"They're wandering all over, bumping into each other. They look drunk."
"You see?” Angus said. “They are artificial life forms! They use communication with each other to help navigate, like a moving network. They act like a communal life form, like an insect hive."
Randy stared at the electronic mess that was once a walkie-talkie. “We can't exactly carry that pile of junk around with us."
"Of course not,” Angus said. “I had to fiddle a bit to find out what signal would be best. Give me yours and I'll modify it."
"Will we still be able to send and receive after you modify it?” Randy asked.
"No, I have to hard-wire the scrambler to the circuit board,” Angus said. “The signal has to stay on, we can't switch back and forth."
"Then what the heck happens if we need the radio?"
Angus looked irritated. “Would you rather have ALs following us around?"
Randy handed over his walkie-talkie. Better to be incommunicado than to see that sickening AL conga line again. The silvery machines continued to wander about aimlessly.
"What do we do now?” Randy asked.
"Well, let's turn this off and stay very still and see what happens,” Angus said. Almost as soon as he switched off the modified radio, the ALs moved swiftly out of sight down the tunnel.
"Look at the map and see where they're going."
Angus tapped keys on the tiny monitor and his 3-D map flared to full-color life. The map's quality and detail still amazed Randy — it made EarthCore's “official” map look paltry by comparison. The computerized version could spin and rotate three-dimensionally to show any heading. Angus hadn't wanted to give Connell this version of the map because it clearly showed tunnels, depth and direction. It made traversing the complex easy, much easier than it would be for the mining team. Angus had rationalized, and Randy had agreed, that to stay out of sight and keep one step ahead of Connell they needed a big edge. The map provided that edge.
Angus tapped a few buttons, allowing the screen to encompass a larger view of the map. The flashing red dots blinked at the edge and then were gone, out of range of the motion sensors, but not before Randy noted their direction.
"They're heading for that big kidney-shaped cavern, about 350 yards from here,” Randy said. “That's the biggest cavern in the complex, except for the one surrounding the Dense Mass."
"Let's go check it out. We're getting a thumper update in fifteen minutes. We'll have to stop for that, but we could be at the big cavern before the update."
Angus switched on the sliverbug scrambler. He and Randy headed for the big cavern, the modified radio squeaking static all the way.
Connell never had time to consider himself cowardly. He ignored the flaring pain in his back and knee and helped Sanji lift Mack off the ground. They tossed the semidelirious Aussie over Sanji's shoulder like a roll of wet shag carpet. Connell held the H&K tightly, shuffling backwards up the tunnel, following Veronica and the lumbering Sanji toward the unknown light.
O'Doyle let loose on full automatic, filling the tunnel with the weapon's explosive report. Pain-filled screams riddled the air, not the screams of humans, but the impossible rubber-on-asphalt screeching of the things. Connell never heard such noises before, not even in nightmares, but knew without question they were cries of agony. He suffered an urge to jam his fingers into his ears to block the soul-numbing sound, but he kept both hands locked on the H&K with sweaty, white-knuckled intensity.
The strange light rapidly grew brighter as he sprinted forward, while at the same time the cavern narrowed like a funnel as the ceiling lowered past five feet high. He heard more automatic fire and more screeching, but didn't bother to look back. He cared only about getting away. He scrambled forward, hunched over as the jagged ceiling dropped below four feet. The light spread and brightened, looking suspiciously like afternoon sunbeams crawling across the floor of a shaded room. He found himself wishing, passionately praying, that it was indeed sunshine, even though he knew that was an impossibility.
The ceiling continued to slant down, forcing Veronica to her hands and knees. Sanji soon fell to his belly. He set Mack down and urged him to crawl forward.
Connell looked back down the tunnel — he could see the staccato shadows of Lybrand and O'Doyle, briefly illuminated in each roaring burst of gunfire. Connell turned his attention back toward the light, crawling forward, following Sanji and Veronica and Mack through the funnel's small opening.
Once through, the tunnel opened up again with a good seven feet of clearance. Up ahead the light source seemed to reveal itself; the tunnel ended in… sky? No, it couldn't be sky. The gunfire barked behind him, drawing closer with each burst.
Mack lay on the ground just inside the funnel opening, holding his head and moaning softly. About twenty feet ahead, Veronica and Sanji suddenly stopped short of the tunnel's end. Connell quickly caught up to the professors — and stared out at an impossibility. A cavern the size of a massive domed stadium sprawled before them, lit up as brightly as if the sun itself had squeezed through the narrow caves and taken up residence. The light held a strange blue tinge that seemed to cast a dull pallor on everything. Connell looked to the cavern's ceiling, but had to shield his eyes against the brightness — it was so bright he couldn't stare at it; it might as well have been the sun. Instead, he looked outward and took in a cavern floor filled with strange, clumpy orange trees and endless regimented rows of multicolored plants. A glistening river meandered through the fields.
Farmland.
Connell looked downward. A feeling of absolute doom swept over him. He gently pushed past Veronica and Sanji, who numbly stood by, their bodies radiating an aura of defeat.
Connell walked forward until his booted toes hung over the cliff's sharp edge. He leaned forward enough to look down the jagged, vertical stone face — at least a two-hundred-foot drop loomed between him and the distant cavern floor.
Gunfire erupted close behind him, breaking his funk and forcing his attention back to danger pouring down the tunnel.
"Sanji, drag Mack to the edge,” Connell said as he ran back to the funnel and looked through the narrow opening. He saw Lybrand crawl about ten feet past a crouching O'Doyle, who fired short bursts down the tunnel. She rolled to her back and fired down the length of her body toward the flashing, onrushing mass as O'Doyle scrambled past her and worked his big body through the narrow opening. He turned and poured gunfire down the tunnel toward the nightmare, covering Lybrand as she also squirmed through. She cleared the opening, giving Connell a clear view down the passage.
He couldn't count all the rocktopi; the narrow tunnel allowed only a few at a time. How many didn't really matter — every time one fell, another spilled over the top of the fallen creature, tentacles waving, body glowing in angry oranges and bloodreds. They filled the tunnel, pushing forward like brackish water rushing up a rusted pipe. Their pungent dog-shit aroma clung to Connell's nostrils, combining with the harsh richness of gunpowder. The angry tentacle gods’ crescent-shaped knives glinted with evil flashes, reflecting the headlamps’ glow. Their rough skin scraped against the rock with the raspy sound of a million paper-dry leaves.
Grunting and panting, O'Doyle stood as Lybrand fired another volley into the onrushing rocktopi, now only twenty yards away. He looked up at Connell, who clicked the safety off his weapon, but kept it pointed to the ground.