I angled myself sideways, then snuck my arm and leg through between two of the bars. As scrawny as I might be it turned out to still be a hell of a squeeze, but I managed to scrape through.
“Hey,” Chong said, moving up to the bars that were now between us. He’d never fit through to come after me, and he knew it.
“Sorry,” I told him.
“Come on, gate me through.”
Something chirped to my left and I jumped. A haan construct had perched on the wall there, its bulbous eye stuck out toward me on the end of its little eyestalk. It dropped to the floor and scuttled away down the tunnel.
“Just tell me where to go,” I said.
“Sam, quit messing around and gate me through.”
“Tell me where to go.”
He thought about it for a moment, and I could see he wasn’t in love with the idea but he didn’t have much choice. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Follow the map to the marker, and when you get there call me on the 3i and I’ll walk you through where to set up the endpoint.”
“Thanks,” I said, and started down the tunnel.
“And what the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime?” he called after me.
“Keep watch,” I called back.
“Keep watch…” he muttered.
I gave him a wave as I walked away. In minutes, he was lost in the darkness behind me, and I was alone.
I followed the map, sweeping the tunnel with my flashlight as I went. The walls of the tunnel turned darker ahead, and as I got closer I saw that they had been covered with shiny, black hexagonal plates that interlocked like honeycomb. They were smooth, like glass, and warm to the touch. I’d seen similar scales inside the haan colony of Shangzho, where they’d covered the faces of entire buildings in some spots.
Something skittered farther down the tunnel again, and I shined the light in its direction in time to see a big shadow move past. My breath caught in my chest.
That was no construct.
I struggled to stay calm. The shape looked man-sized. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone down here but you couldn’t account for everything. There might have been some kind of emergency, or something unexpected that made them send a team down—
Something else rustled from that direction, and a scraping footstep echoed in the tunnel.
I strained my eyes in the dim light. On the heels of whatever it was, a many-legged shadow crept past, low to the ground, and I saw it had something. The construct dragged something behind it, a pile of wet cloth, it looked like, but I didn’t get a good look before it had moved past the opening and out of sight.
Distant footsteps slapped across concrete, this time back from the way I’d come. They were unmistakable.
“Who’s down here?” I asked the construct. It hopped down, and scurried away from me as another shadow moved from somewhere around the corner.
Don’t panic. Just keep moving.
I picked up the pace, moving as fast as I dared in the dark until I reached the final junction. The tunnel walls there had been completely covered in the haan scales. They glinted in the flashlight beam all the way down the tunnel to an open doorway at the top of three brick steps.
A strange smell lingered in the tunnel at the junction, and whatever caused it made my eyes water. It came from the adjoining tunnel, getting weaker as I headed in the opposite direction, then up the steps to the doorway to look through.
I’d studied pictures of the stations, but this one had even less room inside than the ones I’d seen. The interior of the large room had been packed full of big metal boxes arranged in a grid. They were covered in haan characters, and lights along the sides flashed in and out of the visible spectrum. At the top of each, a pylon stuck into the high ceiling. A revolving, coiled ring floated around each pylon where forking arcs of soft light flickered.
I crooked my neck to bring up the 3i display, then pinged Chong.
Okay, I’m here.
Good. Use your GPS to find north, face that wall. Then find a spot on the ceiling as far left as you can go.
I turned around, following the GPS direction marker until I faced the far wall at a slight angle. From there, I followed the ceiling until I came to the left-hand corner.
Okay, got it.
Place the point there. That will guarantee the gate will open inside the facility itself.
Where?
You’re right under it, anywhere in that room should get you in.
I aimed the remote at the ceiling, and brought up the holodisplay. The scan began to push into the concrete as I eased the dial with my thumb, heading toward the surface, and hopefully the inside of the substation.
How far up? I asked him.
Just keep going until it detects open space.
I turned the dial, slowly, until the red light flickered to green. The way didn’t exactly look clear, but it opened into somewhere.
Okay, I got it.
I stored the endpoint, then headed back out into the tunnel. As I headed down the concrete steps I caught another whiff of the strange smell and stopped, wrinkling my nose. It smelled sickly sweet, managing to overpower the sewer’s stink.
I shined the flashlight toward the source and something moved in the light ahead. When I focused the beam, I saw the wet scrap of cloth the construct had carried by earlier. It lay plastered in the muck, something near the end glinting back at me from down the tunnel.
What is that?
I stepped closer, covering my nose, and saw it move again. It was a shirtsleeve. When it moved, the shiny button flashed in the flashlight beam.
Leaning over the platform I saw the shirt had begun to disappear through a hole in the tunnel floor and I hustled toward it, hopping off the walkway to get a better look.
The sleeve slipped over the edge of a wide circular pit just as I reached it, and I heard a soft splash.
Leaning closer, I shone the flashlight into the opening, triggering more movement below. The hole had filled with water, and I saw that some sort of spines or bristles lined the inside of the tunnel. The shirt sank slowly between them, billowing in a gentle current.
I’ve seen this before, I thought. When I’d visited the haan colony to drop off my surrogate, I’d seen a pit like that inside one of the buildings they’d occupied.
My beam found a pile of gently swaying clothes near the bottom. There had to be hundreds of shirts, pants, shoes, belts… all of it dumped down there…
Chong, it looks like the constructs are dumping something down here.
Never mind the constructs. Come on.
They’re dumping clothes, it looks like.
Leave them. We need to get back.
Below, a shadow swam past the flashlight beam and I gasped. The pile disappeared, leaving only a single stocking that swirled in its wake as whatever it was moved down some branching tunnel.
Chong…
A rumble filled the tunnel as a metro train cruised past somewhere underground. The floor shook, and the flashlight sent shadows moving through the base of the hole. I put one hand on the slimy concrete to try to see if I could spot anything else down there, but what I’d thought was water turned out to be something cold and jellylike. As it squelched between my fingers I felt squirmy movement inside it. I jerked my hand away, trailing goo, and wiped it on my pant leg. It felt like millions of tiny little worms were wriggling around in the stuff, but when I shined the light I didn’t see anything. Just a clear, runny liquid.