J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Holt yelled in surprise as he slid face-first down the slick, rocky slope, picking up speed, faster and faster toward… whatever lay below.

He shut his eyes, waited for the moment when his face would slam into some rock wall, but instead he tumbled out of the tunnel into a larger one, rolling right into Max and almost bowling the dog over. Everyone else was picking themselves up off the floor, and Holt glared at the Lobos. “Would a heads-up have killed you?” he asked testily.

They just smirked at him. “You’re still in one piece, Outsider,” Marcus said. “Now shut up from here on out—sound carries bad and this passage connects to the compound.”

Marcus and his fellow set off, and Holt made to follow… when he caught Mira’s eye ahead of him. She had a strange look, hesitant and contemplative, with a touch of guilt. Was she having second thoughts about the plan? If she was, it was a little late for that now.

He watched her move on, crawling after the Lobos. Zoey went next, waving Max to follow, which he did. The dog was walking on all fours now, and by the incessant wagging of his tail, it was clear Max was feeling better. And when Holt examined the new tunnel, so did he. The ceiling was low enough that he had trouble sitting in a crouch, and he couldn’t extend his arms straight out to the sides, but after that last tunnel, it felt like the inside of Grand Central Station.

Ahead of him, he saw the flashlights switch off, and he followed suit. They must almost be there.

Ahead, the others were crouched around a hole in the floor. Through the hole, light filtered up, and Holt took a spot around it and looked.

Another cavern ran below them, wide compared to theirs, and Holt saw glimpses of painted doors inset into its wall spaced several feet apart.

He leaned forward for a better view, but Marcus’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, held him in place. When Holt looked up at the big kid, he held a finger to his lips.

Beneath them came the sound of voices. Seconds later, two figures walked by, a girl and a boy, each dressed in something gray. They didn’t even glance up as they moved, but if they had, they would have seen five faces and a dog snout staring down at them.

When the sounds of their voices finally faded away, Marcus glared at each of them. “This is the tunnel to the main residence hall,” he whispered.

“What side of the compound are we on?” Mira asked, just as quietly.

“The northern side, near the falls. Best you’re gonna get,” he responded, and his stare hardened. “We’ll take that plutonium now.”

“I’m going to assume that’s a joke,” Mira replied.

“What was that?” Marcus asked dangerously.

“The Crawlway’s a maze,” Mira replied. “I don’t wanna spend a month lost back there.”

“We’ll wait,” Marcus said with a grin.

“I know you will, because you’re not getting paid until I’m back.” A very displeased look formed on Marcus’s face, but Mira just smiled sweetly at him. “It’s not like I’m not coming back, is it? How else am I gonna get out—walk out the front gate?”

Marcus and his compatriot looked at each other, considering.

“I need something else from you, or there’s no deal,” Mira pressed on before they could say no. She turned and looked at Holt, and something passed between them. “I’m going by myself, and I don’t want anyone else following.”

“Wait, what ?” Holt exclaimed.

“Mira…,” Zoey started, staring up at Mira.

“We have to keep your friends on ice, too?” Marcus asked.

“Just think of them as collateral,” Mira said. “Something you know I’ll come back for.”

Marcus and the other Lobo shared a look; then they both shrugged. Marcus reached out and grabbed Holt with a concretelike grip, sealing him in place. Holt struggled, but the giant hand was clamped down on him like a vise.

The other kid reached out for Zoey. She tried to scamper away, but the kid pulled her back, muzzling her with a palm over her mouth.

“Don’t hurt her,” Mira whispered, genuine anger in her glare.

“No guarantee there. No guarantee at all,” Marcus said, slowly drawing the hunting knife from his belt and holding it up for Mira to see. It was a big knife. “You wanna play games, fine, we can play games. But if an hour comes and goes and you’re still not back, I might take it upon myself to start cutting off little pieces of your friends here. We got an understanding, you and I?”

Mira stared back at the giant of a boy, her fists clenching at her sides. “Pretty clear, yeah.” Mira looked at Zoey. “Zoey, it’s gonna be all right, I promise. Okay?”

Zoey continued to struggle in spite of the assurances.

“Mira, don’t do this…,” Holt said, then groaned as Marcus’s hand dug into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Holt,” Mira said. When he looked up, her eyes were on him again. They were filled with a steady resolution; she had her plan, and she was sticking with it. But there was guilt there, too. “This is my problem… and my mistake. And no one else is getting hurt trying to fix it.” She reached out and gently touched his hand. “But thank you for coming this far with me.”

Holt felt her hand on his a moment more, then watched as she leapt through the opening in the floor down to the Gray Devils cavern below and disappeared.

MIRA FELL FROM THE HOLE and hit the floor running, leaving it quickly behind. It was funny. When she had lived here, she walked past that opening every day, but never really gave it much thought. Just another cramped, impassable chute that wound off into the unmapped areas of the caverns, or so she’d believed. She wondered how many times a Lobo spy had watched her walk right under it.

Mira saw she was in the tunnel to the Gray Devils residence hall, just like Marcus had said. Illuminators floated near the ceiling, providing light, and a few smaller rooms branched off it. They were all sealed with doors brought in from the outside and framed into the openings. They were also all locked, Mira knew.

She dug through her pack and pulled out a key chain loaded with about a dozen small keys of different colors and shapes, each marked with the δ symbol. They were Skeleton Keys, major artifacts from the Strange Lands’ deeper parts, and they would open any lock that took a key. Not every key from the Strange Lands was a Skeleton Key—only certain ones developed the right properties, and Mira usually found only one for every eight she brought out. They were rare, very valuable, and this key ring, which held about half a dozen, represented her entire collection.

She plucked two of them from the ring as she moved. Ahead of her was one of the doors, inset into the wall. When she reached it, she shoved one of the Skeleton Keys into the lock. There was a spark and a hum, and Mira could feel the door handle vibrate slightly in her hand.

She twisted the key and, with a flash, the door clicked as it unlocked. Mira quickly opened the door, stepping into the small, rocky room beyond. When she removed the key, there was another flash… and the entire thing crumbled into a palmful of metallic shavings and dust in her fingers. Mira brushed off the residue as she stepped inside the room and shut the door behind her. Skeleton Keys could be used only once.

It was a supply closet, as she’d expected, lined with cabinets full of all kinds of things: paint cans, scrap metal, boxes of nails, tools, car batteries, thick chain, rope and pulleys, pieces of plywood. Mira set her pack down amid it all, and quickly dug through it, removing two dimes, a small piece of a mirror, and a glass vial.

Mira assembled the components and hurriedly wrapped them with her ever-dwindling supply of duct tape. As she did, a crackling charged the air, and a light humming sound built and faded away.