“Ready?” I ask.
She presses her lips together and nods.
I push the panel and we continue, another hundred feet of dim red light, and high-pitched humming. Halfway down the tunnel I stop and close my eyes, concentrate, trying to get past the distraction of the hum, trying to sense if we’re getting closer.
Something.
“Let’s keep moving,” I whisper to Raine.
When we round the curve of the tunnel, the reach of the light ends. We search for the next panel but can’t locate it. Raine and I look at each other, assessing our next step. We don’t know what lies ahead other than darkness.
“You can still go back,” I tell her. “You saw what happened to me the last time.”
She shakes her head. “We’ve come this far.” She raises her sword, ready to strike, and I pull the eighty-billion-duro knife from my pack.
“Back to back,” I say. I explain to her about my eyes and their ability to see faint images even in complete darkness and tell her I’ll go first. She’ll be a lot more graceful and adept at walking backward than I would be and I’ll be better at guiding us in the right direction. “If you hear anything, slash and stab.” Step by step I walk her through the tunnel, telling her when to step left or right to avoid an obstacle. We advance a good fifty feet and I think we’re going to make it without incident when we hear a screech close by and I see movement to our right. I can hear Raine’s sword cutting the air.
“I’m slashing!” she calls frantically. “What’s there?”
I see the outline of the pack. My knife is out, poised, but nothing is coming at us. I force my eyes to pull in every molecule of scattered light, and then I see more. A large half-human at the front of the pack, keeping the rest back, snarling, a small creature at its side. The one I let go? It appears this half-human is letting us pass—at least this once.
“We’re here to get a friend,” I say. “We’ll be passing back this way one more time and then we won’t bother you anymore.”
A flurry of yelps and screeches echo through the tunnel. They growl and they snap and I have no idea if they can understand a thing I said. But beneath the slime, the scabs, and the grotesque lipless mouths, their lidless eyes are still completely human. It makes them even more horrific, trapped in bodies and minds at odds with each other, not even knowing they’re abandoned experiments. I’m glad Raine can’t see in the dark.
“Move slowly,” I whisper. “Stay close. I think they’re letting us pass.”
The pack follows us as we move until we finally reach a point where the tunnel curves again and we see light. White light. The pack scatters in the other direction. We cautiously move forward. Up ahead the tunnel ends and it opens into a large brightly lit chamber with four doors on either side. A Security guard walks past, disappearing down an adjacent hallway.
Raine and I look at each other and nod, our wordless signal that we’re ready. We advance to the chamber, hugging the wall in case the guard returns. I gently ease open the first door, to find an empty room that looks like an office. We move on to the next door, carefully gauging the fall of our footsteps. The second door only reveals a supply room. We both take deep silent breaths and move on to the third door. It has a lock on it, easily opened from this side. As soon as I touch the door, I know. There’s someone inside. “Wait here,” I whisper. “If you hear someone coming, signal me.” I open the door and enter.
The room is antiseptic white, void of any warmth. In the corner, a man lies on a thin ragged mat facing the wall.
“What now?” he asks.
I step closer. “I’m here to take you out.”
He rolls over. “Get out of—” He eyes my clothing and his face sparks with suspicion. “Who are you?”
“The Network sent me. I’m here to take you out.”
He stands, wincing, like the effort pains him. Scars wind across his arms, his neck, another across his jaw and forehead—I assume failed attempts to escape through the tunnels. I notice fresh bruising on his cheekbone. He’s very thin but muscular, clearly still a soldier in his army of one. I can’t believe the legend is standing right in front of me.
“Which game are you playing this time? I’ve seen them all.”
“No game, Karden. This is the real deal. We have to hurry.”
He shakes his head and smirks and then turns away to lie back down on his mat.
“I have your knife,” I say. “Miesha gave it to me.”
He spins. Dark and dangerous. His eyes cut through me. I toss him the knife. His reflexes are fast, like Raine’s. He examines the knife, a pained furrow growing between his eyes, as though he’s remembering Miesha. He throws it back to me, disgust crossing his face. “There’s a million knives out there like this one.”
“No, none quite like this one,” I say. “Especially not like the smallest blade.”
His eyes narrow. I have his attention. “You need to trust me,” I tell him. “We don’t have a lot of—”
The door swings open and Raine steps inside. “There are footsteps coming down—”