Illumination, such as it was, came from the lights built into or taped onto their weapons. White blobs overlapped each other and roamed the ceiling, walls, and floor as the twelve-man column followed their young guide through her subterranean world.
Then the situation changed as Spook paused in front of a pipe that was about four feet in diameter. It opened into the larger drain at a point approximately three feet off the floor. After peering back, as if to make sure that the Sentinels were still with her, Spook entered the smaller tube and promptly disappeared.
Hale watched Richards and the rest of them remove the secondary weapons that were slung across their backs, and slip them into canvas drag bags which each man would tow behind him lest the barrels get caught on an obstruction of some sort. Tight spaces weren’t good, but Hale figured that Spook knew that, and wouldn’t have chosen such a route unless it was absolutely necessary to do so.
It took a full five minutes for the team to enter the pipe. Hale went last, the M5A2 carbine dragging behind him as he elbowed his way forward with the shotgun cradled in his arms. The surface beneath his chest was dry, and would remain so until the snow started to melt and the spring runoff began.
Thanks to the light projected from under the Rossmore’s barrel and reflected from one wall back to the other, Hale could see Tanner’s drag bag and the soles of his enormous boots as the other Sentinel made his way forward. It was a slow, painstaking process and Hale hated the way the tube hugged him from all sides.
At one point it was necessary for him to pull himself over the corpse of a badly mauled rat. But he’d been forced to deal with worse—much worse—and he kept on going. He was in a rhythm by then, and starting to feel better about things.
“Leapers!”
Spook yelled over the radio Richards had given her, but the horrible screeching noise spoke for itself as the cat-sized Chimera dropped out of vertical drain holes to land in the pipe they occupied. It was just about the worst thing that could have happened at that point, since none of the Sentinels could fire forward without hitting the man in front of them.
So as one of the horrors landed on Tanner’s legs, and turned to attack Hale, the only thing he could do was to thrust his shotgun barrel into the Leaper’s gaping mouth, using it as a club. Fangs broke as the weapon went in, and the stink shrieked in pain as Hale drew his commando knife, and slashed at the beast. A good twenty inches separated the two combatants, but the Fairbairn Sykes was long enough to make contact, and the tip found a major artery.
Blood sprayed the inside surface of the pipe as Richards shouted over the radio.
“Fire up into those drains! Kill them before they can drop!”
Private Russ Dana was directly in front of Tanner. He was one of two Sentinels armed with an L11-2 Dragon, which he had already used to fry one of the Leapers. Samson’s boots had been singed by the momentary belch of flames but there were no complaints as Dana rolled over to direct the flamethrower upward.
There was a subdued roar as a tongue of fire shot up through the vertical drain, found flesh, and cooked one of the falling Leapers. The body caught on an obstruction, another stink landed on top of it, and began to eat its way downward.
He and Henning sent blast after blast of liquid fire up to intercept the gibbering beasts even as one or two others managed to roll over and bring other weapons into play. Hale’s Rossmore generated a deafening BOOM, BOOM, BOOM sound as he fired upward and empty casings fell back on him. They were hot, and therefore uncomfortable, but a lot better than the alternative.
Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, it was over, and the team was free to elbow their way forward again. Those located at the tail end of the line had no choice but to drag themselves through the bloody remains of their attackers, and the stench typical of all Chimera combined with the throat-clogging odor of cooked flesh and the harsh smell of gunsmoke.
Finally after what seemed like an eternity of crawling, but was actually only ten minutes, Hale saw Tanner’s boots disappear, followed by his drag bag. Then it was Hale’s turn, and he stuck his head out into an open chamber, where the others were waiting to pull him clear.
As before a flare was inserted into a crack, and it produced a harsh blue-green glow as minor wounds were checked. Some of the Sentinels took long drags from their I-Packs, and others looked to their weapons. Hale slipped shells into the Rossmore, and he swung the shotgun up just as something huge materialized out of the darkness.
“Don’t shoot!” Spook said tersely. “Ralf won’t hurt you… Will you, boy?”
At that point Hale and the rest of them were treated to an amazing sight as a brawny lion-sized Howler padded over to stand on its rear legs while it licked Spook’s face.
“Don’t ask,” Richards said as he appeared at Hale’s elbow. “It was wounded, Spook found the beast, and nursed it back to health. But watch what you do… Ralf will attack anything that threatens her. Human or Chimera.”
Hale had never heard of such a thing, much less witnessed it, but he was coming to realize that by living in such close proximity to the Chimera, Chicago’s freedom fighters were finding new ways to adapt and survive.
With the fearsome Ralf ranging ahead, Spook led the team through a maze of interconnecting tunnels and passageways, slogging through ankle-deep water. All were deserted, but there were signs of habitation. As Hale walked along he saw graffiti, ledges where cooking fires had scorched the walls, and in one sad case a mound of broken bricks with a white cross painted directly above it. There were occasional signs of battle, too, including areas where the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes, empty casings littered the floor, and well-gnawed bones lay scattered about.
Eventually, having traveled the better part of two miles, the team was forced to pause in front of a well-guarded steel gate. Based on appearances Hale concluded that the obstruction had originally been put in place to filter debris out of what was transformed into a raging river at certain times of the year. Twin ladders led up toward the surface, and would allow maintenance workers to remove accumulated garbage from the filtration system below the streets.
But modifications had been made—a pass-through door had been added, and two heavily armed men were there to guard it. They nodded to Spook, eyed the Sentinels warily, and kept their weapons handy as Ralf followed his mistress through the opening, followed by the SAR team.
From a point fifty feet farther on, a hand-excavated passageway led to a large subway tunnel that had originally been separated from the main storm drain by seventy-five feet of solid earth and rock. Tracks ran both ways and gleamed dully under the light cast down from fixtures above. Clearly the Freedom First rebels had some sort of power plant, and weren’t afraid to use it. Still another sign of how resourceful they were.
A flight of stairs led up to a platform where Chicago’s citizens had waited patiently for the trains to arrive. Posters advertising the merits of the city’s public transportation system hung above the wooden benches lining the wall, and another set of well-worn stairs led to the street above. The stairway was blocked by a makeshift wooden barricade with carefully placed Chimeran-made land mines, and was covered by raking fire from a large-caliber machine gun.
The weapon was positioned at the bottom of the stairway, and manned by a boy-girl team, both of whom appeared to be about twelve. They waved to the Sentinels as they passed by, and shouted greetings to Spook, who raised a hand by way of reply.
She led the Sentinels along the platform, past a shoeshine stand and an empty newspaper kiosk to a glassed-in office where the local subway sector manager had once held court. It was furnished with a huge wall map of the transit system, a calendar that boasted a topless brunette, and a beat-up metal desk. Some mismatched chairs, a bookcase filled with binders, and a coatrack completed the decor.