Pittacus Lore - The Power of Six

“Just don’t look down,” I say to Sam.

“Don’t be cliche,” he responds, squaring his body. We move ahead slowly, and I wish I could see my feet for just this obstacle. I’m so focused on not falling that I don’t feel Sam stop ahead of me, which causes me to stumble into him, nearly knocking us both off the bridge.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my heart thudding in my chest. I look up and see why he’s stopped. Racing towards us is a Mogadorian soldier. He comes charging across in a jog, and he’s already so close there’s hardly time to react.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Sam says. The soldier continues forward, cradling a wrapped bundle in his arms, and when he’s close enough I feel Sam crouch. A second later, the Mog’s feet are swept out from under him, completely catching the soldier off guard. He falls over the side of the bridge and catches himself with one hand as the bundle he was carrying drops away. The Mog cries out in pain as my invisible foot crushes his fingers, and he lets go and drops through the air, splattering far below with a sickly thud.

Sam races us forward before any further calamities arise. Every single Mog in the area has stopped in midstride, staring at one another with confused expressions. I wonder if they believe what just happened was an accident, or if they’re now on alert.

Sam squeezes my hand in relief when we’ve made it across, and he lurches ahead, having gained a world of confidence from killing the soldier.

The next corridor is wide and busy, and it doesn’t take long for Sam and me to realize we’re heading in the wrong direction; the rooms we pass are exclusively private, and the entire wing seems to be where the Mogs live: caves with beds, a large open cafeteria with hundreds of tables, a shooting range. We rush down a nearby corridor, but the result is the same. And then we try a third.

We follow the winding tunnel deeper into the mountain. Several tributaries lead away from the main drag, and Sam and I randomly turn down them based on nothing more than gut feeling. Aside from the main hall we entered, the rest of the mountain is nothing more than an interconnected network of damp stone corridors, off of which various rooms house research centers with examination tables, computers and shiny, sharp instruments. We pass several scientific laboratories that we both wish we had the time to investigate further as we rush by. We’ve probably run a mile, maybe two, and with each new corridor that turns up nothing, stress floods my veins.

“We can’t have more than fifteen minutes left, John.”

“I’m aware of that,” I whisper, desperate and irritated and quickly losing hope.

When we take the next turn and rush up a steady incline, we pass the thing I’d feared most: a room full of prison cells. Sam stops in midstride and keeps a firm grip on my hand, causing me to stop as well. Twenty to thirty Mogadorians guard more than forty cells, all lined up in a row, with heavy steel doors. In front of each door, there’s a bubbling blue force field pulsing with electricity.

“Look at all those cells,” Sam says. I know he’s thinking of his dad.

“Wait a second,” I say, the solution flashing into my head from out of nowhere. It’s so obvious.

“What?” Sam asks.

“I know where the Chest is,” I say.

“Seriously?”

“So stupid of me,” I whisper. “Sam, if you could pick just one place in this entire hellhole where you’d absolutely refuse to go, where would that place be?”

“In the pit with the howling beasts,” he answers without a second’s hesitation.

“Exactly,” I say. “Come on, let’s go.”

I lead him back up the corridor that’ll empty out at the cave’s center; but before we’ve left the cells behind, a door clangs open and Sam jerks his hand to stop me.

“Look,” he says.

The nearest cell door stands wide-open. Two guards enter. They speak angrily for ten seconds in their native tongue, and when they exit they’re clutching the arms of a pale, emaciated man in his late twenties. He’s weak to the point of having trouble walking, and Sam’s grip tightens as the guards shove him forward. One of them unlocks a second door, and all three disappear through it.

“Who do you think they have locked up in there?” he asks as I pull him forward.

“We gotta go, Sam,” I say. “We don’t have the time.”

“They’re torturing humans, John,” he says when we finally reach the central hive. “Human beings.”

“I know,” I say, scanning the mammoth room for the quickest route down. There are Mogs everywhere, but I’ve become so used to passing by them that they no longer bother me. And besides, something tells me I’m about to find far scarier things than scouts and soldiers.

“People with families who probably have no idea where they’ve disappeared to,” Sam whispers.

“I know, I know,” I say. “Come on, we’ll talk about it when we’re out of here. Maybe Six will have some sort of plan.”

We sprint around the spiral ledge and start down a tall ladder, but find it’s nearly impossible to do so while holding the person’s hand above you. I look down. There’s still a far way to go.

“We have to jump,” I say to Sam. “Otherwise it’ll take ten minutes to get all the way down there.”

“Jump?” he asks incredulously. “It’ll kill us.”

“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “I’ll catch you.”

“How the hell are you going to catch me if I’m holding your hand the whole time?”

But there isn’t time to argue or debate. I take a deep breath, and leap from the ledge a hundred feet above the cave’s bottom. Sam howls, but the continuous clatter of manufacturing drowns out the noise. My feet hit the unyielding stone, and the force knocks me backwards; but I keep a firm grip on Sam, who lands on top of me.

“Never again are we doing that,” he says, standing.

The ground floor is so hot it’s nearly impossible to breathe, but we sprint around the green lake towards the massive gate keeping the beasts locked away. When we reach it, a cool wind gusts through the bars, and I realize that the regular blasts of fresh air prevent any of the gas from entering this tunnel.

“John, I really don’t think there’s any time left,” Sam pleads.

“I know,” I say, letting a group of ten or so Mogs exit ahead of us.

We enter a dark tunnel. The walls look mucus covered, and barred chambers line each side of the shaft. Down the middle of the ceiling ten huge industrial fans blow, all pointed towards the entry we just came through, keeping the air cool and moist. Some of the locked chambers are small, though others are large, and bursting out of them all are feral and ferocious sounds. In the cage on our left are twenty to thirty krauls jumping over one another while letting loose shrill yips. Imprisoned on our right is a pack of demonic-looking dogs the size of wolves, with yellow eyes and no hair. Beside them stands a creature that looks like a troll, complete with a wart-covered nose. In a larger cell across the way a massive piken not unlike the one who busted through the prison wall that morning paces back and forth, sniffing the air.

“We might as well not even bother with these smaller rooms,” I say. “If my Chest is here, it’ll be in the biggest room at the end of this tunnel. I don’t even want to take a guess at what kind of beast needs a door that large to fit through.”

“We’re down to seconds, John.”

“We better hurry then,” I say, pulling Sam forward while quickly taking in the different horrors corralled here: gargoylelike winged creatures, monsters with six arms and red skin, several more pikens standing twenty feet tall, a wide reptilian mutant with trident-shaped horns, a monster with skin so transparent that its internal organs are on display.