“Why’d he kill them?” shouted Turbo.
“I don’t know.”
“We ain’t murders!” the junkie bellowed.
Omi moved like a spark, jumping into Turbo’s face. “They would’ve trampled us! That’s why!”
“You murdered them!” shouted Turbo, saliva spraying out of his mouth.
Omi swung the butt of the carbine into Turbo’s gut. The tall junkie bent at the waist, falling backward. The gunman fed a bullet into the chamber and raised his weapon.
“No!” shouted Marten. He leaped beside Omi and yanked down the barrel.
For a moment, it seemed Omi would use the same trick on him. Then the Korean’s shoulders sagged and he threw himself against the wall, his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against the hot barrel of his gun.
Marten helped Turbo.
“He’s crazy.”
“Maybe we all are,” Marten said.
Turbo laughed harshly. “Not like him, baby. He’s Class-A crazy.”
Stick moved beside them. “Listen.”
They did.
“The crowd’s thinning out,” Stick said.
“Yeah,” Marten said. “I’m not shouting anymore.”
Omi opened his eyes. He wouldn’t look at Turbo. “I have one question.”
“Name it,” said Marten.
“What’s our plan?”
“I plan on living, you murdering bastard,” Turbo said.
Omi acted as if he didn’t hear. He asked Marten, “You tell me our plan.”
“We have to stop PHC,” Marten said.
“From doing what?”
“What do you think?” Marten exploded. “From blowing the deep-core mine.”
Omi rose, and now he stared at Turbo. “Exactly.”
“So you can gun down anybody now?” shouted Turbo. “Is that your excuse?”
“So we can save Sydney. Yes.”
“Just like the cops say,” Turbo sneered. “You’re doing this for everyone else, huh?”
“That’s right,” the gunman said.
“Yeah?” said Turbo. “Well—”
Marten grabbed Turbo’s skinny arm, shaking him. “Save it. Let’s go.”
They followed him out of the hotel and back onto the street. A group of teenagers armed with bricks sprinted past. They hurled the bricks at windows, cars, stores or dwelling places, their laughter hysterical. Two old men helped up an old woman with a bleeding gash on her forehead. Crushed bodies lay everywhere. The relative quiet after the mob had passed an eerie feeling to it, making the world strange.
“Come on,” said Marten.
Exhaustion dragged at their muscles. They’d been tortured for many months, Marten not as long but to the point of death. So he allowed each of them another shot of Superstim. Turbo begged for more, until he noticed Omi’s haughty eyes. After that, the tall junkie slouched down the street without complaining.
Luckily, they made a straight run to the Deep-Core Station. Most of the crowds streamed to a lower level, starting stampedes there. Marten wondered what would happen when they reached end of the line Sydney, Level Sixty.
“There it is,” whispered Omi, who held up his hand to stop them.
They peered around a corner at the bank-like building. The large plaza was empty, rather silent compared to the noises of only shortly ago.
“If we charge across they’ll just shoot us down,” Omi said.
Marten shook his head. “We have to bank this on PHC already being successful.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning PHC will have taken this place out, killed everyone so there aren’t any witnesses.”
“You can’t know that,” Omi said. “Maybe Deep-Core is in with PHC.”
“I doubt it,” said Stick. “Remember how the Reform people hated PHC sticking their nose into their racket?”
“Yeah,” Omi said.
“What’s wrong,” Turbo jeered, “don’t have anybody to point a gun at?”
Omi narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, real tough,” said Turbo. “How about you watch this. Marten!”
“What?”
Turbo pointed at his pocket, the one holding the medkit.
Marten thought he understood. Dubiously, he drew out the medkit, weighed it a moment and then handed it to Turbo.
Turbo’s fingers flicked over the buttons as he pressed it to his arm. The medkit hissed, shooting him with more stims. “Ahhhh,” whispered Turbo, his face one of ecstasy. He pitched the medkit back and strode onto the plaza, his carbine ready. Then he broke into a sprint for the glass door.
“Fool,” Omi hissed. “They’ll kill him.”
They didn’t. Turbo made it to the door and bounded within.
“He guessed right,” said Marten, who now broke into a sprint after Turbo.
Inside they found more carnage. DCM personnel lay sprawled everywhere with laser holes neatly drilled into them. A few times, they found a red-suit with an ugly bullet hole in his skull or torso.
Stick savagely kicked one. Turbo spat on them all indiscriminately.
The door into the elevator room stood ajar. Blood and gore lay splashed on the controls, but the bodies had been cleared.
“PHC beat us here,” said Omi.
“So it would appear,” Marten said.
“You doubt?” Omi asked.
“No….” Marten said.
“What then?”
Marten looked up, swallowed. “We have to go down after them.”
“What?” Turbo asked. “Down? How about up?”
“Highborn say no,” Omi said.
“Yeah? And how do you know that?” Turbo asked.
“By thinking.”
Marten thought Turbo would jeer. Instead, the lanky man shuffled off to sulk. Marten studied the controls. They seemed basic enough. He pressed a red button. Ping! The nearest elevator opened, and before them stood the plush box that could take them farther down into the planet than anything else possibly could. None of them, however, made a move.
“I once heard an old, old saying,” Marten finally said.
Turbo refused to be drawn. Omi grunted, but seemed lost in thought. Stick, who stropped his vibroblade on his pant leg, looked up. “Yeah?”
“Those who would lose their life will gain it. Those who would gain their life will lose it.”
“That don’t make sense,” the knifeboy said.
“Here it does.”
Stick thought about, shrugged. “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it,” Omi said. “He’s right. So let’s go.”
17.
They plunged toward the center of the Earth, picking up speed until the elevator whined and vibrated so it shook their teeth. Speech was impossible. Turbo thumped against the nearest wall, cradling the grenade launcher between his bony knees as he stuck his fingers in his ears. He closed his eyes and it almost seemed as if he fell asleep. Stick sat beside him and stared fixedly at his vibroblade, switching it on and off with his thumb. Of course, it was impossible to hear its hum. Marten wasn’t sure the knifeboy could even feel its vibration. Omi stood and watched the depth gauge and heat-meter. His features showed an increasing dread and desperation.
Marten clamped his teeth together on the nervous urge to laugh. He’d seen far too many people in the last while high on violence. He didn’t want to become as uncontrolled as they had been.
Down, down, down they plunged, toward the molten core of the planet. Heavy oppression squeezed these lifelong underground dwellers. A sense, an aura, a feeling of extreme pressure bore upon each of them. No python ever tightened its coils like this. Breathing became difficult. Strange sounds, groans, hisses and screeches abraded their hearing, their very awareness.
On the outside of the shaft, the temperature of the Earth increased thirty degrees Celsius for every kilometer they dropped. At one hundred kilometers it would became white hot. Then the rate of temperature increase would slow. No metal or ceramic substance man had ever used in construction could have survived the blasting heat of the deeper reaches of the Earth. Yet incredible heat was the lesser of the two problems. The greater technical difficulty lay in pressure, awful, mind-numbing pressure. Just as a swimmer in a pool experienced pressure as he dove as little as six feet down, so the Earth increased in pressure the farther down one went. At three hundred and twenty kilometers, it reached one hundred thousand atmospheres, twelve hundred times the pressure of the deepest point in the ocean.