t help you.”

“Hear us out, at least.”

“I’m sorry, but I insist you leave. If they found you here—”

The woman cleared her throat. “Maybe they can help us, dear. Perhaps their presence is a sign, or gift.”

Arkin glanced at his wife now, studying her even as she studied the three intruders.

Suddenly Sam understood that appraising gaze. The woman hadn’t been assessing danger, but opportunity. The question was … “Help with what, exactly?”

“You first,” she replied.

Prumble took a small step farther into the room. “We need to get inside Nightcliff,” he said. “And, ideally, back out again. Quickly and quietly.”

The couple stared at each other as Prumble spoke, some silent conversation passing between them.

Prumble went on. “Grillo has something that doesn’t belong to him, and we intend to get it back.”

“Sweetheart,” the woman whispered to Arkin, her gaze locked on his. “They can help us. We must act.”

“June,” Arkin said, turning to her now. “June, my dear, we’d put all of our lives at risk. Hers most of all.”

“Mind telling us what you’re talking about?” Skadz said. “’Cause we’ve got a clock and that bitch is ticking.”

Sam shot her friend a look she hoped would produce an apology, or at least silence. Skadz just shrugged at her.

The woman, June, seemed unoffended. She turned abruptly from her husband and looked at the three of them in turn. “Our daughter is in Nightcliff. Our little girl.” Her lip began to quiver, fresh tears welling at the corners of her eyes. When she spoke again her voice was thick and full of forced strength. “Grillo has kept her there since the water strike. A willing member of his flock, he claims, but we know the truth. She’s a prisoner, plain and simple. A pawn, something to keep my husband in line and the water flowing.”

Arkin looked down at his feet.

June went on, oblivious. “And it’s
working
. We haven’t seen her in a year. She could be …” June’s voice cracked. She paused, gathering herself. “I hear terrible things. And she’s little more than a child.…”

A shiver ran up Samantha’s arms.

“I keep telling my husband we must act. Something bold. Sabotage the plant and threaten the others unless our little girl is returned.”

“To what end?” Arkin said. “Suppose we get her back? Then what? Do you think Grillo will just leave us alone? That he’ll let things go back to how they were? No. Impossible. We would be fugitives, and he owns this city now. Where could we hide that he couldn’t reach? It’s not like we can go anywhere else.”

“We’ve been over all this a thousand times,” June snapped, her voice growing in intensity. “I don’t care anymore. I’d rather risk that, or death, than let our child endure one more day with that monster!”

Sam opened her mouth to speak. Skadz beat her to it.

“We can help,” he said. “Right, guys?”

“Perhaps,” Prumble said.

“Not perhaps. We’ll help them. Simple as that.”

Arkin shook his head. “I won’t risk all of our lives just so we can hide in some hole in the ground.”

Skadz leaned to his side and whispered something into Prumble’s ear with a vehemence that matched what he’d said a moment before. The big man winced, then nodded. Skadz kept talking but his eyes, Sam realized, were on her. Looking, it seemed, for backup. Or at least for a shared conviction.

The memory of something he’d said to her months ago flashed into her mind. The girl he’d failed to save, whose name he’d forgotten along with the medicine he was supposed to find for her. Skadz had found his chance at some kind of redemption and latched on with both hands, and Sam found herself unable to argue. She’d been on the verge of offering to help before her friend had spoken, for the simple reason that she knew what Grillo was capable of, what he’d done to Kelly, and what he’d threatened to do. Threats he might well make good on, given the events that transpired the night before.

Prumble crossed the room. He gripped Arkin’s shoulder and eased him down to the couch. June sat, too.

“Suppose there was somewhere else to go,” Prumble said. “Somewhere safe. Not a hiding place, Arkin. I’m talking about a city. Far from here.”

“Impossible. There’s nothing outside the aura—”

June leaned forward, cutting her husband off. “What other city? You are sure that such a place exists?”

Prumble nodded. “We’re going there, once we have what we need from Nightcliff. And never coming back. Zane Platz is there. I assume you know him?”

“Very well,” Arkin admitted, his eyes lighting up at the mention of the younger Platz’s name.

“He’d be happy to have you there, I’m sure. They could use someone with your knowledge.”

June stilled her shaking hands. “Assuming we believe you, how do we get to this city? You have an aircraft?”

“We do,” Prumble said, “but it’s not big enough. There’s another way, though.”

Arkin and his wife stared expectantly at the big man.

“Have you ever been aboard a submarine?”

Chapter Sixteen

The Flatirons, Colorado

31.MAR.2285

The trail of bodies grew thicker.

It seemed that the farther, the deeper Pablo went, so too increased the number of subhumans who had tried and failed to make the journey. Initially Tania found the corpses at once depressing and terrifying. But as the true depth and complexity of the cave system revealed itself, and still the body count climbed, she found a strange grudging admiration for the creatures. To have come so far into this pitch-black world without equipment or, hell, the ability to think clearly, all for whatever single-minded purpose it was that drove their diseased minds.

The cave, which had grown quite warm, began to cool. Her suit, designed for use in space, kept the internal temperature strictly controlled but a display within her face mask summarized the conditions outside. The temp readout had blinked as it dipped below 10 degrees Celsius. Shortly thereafter she began to see visible puffs coming from Pablo every time he exhaled.

The tunnel began to straighten and level off, its walls here shiny with moisture.

“Hold on a second,” Tania said.

“Another sound?” Vanessa asked from behind.

“Getting some static, actually. Weird.” She scanned the readouts on her HUD and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Something in the rock, interfering with her systems? That made no sense, though. Perhaps the object they’d come for?

“Wait,” Pablo said. “I hear it, too.”

“How could—”

“It’s … not static. It’s a river.”

He continued on, his pace increasing with the prospect of a change in scenery. Sure enough, with each step the sound of rushing water grew, and not a minute later the tunnel entered a large underground grotto.

The expansive space was eerily lit from below in emerald green. It took no imagination to guess the source of that light, yet Tania still found herself breathless at the beauty on display before her. Wave patterns danced lazily across the uneven ceiling, reflected off the rushing water below.

The river flowed in from Tania’s right, cascading down the center of the cave. In places it appeared to be only centimeters deep as it flowed over smooth rock and around larger boulders that must have fallen from the ceiling millions of years ago. She based that estimate on the way they appeared to be melting into the floor.

In other areas the water pooled into imposing dark patches of a depth she couldn’t begin to guess. Here the black liquid flowed more slowly, growing to its widest point almost exactly where their tunnel had bisected the room.

Directly in front of where she stood was a bridge of sorts. Ejecta from when the shell ship had bored through the cavern wall lay in an uneven line, piled as high as a meter above the surface of the river. The water flowed around the new obstacle with visible churn, its ancient route suddenly obstructed.

At the end of this bridge was the shell ship, nose half buried in the pile of rock it had propelled into the cave. It had come to rest at an angle, allowing Tania to see most of one side. The surface of the vehicle held deep scars—grooves spiraled around the front half in a corkscrew pattern.

Near the center was a gap in the fuselage, just like the one Skyler had seen in the tunnel near Belém. The emerald-green glow that so beautifully illuminated the room came from within.

Caught up in the grandeur of the view, Tania almost failed to notice the lone subhuman corpse. It lay facedown in the black waters that gurgled against the upstream side of the land bridge. “Looks like at least one made it this far,” Tania said, pointing.

Pablo had been about to step out onto the first clump of debris, but paused at her words. “All the way down here, only to slip and drown.” He shook his head.

He also didn’t continue toward the ship, Tania noted. She understood the hesitation, too. Each of the other objects had been protected, as it were, by a challenge. In Belém, thick mists had blanketed the area and concealed subhumans transformed into armored killers. In Ireland, Skyler had found a dome that manipulated time itself, and subhumans that seemed capable of utilizing that advantage. She didn’t know what the woman Samantha had faced near Darwin, but she had heard in her tone the implication of similar dangers.

So what is it here? The cave itself?
Could the challenge of navigating such a place be what the Builders hoped would serve as protection? She thought … maybe. Her eyes glanced at the 3-D route her suit was automatically generating as they moved. Maybe the Builders hadn’t counted on such technology. Or perhaps that was the point. This would have been a nearly impossible task just a few hundred years ago. Maybe this was all some way to assess a planet’s technical capability. Prior to first contact, as she still stubbornly hoped, or prior to invasion, as Neil had theorized.

Yet the presence of subhumans that had tried and failed to reach the thing filled her with unease. Perhaps the aliens planned for something more, something deadly, but their material source—subhumans—had not made it. Not yet, anyway.

Pablo went to one knee and began to rummage through his backpack. He pulled out a coil of climbing rope and began to tie one end around his waist.

“What are you doing?” Vanessa asked him.

“The water. It makes me uneasy.” He walked to Tania and looped the rope around her waist twice, then handed the rest to Vanessa. “I had a … vision, I guess. Slipping on that bridge, pulled down by an undercurrent and swept into darkness.”