Never mind.
The dipshits fumbled and swore at the lock for a good five minutes, not daring to spark up a light for fear the Crosbies might see. While they were busy, I considered hobbling over to their portable radio-jammer and jumping on it a few times. If I broke it, who cared if the dipshits whazzed me with their stun-guns? The world-soul would pick up low-level link-seed activity from my unconscious body. Heaven knows, the authorities must be scanning for me by now — the world-soul would have raised the alarm as soon as I lost radio contact in the guest home. But Mouth and Muscle had obviously got me away before the cops arrived…
The Class 2 lock snicked open. So much for pulling a fast one behind the dipshits’ backs. Mouth picked up the jammer and slung its carrying strap over his shoulder, while the Muscle grabbed Festina and me by the arm, hustling us into the tunnel.
They locked the entrance behind us again, just in case some local wandered by. No one would be able to tell we’d come down here. And if Festina or I tried to run for it, the locked door would make it that much harder for us to get away.
Nothing I hate more than a dipshit who thinks ahead.
We started downward. Our light came from a torch-wand the Muscle had strapped to his upper arm to keep his hands free. As he walked, his arm swung… and our shadows shifted back and forth, back and forth, along the tunnel walls.
The shaft here was made of the same false granite we’d seen in Mummichog. Or maybe it was real granite — the Great St. Caspian shield. Hard to tell, considering how there were black scorch marks covering most of the stone. I tried not to dwell on the thought that all this carbonization came from burning Oolom corpses. Even after twenty-seven years, the air was filled with a strong whiff of charring… the smell that never leaves a place where there’s been an uncontrolled fire.
The ash streaks on the walls grew thicker the farther down we went. Somewhere under the black stains, I’d once painted my initials in stolen yellow paint: F.S. loves… I forget who I loved that day. Probably one of my future spouses. I’d only liked a few people in Sallysweet River, and I’d forced them all to marry me.
Damn, I missed them. It hurt. And at that instant, I realized I could never go home for fear of making them sick.
"Are you all right?" Festina whispered.
"It’s the smell of smoke," I said. "Making my eyes water."
The tunnel ended in a standard pithead: flat floor, blank walls, empty elevator shaft leading down. In the early days of the plague, this is where we’d gingerly laid out the dead… but that was before the flash gas explosion. After that, we just wrapped the corpses in body bags, stood at the tunnel’s entrance, and tossed the stiffs down as far as they’d go.
As I expected, the explosion had blown a hole in one wall of the room — a jaggedy rupture in the stone, opening into a room we’d never known was there. Sometime since the explosion, a lot of the fallen rock had got cleared to one side. I wondered when that happened. The day the androids removed the bodies? Or just recently?
Maybe Maya knew how to handle Class 2 locks too. I hoped so. That was the whole point of bringing the dipshits down here.
Muscle unstrapped the torch-wand from his arm and led us across the room to the hole in the wall. The floor underfoot was gnubbly, covered with hard specks of grit. Not sand or dirt — the grit was dried gobbets of Oolom, scattered by the explosion and left to mummify over the years. I could see the stuff everywhere, flecks daubing the walls and even the roof: preserved for nigh-on three decades in this cold dark vault.
The Mouth moved forward to join the Muscle, peering through the hole into the next room. I arm-wrestled my conscience a moment, then said, "You realize we found killer androids in Mummichog… in a place exactly like this."
"Are you trying to scare us?" the Mouth asked with his trademark sneer.
"I’m trying to warn you. Maya Cuttack left Mummichog in a fast skimmer more than twelve hours ago. Plenty of time for her to get here ahead of us. And if she thought people might come after her, she could have set traps."
"We’re supposed to worry about traps set by a little old lady?" The Mouth snorted. "I don’t think so."
"Okay," Festina muttered, "that man is plant mulch. A terminal case of stupidity. Fill out the death certificate and paint Oh Shit on his forehead."
The Mouth gave her one last sneer, then turned to his partner. "Let’s go." Muscle discreetly stepped back as Mouth straightened the jammer on his shoulder and clambered through the hole in the wall. "All you have to do," the Mouth continued, "is watch where you step in case there are trip wires…"
His gaze was focused on the ground, watching his feet. He didn’t look right or left… which is why he didn’t see the acid coming till it whapped against him.
Two impacts, split-splat, shot by androids on either side of the hole. Most of one blob slapped harmless against the jammer… but the other wad caught Mouth smack across the face.
"Stop, you’re making us allergic!" Festina and I shouted in unison. The Muscle only watched, as if he’d be ever-so-fascinated to see what happened next.
Mouth turned to see what hit him — no sign of pain, just pure dumb wonderment. His cheek billowed smoke; the hair on his left temple disappeared under the smear of acid like a magic trick, and blood spilled down as skin corroded away. He lifted his hand toward his face, as if he were curious to touch the goo that was eating him alive. The hand got as high as his chin. Then Mouth slumped with barely a sound, crumpled into a smoking heap.
We held our breaths, waiting. Me thinking that if the androids turned my way, I couldn’t dodge or hobble out of range. But the magic words had once again frozen robot fingers on their jelly guns. Some other time, I’d have to decide if I felt guilty for not speaking sooner.
"Idiot," the Muscle said, staring at the steaming Mouth with no apparent emotion. "What did he expect?" Muscle looked our direction as if he wanted us to agree with him. "The man thought everything in the world would just fall together to make him a hero. As if that was the whole point of the universe, to glorify him. What can you do with someone like that?"
Right there at the end, Muscle’s voice had a teeny catch in it. Not enough to make me think kindly of him, but still a slight trace of humanity.
"I don’t suppose you’re going to call an ambulance," Festina said to Muscle.
"We have higher priorities."
He drew his stun-gun and aimed at the Mouth. Mouth was still breathing, but dabs of acid had already begun to polka-dot his throat. Soon some droplet would eat through his windpipe… or jugular vein, or carotid artery, or some other indispensable piece of anatomy. I wondered if I should say a quick prayer; but Festina opened her mouth first, offering a prayer of her own.
"Hey," she said to the dying man. Her voice was soft and gentle. "This is what ‘expendable’ means."
Muscle pulled the trigger, and his stun-pistol went whir. As far as I could tell, nothing changed — Mouth had already drifted away into unconsciousness. But I guess the Muscle wanted to make some kind of gesture.
Festina and I had a hard time getting through the hole into the next room, but Muscle didn’t offer to untie our hands or feet. He just waited on the far side, his eyes moving constantly, trying to watch us and the darkness looming deep beyond the torch-wand’s light. Any fool could see that was impossible; soon, he was concentrating on what lay ahead, ignoring two hobbled women except for the occasional glance back in our direction.
He missed Festina edging toward the dying Mouth. She’d gone through the hole ahead of me, and when I saw what she planned to do, I made an extra great fuss clattering my way over the rubble. The Muscle rolled his eyes, peeved at the clunky-chunky old broad… which meant he missed Festina maneuvering the plastic strap that bound her ankles, touching it against a blob of smoking acid that was chewing through the Mouth’s throat.