Cass couldn’t help but wonder at the intensity of Three’s focus and concentration. Even after these hours, his eyes constantly roamed, scanning, searching out tracks of previous travelers, signs of passing scavengers, or worse. At first, Cass had thought it obsession on the verge of paranoia. Then Three had steered them clear of the first of the traps.
“Deadfall,” he’d said, flicking his head towards what looked to her like any of the other innumerable piles of scrap metal and abandoned scaffolding they’d already passed without concern. As they worked their way around it, though, Cass looked closer, saw the thin filament running across what had been their path, saw what it would’ve triggered had they tripped it.
“Why would anyone do that?” she’d asked.
“People gotta eat.”
“Yeah, but what could you catch out here? A Weir?”
Three shook his head grimly. It took a moment for Cass to understand. That’s when she’d stopped trying to make conversation.
The journey had been a slow, long march, punctuated by Three’s occasional forced breaks, when he would insist she and Wren wait together while he scouted ahead. Once in a while he would point out what had caught his attention: a steel-cable snare, or a deadly spring trap, one time even an improvised explosive. More often though he would just reappear, gather Wren upon his back, and wordlessly return them to their march, making any necessary adjustments to their path.
According to the satfeed, Cass calculated they’d covered just over twenty miles since they’d left the storm-water system. She was hesitant to check it too often though, for fear of attracting unwanted attention from those that might be skimming the stream for her. Still, she couldn’t help but take occasional peeks, in hopes of finding their destination. Three would say nothing more about it other than that she’d see it when they got there. And judging from the topdowns “there” could be anywhere. Or more likely, nowhere.
“How you doing?”
Three’s voice jarred her from her latest search.
“Uh, fine,” she lied, flashing a thin smile. “Tired.”
“Not much farther.”
Though relieved to hear it, Cass was puzzled. There wasn’t a town, or enclave, or even a fortified structure that she could see for miles around. But she was too weary to consider much. A weakness had come upon her before noon, one that seeped from her muscles down into the marrow of her bones, hollowed her arms and legs. Her fingers trembled and twitched. Every step took effort, and she longed for a chance to sleep. The last of the quint was burning out.
At one time, long ago, quint had been a tool, chems for synapses and reflexes that helped her do the job. These days, it was as essential to her body as water, or air. And she had none.
“Alright,” Three said, kneeling and letting Wren slide from his back. “It’s going to take me a minute. Wait right here.”
Before Cass could respond, Three was off and headed towards a nearby derelict building. He stopped of his own accord, and turned back, drawing his pistol as he returned. He held it out to Cass.
“Just in case.”
Cass took the weapon, felt its heft: weighty, but balanced. It felt almost alive to her, like some once-wild beast, now controllable but hardly tame.
“You know how to use it?”
She nodded, slowly. It’d been some time since she last held a gun of any kind, and never one of such magnitude.
“If you don’t, say so.”
“I do,” Cass said, “I just don’t want to have to.”
“You won’t,” Three replied, with a bare hint of reassurance. “But, just in case.”
He dropped a hand on Wren’s head and ruffled the boy’s hair.
“Be right back.”
Cass watched Three go back to the building. He surveyed it for a moment, and then leapt suddenly up its side, finding some handhold higher up that Cass couldn’t see. He scaled it expertly, precise but swift, fluid, as if climbing a ladder up to the third floor, where an empty-framed window gaped. Three disappeared inside.
For a while, Cass and Wren stood watching the window.
“Are we going to do that too?” Wren asked.
“No, sweetheart,” Cass answered, sounding more certain than she was. “I don’t think so.”
In truth, she was waiting for Three to reappear, to lower some kind of ladder or anything that might make the climb easier. Cass scanned the building, tried to see what about it might make it any safer, or even different, from the countless ones they’d passed along the way. Nothing stood out. It was as gray, drab, and run down as any of the others.
Minutes stretched. Wren sat down on the ground and tugged his shuttlecar from a pocket. He made soft whooshing noises as he ran it in lazy circles over his legs. Cass watched him for a while, smiled to herself, almost envious of his ability to find moments of childhood in nearly any circumstance. Moments which were far too rare, she thought sadly. Wren’s stomach growled loudly, and Cass’s heart sank; eyes welled. They hadn’t eaten in over a day. Wren hadn’t once complained.
He glanced up at her, smiling slightly.
“That was a big one.”
Cass laughed in spite of herself, felt a tear drop to her cheek as she bent down to kiss the top of her son’s head.
“Yeah, it really was.”
“You think Mister Three will be back soon?”
“Soon, I’m sure.”
Wren went back to his shuttlecar, flying it, driving it, crashing it, and Cass stood over him, scanning for any signs of Three. She ran her thumb back and forth on the grip of the pistol, absentmindedly feeling the checkering, trying to ignore the unrelenting weariness that clung to her, dragged her downwards, tempted her to lie down right there and sleep for a week, or forever.
Cass shook herself, inhaled. Then caught her breath. There was a scuffling sound, like shuffling feet, coming from the building. No, not footsteps. Something like claws on metal, like a giant rat on a sewer pipe.
“Three?” she called. There came no answer.
Wren stood up, and hooked an arm around her leg.
The sound continued, grew louder. Not from the building. From under it. Grinding. Wren squeezed.
Cass checked the pistol, readied it, took it in both hands. There. Near the front corner of the building, by the alley. The concrete itself, or rather the ground beneath it, shifted, lurched. Something was coming.
Cass raised the weapon; aimed it. The ground lifted, raised, separated cleanly as if cut by a laser. A shape emerged from the hole: hooded, coated in gray dust, unnaturally silent, a ghost rising from its grave. Cass’s finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger.
“Really?” said the shape. The figure laid back its hood. Three. Of course.
Cass lowered the pistol immediately, felt her face flush hot.
“Told you you wouldn’t need it,” Three said flatly, though something in the tone suggested a smile behind the words. “Sorry. Took longer than I expected.”
He waved them over to the opening in the cement. Cass gathered herself and shepherded Wren over to where Three awaited them. When she reached the opening, she was surprised to find a set of steep metal steps, leading down under the street.
“Come on,” he said, “you first.”
Three held out a hand to her. She took it in hers, and he steadied her as she descended. Cass reached the bottom more quickly than she had expected. She found herself in a tight corridor, perhaps six feet in height and half as wide, smooth-walled and warm.
“Here,” she heard Three say from above. “Elevator for you, Mister Wren.”
Wren’s feet appeared in the opening, dangling in mid-air and descending slowly, body stretched and arms over his head as Three held his wrists above. Three made whirring noises as he lowered Wren, and Wren floated down into his mother’s arms laughing. Cass couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard him do that.