Maxwell Huxley's Demon (29 page)

She sits up and writes another report, almost finishes it, then curses and walks away from her desk.
Think. You have to give them more than this. A report of something odd is not enough. You need a direct link to what the oddity is. What are the mainframes doing instead of the usual?

Kristina , swipes, scans, and PIN
s herself back in to the kitchen. Pours a coffee and leans against the counter.
The MSU
’s are the same. The reports take longer. The mainframe is doing more than it used to . The MSU
’s CANNOT be the same.
I need approval to crack open one of the mainframe cores.

Kristina puts down her coffee and walks to her manager’s office.

Chapter 28
–Catacombs

“It stinks. W
hy did we come down here?” Lara adjusts her backpack. Her flashlight creates flickering shadows. There couldn’t be a worse place, she thinks.

“This way we can get anywhere in Odessa without risk.
Odessa is probably teeming with people looking for us.
Down here , we can go straight to the airport and no one bothers us.
” Max follows her , moving carefully, cane in one hand and flashlight in the other. “Remind me to have Catherine figure out a way for me to create light with bots.”

The tunnel has a curved ceiling and roughly carved walls and floor, almost as if it was formed by a river and not miners. They follow the curving path for quite some time. There seems to be no logic to the ups and down s and turns that the tunnel takes.

They enter a square room with water covering the floor. In one corner there’
s part of a brick foundation of some overhead building. Two exits across the water. Max gestures left.

“How do you know which way?” Lara asks.

“I don’t.
” Max shrugs.
“B
ut people usually go right if given a choice.
So we go left.
”

Walking a few minutes in a tunnel with straight , squared—
off floor and walls they come to a cave in. Tumbled rock and brick fill most of the tunnel. Lara crawls up the pile of rocks and shines the flashlight ahead. “It’s clear.”

Max follows her.

They enter a tunnel which opens wide. Large slabs of exposed limestone make up the walls and floor. The giant limestone s teps lead down and down and down . Lara looks ahead. T
he ‘stairs’ seem endless. As they move forward, water ripple s over the steps .

The stairs end at what seem s to be a dead end. Max moves to the rig ht. “It smells worse this way.”

Lara follows and finds a tunnel not much more that a crack. They slither through.

Lara backs into Max, grabbing at his arm. “Do you hear that?”

Max stops and lis tens to faint scrabbling sounds.
“I’m guessing rats, at least I’m hoping rats.”

“I hate you.” Lara stumbles out of the crack and into a short tunnel with tracks running down the mi ddle. “Left or right?”

“Up.” They follow the slight incline , passing a rusted trolley car s itting on the tracks. The track split s three ways. Max signals left again.
His wet shoes chafe his feet and make them hurt.
In another half hour the tracks end in a large open square room filled with greenish water.
He pushes his cane into the water. “About a metre deep.”
He steps down into the water.

“Can’t we turn around and try another path?” Lara stands at the edge of the water.

“If we start turning around , we’ll be lost forever.”

“We’re lost now.”

“No we aren’t.
I know which way is up.” Max walk s on. “We won’t get lost. T
here are so many tunnels that almost all of them connect. It’s more like walking around city blocks. We’ll go up from this point on; when we come up we can orient ourselves.”

The tunnels stay like city blocks; however, each tunnel is now a stair case .
They go up or down randomly. Max’s bad leg starts to cramp so badly his toes are curling under his feet . H
e hides the pain from Lara.

They enter an area with graffiti, and empty wine and beer bot tles. Max pulls Lara to a ledge.
“I have to rest.” They sit down in the relatively dry room.

Now that they are not moving , the sounds of the catacombs reveal themselves. Dripping, more scrabbling rats, whistling air currents, fluttering bats, groans as heavy vehicles pass overhead, and barking dogs.

Max looks at Lara. “We need to go.”

Lara puts away her bottled water, “You’ve rested enough?”

Max hears the dogs again. “No, but I don’t think there are normally dogs in the catacombs unless someone is tracking someone.
Let’s go, take any path up.”

Lara leads Max as fast as he can move. The barking gets louder. They enter a stretch of tunnel that is unfortunately straight; they hurry along hoping for a turn. None arrives. They seem to be on an endless straight , upward slope.

A bark echoes from behind them. Lara grips Max’s arm tighter. “Hurry,” she hisses.

The tunnel widens with each step until they can barely make out the opposite wall. Light flickers from behind them.

“We have to turn out our flashlights. Stick to the left wall,” Max whispers. They cross the large open tunnel and move along the wall feeling for obstacles.
Brin g ing dogs was brilliant. Going invisible or hiding in the dark won’t work with dogs.

Lara stops suddenly and Max walks into her. “What is it?” Max asks.

“I hit my head.” Lara takes Max’s hand and p l aces it on something solid coming out of the wall. Max reaches higher and feels another of the same.

“It’s a ladder,” they both say. They start climbing without speaking. Max goes firs t. He slowly makes his way up, e ach step hurting his leg and ribs. The sounds of voices and footsteps grow louder in the tunnel. Max reaches for another rung and feels something flat and metal. He pushes. Nothing. He feels the metal surface for anything, hoping for a handle or latch. He feels hinges.

Max takes his cane in one hand and places the tip against one hinge. “Alohomora.” The sound is loud to Max , but the barking dogs probably cover it. Next hinge. “Alohomora .”
Still, the metal stays in place.

Max feels across the plate and guesses w here a lock or handle should be. “
Alohomora .” Max discovers how heavy a small metal trap door can be as it breaks free, hits him on the head and bounces off his shoulder.

The trap door clatters down the ladder then lands on the floor with a loud clang.

“I’m thinking they heard that.
” Max moves up through the opening. Lara follows. “Let’s go.
We need to f ind me a room with obstacle s , clutter, doors, timber, anything to hide behind.”

Lara leads the way. They turn left then right , randomly looking into rooms as they pass.
Max rejects them all. They hurry past a few more rooms.

Then they enter a large room with at least five other exits, a raised area in the middle, broken sections of wall, and a couple of over turned trolleys. “This will have to do.” Max notes two more exit tunnels high up the walls.

“
Do for what?
”

“Soon enough they’ll carry the dogs through that trap door. We can’t outrun them. I want to be ready when they find us.
”

---

Max stand s in the middle of the room in total darkness, listening to them come. The barking growing more frantic as the dogs sense their prey.
Light flickers into the room .

Max feels sorry for the dogs and for the first person through that doorway.

The dogs burst into the room pulling Hastings behind. Max peppers their direction with BB
’
s . The dogs yelp. Hasting goes down hard, three bullets slamming into his chest. Max hits the dogs again.
It’s t oo much for the dogs, they run out of the room, d ragging Hastings with them.
Bloodhounds. N
o wonder they found us so easily .

Max moves to the left side of the room, standing partially behind a broken wall. He watches the doorway. He sees light and hears the dogs go quiet.

Tick .

The natural sound of the catac omb returns. Max listens intently .

Tock .

Max let s the acceleration over take him as he fears that he will lose Lara too.

Their flashlights stil l throw some weak light through the doorway into the cave. Max focuses on that spot.
They only have 1
st or 2
nd generation fog.
Max sees a slight and brief distortion. He slams his cane down on the floor. A shockwave travels across the room , raising dust and debris.

Max hears a grunt and then sees Sarah slam back against the rock wall and l ie still. Max moves and whispers, “Bolas,” flicking his cane at Sarah . T
ethered nanoBots ensnare her legs .

Now comes the part where they try to flank me .

“Max!
” Pirelli says.

Silence, except for the whimpering of dogs.

Max moves where he know s he can see all five entrances. H
e whispers, “Armour.”

“Max, I spoke to you r mother . . . she is willing to see you again . . . come with us and you can have a mother.”

Liar .

Max senses the shockwave, but the BB
’s reach him first. Three bullets strike him, absorbed by the armour. Virginia, Keith, Naomi, and Connor become visible when they fire. The shockwave comes from his left , but his coat splits it in two , so it passes around him striking someone behind him on his right.

Max fires bullets forward and to his left, hearing someone call out, and then seeing Connor go down. He flicks bolas blindly back and to his right, missing Naomi.

Max has time to see Keith and Virginia disappear into fog again. Max moves behind a wall as a real bullet smack s into the brick, throwing shards of rock and metal at him.
His armour is not designed for objects of this size; he feels the sting as the shrapnel cuts into his shoulder, neck, and face.
There go my good looks .

Virginia and Keith both appear and fire at him. His armour absorbs their shots. Max guesses that his power supply is a third gone , and he f ires ten quick shots at Keith. A t least five strike home. Keith falls back and out of sight.
Mental note: create a heads up display with vital system diagnostics.

Naomi stirs and Max tangles her in bolas. Virginia is gone again. Max moves but knows it is useless to try to evade Virginia.
I should’ve had her by now. My odds were only good if I took them all quickly.

Max hears her move and fires blindly. He hears her again far away from his shot. She laughs.
“You’re slow, Max.” Virginia becomes visib le. Weaving and tumbling toward him. He fires and misses.
She leaps up onto a half wall close to Max and launches herself at him, feet first.

Max is still turning to face her. Her feet jam into his side, snapping another rib and throwing him down. He slam s his can e blindly into the debris on the floor. The shockwave throws up rock, wood, and metal. Virginia shrieks. Max sees her falling and screams , “
Cullen ” at her. She hits the ground and doesn’t get up.

Max cra wls behind some fallen timber, t aking shallow breaths. He flings out bolas tangling up Virginia, Connor, and Keith. Max turns off his armour and d isappears in fog, moving toward the tunnel that Pirelli should be in.

Best case, only Pirelli is active.

Max enters the tunnel and sees Hastings holding Lara with a gun pointed at her head.

“I’m sorry Max,” Lara says.

“Show yourself Max; I don’t think you want your second mommy to get hurt now —”

Hastings never finishes the sentence. Max hits him on the head with a brick , and he falls to the floor unconscious.

Max looks down at Hastings.
“What a moron! How can he not understand invisible?
”

“Max! He could have shot me when you hit him.” Lara glares at him .

“N
o, no, no. He had the safety on.
I checked. He didn’t want to shoot either of us by mistake. Let’s go before Pirelli shows up. Everyone else is down.”

Max and Lara rush down the tunnel and spend another hour travelling until they exit to the surface, and hail a cab.

“Good to see you again , Max.”

“
Well I guess that wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Catherine, how close are we to the outskirts of Odessa?”

“The city limit is 2 Kilometres to the North.”

Max asks Catherine where the closest car rental outlet is .
Speaking Russian, Max directs the cab driver there.

---

Lara drives the rental car north out of Odessa. A sign on the highway read s , ‘Kiev – 476
KM
.’

Lying down in the back seat, Max speaks to Catherine . “We need to monitor the cell networks for a match on Mr. Newton’s voice. Let me know when you’ve found him. Meanwhile I need to get to a hospital.” Max coughs blood into his hand. “Get lots of cash . . .” Max passes out.