James Patterson - Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Here goes nothing. Or, I guess, everything!

The landing party of horse-skulls turned as the girder sheared with the loudest imaginable crack.

There was a deafening groan as the tower shuddered, then- TIMBER! -it collapsed against the side of the ship’s landing shaft. Actually, it disintegrated the shaft.

Seth’s cigar went flying. Next I shattered my shackles with a violent flex of my shoulders. And because I couldn’t resist, I threw a roundhouse punch into Seth’s snout. He. Didn’t. Even. Flinch.

Then I leaped off the ramp, hitting the rubble at a run. Or should I say, dead run?

I turned into the nearest alley, then skidded to an immediate, lifesaving stop.

I was right at the edge of one of the strip-mining pits, a chasm at least three or four hundred feet straight down, maybe a city block wide. I had missed falling into the pit by inches!

My chest was heaving as I spotted what appeared to be a tunnel opening on the opposite wall of the chasm, twenty or thirty yards across. I backed up and yelled-for extra strength, and to distract me from my fears. And common sense, maybe? Then I ran forward and jumped off the edge, using every ounce of energy I had.

I made it by inches-and then I heard Opus 24/24 gunfire from above.

Bullets rained down everywhere, burrowing into the ground like steel fists.

I turbo-crawled maybe twenty feet into the darkness and waited an eternity-until the thunderous gunfire finally stopped.

Then I heard the cackle of Seth’s laughter. It echoed against the walls of my planet’s version of Death Valley.

“Go ahead, run- un-un, ” Seth yelled, echoes trampling all over his slimy words. “You’re a cockroach in a dump- ump-ump. Fall on your face! Stay here in this graveyard if you like- ike-ike . Does it matter? You’re just one more useless slave- ave-ave ! Welcome home, loser- ser-ser! ”

I took the time to yell back, “Kiss my butt- utt-utt . ”

Then I ran until, finally, I was a blur.

I DON’T KNOW how long it was that I ran, then jogged, then stumbled through the totally unfamiliar semidarkness. Unfortunately my stomach wound was bleeding again.

I found some kind of monorail track thing and followed it for at least a couple of hours. You wouldn’t think that a city could be so big, but Bryn Spi seemed to go on forever.

I think I actually fell asleep walking at one point.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up as I heard somebody, or some thing, breathing in the darkness above me.

“Hey!” a kid’s voice came as I reached up and grabbed a head of longish hair.

A flashlight came on next.

“Lay off! Let me go!” a dirty-faced kid yelled, waving his flashlight. He was emaciated, dressed in filthy rags, and furious with me.

“And what do you think you’re doing, hovering over me like that?” I asked him.

“I practically tripped over you lying like a rotty corpse in the middle of the tunnel, you idiot. Leggo my hair now!”

I released my grip.

“Smart move, sucker,” the kid said, frowning and rubbing his scalp. “Nobody messes with Bem. Even the Outer Ones better watch their step with me.”

“Oh, I’m sure they do, Bem. They would never mess with the likes of you.”

I stood for a moment just gazing at the boy. I couldn’t believe I’d finally come into contact with one of my people!

“Quit staring,” he said. “You’re creeping me out.”

Okay, then, I thought. I guess all of us aren’t telepathic.

“Is your mom or dad around?” I asked the boy.

“Died on FirstStrike. It’s just me and Kulay now. Kulay’s my sister.”

“Where do you live?”

“In Undertown, of course. Where else? Where you been?”

“Will you show me?”

The feisty kid squinted at me and put up his fists. “Why should I?”

I concentrated and levitated Bem a foot or so off the ground.

“Okay, that’s a good reason,” he said, and started to walk. “Keep up!”

The tunnel we traveled through gradually began to widen. More tunnels branched to the right and left until finally we stepped into a massive chamber. One, I noticed, that was crowded with people.

My people.

Maybe I could find someone who knew my parents! I thought as I approached the crowd. Imagine if I had a family? Real aunts and uncles and cousins?

It didn’t take long for my hope to wither. Undertown wasn’t doing so hot. Every inch of the chamber was covered with crude wooden and cardboard shanties.

“Numbdown, git sum, git sum!” called a tough-looking kid around Bem’s age. He was waving dirty vials in my face as I passed. Numbdown must have been Alpar Nok’s answer to crack.

I smacked the drugs away from my face onto the concrete floor and crushed them under my sneaker.

“Common sense!” I said to the kid. “Git sum, git sum.”

BEM AND KULAY’S HOME was a cavelike structure about the size of a toolshed, with a rusty drainpipe in the corner for a toilet. And, I think, a sink.

Kulay turned out to be four and was doing about as well as her “big” brother. She was pretty, but thin and bony, and one of her feet looked like it had been crushed recently and had healed wrong.

“Take me,” Kulay said to her brother as he opened the corrugated sheet of metal they used as a door. “Take me. Take me. Take me.”

She didn’t seem to notice that I was there, and I was curious about where it was that she wanted to go.

“I’m busy, Kulay,” Bem said, exasperated. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you see him? ”

I searched the pockets of my jumpsuit and came out with a crushed blueberry energy bar I’d managed to keep hidden from the horse-heads. I tore it open and gave them each half.

That seemed to win Bem over. I actually saw him drop his permanent scowl for a second as he chewed.

“Where does Kulay want to go?” I asked.

“It’s… the only good thing left in this crummy city, I guess. It’s… hard to describe. You have to see it. Do you want to? Anyway, she won’t stop bugging me until we go.”

“Take me, take me!” I said in response, and even Kulay grinned this time. Cute kid. I wondered if she was one of my cousins.

I LIFTED KULAY, who weighed next to nothing, and followed Bem out the hole in a wall that served as a door. We walked to the outskirts of the ramshackle underground town and went through a busted gate into a narrow corridor.

We walked for maybe an hour through a labyrinth of corridors until we came to a set of metal stairs.

After climbing seven stories, Bem opened a door into a huge concrete room filled with silent, turbinelike machines.

Behind one of them was a circular door in a wide pipe with a spin valve opener.

“What are you doing?” I said as Bem went down on all fours, spun the valve, then pulled open the door.

“You’ll see,” Kulay said with a giggle as she crawled out of my arms and into the pipe. “Take me, take me!” she shouted.

Bem was right on her tail.

I shook my head, but I followed along.

Trap? I wondered.

I had trusted people before and look where it had gotten me. Phoebe Cook had turned out to be Ergent Seth. So who were these two kids?

I crawled right behind Bem, close enough to grab him if I had to. Well, I wriggled, if you want to get technical, since my shoulders just barely fit.

Suddenly I heard Kulay yell, “Wheeee!” and then there was a loud, wet splash.