Don’t think I’m a nutless, squeaky-clean Skyrine. I hope Coyle isn’t rummaging deep in my basement, and not because I fear she’ll run into old shellfish. Wonder if they all mix it up down there. Ghosts who aren’t ghosts, bugs who aren’t bugs, squared off in a primordial do-si-do.
“Venn!” Borden calls out over comm. She’s found a tall inset in the rock, mostly hidden by shadow. A quick sortie by Ishida shows us, using her paler silhouette for scale, that the cavity is about ten meters deep and nine high. There’s a rusty steel hatch about the right size for a buggy or a bus, and a smaller personnel hatch beside it. Architecture may vary from mine to Muskie mine, but the basics are the same. Now to find the lock. We step into shadow and search around the hatch. Ishida finds the little panel first, on the right, behind an inset, spring-loaded push-plate that opens with a strong poke. The others form a cordon. I approach the panel, coin foremost, wondering if we could ever find it again if I fumbled—here in the gravel and dust—
The insertion point is obvious, like a slot in a coin-operated clothes washer. Nothing fancy. Might be molecular-level recognition of the coin’s metallurgy, damned difficult to duplicate, plus the number spiral—an encrypted description of the coin itself—
Maybe. How should I know? I am more nervous now than I was getting out of Madigan. Back there, I had adrenaline pumping and the sheer joy of breaking out of stir. Here—
I’m down to piss, no vinegar. Don’t know what we’re going to find. Joe, Teal, the Voors—maybe the old bantam himself, de Groot, herding his sons around in the dark—
Or everyone dead? Turned to black glass?
The wide hatch shudders but does not open. Instead, the little personnel hatch creaks and shoves inward, giving us access to the smaller lock beyond. Bet it all. We push through, leaving the Chesty with just Ishikawa on guard—packing the bolt rifle to protect the Chesty’s weapons, in case we need to make a hasty retreat. Ishida carries the lawnmower. Within the walk-in closet of a lock, we brush off and cycle through. The inner hatch opens and, as always, our ears pop. On the other side, a long garage has been carved out of lava and sealed with plastic sheeting. There’s room for three buggy-sized vehicles. Currently the garage holds one buggy, plus, on shelves to our left, the suits and gear of the current inhabitants, which I estimate number forty or fifty. No names on the folded and packed skintights, just numbers. Farther back in the shadows, I make out plastic cargo modules, their transparent sides revealing hints of steel and round green surfaces, square gray surfaces, in-between bits filled with pipes or wires…. Equipment. Tons of it. And beyond those crates, a stack of more crates emptied, folded, and compacted. At some point, the mine received a lot of support.
Kumar and I open our faceplates. The air inside is clean. Kumar sneezes, which is impolite up here. Colds that can’t be suppressed by antivirals spend about two weeks infecting all before they burn out their host reservoirs, kind of like brush fires, and we’re the brush. A cold in a skintight is less than optimal. Snot has nowhere to go—nowhere good—and sneezing is painful.
“Just dust,” Kumar says, looking around. “I’m fine.”
Funny how the trivial magnifies. We’d rather be thinking about cold viruses—not so much about turning glass.
“Sir, Venn,” Borden says, “please close your plates. We keep sealed until we learn what’s happening.”
“Of course, yes,” Kumar says. “Apologies.”
We seal up again. Typical that those instructions weren’t made clear from the beginning. Then again, for me, does it matter?
The garage’s far steel hatch opens with a clattering hiss, and a ruddy, middle-aged man in a white tunic steps through. He looks like a Greek in a college play. I don’t recognize him. “Welcome to Fiddler’s Green,” he announces in a voice at once oily and assured. “We hear you’ve had a bit of a trek!” He looks beyond Borden and Ishida and spots Kumar. His smile inverts and his face becomes a drawn olive mask. “Kumarji! You have finally decided to break with your masters and join us. Perhaps it is not too late.”
“You left me in ignorance!” Kumar says, and moves through the press of Skyrines toward tunic man, who, as the distance closes, looks less and less sure of himself. Kumar backs tunic guy up step for step, until he’s against the plastic-wrapped rock. “We were attacked,” Kumar says. His head moves as if he’s examining the path of a fly zipping around tunic guy’s head.
“What could you expect? I told you not to force their hand!” Tunic guy draws himself to his full height, hands clenching a fold of dingy cloth before his crotch as if afraid Kumar might punch him in the ’nads. “Division Four was in disagreement, we could not be sure you would accept. You were the last—”
Kumar suddenly swoops. “You idiot!” he shouts and slaps tunic guy square on the face. He reacts with a snort, then leans against the wall. “If I could, I’d throw you out on the Red,” Kumar says. “I’d leave you out there naked. After you gave me your assurance we would work in tandem, stay in touch…”
“How could I know? Division Four was split from the start,” tunic guy says.
“We hadn’t finished our work! You always were a grandstanding son of a whore!”
Tunic guy drops his gaze.
Jacobi whispers to Borden, “Who the fuck is he?”
Borden replies, also in a whisper, as Kumar and tunic guy continue to argue, “Krishna Mushran, head of Mumbai Research Authority.”
“Wait Staff?” Ishida asks.
Borden nods. “One of the first to be invited to meet with the Gurus.”
Jacobi makes her mock-impressed face—eyebrows raised, lips pinched—and says, “Terrific. What now?”
Kumar looks back to the rest of us, who are either increasingly concerned (Borden) or neutrally bemused (the Skyrines), and says, “Will someone please detain this man…. Is there a brig, a cell, a goddamned hole into which you can stuff him?”
“You have no such authority,” Mushran says, rubbing his cheek. “And we are past that now. I have—”
“You’ve been out of touch for months,” Kumar says. “Division Four is united and more powerful than ever. We’ve done your work for you.”
“Did he order the attacks on the Russians and the camps?” Ishida asks Borden. The commander shakes her head—she doesn’t know. None of us moves.
Kumar looks over his shoulder again at Borden, a kind of expectant glare. Borden rouses and says, “Captain Jacobi, please take this man into custody.”
“Yes, ma’am. Where shall I put him? And how shall I log his detention?”
“Just hold on to him.”
Jacobi motions and she and Ishida flank Mushran, take him under his arms, and lift him until his feet kick.
“There is no need of this!” Mushran squeals. “Kumarji, our meeting brings good news—”
“No thanks to you!” Kumar growls. His eyes are actually popping a little and there’s sweat on his cheeks. “Soldiers have died. Wait Staff have died.”