“This isn’t good,” Auger said. “That door should be closed by now.”
“What’s happened to those friends of yours?”
“I was expecting them to be here by now—a few reinforcements, at the very least. Until last Friday we had a whole team here.”
“What happened on Friday?”
“The children penetrated the shaft, broke in via a tunnel of their own. Killed Barton and Aveling, two of my colleagues. Skellsgard took a hit, but she was all right. I got her out of here, told her to send help back for me. I had to leave the door open when I left since there was no one left on the other side to lock it.”
“When were you expecting this help to arrive?”
“It should have taken sixty hours, minimum. The earliest the cavalry could have arrived was sometime around midnight last night, but there may have been a delay at the other end before anyone could set out on the return journey. They would have arrived on the other side of that door, able to shut it properly.”
“Maybe if we go through that door, we’ll have a better idea of what’s happened.”
“You’re not going to like what’s through that door,” Auger warned.
“I’m in for the rest of the game. Let’s do it.”
They nudged the door open wide enough to squeeze through. Floyd helped Auger up on to the metal lip, into the raised area beyond. He followed her, squinting against the strange, shifting light that filled the chamber.
“Now help me close the door,” she said.
They worked the door into its seal, then Floyd turned the hefty wheel that locked it from the inside.
“That’ll keep them out for a good few hours,” Auger said. “They’ll need to bring cutting gear down into the tunnel, and there’s no telling how long it will take them to break through even when it arrives.”
“But they’ll get through eventually.”
“Yes, but you only have to hold out down here for three days or so. By that time, we’ll have sent people through to help you get back to safety. You’ll find provisions and water in the next room.”
“What next room?”
The chamber they were in was the size of a one-car garage, its walls gouged from dark, glistening rock. The floor was scratched metal. Several cabinets and work benches were arranged around the perimeter, set with what Floyd recognised as wireless transmitting equipment. There was a lot of it, and it was wired together in surprising ways, but there was nothing that looked like super-secret spy gear of the kind he had expected. The only odd thing in the room—and it was, admittedly, more than a little odd—was the peculiar plaque or mirror hanging against—or rather set into—the rear wall. It was the source of the light: a perfectly blank, flat surface as tall as a man that none the less conveyed a subtle, queasy sense of depth and shifting perspective. The surface was framed by a heavy construction that merged seamlessly into the walls of the cave. The frame was moulded from a translucent material like dark honey, twinkling with a suggestion of shimmering machinery buried deep within it.
It looked like nothing he had ever seen in his life.
“This is the censor chamber,” Auger said, peeling away the sticky wad of Floyd’s jacket that was serving as a bandage, rearranging the fabric and then pressing it hard against her wound. “There’s first-aid gear here, but we’ll have more to choose from on the other side of the censor.”
“The what?”
“That thing,” she said, pointing to the source of the wavering light. “We call it the censor. It’s like a checkpoint. It lets certain things through, and stops other things. I think we’ll both be safer on the other side of it.”
“Keep talking,” he said, transfixed by the shifting, resonating surface.
“We don’t know exactly what rules it applies,” Auger said, a remark that did nothing to reassure him. “It’s pretty strict about what it lets into Paris. But it doesn’t seem to be so picky about the things it allows through the other way.”
“You’re talking as if you don’t even know how that thing works.”
“We don’t,” she said simply. “We don’t even know who made it, or how long ago.”
“This is getting way too strange for me,” Floyd said.
“Then turn back and face those men.” Auger nodded at the censor. “I’m not even sure it will let you through anyway.”
“Will it let you through?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been through it three times already, no harm done. But we’re not the same. What applies to me won’t necessarily apply to you.”
“How different can we be?”
“More than you know. But there’s only way to find out. I’ll go through first and wait for you on the other side. If you haven’t come through after a minute or two, I’ll…” But Auger could not finish whatever it was she meant to say.
“What is it?” Floyd asked.
“It isn’t that easy. We’ve never seen the censor refuse a living thing. I don’t know what it will do if it decides not to let you through.” Auger swallowed. “It might not be pretty. When we tried to bring machines through from the other side—weapons, communications gear, that kind of thing—it usually didn’t allow it. That’s why we call it the censor.”
Floyd began to feel as if he had walked into a parlour game with only a vague idea of the rules. “It blocked them somehow?”
“Destroyed them,” Auger said. “Turned them into useless lumps of metal slag. Randomised them on the atomic level, erasing even any microscopic structures. Nothing worked any more. The only things it let us bring through were simple tools. Digging equipment. Knives. Clothes. Paper money. That’s why there’s nothing fancy in this room. Everything you see had to be found in Paris, smuggled in here and then cobbled together to serve our needs.”
Floyd stared at the flickering surface, hypnotised by it. He had been pushing Auger for answers since he had met her, always with a certain preconception in his mind, and now that he was getting the truth—in measured, drip-fed doses, admittedly—it was nothing like what he had imagined. It was the kind of truth that made him want to shrivel up and hide under a stone. The worst part was that there was a weary conviction in her voice that told him that none of this was a hoax. She was being straight with him now, or at least as straight as she dared.
There was something under Paris that had no right to exist, and Auger wanted him to step through it.
“Will I like what’s on the other side of that thing, if it allows me through?”
“No,” she said. “You won’t. I’m pretty damn sure of that. But you’ll be safer there than here. Even if those men make it into this room, they’ll need some persuading to step through the censor. I think you can hold out until I return with help.”
“Then let’s get it over with. You go first. I’ll see you on the other side.”
“You’re ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I’ve got to go, Floyd. I hope you make it through.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Now off you go.”
She pushed herself through the censor, awkwardly swinging by her good arm from a rail positioned above it to give her momentum. The glowing membrane stretched at first like a sheet of rubber, resisting her progress. Then it snapped around her until she appeared embedded in it, only the back of her head and one elbow and heel showing. Bruiselike ripples surrounded her form. Then she was gone completely, the membrane flexing and rebounding like a trampoline, and Floyd was alone.
He pushed a finger experimentally against the drumlike surface and felt the faintest electrical tingling. He pushed harder. The tingling intensified. He stopped, removed his finger and pulled a toothpick from his pocket. Holding the toothpick by one end, he pushed the other tip into the surface until he felt that tingling again. He pulled out the toothpick and held it up for inspection. It appeared unharmed in any way, and when he slipped it into his mouth it tasted like all the others he’d ever chewed. Something still made him throw it away.