The Darwin Elevator (45 page)

The ladder ended at a manhole cover that had been welded shut. Prumble had warned him about this. When the new sewer was built, this one had been largely sealed off.

Skyler clung to the ladder and listened for a while. Through the finger-sized holes in the steel disk, he could hear the faint sounds of Nightcliff’s yard. The motors of cargo cranes turning. A loud clang as a container met asphalt. Or so he imagined.

He debated using some of the plastic to open it, but an explosion within Nightcliff’s walls, at surface level, would not go unnoticed. With a sigh he climbed back down and continued along the sewer tunnel.

After another hundred meters the tunnel began to curve to the left and slope upward. Exhausted, Skyler rested for five minutes before starting to hike up the incline. A cold, clammy sweat covered his body. He mulled the irony that, after getting his leg gashed and his rib cracked and his head pummeled, the biggest ache he suffered would be from his feet. Walking, he thought, would be the death of him.

Skyler moved on when the roaches began to become curious about his boots. The insects crunched under his feet as he stalked up the tunnel. He wondered how far the ocean was now.

At the top of the slope, Skyler emerged into a cavernous underground room, built of odd angles and many sides. His light could only faintly illuminate the far side. The walls were lined with tributary tunnels. A junction, Skyler realized. Every old sewer tunnel under Nightcliff must meet here.

He counted four access ladders coming down from above, and resigned himself to try each. At that moment he wanted nothing more than to be out of the stink and darkness.

The first two proved sealed, but the third manhole gave slightly when he pushed on it.

Stifling his sense of relief, Skyler pushed the manhole up with every ounce of strength he could muster. The cover weighed at least fifty kilograms. Combined with his awkward hold on the ladder, he found it almost impossible to lift. He paused and realigned himself on the ladder, bracing one foot against a chip in the concrete on the other side of the shaft to free up his second hand.

With a grunt he pushed upward with both arms, lifting the cover a few centimeters. His foot slipped a bit against the concrete before gaining purchase again. Skyler couldn’t risk holding up the cover and studying the surroundings; he’d fall if he didn’t hurry. So he devoted his strength to sliding the cover aside.

Pitch darkness loomed above. Skyler flipped off his flashlight and let his eyes adjust before climbing up and looking around.

The manhole put him behind a brick building, under an awning that blocked the sky, in a wide alley that appeared to be devoted to storing broken machinery. A few tractors and old trucks were parked at the dead end, covered in years of dirt, dust, and rain. Everything that might have been useful was removed long ago.

At the alley entrance, Skyler could see only the side of another building, one story tall and lined with dark windows. Out from under the awning, he looked up and studied the night sky. Storm clouds filled it from edge to edge, but he could see the cord of the Elevator, and the tower that protected its base. The landmark gave him his bearings. He was on the western side of Nightcliff fortress, near the seaward wall. The old Platz mansion would be north and east, if he had it right.

Skyler surveyed the building in front of him. Though it was dark, he could see through the dirty windows just enough to recognize rows of bunk beds. He glanced down at his wet, filthy clothing and back at the window. A Nightcliff uniform would be a damn useful upgrade, and if not for the disguise then at least for the smell.

He walked around to the back of the barracks, intent to stay away from the central yard of the fortress. He moved casually. It would do no good to bump into someone if he was sneaking about. Better to act like he belonged there.

The back door to the building didn’t budge when he turned the handle. Skyler pressed his ear to it and listened, but no sound came from within. Perhaps Blackfield had moved all his men to orbit?

Skyler waited for a thunderclap and kicked the door in. He rushed inside, gun held at the ready. He flipped the flashlight on and found the room to indeed be empty. The bunks were in disarray, vacated in a hurry. Without stopping, Skyler jogged to the front of the building and locked the front door.

From a window next to the door he could see a portion of Nightcliff’s cargo yard. A water hauler sat on one of the four landing pads, its engines stirring up an angry mist even at idle speed. Workers rushed back and forth underneath the aircraft, detaching a blue water container.

The other three pads were empty. Skyler could only see one guard, standing on the far side toward the Elevator, leaning against a pylon with his arms crossed and head down.

“How vigilant,” Skyler muttered.

He turned to look for a spare uniform but the howling engines of another aircraft brought his attention back to the yard. A bulky craft came into view over the eastern fortress wall.

Skyler recognized it. Kantro’s ship. A fat-bellied craft with little range, often used to bring fresh soil from abandoned farms just beyond the Aura. Skyler came back to the window to watch. Kantro was a friend, and a friend would be useful.

As the craft came over the wall, a large group of Nightcliff guards poured out of the control tower. Twenty men and women, at least.

Inspection? At least I’m not the only one they pick on.
The size of the force was excessive for a search, though.

Those who were armed raced toward the last landing pad in the row and began to surround it. The others streamed out toward the barracks. One turned and waved toward the control tower window, high above the yard.

Skyler followed the guard’s wave up to the controller’s perch. Numerous faces crowded the window there, pointing at Kantro’s vehicle.

A guard burst through the door to the barracks, eyes wide as saucers. He didn’t even glance at Skyler as he raced to a locker and removed a pistol. His fingers shook as he fumbled a clip of ammo into the weapon.

“What’s going on?” Skyler asked as the man ran back toward the door.

“Newsubs got aboard a scavenger ship,” he barked as he sped out the door toward the surrounded pad.

Skyler focused on Kantro’s ship, now approaching the pad. He could see the pilot through the cockpit window. Even as Skyler watched, the pilot hefted a pistol in one hand and fired toward the back of the cockpit. The craft tilted to one side and started to drift.

Subhumans advanced into the crowded cockpit, the pilot shooting frantically, each gunshot lighting up the creatures’ furious faces.

Just meters away from clipping a nearby building, the craft tilted back violently, overcompensating. It moved back in the other direction too fast, and this time its wing sliced through the corner of a scaffolding adjacent to the Elevator tower. Sparks and debris showered down.

Guards on the landing pad began to break formation, diving for cover or running for shelter.

Somewhere behind him, Skyler heard the sound of hydraulic motors followed by the deep hollow sound of a warning alarm. A missile battery, mounted on Nightcliff’s wall, preparing to fire.

“Shit!” he hissed. Nightcliff would rather have flaming debris rain down on the cargo yard than let the erratic ship damage the climber tower, or worse, the cord itself.

The engine sound ramped suddenly to a high-pitched whine and the aircraft tilted forward, then back.

Skyler caught another glimpse of the cockpit, and saw no one at the helm now. He opened the barrack door and stepped out into the mud to get a better view. The uniform could wait.

The aircraft began to spin and loose altitude. Just five meters above the asphalt now. It lurched hard to the right and the engine noise dropped to nothing.

Skyler knew then that the vehicle would crash, on the south side of the yard. It if landed on its belly the damage might not be catastrophic, but those inside would be shaken up pretty badly.

He took a few steps toward the scene, then paused. He glanced north and saw the old Platz mansion over the rooftops. The sight of it trapped him between two choices: rush to help the people on board the craft, exposing himself in the process, or use the crash as a diversion to continue his mission.

Kantro might be a friend, but Skyler didn’t relish the idea of fighting a bunch of subhumans on the side of Nightcliff’s goons. Sooner or later someone would realize he didn’t belong in the yard, and he’d be apprehended. Mission over.

“The Aura is everything,”
Prumble’s voice echoed in his head.
“You did what you had to do.”

The erratic vehicle tilted again and its starboard wing slapped into the ground. It fell like a stone the rest of the way, smashing into the paved surface with the torturous sound of metal scraping on stone.

People began to rush out the doors of nearby buildings. The squad of guards emerged from their cover as the doomed aircraft slid across the ground and collided with a low building south of the yard. It came to a rest there, half-embedded into the structure. A cloud of dust and debris filled the air around it.

The rear cargo hatch was open. There were people inside, lots of them, tightly packed and ragged. They swarmed down the open ramp and into the yard. Some galloped on all fours.

Skyler ran north, the sounds of shouting, screams, and gunfire at his back. He wanted no part of it, and besides, it was ten times the diversion he needed.

That an aircraft had limped in from the Clear and made it all the way to Nightcliff’s yard uninvited was one thing. That it had done so with a cargo bay full of subhumans was sheer insanity. Kantro, or the pilot, must have waited until the last minute before radioing in for help; otherwise Nightcliff would have shot them down well before they reached the fortress.

“Not my problem,” Skyler said to himself as he ran. He set his sights on the mansion and pumped his legs, his pains forgotten in the rush of adrenaline. A figure emerged from a building in front of him. A plump woman, in a soiled nurse’s gown. Skyler shouldered his way past her and she toppled to the ground in a surprised yelp.

She shouted for him to stop. Shouted for help.

Skyler turned to yell something over his shoulder and saw a subhuman racing toward her. The once-human creature tackled the poor woman and they disappeared into the doorway she’d emerged from. A cry of surprise, then pain, came from within.

Another subhuman had followed the first. It set its gaze on Skyler and began to gallop toward him. A scrawny thing, with a face so calm, so serene, that Skyler almost tripped.

Resolute to conserve his bullets, Skyler faced forward and ran as hard as he could. The mansion came into full view. He threw himself onto a feeble chain-link fence that surrounded it and climbed.

He dropped down the other side and landed looking backward, directly into the face of the scrawny subhuman. The creature slapped into the fence, gripping it with white-knuckled hands, and that same, eerily serene expression on its face.

It whispered something. A woman, past middle age, he guessed, from the wisps of gray in her tangled hair. He glanced down and saw that she wore the tattered remnants of an environment suit.

Recently afflicted, then. One of Kantro’s crew. He looked at her face more closely, trying to remember her.

She tilted her head to one side and whispered again, louder. “Play with me.”

“Not today. A bit busy.”

“Play with me,” she rasped, and shook the fence. Her eyes darted up.

She began to climb.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Below Darwin, Australia

11.FEB.2283

The Platz family mansion, once an ultramodern architectural wonder of sharp angles and brilliant white walls, looked near collapse.

Scraps of plywood covered every window. Black mold seeped up the walls from a forest of choking weeds. The front door, two slabs of thick wood four meters tall and at least as wide, were held closed by a thick rusty chain wrapped in a figure eight around the wrought-iron handles. A padlock the size of Skyler’s hand said visitors were not welcome.

Running full speed, the sound of a rattling fence behind him, Skyler angled his run to the right of the massive door. A shabby piece of plywood loomed in front of him, covering a space where a floor-to-ceiling window had once framed the entrance. Or so he hoped.

He jumped and went shoulder first into the wall of thin wood. An elbow shielding his face, Skyler crashed through the feeble barricade in a shower of splinters and fragments. A marble floor inside the foyer greeted him, cold and unyielding as he landed on his back.

Skyler’s head rocked backward and cracked against the dusty stone surface. He grimaced and rolled, bringing his gun to the ready from a prone position. He aimed at the gap he’d created, and counted. The alien-created disease drove the infected to chase human prey with relentless zeal. The creature should, he thought, leap through the hole in about five seconds.

He counted to five. Then ten. Twenty.

Nothing save for dust and the distant sound of a terrible melee came through.

Skyler pursed his lips and drew himself up on one knee. Maybe the sub couldn’t scale the fence after all. Experience told him otherwise, but—like it or not—things were changing. Old expectations couldn’t be trusted anymore.

He took a chance and swung his rifle around the huge entry room. Marble, everywhere he looked. A series of pillars lined the walls, impressionistic takes on the classic Roman style, all square and angular.

Piles of labeled boxes and filing cabinets filled the corners of the space. Skyler vaguely recalled Neil’s words from their meeting, something about the mansion being relegated to long-term storage. From the chained door to the thick coat of dust on every flat surface, Skyler guessed no one had been in here in months, maybe years.

A stairway opposite the double doors led halfway to a second floor, before splitting into two stairways that went east and west.

Upstairs didn’t matter. Platz said the covert entrance to the Elevator silo was in the basement, but no more. Judging by the opulent house, Skyler imagined a vast wine cellar concealing the way in. He pictured twisting a gargoyle statue to reveal the secret entrance behind a faux wall of vintage bottles. The vision brought a laugh to his lips. “How very supervillain of you, Platz,” he muttered.