“Wait,” I said. “Something’s wrong. They’re not doing anything.”
Silence. Then an explosion rocked the entire tunnel. It shook the ceiling, the walls, and the floor. Rock cracked and fell from the ceiling, threatening to bury us alive.
We all ran forward under a hail of bullets. They were forcing us out of the tunnel, out of cover, right into their sights.
A bullet nicked my boot and, lucky for me, it didn’t hit anything. But with a few more seconds of this, one of us would be dead. Maybe all of us.
I fell to the ground behind a rock that had crashed against the floor. Everyone else took their places beside me as the tunnel behind continued to collapse on itself.
I looked into the dark tunnel we had just run out of. Rocks buried the entire thing. That’s when I noticed there were only four of us.
Lisa was gone.
“Lisa?” Makara shouted.
“I don’t think she made it,” I said.
Makara shook her head in denial. Her eyes watered as her face turned red.
Samuel grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Lisa!” Makara screamed.
She stood up and ran back to the tunnel. More bullets filled the air, threatening to end her life.
I jumped from cover, and landed on her, bringing her to the ground.
She turned around, and was so pissed that she actually bit me. Tears were in her eyes as she fought back. I pulled her back to the rock. She went limp.
“She’s gone,” I said. “I’m not letting you die, too.”
“We have to stay alive,” Samuel said.
Even if we got out of this one alive, we were stuck. The tunnel behind us had collapsed, and there was an inaccessible vault door in front. We were trapped in here, along with the two idiots who cut off the only escape.
Makara reached into her pack. Tears in her eyes, she held a grenade.
“This might work,” she said. “As soon as it goes off, charge the bastards and finish the job.”
She pulled the plug, waited a second, and lobbed it overhand. She closed her eyes, waiting for the boom.
Nothing happened. It was a dud.
No one said anything. It was as if everyone had given up.
“Nice try,” Harland said. “Just open the door, like last time. We’ll spare your lives.”
“I’m not opening that damn thing for you,” I yelled. “You just killed one of our own.”
“Those Black Files are ours,” Harland said. “This is the sovereign territory of the Empire, and anything in it belongs to us.”
“You’ll have to kill us first,” I said.
“We’re working on that,” Harland said. “Serves you right for Kris earlier.”
“That was no one’s fault, and you damn well know it,” Samuel yelled.
Harland didn’t respond to that. It was another moment before he spoke.
“It seems we have reached an impasse. One of us is going to have to back down. Those Black Files are not going to be yours.”
“We need them,” Samuel said. “With that info we can find out how to stop the Blights. Maybe even the xenovirus. You have no idea what you’re doing by taking those files back to the Empire.”
“I don’t understand,” Anna said. “Aren’t the files digital? Why can’t we both have them?”
“The Empire doesn’t want anyone privy to that info,” Harland said.
“Well, you can’t get in there unless we open the door,” I said. “You need us, and you’re not getting anywhere without us. And guess what? We’re not helping you. If you had joined up with us like we had planned, we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this, and our friend wouldn’t be dead.”
“I’m tired of this,” Makara said. “They die.”
“No,” I said. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
Makara sighed. “I don’t care. Someone has to attack them. There’s four of us and two of them. No one’s getting out of here alive, so we have to make a move at some point.”
A loud shot rang out in the room. It came from the rubble in the tunnel. I heard Drake scream from behind the barricade.
“Lisa,” I said. “She’s alive!”
Another shot fired. It zinged off the metal. I heard Harland curse from the direction of the door.
“Now!” Samuel said.
We all followed Samuel’s lead as he ducked from behind the boulder and charged for the door. Harland was still in shock at being sniped at, so he didn’t react fast enough. As he was raising his gun, Samuel, Makara, and I all shot him. He gave a raspy groan as his eyes widened. He fell to his knees, right beside Drake, who had a bullet in his forehead.
We all turned around. Lisa was not in sight. We ran to the tunnel and saw her.
She was lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. A sharp rock had gashed into her from above.
Makara ran and knelt beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Lisa…Lisa, you hear me?”
“Yeah. I’m here. I’m alright.”
She was not alright. She was battered and bruised all over, and her blue eyes were shut in pain. Her rifle was cradled in her arms.
“Lisa…”
Samuel took a shirt from his pack and placed it on a nasty gash on Lisa’s abdomen. She hissed in pain as pressure was applied. Too much blood was pouring out.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I don’t have long. The old man was right.”
“What do you mean?” Makara asked. “You can’t die. I need you.”
Lisa smiled. “He said there would be a time where I thought I was done. He said that was when I had to try harder, or everyone else would die. I tried, Makara. I got strength from I don’t know where to finish the job and crawl out of those rocks. I have no strength. I can’t go on.”
Her voice was raspy. Makara shook her head fiercely.
“No. You’re wrong. You still have to try. You can’t give up.”
Samuel’s face was pale. Lisa looked at Makara, tears in her eyes.
“Take my gun,” she said. “Don’t leave it here with me, in this place.”
Makara shook her head again. “No. You’re not going to die. Quit saying that.”
“The old man was right. I did my part. Finish…”
“Lisa, no…”
Lisa’s haunting blue eyes stared upward. She did not complete her sentence. She relaxed against the hard ground, her wavy brown hair fanned and matted to the floor from her blood.
Makara’s shoulders shook. Her face was a mixture of anger and devastation. She still held Lisa’s lifeless hand. It looked as if she would never let it go.
No one said a word. No one knew how Makara would react. I just stared at Lisa, tears in my eyes.
Finally, Makara stood, her face hardening. She grabbed the sniper rifle. No one knew what she was going to do with it.
“Makara.”
She turned to face me. Her face was harder than the rock of the walls. She didn’t say anything. She strapped the rifle to her back.
“Let’s go,” she said.
She looked at Lisa one last time. For a minute, it seemed her composure would break. Her lips quivered before they stilled. She knelt down one last time, and closed Lisa’s eyes, her hand shaking.
We watched as she walked to the vault door. She ignored the bodies of Harland and Drake, not even minding their blood. Her boots made a sticky sound as she stood before the door.
“This is Makara Neth, citizen of Bunker One. Open.”
The doors did not respond. Makara stood, her arms flexing. The doors stayed shut, immovable as mountains.
“It’s no good,” Samuel said. “We don’t have clearance. None of us do.”
Makara pounded on the door. “Cornelius Ashton, I know you’re in there. I know you didn’t die. You need to open this door. Now.”
Anna and I looked at each other. Cornelius Ashton, author of the Black Files…was he still alive?