Brad Meltzer - The Zero Game

I turn around to say something but decide against it. We don’t need another speech. We need answers. And whatever’s down here, this is the only way we’ll get them.

“Going to thirteen-two,” I say into the intercom, using the same code from before. “Lower cage.”

“Thirteen-two,” the woman repeats. “Lowering cage.”

There’s a grinding of metal and one of those never-ending pauses you find on a roller coaster. Right before the big drop.

“Don’t look,” the woman teases through the intercom. “It’s a long way down…”

“You there yet?” Sauls asked, his voice breaking up as it came through Janos’s cell phone.

“Almost,” Janos replied as his Ford Explorer blew past yet another thicket of pine, spruce, and birch trees as he made his way toward Leed.

“What’s almost ?” Sauls asked. “You an hour away? Half hour? Ten minutes? What’s the story?”

Gripping the steering wheel and studying the road, Janos stayed silent. It was bad enough that he had to drive this piece of dreck — he didn’t need to listen to the nagging as well. Flipping on the radio in the truck, Janos turned the dial until he found nothing but static.

“You’re breaking up…” he said to Sauls. “Can’t hear you…”

“Janos…”

Slapping his phone shut, he tossed it into the empty passenger seat and focused back on the road in front of him. The morning sky was crystal blue, but from the nonstop bending of the two-lane road, and the claustrophobia from the surrounding mountains, this was a tough drive during the day, let alone at night — especially if you’d never done it before. Add that to the late hour of Harris and Viv’s arrival, and they may’ve even turned off for a snack, or even some sleep. Whipping around yet another curve, Janos shook his head. It was a nice thought, but as he realized an hour ago when he blew past that diner in Deadwood, it’s one thing to stop for food or toiletries — it’s quite another to set up camp before you reach your destination. If Harris was smart enough to get them this far, he was also smart enough to make sure they didn’t stop until they got to the very end.

Welcome to Leed — Home of the Homestead Mine , the billboard said along the side of the road.

Janos breezed right by it, recalculating the timeline in his head. Even if their jet got off immediately, they couldn’t have arrived before midnight. And if they didn’t get in until midnight, they had to sleep somewhere…

Making a sharp left into the parking lot of the squat sixties-era building, Janos read the signs in the neighboring storefront windows: Out of Business… Lost Lease… Gone to Montana . Sauls was at least right about that — Leed was definitely on its last legs. But as he parked his car and eyed the neon Vacancy sign out front, it was clear at least one place was still open: the Gold House Motel .

Janos opened his door and headed straight inside. On his left, he noticed the metal rack of tourist brochures. All of them were faded by the sun, every single one of them — except for the one entitled The Homestead Mine . Janos studied the rich red, white, and blue colors of the pamphlet. The sun hadn’t faded it a bit — almost as if… as if it’d just been exposed in the last hour or so.

“Hiya, there,” the woman at the front desk called out with a friendly smile. “So what can I do for you today?”

My stomach leaps into my chest as the cage plummets. For the first few feet, it’s no different from an elevator ride, but as we pick up speed and plunge down the shaft, my stomach sails up toward my esophagus. Jerking back and forth, the cage bangs wildly against the walls of the shaft, almost knocking us off our feet. It’s like trying to stand on a rocking rowboat as it bottoms out under you.

“Harris, tell her to slow down before-!”

The floor of the cage heaves violently to the left, and Viv loses her chance to finish the thought.

“Lean against the wall — it makes it easier!” I call out.

“What?!” she shouts, though I can barely hear her. Between the pounding of the cage, the speed of our descent, and the rumble of the waterfall, everything’s drowned in a never-ending, screeching roar.

“Lean against the wall!” I yell.

Taking my own advice, I lean back and fight to keep my balance as the rowboat rattles beneath me. It’s the first time I take a glance outside the cage. The safety gate may be closed, but through the grating, the subterranean world rushes by: a blur of brown dirt… then a flash of an underground tunnel… another blur of dirt… another tunnel. Every eight seconds, a different level whizzes by. The openings to the tunnels whip by so fast, I can barely get a look — and the more I try, the more it blurs, and the dizzier I get. Cave opening after cave opening after cave opening… We’ve gotta be going forty miles an hour.

“You feel that?” Viv calls out, pointing to her ears.

My ears pop, and I nod. I swallow hard, and they pop again, tighter than before.

It’s been over three minutes since we left, and we’re still headed down what’s easily becoming the longest elevator ride of my life. On my right, the entrances to the tunnels continue to whip by at their regular blurred pace… and then, to my surprise, they start to slow down.

“We there?” Viv asks, looking my way so her mine light shines in my face.

“I think so,” I say as I turn toward her and accidentally blind her right back. It takes a few seconds for us to realize that as long as our lights are on, the only way we can talk is by turning our heads so we’re not eye to eye. For some people in the Capitol, that comes naturally. For me, it’s like fighting blind. Every emotion starts in our eyes. And right now, Viv won’t face me.

“How we doing on air?” I ask as she looks down at her oxygen detector.

“Twenty-one percent is normal — we’re at 20.4,” she says, flipping to the instructions on the back. Her voice wobbles, but she’s doing her best to mask her fear. I check to see if her hands are shaking. She turns slightly so I can’t see them. “Says here you need sixteen percent to breathe normally… nine percent before you go unconscious… and at six percent, you wave bye-bye.”

“But we’re at 20.4?” I say, trying to reassure her.

“We were 20.9 up top,” she shoots back.

The cage bucks to a final halt. “Stop cage?” the woman asks through the intercom.

“Stop cage,” I say, pressing the red button and wiping the slime against my tool belt.

As I take my first peek through the metal safety gate, I look up at the ceiling, and my mine light bounces off a bright orange stenciled sign dangling from two wires: 4850 Level .

“You gotta be kidding me,” Viv mumbles. “We’re only halfway there?”

I press the intercom button and lean toward the speaker. “Hello…?”

“What’s wrong?” the hoist operator barks back.

“We wanted to go to the eight thousa-”

“Cross the drift and you’ll see the Number Six Winze. The cage is waiting for you there.”

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“It’s fine if you wanna stop at 4850, but if you plan on going deeper, you gotta take the other.”

“I don’t remember this last time,” I say, bluffing to see if it’s changed.

“Son, unless you were here in the 1900s, there ain’t nothin’ that’s different. They got cables now that’ll hold a cage at ten thousand feet, but back then, the furthest they could go was five thousand at a time. Now, step outside, cross the drift, and tell me when you’re in.”