Nemesis Games

Two more gunshots from the shaft, a murmur of voices, and then a scream. Amos was on his feet almost before Sullivan’s body fell past. He landed in the muck at the bottom of the shaft. Rona cried out wordlessly, dropping down to him while Morris turned his flashlight up the ladder. Konecheck’s feet were two pale dots, his face a shadow above them.

“He slipped,” Konecheck called.

“The hell he did!” Rona shouted. Her gun was in her hand, and she was going for the ladder. Amos jumped down and got in her way, his hands spread wide. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t get crazy here. We need that guy.”

“Coming up on level four,” Konecheck said. “Starting to see light up top. Hear the wind. Almost there.”

Sullivan lay in the muck, his leg folded unnaturally under him, and limp as a rag. He still had the gun in his fist. A yellow indicator on the side said he was out of ammunition. Sullivan had lived just long enough to stop being useful, then Konecheck had murdered him.

Asshole couldn’t have waited until they were all the way up.

“He slipped,” Amos said. “Shit like that happens. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Rona’s teeth were chattering with rage and fear. Amos smiled and nodded at her because it seemed like the kind of thing people did to reassure folks. He couldn’t tell if it was doing any good.

“Someone going to come help?” Konecheck called. “Or am I doing all this on my own?”

“Take Morris,” Clarissa said. “Two guns. One for the metal, one to guard him. It was a mistake. It won’t happen twice.”

“And leave you unguarded?” Morris said behind her. “Not a chance. No one goes without a guard.”

“I’ll keep her out of trouble,” Amos said, but the guards didn’t seem to hear him.

“Everyone up,” Rona said. “Everyone. And if anybody does something even a little bit threatening, I swear to God I’ll kill all of you.”

“I’m a civilian,” Amos said.

Rona pointed toward the rungs with her chin. “Get climbing.”

So they climbed up into the darkness, hand over hand. Ten meters up, maybe twelve. Morris first, then Clarissa, then Amos, with Rona coming up last, her flashlight stuck in her belt and her gun in her hand. Konecheck wrestled the next length of ladder open, clanging and cursing and roaring in the effort. The black muck kept dripping down from above, making everything slick. Amos wondered if maybe Sullivan really had slipped, and chuckled to himself quietly enough that no one heard him. Konecheck, at the upper end of the ladder, swung to one side, letting Morris pass next to him. Then two more shots and the two men switched places again. Amos wondered if the rungs had been designed to carry the weight of two men at once. But they didn’t bend, so that was one good thing. He spent a lot of time looking at Clarissa’s ankles, since that was pretty much what there was to look at. They were thin from atrophy, the skin pale and dusty. He noticed when they started to tremble. If her busted hand bothered her, she didn’t say so.

“You all right, Peaches?”

“Fine,” she said. “Just getting tired is all.”

“Hang on, little tomato,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

Above her, the shaft grew shorter. There was no sign of the car or the guards who’d been in it. Just a pale gray square and a growing howl of wind. Once, when they only had four or five meters still to go, Rona below him made a sound like a sob, but only once. He didn’t ask her about it.

And then Konecheck was at the edge, hauling himself up with Morris scrambling after. The black rain was still falling, and it had gotten colder. Clarissa was shaking now, her whole body fluttering like she was too light, and the wind might pick her up and carry her away.

“You can do it, Peaches.”

“I know,” she said. “I know I can.”

She boosted herself up, and then it was Amos’ turn. The elevator shaft ended in a clean break, like the hand of God had come and swept everything away. The intake building was gone apart from shattered concrete and splintered wood strewn across the bare field. The fence was gone. The trees on the horizon had been shaved down to stubble. For as far as he could see, there was just earth and scrub. The sky was dark and low, huge clouds scalloped from one side of the world to the other like inverted waves. The wind barreling down out of the east stank of something he couldn’t quite identify. It was what he imagined the aftermath of a battle looked like. Only worse.

“Come on,” Rona said, pushing at his leg. Then, without warning, Konecheck roared and Morris shrieked. A gun went off as Amos made it up onto the ledge and got his feet under him. Konecheck was holding Morris up off the ground. The guard’s head hung slack and boneless in a way that clarified the situation. Clarissa had collapsed at the gray-haired prisoner’s feet.