SecondWorld (41 page)

“They’ve been walking right over it for years,” Pale Horse said. “Where does it go?”

Vesely started down the stairs. “Down.”

The three men took the stairs as quickly and quietly as they could. Nearing the bottom, they slowed. The stairs ended in what looked like a subway station straight out of Nazi Germany. Red, white, and black propaganda posters lined the walls, proclaiming the superiority of the Aryan race, the rise of the Fourth Reich, and the messianic return of the Führer.

Miller stopped at the bottom of the staircase. He heard voices. He couldn’t risk looking without exposing himself, but he could hear two men. He leaned close to Vesely and Pale Horse and whispered, “Take me by the arms, like I’m injured. Drag me out. Lay on some more of that German.” He placed his hands behind his back, clutching the silenced handgun.

The two men understood the plan and placed their arms under his, hoisting him up between them. Miller hung his head down and let his feet drag as the two men pulled him out into the secret terminal.

“Who the hell are you?” asked a man’s voice.

“Help us,” Pale Horse said. “He’s been shot.”

“Are you here for the last shuttle? It’s the last one.” This was a woman’s voice.

“C’mon now,” Pale Horse said. “There are
ten
of you.”

Ten of them!
Miller thought.
Shit.

“Why do they have guns?” asked another woman.

“Ich werde verschlingen Ihre Kinder!”
Vesely shouted.

“What did you say?” a man asked, but it sounded more like, “Vaht dis you say?” An honest-to-goodness German accent.

Busted.

He heard a weapon slide being racked, drew his silenced sidearm, aimed toward the sound, looked up, and fired twice.
Pft! Pft!

A man in full World War II German regalia toppled to the floor, two neat finger-sized holes in his head.

Two more men dressed in blue security guard uniforms took aim, but were stumbling back from the action, caught off guard. Vesely and Pale Horse wasted no time drawing their weapons, but in the time it took Pale Horse to aim, Vesely had shot both men in the head with his UMP.

The nearly silent gunfight took three seconds and left seven petrified people in its wake. Judging by the similar facial features and variety of ages, Miller guessed this was a family. Three generations’ worth.

A baby cried.

Four generations.

The mother of the baby, a pretty blonde who couldn’t have been more than a few days over eighteen, said, “Please don’t shoot us!”

The family huddled in a corner. The grandparents stood at the front, ready to take a bullet for their brood.

A part of Miller that sought blood for blood wanted to take the baby, gun the rest down, and be done with it. These people had no problem allowing the rest of the human race to be wiped out.

But he couldn’t kill in cold blood. He saw an open door in the terminal’s white tile wall. He motioned to the door with his gun. “Get in.”

The family filed into the large storage closet.

“Please,” said the young mother. “Don’t leave us down here. The air—”

“If you don’t want to die,” Miller said through clenched teeth, “then you better start praying we can stop—”

The second oldest man—the baby’s grandfather—spit in Miller’s face and wound up to take a swing at him.

Miller punched the man in the gut, doubling him over, and then put him on the floor with a punch to the face. He wiped the spit off his cheek and said, “Lock them in.”

Pale Horse held the door shut while Vesely wedged a chair under the handle.

Miller’s heart thumped with anger. It took everything he had not to shoot that man. He walked toward the boarding ramp and heard an electric zap to his right. Light emerged from the tunnel first, followed by a sleek red subway car. The car was aerodynamic on both ends and the three sets of double doors were emblazoned with the SecondWorld symbol. It hovered over a pair of strange-looking tracks and was attached to a cable above it, that sparked as it moved. The car came to a stop and the doors opened. Miller saw the engineer glance over, looking for his fare, but instead finding three dead men.

The man’s eyes popped open, registered Miller’s approach. The doors began to shut, but Miller threw himself onto the car and shot the man twice in the back. Feeling no remorse for killing the man who was about to speed away with their ticket into Dulce, Miller dragged the body out of the train and laid it on the floor.

Miller stood over the four dead men. There was surprisingly little blood from the three shot in the head. The rounds had entered the skull, but not come out. Vesely and Pale Horse joined him.

“What are you doing?” Vesely asked, heading for the train. “We must go.”

“Hold on,” Miller said. “Let’s change our clothes first.”

Vesely looked down at the dead and gave a nod.

Five minutes later, they stood on the train. Vesely and Pale Horse were dressed as guards. He had debated with Vesely about him still wearing his cowboy hat and holstered .38s, but the man claimed victory after pointing out that they were in the southwest, where a Stetson combined with his perfected Southern drawl wouldn’t stand out. “If anything,” he claimed, “they will be admired.”

Miller wore the German’s uniform, which he realized after counting stars belonged to a general. He hoped the uniform’s intimidation factor would keep people from inspecting his face too closely. It wouldn’t help to have “the Survivor” recognized.

He sat down behind the controls, which were simple enough. Vesely and Pale Horse stood behind him. Miller looked back and said, “I think this thing has harnesses for a reason.”

The two men looked at the side-facing rows of seats. Double-strap harnesses hung from each chair. The two men sat down and quickly buckled themselves.

“How fast can it go?” Pale Horse said, sounding doubtful. “It’s a train.”

Miller put his hand on the throttle. “We’re about to find out.”

He shoved the throttle all the way forward.

The train accelerated faster than any of the three thought possible. Faster than the F/A-18 Hornets. And without the anti-G suits keeping the blood in their heads, all three passed out and spent the first ten minutes of the twelve-minute, eighty-mile trip unconscious.

When Miller came to, it was to the sound of an alarm and a flashing display screen that read
COLLISION WARNING
.

Below that text was a distance counter, ticking down feet quickly. When he first saw it, the number was at five thousand feet—just under a mile. By the time he shook his head clear and looked again, it was down to two thousand feet.

Miller felt a rush of adrenaline surge into his body with the realization that he had only seconds to live.

54

Miller yanked the throttle all the way back. The car slowed, but continued forward. The distance counter continued to roll.

Seven hundred feet.

Miller looked for the brake, but couldn’t find it.

Five hundred feet.

Shit!

Three hundred feet.

The car suddenly dropped, struck the bottom of the magnetic track, and slid with an ear-piercing shriek.

One hundred and fifty feet.

The seat’s harness dug into Miller’s shoulder. His vision began to fade as the car rapidly slowed.

With a jolt, the pressure on his body eased. His vision returned. They’d stopped. To the right was a subway station nearly identical to the one they’d left—white tile walls and Nazi propaganda posters. If anyone staying here had any doubts upon entering, they’d be brainwashed by the time they left.

Miller unbuckled and turned around. Vesely sat frozen with his eyes wide. His hand was raised and clutching a metal cable. A sign above the cable read
EMERGENCY BRAKE
.

Vesely had saved their lives.

“What happened?” Pale Horse asked as he freed himself from the harness.

“Is maglev train,” Vesely said. “Magnets hold train above track. It hovers. No friction.”

Pale Horse rubbed his neck. The rapid acceleration had yanked his head hard to the side. “That’s why we were moving like a bat outta Hell?”

Vesely answered with a nod. “Emergency brake cut power to magnets. Train fell. Friction stopped us.”

“Did more than that,” Miller said, smelling smoke. He walked to the doors and had to force them open with his hands. Two men in red uniforms approached quickly. One held a fire extinguisher. Before they arrived, Miller stepped out of the car and did his best to look pissed. Vesely and Pale Horse followed.

“What happened?” asked one of the men, while the other blasted the smoking base of the subway car with the fire extinguisher.

“This piece of shit malfunctioned,” Pale Horse said.

Vesely backed up the claim. “I had to use the emergency brake.”

“That’s not possible, I—”

Miller drew his sound-supressed sidearm and shot the man in the forehead. The silent cough of the weapon was drowned out by the hiss of the fire extinguisher. The man putting out the fire had no idea his partner had been killed.

Miller quickly scanned the area. A large door that looked like it had been taken from a bank vault was the only exit. It was currently closed. A security panel to the right had a numbered keypad and palm reader.

“How will we get through?” Vesely whispered.

The door opened from the other side. Three more men dressed in red coveralls and carrying an assortment of toolboxes entered the terminal.

They saw the dead man right away, but before they could retreat, Miller and Vesely shot all three. The door tried to close, but stopped against the body of a man who’d fallen in the doorway. The heavy motorized door persisted, squeezing the man’s body. Pale Horse ran for the door, but before he could reach it, the door started moving again, and this time, didn’t stop until it was securely closed.

Blood poured from the lower half of the man’s severed body, pooling around the door.

“Oh my God, what happened!” shouted the man with the fire extinguisher.

He ran to the severed legs, dropping the extinguisher. “What happened!” he shouted again, and looked to Miller. That’s when he saw his dead partner and Miller’s gun aimed at his face.

The man’s hands shot up, which Miller took as a good sign. He wanted to live.

“What’s your name?” Miller asked. He walked toward the man, keeping the gun leveled at his head the whole time.

The man cringed and tilted his head away from Miller. “Ch-Charlie!”

“Charlie,” Miller said, his voice calm. “Would you mind opening this door for me?”

“Coming here wasn’t my idea,” Charlie said. “It’s my wife. She was going to take my daughter without me. I had to come. Had to play along.”

“
Charlie,
” Miller said, putting a little vitriol in his voice. “If you open the door, I promise I won’t shoot you.”

“Or k-kill me?”

Charlie was quick.

“Or kill you.”

Charlie nodded his head and shuffled his way around the pool of blood, stopping once he reached the security controls.

“What’s the number sequence?” Miller asked.

“Three, seven, seven, six, two, zero, pound,” Charlie replied, and then punched in the numbers. When he was done, the hand scanner lit up.

“Is that number code just for you?” Miller asked.

“For everyone in maintenance,” Charlie said. “The handprint checks against maintenance IDs. We can go anywhere but Security.”

“If the handprint isn’t in the maintenance database?” Pale Horse asked.

“I—I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Oh my God, you’re not going to cut off my hand, are you?”

The handprint screen turned from blue to green. The door unlocked and swung open.

“No, Charlie,” Miller said. “We’re not.” Then he clubbed the man in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. He quickly bound the man’s hands and feet with plastic zip-tie cuffs and left him on the floor. He wouldn’t be sounding any alarms.

Careful not to step in the blood, the three men entered the space beyond. Using the two dead men like logs in a river, they leapt over the vast pool of blood left by the top half of the severed man’s body.

The door closed behind them. They were in a small, sealed-off, stark white room. A glass door on the far side was labeled
AIR LOCK
in reverse. A momentary increase in pressure popped Miller’s ears. The glass door slid open.

A stark white hallway led straight ahead, lit from above by rows of bright white LED lights. More framed propaganda lined the walls. Miller could imagine that just a short while ago this hallway was filled with Aryan refuges seeking shelter from the oxygen purge that would bring about their utopian SecondWorld. But the hallway was spotless. No trace of human presence remained.
Somebody runs a tight ship,
he thought.