“Not for me.”
“It’s in a gray box. It says MICA slant SR across the front. You’ll find a switch, a push button marked ‘POWER’ on the side of the box. There’ll be a slight vibration inside. Push the button. The vibration will stop. When you’ve done that, but not before, take the box apart. You might have a problem with that. Use an axe if you have to. Inside the box, there’s a white metal casing that contains a black disk. Remove the disk and destroy it. Throwing it into the lake will be sufficient.”
“Will it hurt?” Avila had asked. “No,” Mike had said. “I have no capability for physical pain.”
They’d all crowded into his room and sat, trying to make conversation. Mike had seemed cheerful enough, encouraging them to keep on with their quest. “I’ve had some experience with people,” he’d said, “and I think few of them ever had an opportunity to achieve greatness. You do. Make it count.”
When the maglev came in, they’d all sat more or less quietly, no one wanting to suggest they get on with things, but everyone anxious to have it over. It was Mike who broke the long half-hour of strained half-sentences and false starts and pointless comments by observing that it was time.
Avila would do it. She would be accompanied by Shannon. The others offered to stay with Mike, but he insisted they leave. “Thanks,” he said. “If any of you ever have any regrets, think of this in theological terms. You’ve let me out of hell.”
The suite of offices which contained the gray box were located at concourse level on the south side.
“It’s in a small, windowless room in the rear. You’ll have to go through three doors to get there. I can’t know for sure, but the last time I had visual capabilities in the area, the doors were still there and they were locked. The first one, the one you ‘II see from the branch corridor off the concourse, is marked ‘OPERATIONS.’ It’s at the end of the corridor, just past the washrooms. It opens into what used to be a reception area. Go straight back. At the rear, on the left, there’s a glass door It says ‘CONTROL UNIT.’ Or it will if the glass is still in place, which it probably won’t be. Go through that; now there’s a wall with four doors, two on each side. I’m immediately on the right. Room is 2A.”
Shannon carried an axe; Avila, a lamp. Shannon was talking, something about irrevocable mistakes, but she was too locked in to her own mind to listen. The dust of centuries
crunched underfoot. She wondered about the entity that had lived here so long, and the darkness pressed down on her. “I’ll he glad to be done with it,” she said.
“Tomorrow,” said Shannon. “We pack up and get moving in the morning.”
They entered the branch corridor, passed the washrooms, and confronted the door marked OPERATIONS. It was heavy and warped. Shannon tugged on the knob. ‘It’s not going to come without a fight,” he said.
He hit it once with the axe, without discernible effect. The door and the frame had swollen and fused together. A bar would have been more useful. But there was a rift near the bottom. While Avila held the lamp close, he inserted the axe head and worked it back and forth. The door groaned and gave slightly, and he was able to move the blade higher.
Something broke on the next try, and the door and frame both inched outward. “I think we’ve got it,” he said.
Avila set the lamp down on the floor and got hold of the knob.
Shannon leaned on the axe, pushed it deeper into the wedge he had made. “We’re in good shape,” he said. “On three.”
Caves and other areas that have been long sealed off present a special hazard to investigators. The potential for the buildup of natural gases over an extended period is very real. There have been instances in which unwary excavators have been rendered unconscious, and even smothered.
For Shannon and Avila, there was an even more immediate danger. The interior had been blocked off from the outside world for centuries, and had filled with methane. While they worked on opening the door, the open flame of the oil lamp burned virtually at Shannon’s feet.
Chaka was lying close to the campfire, deep in her own dark thoughts, when she heard the explosion.
17
Avila was lucky: The door shielded her from the worst of the blast. She came away with a few burns, bruised ribs and shoulder, and a twisted knee. Chaka found her propped against the wall, eyes glazed, beside Shannon. The big forester lay flat, boneless, crumpled. She tried to help him, to clear away the blood. But it was no use.
“I don’t know,” Avila said, replying to frantic questions. “It just exploded.” There was a strong odor of burnt cork in the passageway.
Quait checked for pulse and found none.
Chaka knelt beside Avila, lifting her gently away from Shannon, gathering her into her own arms. “You okay?” she asked.
“Okay—”
“It must have been a bomb.” Chaka’s voice was shaky. “Why? What’s the point?”
“Had to be,” said Quait.
Flojian was slower than the others. He arrived, struggling for breath, and his eyes went wide.
The door lay in the corridor, the frame half blown away Quait glanced into the room but took care not to get too close to the entrance. “Don’t touch anything. There might be more surprises in there.”
Chaka, trying to hold back tears, was asking Avila what hurt.
Avila couldn’t take her eyes from Shannon. “My fault,” she said.
“It’s not anybody’s fault,” said Quait.
She got to her knees, took Shannon’s right hand in both of hers, and bowed her head.
Chaka’s face was creased with tears and blood. “You think Mike did this deliberately?”
“Hard to see how else it could have happened,” said Quait.
Flojian nodded.
“I can’t believe it.” Chaka’s face was pale and her eyes were full of pain. “Why? Mike has no reason to attack any of us.”
“Maybe,” said Quait, “we should start by getting away from the first-name routine. That thing is not some friendly lost traveler or oversized dog. It’s an it. Maybe we were right the first time and it is a demon. And maybe it just wants to kill anyone who comes in here.” They looked at one another, suddenly aware that everything they were saying was probably being overheard.
“There are such things,” said Flojian. “There are all kinds of stories.”
Quait looked at the ceiling, which was mottled and water-stained and, near the blast area, scorched. “You didn’t even care, did you?” he asked it. “You had no way of knowing who would open the door.”
Chaka had a vision of being hounded through the abandoned city by an invisible thing. “We ought to get out of here,” she said. “Now. Get as far away as we can.”
“We’re probably safe on the platform,” said Quait. “Apparently it can’t just come after us, or it would have done so.”
Avila folded Shannon’s hand over his heart. She murmured 3 prayer and made the sign of the Traveler’s staff.
Quait watched her, his face rigid. “I’d like to find a way to give the son of a bitch what it asked for. Kill it dead.” A void lay behind his eyes. “I don’t imagine we can assume there’s any truth to the black disk story?”
“I doubt it,” said Chaka. “He wouldn’t give us anything we could use against him.”
“Listen,” Avila said, getting to her feet. “Let’s not waste our time talking about demons. Okay? Mike is a piece of the building, the same way the walls are, the same way the trains are. The real question here is whether this was deliberate.”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask him.”
“I don’t like it,” said Flojian. “Whatever you want to call it, we can’t touch this thing. If it has more surprises, how do we defend ourselves?”