19.

Descent

“Wil!... Wil…” Someone’s calling my name, but the voice sounds muffled and distant. Fading, like the howls of a ripper in the wind.

Too far away to stop me.

Soon enough, the search party will find my com link. I wrapped it in a shred of cloth that I ripped from a dead Northerner’s body, then left the evidence of my death in the snow. When they run a DNA scan, they’ll find my blood on the fabric. All I needed was some spit from my still-bleeding mouth to provide the evidence. Gant and his Eye may still be able to track my implant once the clouds clear, so I’ll need help from Liv and her friends.

If I ever find them.

I’ve been running flat-out for half an hour, but there’s still no sign of the Aletheians. Not even the faintest aura. How could Liv have abandoned me?

The answer seems simple enough: she didn’t come here for me in the first place. She came for Astrid.

I can’t go back though, so I keep going, long after I’ve lost all sense of direction.  To make matters worse, dark clouds loom on the horizon, promising a nasty storm. The first snowflakes are already falling, fine and dry. They swirl around me like dust, reminding me of something I once read about snowflakes forming in smaller and smaller crystals as the temperature drops to extreme lows. I wonder how cold it needs to be before the blood starts freezing in my veins.

Liv! Where are you?

I haven’t seen a single Settler since the ambush. Then again, it’s not like I could walk up to one and ask for directions. I’ll have to find Liv on my own.

The ruins thin out to my right, so I jog in that direction, moving into the shadows of two toppled skyscrapers. They meet overhead to form a massive arch, and as I pass beneath, I spot a few green tiles still clinging to the frozen walls, like lichens on the bark of giant fallen trees. Oxidized copper, placed there for decoration thousands of years ago. Vin was right when he said the Ancients really knew how to build things.

I pause to catch my breath, thinking of the cataclysm that tore their civilization down: the day of judgment that the First Founders called “the Clysm.”

This is where the Sacred Vision starts: with the fall of the Ancients. Like all Guardians, I know the words of Book 1, Chapter 1, Verse 1 by heart: “In the End and the Beginning, the heavens fell and the oceans rose to wipe away the wicked, their waters freezing before they had time to recede.”

I learned what this meant in Prime School, my first two years at the GA. The Clysm happened around three thousand years ago, destroying all the major coastal cities of the Ancients within hours. The lucky ones died in the floods; the rest either starved or perished in the War of Purification that followed – a decade of bloodletting that reached a nightmarish climax with the Biowars. By the time the Ancients had finished killing one another, only a few thousand survivors remained.

I’m here today because of those survivors: The Founding Three and their followers. We owe our lives to the Great One’s vision. He alone knew how to save what remained of humanity.

Why, then, do I find my thoughts returning to the Ancients, wondering how a civilization capable of building such marvels could be all bad?  

We’re taught their society rotted away from the inside out, destroyed by the twin evils of selfish thought and fear. This much I believe. From what I learned in Ancient Civ class, the Ancients ruined their world with pollution, greed and violence, long before the Wipe destroyed them.

But is our world, a world filled with Enforcers, snow rippers, and men like Cillian Gant, all that different from theirs? What would the skittish Settlers of Washton and York say? Or the Pioneer mother who watched helplessly as her son burst into flames? That must be why I’m here: to search for answers.

Maybe Liv will have some, if I can track her down.

Once I’ve cleared the skyscraper arch, I reach the edge of a vast ice plain. Glaciers frame the horizon, their sheer blue-white walls rising into the clouds, and a string of ruins dominates the foreground. My eyes follow their rusted segments, which jut through the ice at regular intervals like the vertebrae of a fossilized giant.

The remains of an ancient bridge, crossing a long-frozen river.

I close my eyes to visualize the map I saw hanging on a wall in Commander Bridges’ office. This must be the western edge of York Settlement, where the ice flats begin.

“Liv!” I yell into the wind.

I may as well be painting a bull’s eye on my back, but who cares at this point? If I can’t find her, I’ll freeze to death by nightfall. I shout her name again, coughing and wheezing from the effort. Each breath of frigid air feels like it’s laced with shards of glass. What did Dax say about bringing me back in a block of ice? He may not have been joking.

Focus! I close my eyes and cover my ears, forcing all thoughts from my mind. Filter out the cold. The pain. The fear. Filter until there’s nothing left but silence, silence and…

Soft buzzing… like a fly’s wings vibrating at the base of my skull. Could be a distant aura, but the signal’s way too vague to locate.

I blink and it’s gone.

Liv? Where are you?

I’m about to scream in frustration when the buzzing returns, this time much stronger, like an itch deep inside my brain. My chest tightens as I recognize the sensation: I felt this way once before, in Washton. Right before all those unwanted thoughts came flooding in.

I grit my teeth and brace for the onslaught, but it never comes.

Instead, I hear the same watery voice that guided me in Washton, then again just before the recent ambush.

 Don’t believe their lies.

The message vibrates through my brain, stirring up memories I can’t place – a longing for the childhood I can’t remember and may have never even had. She’s the same soul who reached out to me in Washton, then again right before the ambush. Liv? Or is it someone else? I’m not so sure anymore.

Don’t believe their lies. Don’t believe their lies.

“I don’t!” I shout at the ruins. “That’s why I’m here!”

Her response hums right through me:

Then find us.

I’m about to ask how when something inexplicable happens.

I know exactly where to go.

Before I can process why, my legs move on their own, taking me back to the skyscraper arch. When I reach it, I make a straight line for the larger of the two collapsed towers, as if guided there by a homing signal. Now that I’m closer to the base of the ruin, I notice how its frozen surface is covered with deep holes and crevices, like a glacier pocked with ice caves.

My eyes drift to a crack in the foundation that can’t be more than half my height. It’s partially hidden by a snow drift and in deep shadows – impossible to find if you didn’t know exactly where to look. But I know.

Just like I know the path I need to take runs through that narrow passage and into the darkness beyond.

*

My face mask has adaptive night vision. That’s key, because without it I wouldn’t even be able to see the ground beneath my boots. The mouth of this tunnel can’t be more than fifty feet back, but it already feels like I’ve been swallowed by the ground. They say millions of Ancients died this way after the Wipe, snap frozen and entombed in the ice for eternity. Will I share their fate?

No. Liv wouldn’t lead me to my death. Even if she’s a terrorist, some of the girl who used to hold my hand and trace out cloud animals in the sky must still live on. Wherever she went after the buses took her away, they couldn’t have killed that part of her.

The next segment of the tunnel materializes ahead, a blur of green, gray and black. I scramble forward, head ducked low to avoid the massive icicles hanging from the ceiling. Ice coats the floor too, but my boots aren’t slipping. Strange.

I kneel to explore the tunnel, gloved fingers probing the frozen surfaces. The walls feel slick, but there’s gritty resistance beneath my feet. Gravel and sand, coating the floor.

Someone’s been here recently to maintain this path.

The walls narrow up ahead, funneling me toward a space so tight I’ll have to crawl through to proceed. Up until this point, the tunnel has run relatively flat, but that changes once I’ve squeezed through the crevice. The path ahead drops into an inky void that not even my night vision can penetrate.

“I can’t!” I shout into the darkness. “It’s impossible!”

My words echo through the cavernous space below, and she answers moments later:

Just slide on your back. Trust me.

There’s that dangerous word again: trust. Once again, I’m being asked to take a leap of faith, but I can’t think of any better options. There’s no way back, so I sit on the floor and shift my weight forward, butt scraping over gravel. The resistance vanishes and I’m sliding feet first, picking up speed.

Way too much speed!

A dagger of ice zips past me, missing my head by inches.

What did Liv say? Slide on your back!

I flatten my profile against the ice, a split second before another icicle whizzes by. The chute curves around a corner and levels out, then drops again before I have time to slow down.  Drop. Level out. Drop. Level out. The pattern repeats, sucking my prone body into a downward spiral.

A stairway! That’s what I’m caroming down, plunging deeper into the bowels of the fossilized skyscraper. How far down does the structure go? As I tumble through the darkness, I picture a massive tree, roots burrowing miles into the ground.

I’ll be buried alive.

The terrifying thought hits me, moments before I bounce and then skid to a stop.

As soon as I sit up, I realize I’m in a much bigger space – maybe a cavern or large tunnel. The air feels warmer down here, still cool but almost balmy compared to what I just experienced on the surface. Surprisingly, it’s also brighter, thanks to a mysterious white glow. Huge icicles loom overhead, reminding me of a snow ripper’s fangs. It feels like I’ve been eaten by the earth.

I run a hand along the nearest wall, gloved fingertips skimming over straight ridges and grooves: a manmade surface, probably brick or tile. The Ancients must have built this chamber thousands of years ago. Was it some sort of gathering place? Or a tomb?

Up ahead, the floor cuts off abruptly, dropping into a pit. I peer over the edge and catch a glimpse of rusted metal at the bottom. Either my eyes are adjusting to the darkness or the light’s getting brighter, because I can also make out what look like parallel tracks running along the floor.

A memory from Ancient Civ class bubbles up: the Ancients built complex rail-trans systems under their major cities. This must be one of their subterranean stations. Judging from the distance I just fell, I must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of feet underground.

So where is the light coming from?

The mysterious glow concentrates into a white orb, floating at waist height. It breaks into two cones of lights. Then three, fanning outward.

Lanterns, growing brighter. Held aloft by three silhouetted figures.

Aletheians.

They approach in silence. One has a broader profile than the others, suggesting two females and a male. When I try to sift them for more details, it’s like peering into boiling water. The harder I focus, the more clouded my mind becomes. Is this what happened in Washton?

“Hands up where we can see them!” one of the women orders. “No sudden movements.”

Not the telepath. This Aletheian’s voice is different, but something familiar about her makes my heart flutter. She walks closer, leaving her partners a few steps behind. The glaring lantern obscures her features, but when she lowers her hood, shadowy strands of hair spill out into the darkness. She’s stunning. I can tell just from her silhouette.

When I try to sift again, all I get are red flashes of hostility. No thoughts or memories. How could she be blocking me at such close range? I squeeze my lids shut, urging my mind to focus.

“Don’t!” Her warning cracks through the air like a firewhip. “Don’t you dare try to sift me.”

Before I can react, she turns away and whispers to the other woman, who I sense is older. I catch snippets of their conversation – ominous fragments like “useless Stalker” and “won’t work.”

Meanwhile, the male terrorist hangs back, pointing his tapered weapon at me.

A slicer. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a brilliant idea. Now that I’m trapped, Liv’s voice has gone conspicuously silent. What if she isn’t even down here?

The two women seem to be arguing. Their whispers hiss through the chamber for a minute before abruptly cutting off. After a tense stretch of silence, the girl lowers her shoulders.

“Fine,” she huffs, sounding anything but. “You’re in charge. Just remember that I warned you. This is a big mistake.”

Not exactly the soothing words that led me here, but there’s still something so familiar about their cadence. Something…

She whips around to face me, arms drawn close to her chest, like a child who’s trying to comfort herself in the darkness.

That’s when my pounding heart makes the connection, seconds before my brain does.

“Liv?”

Silence draws out between us, followed by a sigh. “That name means nothing to me.”

“But it is you, isn’t it?” I take a tentative step toward her but stop when the male Aletheian thrusts his slicer in my direction. “You’re Liv. From Camp Wilmington. It’s Wil!”

“Don’t come any closer,” she warns. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the lamp light, I recognize more physical details. The wild waves of hair. The small chiseled nose and thin, pursed lips. Through the darkness, I can almost see the freckles that pepper her pale skin. See the green fire in her eyes.

“Don’t you remember me?”

I want to run to her, but her body language warns me away. She retreats into the shadows.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“You’re the one who brought me here.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “That wasn’t me.”

“Then what about Washton? You were there! I saw you!”

She shrugs. “Just following orders to draw you away from the blast zone.”

“But the voice in my head. The one that guided me to you.”

She shakes her head again. “I led you to safety, but I didn’t violate your mind.” She shudders as she says these last words, as if racked with disgust. “Only you Stalkers know how to do that.”

I stagger backward, struggling to process what I’m hearing. The girl standing in front of me is Liv – or at least a bitter shell of the girl I once knew.  But she’s not the one who called to me in Washton, then warned me to get down right before the ambush. The voices are different.

So then who is?

As I grapple with that question, the other female Aletheian steps out of the shadows.

No. Not possible.

I rub my eyes, sure they’re deceiving me, but when I open them again, she’s still standing there: another vision from my dreams.

She’s slightly shorter than I remember, and years older, but with the same raven hair framing golden brown skin and hazel eyes. Her kind smile hasn’t hardened one bit over time.

She reaches out to take my hand, eyes flickering in the low light. 

“Hello, Wil,” Thea says, her voice thick with emotion. “It’s so good to see you again.”

***

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