“Hey, leave me up here freezing my ass off, why don’t you.” Baird’s voice echoed down the shaft. “What’s happening?”
“Damon baby, it’s Cole Train’s birthday. This is just what I always wanted.”
“Ammo,” Marcus called back. He sounded relieved rather than pleased. “Who says the navy’s just for decoration? Check out the rest before we celebrate too soon.”
They picked doors at random, forcing them open and cracking wooden boxes for about twenty minutes, and found they were all full. Some tins were rusted through, but it was pretty dry down here.
“There’s enough ammo for a siege,” Cole said.
“That was what they were expecting.” Marcus took off a glove and felt one of the walls. “Yeah, dry. There must be waterproofing behind this.”
“Nice and warm,” Cole said. “Compared to topside. Maybe we all oughta move down here for the winter. There’s cabling and everything.”
Marcus had a certain look that went beyond a frown, a kind of deliberate lack of expression that told Cole he really didn’t want anyone to see he was rattled. He was doing it now.
“We’re not going to be driven underground like grubs,” he said quietly. His lips barely moved. “This place smells like a fucking prison.”
Yeah, Cole got it. The sooner Marcus was out of here, the better.
Dom had disappeared further down the passage. Cole could hear splintering wood and the clatter of tins.
“You can’t eat ammo,” Baird called.
“Yeah, but maybe you can eat this.” Dom came jogging back down the passage with some more metal containers in his hand, small rectangular cans. He held one up and rattled it. “Dry rations.”
“Man, you gonna shit yourself for a year if you try eatin’ that garbage now.” Cole held out his hand for one of the cans. “Looks like some kind of cracker. Don’t navy crackers have weevils in ’em or something?”
“Canapés,” Baird jeered from the shaft. He must have had his head stuck down there. “How elegant.”
“We clear this place out first. Then we worry about the eat-by date.” Marcus studied another box with a frown, pressing his earpiece. “Bernie? Found the front door yet?”
Bernie didn’t respond. The radios were always a problem underground. But she’d been gone long enough to walk nearly a kilometer, and that meant she could be anywhere. Marcus shook his head and ambled away down the passage, repeating the call.
“That you barking, Cole?” Baird called.
There was a lot more wild noise around Port Farrall than Cole expected, everything from surprisingly loud birdsong to something that sounded like a guy coughing up rustlung, which Bernie said was a stag telling other bucks to stay off his turf. Without humans and their machines around, you could hear stuff from five, ten klicks away. But that was definitely dogs he could hear now.
“I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Sounds distant. Bernie said there was dog packs around.”
“Yeah, she’d be thinking about dessert—”
A shot rang out.
“Baird?”
“Shit, what was that? Nothing up here.”
It was inside, not out. Cole dropped the box he was rummaging through and ran in the direction that Marcus and Bernie had gone.
Dom chased after him. “Marcus? Hey, you okay?”
The comms channel was just stuttering static again. Marcus’s voice echoed back in bursts, as if he was running. “I heard it. Shit, it’s a maze down here. Bernie! Where the hell are you?”
The flashlights weren’t much help for navigating tunnels with passages branching off them. Cole found himself right on top of junctions before he saw them, and had to pause to listen or look for boot prints before he could work out where Marcus had gone—and then remember the route he and Dom had taken. The acoustics threw Cole completely. Working out directions from sound bouncing around a warren was next to impossible.
There was another shot, and then his earpiece crackled again—but no voice. It might have been Bernie transmitting.
Shit, how far have we run?
“Bernie, what the hell are you doing? … No … Where?” Marcus must have been closer to her now, or maybe closer to ground level, because he sounded like he was having a conversation. And Cole was close enough to hear him. “Where are they?”
“Cole here, baby, who we talkin’ about?”
Bernie’s voice exploded in Cole’s earpiece. “Dogs. Bloody wild dogs.”
Cole could see shadows without the flashlight now. There was natural light coming from somewhere, and the echo effect was fading. When he rounded the next corner, he found himself on a cobbled slope. Light cut through in shafts from gaps in the planked roof overhead. The air was colder; this was the end of one of the tunnels, back near the surface.
Then he heard the snarling, and a long burst of automatic fire.
“Shit,” Dom said. “Just how big are those mutts?”
Cole switched his Lancer to automatic out of habit, not expecting anything more than a few hungry strays, but he was wrong. When he got to the top of the shallow slope, he stepped sideways toward the light and saw Marcus—Lancer aimed, taking one slow step at a time as if he was tracking something.
“Where did they go?” Marcus turned. “Shit.”
“Oh, fuck—”
That was Bernie.
She wheeled around at the same time Marcus did, and Cole could see blood on her chin. That was when it ceased to be just weird and became a fight.
A pack of at least twenty dogs, big ones, mongrels and hounds of all sorts, came racing down another passage from behind Cole and Dom, like they’d wheeled around the back to ambush them. Cole opened fire. Shit, he’d chainsawed his way through more grubs than he could even begin to count, and now he was under attack from frigging puppies?
But they weren’t cute pets. They were wild predators, too fast to target, and way too close to shoot without spraying Dom or Marcus, and two got past. Cole spun around to see them leap and bring down Bernie by sheer momentum. Nobody had a clear shot. The big tan dog with a back like a damn pony had its jaw clamped on her left biceps, and the other one—black and tan, smooth-haired—would have had her face off if she hadn’t hooked her fingers in the corner of its mouth and ripped hard. Marcus moved in and brought his Lancer down like a mallet. It took Dom two point-blank shots to stop the other one.
Bernie lay there for a moment and then struggled to her feet. Cole caught her arm to steady her. It was the first time he’d seen her really scared—wide-eyed, chalk white, and breathing hard.
“What, you forgot you’ve got chainsaws or something?” she snapped.
“We might have taken your arm off.” Marcus started checking her over, all quiet and calm again. “Dom, are there any more out there?”
“Looks all clear.”
All they could hear now was the wind and Baird’s shouts. Cole had no idea where the tunnel had come up, but Baird seemed to have found them. Bernie limped out into the open air.
“Whoa, firefight?” Baird said. “What the hell’s down there?”
“All done.” Marcus held up his hand. “Feral dogs.”
“You’re shitting me. We can take on the grub army, but we crap our pants when we run into a pooch or two?”
“Man, you didn’t see ’em.” Cole had never seen a dog set on killing, let alone a pack of them. They didn’t run off whimpering. They weren’t scared of humans or rifles. They just kept on coming. “Those things are fast.”
Bernie didn’t like losing face in front of Baird. Cole watched her brace her shoulders like she was going to cuss him out. “The idea is to pick them off at a distance,” she said, but her voice was still shaky. “Not get cornered and knocked down in a confined space where you can’t use your weapon.”
“Haven’t they got rabbits to chase?”
“It’s cold, there’s less for them to hunt in this weather, and we’ve attracted them.” She tried to unfasten her elbow plate to roll back
her sleeve, but she was trembling too much. Cole grabbed her arm and took off the layers for her. “A human settlement’s an easy meal for dogs.”
“Skin’s not broken,” Cole said. “You’re still going to see the doc. Your chin’s cut or scratched or somethin’.”
Baird studied the dead dogs and prodded them with his boot. “So, are we eating these or not?”
“I think I’ll pass,” Bernie said.
She looked plain wrung out. It just wasn’t right for a lady of that age to have to live like this. Okay, she was tough and she could take care of herself, but it still upset Cole that she even had to. They headed back toward Port Farrall, Baird ambling along in front and shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe Delta Squad had come to this.
“So, we stop fighting grubs and we start fighting Stranded, the local dog pound, and each other.” He flung his arms out in disgust. “Welcome to the new world peace.”
“Better get those stores moved out,” Marcus said, ignoring him. “At least we know where to bring the vehicles now.”
Dom kept turning around to scan the area. “Man, I never knew dogs would try to kill people like that. You sure they’re not diseased or something?”
“They’re just being dogs,” Bernie said. “When people disappear and there’s no more commands or fences, animals go back to being what they always were. Animals.”
Marcus nodded to himself. Cole knew that look.
“Like humans,” Marcus said.
PORT FARRALL, CHECKPOINT 8, TWO DAYS LATER.
A steady trickle of junkers and battered trucks was still running between the dockyard and Port Farrall, ferrying the windfall of supplies from the tunnels.
Dom huddled in the shelter of a wall. A dark red down-filled jacket, definitely not uniform issue, had been left without explanation on his mattress a couple of days ago, and that meant someone else had given it up for him.
He needed to know who was prepared to make that sacrifice for him in this weather. When he finished this duty watch, he’d hand it on to the next guy, Jace. For all the agony and privation of the last few weeks, he found the unquestioning comradeship of being a Gear the most comforting thing in his life.
And I haven’t blown my own brains out yet. So I can’t be grieving that much, can I? What kind of bastard am I?
Dom even found himself distracted, wondering what he’d find to eat in the barracks. He didn’t deserve a damn jacket that could have been making someone else comfortable.
Footsteps crunched behind him from the direction of the food distribution center. The snow had mostly vanished despite the lack of a thaw—it had sublimed, Baird said—but the ground was still frozen. Cole had given up trying to arrange thrashball games to keep the kids’ spirits up because he was worried they’d break bones on a sports field as solid as concrete.
“So what did you find?” Anya slipped close to Dom and tucked her arm through his for warmth. That was the kind of thing you learned to do fast with buddies in this climate. It didn’t mean anything else. “Prescott’s actually excited about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him excited about anything.”
“What, he’s jumping up and down clapping his hands?”
“No, he keeps smiling.”
“It’s indigestion.”
“So, Lancer rounds, high-energy crackers, antiseptic liquid …”
“Field dressings, sterile scalpels, painkillers. Loads of drugs, but so damn old.”
“Hayman’s pleased. She says expiry dates are pretty flexible for a lot of meds.”
“So we’ve got fuel, ammo, and medical supplies, but no damn food.”
“Well, the chickens are enjoying the crackers.”
“Shit, someone really did bring chickens with them? No pigs?”
“Oh, we have some refugee pigs, too.” Anya fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic container. “And I traded a pair of gloves for this tonight. Eye makeup. Half full. We won’t be making this kind of thing again for years.”
“You don’t need it.” Dom was simply being matter-of-fact. Anya could stop traffic, makeup or not. People stared at her even in this shithole of a camp. “Do you know who left this jacket for me?”
Anya shook her head. “No. But it’s kind of them.”
“Everyone knows I shot Maria, don’t they?” It was a shrinking community, and gossip was one of the few interesting things left to do. “Are they saying what a bastard I am?”
Anya’s arm tightened on his. It was the first time he’d said it out loud to her. “If they’re talking about you at all,” she said gently, “they’re saying that you really have to love someone to be willing to end their misery and take it on yourself for the rest of your life.”
Dom didn’t want to be let off the hook. He didn’t want to be poor tragic Dom, hero and martyr; he wanted someone to punch him out for failing his wife. He thought he understood the weird shit going on in his head that made him react that way, but it didn’t actually stop him from feeling it.
“Do you ever not do things, really obvious things, and then hate yourself afterward?” he asked.
“Every day.” Anna nodded. “Yes. Every day.”
“You know we came face-to-face with the Locust queen? I was thinking about it last night, and … I could have asked her. I could have asked why the hell the grubs hate us so much, what they want, why they did that to Maria. And I didn’t.”
“You really think she’d have given you an answer? Seriously?”
Anya was right, but Dom was still in that place where he could know one thing and yet believe another entirely. “No. Probably not. Hey, you’re going to freeze out here. Go back to the mess.”
“If you ever want to talk, Dom, you know I’m here.”
“Thanks, Anya.”
“See you later, then.”
Dom went on staring into the darkness, concentrating on the wobbling lights of vehicles as they pottered around. He really wasn’t sure if he wanted to spill his guts or not. Maybe he was looking for forgiveness, but there was nobody left to give it to him. So he tried to be the Dom who got on with soldiering.
Okay … how much more are they going to haul out of those tunnels?
The underground passages were more extensive than anyone had realized, Marcus told him; they extended under the city, and parts were hundreds of years old, built when the dockyard was first constructed. A lot of the things stored down there were useless, but it was still worth checking every nook and cranny for anything that could be reused. People were starting over with almost nothing they’d been used to having even in the worst days of Jacinto, and no way to manufacture it for maybe years to come.
How the hell did the Locust queen know Adam Fenix?
Dom cradled his Lancer one-handed and stuck his other hand under his arm for warmth. The cold ate through his gloves like acid.
She just said that to fuck with Marcus’s head. The bitch was probably the one who killed his dad anyway.
Well, she was gone now, with pretty well all her stinking kind. Dom was disappointed that he hadn’t come across more grub stragglers. He hadn’t had any closure at all, not even seeing the tunnels flooding, and he understood Bernie’s rare loss of discipline in wanting to carve up that grub.
God knows what they did to Marcus’s dad, then. And I bet Marcus is still chewing that over, but he’ll never say a word about it. Funny—me and him, we know every damn thought the other has by now, and yet there’s still some shit we never talk about. His mom. His dad. Anya. Prison.
Dom made up his mind there and then. He’d have a serious talk with Marcus when he rostered off. He’d finally tell him to stop dicking around over Anya, and that he ought to have learned his lesson when he thought she’d been killed. One minute he was distraught when he couldn’t contact her, and the next it was back to we’re-just-friends business as usual.
Bullshit. You’ve got no idea how much life will hurt without her, Marcus.
A broken bottle lay in the gutter oppos
ite the checkpoint. Dom watched it for a while, trying to work out how long it had been there, why nobody had collected it to reuse it like every other precious scrap of material in Port Farrall, and why it was glittering in the faint light from the checkpoint post. Then he realized it was moving. Every so often, it would shiver.
It’s the wind.
He kept watching, gradually more engrossed in it. It rattled against the curb.
No.
It looked like it was vibrating.
Shit.
Dom didn’t trust his own eyes at the moment. He’d seen some weird and wholly unreal things since the assault on Landown, mostly centered on Maria, and the medic had told him it was concussion and stress. He pressed his radio earpiece, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things again.
“Checkpoint Eight to Control, Santiago here.”
Don’t say it. It’s the wind, you know it is.
He didn’t get an immediate response from Mathieson. Things were quiet in Port Farrall compared to the usual comms traffic that CIC was used to, so Dom expected some acknowledgment right away. He switched to the open radio circuit to see if there was something happening elsewhere, and the chatter of civilian drivers, Gear loadmasters, and perimeter sentries filled his ear. Proper radio procedure had gone to ratshit now.
“Five-Seven here. Three-Nine, are you gonna move that heap? I need the ramp.”
“Three-Nine to Five-Seven—sorry, man, give me two minutes.”
“Control, those goddamn dogs are back in the storage vaults. I can hear them scratching. Any chance of some assertive pest control?”
Dom noticed that the city at his back was suddenly silent. It wasn’t just the general quiet of a bitterly cold night. It was like a scared, suddenly held breath.
Oh God, it’s not just me …
Dom felt it with senses sharpened by fifteen years of practice. It made him look down at the road beneath his boots. It made him check his Lancer and start looking around him, 360 degrees. It put him on full alert.
The broken bottle was now tapping gently but insistently against the concrete curb, chink-chink-chink-chink-chink …