D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

Mark said, “Maddie’s flying the first leg to search for the exiles.”

“Oh,” I said quickly. “Then good luck to you, too.” She winked.

We all got out of the car. Maddie barely waited until I closed the door before taking off. She shot down the dark street, took a sharp corner, and was gone. She had to get back before sunrise. These people lived like vampires.

Mark wasn’t wasting time either. He walked straight into the building. We followed. Of course the place was empty. I had no idea what it might have been used for, but if it was sitting over the entrance to an underground utility tunnel, it was probably a city building of some sort. Mark led us quickly across the empty floor that was covered with broken bits of furniture, glass, and I don’t know what else. He knew exactly where he was going. I had Elli walk in front of me so I could keep an eye on her. Mark led us through a few doors, to a stairwell that disappeared down into the dark.

Elli hesitated.

“If Mark says it’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, trying to reassure her.

Mark looked back and said, “This is the easy part.”

That didn’t make me feel any better, which meant it probably did even less for Elli. But like I said, she was brave. We followed Mark down several flights of winding, concrete stairs. After passing through another doorway, we came upon another stairwell. The deeper we went, the darker it became.

“Are we going to be walking the whole way in the dark?” I asked.

“Wait,” Mark answered.

We had finally reached bottom. At least, I thought it was the bottom. I didn’t see any other stairways around. I didn’t see much of anything. It was nearly pitch-black. Elli had a death grip on my arm. Mark shuffled over to a far wall, moving slowly, so as not to walk face-first into something. He ran his hands along the wall until he came upon what looked like a box mounted there. He opened it, reached inside, threw a switch… and we had light. A line of overhead bulbs lit up an impossibly long tunnel that stretched out to either side of us. Dark pipes ran the length of the tunnel for as far as I could see. It was dizzying. We were standing at the foot of metal stairs, surrounded by electric juncture boxes.

“The survivors tapped the electricity that powers the Ravinian’s underground train,” Mark explained. “It’s one of the advantages of living like a shadow.”

“Yeah, no electric bills,” I said, making a lame joke. Nobody laughed.

“This is the insert point that’s closest to the fortress,” Mark said. “I’ve made this trip only once, but it’s not like we can get lost. We’ve got about a mile to go.”

He turned right and started walking. Elli followed him and I followed Elli. It was tough getting my bearings after that breakneck cab ride courtesy of our night guide named Maddie. I figured that if we were headed toward the Ravinian fortress, then we were walking under the river. That was kind of creepy. But if this ancient tunnel had lasted through multiple centuries and a devastating war, the odds of it collapsing and trapping us were pretty slim. We didn’t say much on our journey. I think we had all retreated into our own heads to prepare for whatever we might find on the other side. Every so often we’d come upon an area where the tunnel widened. These areas seemed to be where connections were made and service people worked. Kind of like crossroads. I could see that these areas had been used as homes. There were crusty, crumpled-up blankets, empty cans of food, and some long-forgotten books.

“Did the homeless live down here?” I asked.

Mark didn’t even look back when he answered. “We’re all homeless, Bobby.”

Oh. Right. I started getting a clearer picture of what life was like for the non-Ravinians on Third Earth. They were in constant fear of being discovered by the Ravinians and lived like rats. They kept to the dark tunnels and could only move around without fear at night. They really were like vampires.

“So sad” was the only comment Elli made.

It wasn’t much, but I was glad to hear that she hadn’t checked out completely. Her head was with us, in the moment.

Our journey took about half an hour. It felt endless, since there wasn’t much to look at. We reached another juncture point, where the only difference between it and all the others was a painted symbol on the cement wall. It was a crudely drawn red star. The star that marked the gates. The Ravinian star. Mark saw that I was staring at it.

“We painted that to mark the spot,” Mark explained. “Kind of fits, don’t you think?”

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Every trip I had taken through Halla had begun at a spot that was marked by a star. This time would be no different.

Mark continued, “Going up here would get us into the conclave. You want to start here or check out the chopper factory?”

“I want to see what Antonio saw” was my answer. “Then we keep moving.”

Mark led us another few hundred yards until we came to another juncture. Our last. A narrow, metal ladder led up into the unknown.

“This is where it gets risky,” Mark explained. “This is the route we sent Antonio’s team on. The maps show that this comes up outside the fortress wall, next to the factory. We’re going to climb up to a manhole that’s buried under dirt and rubble. The thing is, there’s no way to know if a Ravinian guard is standing nearby until we lift it up.”

“So we might climb up into the middle of a bunch of dados?” I asked.

“Yeah, pretty much. This is outside the fortress, but it’s inside their security perimeter. They don’t expect anybody to be popping up out of the dirt. So if we run into somebody, it’ll be bad luck.”

“And what if our luck is bad?” I asked.

“Then we come out shooting.”

I had to smile at my friend’s bold statement. He hadn’t only grown up, he’d become a guerrilla. “Are you sure you’re Mark Dimond?” I asked.

He laughed. “I haven’t been sure of anything for years. You guys ready?”

I looked to Elli. She nodded.

Mark went to another electric panel. “Gotta kill the lights. Too risky to leave them burning. Put your hands on the ladder.”

Elli and I grabbed the ladder and Mark threw the switch. It was a good thing we were holding the ladder, because the juncture went pitch-black. I couldn’t see an inch ahead of me. We would have bumped into one another looking for the ladder in the dark.

“Me first, then Bobby,” Mark commanded.

I sensed him move past us and up the ladder.

“You going to be okay?” I asked Elli.

“I’m fine down here” was her answer. “It’s what’s outside that has me worried.”

That made three of us.

We all climbed up. And up. And up. We kept reaching higher levels, where we transferred to other ladders. Luckily, the ambient light grew as we got nearer the surface, so it wasn’t like climbing through ink. I kept glancing back, afraid that Elli might freeze. But she was right there with us. No problem. So far, she was rising to the occasion. We hit yet another level, and Mark waited for us to join him.

“This is it,” he whispered. “The manhole is at the top of this next ladder. I’ll go up and push the cover. Bobby, you stay behind me, but keep your eyes down. Dirt’s gonna fall. Once I’m up, I’ll check to see if it’s clear, then call for you guys to follow.”

“I should go first,” I suggested. “This was my idea.”

I was actually thinking that if we were to climb up under the feet of some dados, I didn’t want them to get Mark.

“Sorry. I’m calling the shots here.” He cuffed me on the arm. “Besides, I can’t let anything happen to the lead Traveler.”

I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to worry, but it was clear that his mind was made up.