11.18
This place is vast.
The tunnel the old woman is bustling down is tall and wide as the others, high enough it could fit my ship and wide enough I could stand with my arms outstretched a dozen times. Water trickles past my boots, soaked moss squelches under any steps, and the stench of rotten plants doesn’t ease the further we go.
What were these tunnels used for? Too large for any amount of water to flow, wasted in such a strange, unattached city. Passages for ships, perhaps, like the tunnels on Amethyst? Back when this city was smaller and just beginning to spread. They look long since abandoned. No one else haunts this place.
“What were you doing out here?” I ask, trying not to cough around the words. “How did you find me?”
“Was walking. Heard your thump.”
Thump. I shudder, imagining my body hitting the hard ground, arm snapping, skin splitting and bruising. The implants in my left temple now throb as much as the ones damaged by the ForceZero number.
We were so close to getting out of this place. We had the whole damn DNA thing figured out and we were going back to the ship. This is my stupid fault. If I hadn’t wandered off to try to gather my thoughts, maybe we would’ve been back to my ship by the time Kel and the numbers she dragged into her mess arrived at the hangar. I still don’t know what that was all about. What was all the drama with the other ship? It doesn’t matter that much, but thinking about something else helps my brain not dwell on the fact that every part of my body feels incorrect.
Whatever the drama was, I still shouldn’t have wandered around trying to think about what would happen with Zane and Lalia. Maybe Zane was right for yelling at me about leaving like that. I don’t think he was yelling for the same reason, but I don’t know. It hardly matters now, I don’t even know if I’ll see them again, and it doesn’t matter why he was mad. Nothing I said in return wasn’t true, though I now remember the way they’d grown quiet, and think perhaps I should’ve kept that to myself.
My opinion and feelings don’t matter in the situation, anyhow, I should’ve kept my upset to myself.
I wonder if they’re even looking for me. Maybe. We’ve saved each other’s asses enough times maybe they feel as if they’re forced to. I hate that, but I’m just hoping they do if for no other reason than I’m not certain I’ll be getting out of here alive.
Not because I miss them, but just because I don’t want to die in this place.
Trying to get a grip on how bad my situation is, I ask, “Who lives down here?”
“Me,” comes the reply.
My head hurts. “Other people?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Do you live near those other people?”
“A little.”
Probably good news. Someone is bound to have something that can help me. Maybe just a radio. If I can find a radio, I can find Bat. He’ll find a way down here. If no one else.
“Why are these tunnels so big?”
“Big tunnels, big lives.”
A chill crawls across my skin. “What does that mean?”
Again, she shrugs. If I wasn’t hurting so much, I’d probably want to shake her by now. But again, she’s possibly my only way out of here, I need to channel nice, respectful human as much as possible, even if I don’t look it. She asked me what I was, which hopefully means cyborgs rarely ever come down here. Maybe she’s never seen an unregistered number, which makes it even more likely the authorities won’t be down here. It would be the smallest miracle of the day, but a miracle nonetheless.
The tunnel rumbles. It doesn’t appear to phase the old woman, but I lean against the side of the tunnel, remembering the platform quivering and tearing away under my feet.
At least Zane and Lalia were far away from the edge when I fell. They’re alright. They’re safe.
They’re probably not considering me as much as I’m considering them, but at least they’re safe.
“What was that?” I ask when the tremor passes, limping to catch up.
“Thrusters,” she says casually as ever.
“Thrusters to what?”
“The city.”
If I wasn’t afraid of losing her heat signature in the dim light of the tunnel, I’d stop out of pure surprise. Those are a myth, and I never could find anything about them in the city files.
“Those are real? The city has giant generators and stuff?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
That’s it. That can be a way out. If there are thrusters in this place, that means people are maintaining them, and there has to be a way to get supplies up and down from here to the surface. Not all the workers can live down here. That can be my way out. For the first time, something akin to hope catches in my chest. I’m hurting entirely too much to actually rejoice, but I’m relieved.
“Do you know where they are?” I ask.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Can you take me there?”
“Mmm-mmm.”
Doesn’t sounds very committed. “Why not?”
“Don’t like them. Loud.”
I suppose that’s fair enough. “Can you…show me where they are, somehow? I can go on my own.”
Another shrug, but at least that’s not a no. It’s now that my brain finally remembers my tablet, and I search my pockets for it, only to come out with a sharp edge. I stare at it, what hope I was feeling a bit too crushed. I don’t know how much help it would’ve been down here, but it’s just another blow on a day that doesn’t seem as if it can get much worse. I drop the piece to the ground, pulling the other sharp half out and discarding it as well. Now that I’m paying attention, some of the blood on my thigh seems to have come from it. I’ll only hurt myself on it more—it’s less than useless now, just a shattered screen.
* * *
I don’t know how long we walk. It seems like days but I know it isn’t. Maybe hours. Maybe ten minutes. The tunnel branches off into a smaller set of stairs the woman hustles down, cane clicking on the metal. I lean on what’s left of the railing, walking slower than I’m sure I ever have, lightheaded and thinking about face-planting into the ground.
I’m about to get worried about the idea of losing my way down here—as if I could get any more lost—but when the stairs end, she pushes past a rusted old door and into a wider space occupies by tiny, metal houses built into the tunnel walls. I blink, taking in the sight. It looks pretty abandoned, the trickle of water running through the center, and slightly greener mosses clinging to everything, but I see the flashes of eyes looking out their doors and windows before closing themselves back in.
I wonder how many here would hurt me given half a chance.
The old woman—I keep meaning to and forgetting to ask her name—shuffles off to one of the little compartments and pushes her way in. I pause, wondering if her leading me here was the end of her hospitality, and if I try to go in I’ll receive a gun to my face for the trouble.
A moment later, she pops her head back out and says, “What are you doing?”
“Um,” my voice sounds like hell. “Can I come in?”
“I led you here, didn’t I?”
True. Relieved to get away from the eyes I know are still on me, I try with more effort than should be necessary to head up the three steps into the house. It takes what little air I have in my lungs, but I manage it.
“Close the door,” she says once I’ve hobbled into the doorway.
That, also, is too much of a struggle, but doable.
It’s a cozy, circular little house, probably no larger than the inside of my ship. There’s a comfortable chair and a couch and a table inside the kitchen along the wall. A single window sits to my left, over the kitchen sink, and a few plants hang in the barely existent light. Two doors sit along the opposite wall, one directly across from me that appears to be a bathroom, the other beside the kitchen that I can’t see from this angle. Considering the lack of a bed out here, it’s probably in there.
“Can I use your washroom?” I ask, more than a little sheepishly. I’m afraid she’ll kick me out and even more afraid that if she does, no one else around here will want to engage with me.
“It’s there.” She points at the open door I suspected.
I close it behind me, glad I’m not getting blood on her floor—miraculously—and lean against it. My body is telling me to sit, but I’m certain if I do I’ll never get up. I’m trying to grasp onto a list of things I need to do to help myself, but my mind simply won’t focus. Eyeballing the cabinet, I lean against the side of the sink and force myself not to look in the little mirror sitting atop the cabinet. I don’t need to see how horrific my face must look, it might just make me panic.
Well, panic more.
Turning on the sink, I manage to lean over without falling and let the icy water wash over my face, gulping down as much as I can until I start to feel sick and remember I shouldn’t drink so much all at once. Shivering from the extra douse of cold and leaning the top of my head against the wall, I take some deep breaths until I don’t think I’ll throw up. Yet.
The cabinet doesn’t have much, and nothing close to what I need to make my body stop screaming at me. Wishing I had access to that stuff Audra had back on her ship that numbed my entire body, I find a bottle of average pain pills probably only good enough to use on headaches. I feel more than a little bad about taking from this woman who obviously doesn’t have much, but I’m not in the right mind to do otherwise, swallowing a handful and hoping they work at least a little.
My throat burns, and I clear it. Even if crying wasn’t a stupid idea, it would just make my boy hurt more.
I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do next.
Theoretically, I should try to find my way out of here. Either ask the old lady or one of her neighbors where the engines are in this place and find a way out from there. Or maybe one of her neighbors isn’t so insane and knows a shorter, easier way.
More realistically, I think if I try to walk anymore I’ll crash face-first into the ground. And there’s the issue that even if I get to the surface, I’ll still be lost in that giant city with no tablet to lead me out and no comm to call Bat. And people who might want to take advantage of me since I won’t be able to hide my injuries. If I get to the surface only to pass right out, I might be more screwed than I am down here.
I can ask her if I can sleep here a little. Maybe give my body a chance to stabilize just a little. Maybe Bat will figure out a way to find me. Likely, they saw where I fell. I’ve no idea where I am in relation that that, but he has to have some clue.
I glance at my arm and ignore my stomach churning. If I’m going to sleep at all, do anything at all, I’ll need to straighten it. And with everything else already hurting, the idea makes me want to faint.
Sitting down in here still isn’t a great plan, but it’s better than falling over, so I manage to get myself seated on the cold tile without further hurting myself. Feeling around my arm, I’m willing to bet it’s mostly a clean break, nothing shattered, which is a small blessing but I’m not even sure metal bones can shatter like human bone. It’s never happened before. If there was enough force for that, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about it: I’d be dead.
Holding my breath, I crack my arm back into place.