Jay Posey - Three

“This is very sharp, and very dangerous. You understand?”

Wren nodded. Three lifted Wren’s unbandaged hand and pressed the handle of the knife into it.

“You’ll need it to open the vents. Do a good job, it’s yours.”

Wren nodded solemnly while he gazed at the simple, elegant blade, as if it were an ancient sword being passed down from some great and mighty warrior-king.

“Listen,” Three caught his eye again. “You’ll do it. I already know. You ready?”

Wren nodded again. Confident. Cass wanted to say something, anything, to change their minds, but nothing seemed forceful enough, meaningful enough, to override whatever had just taken place between Three and her son. Something in Wren’s face had changed, so subtle, so slight only a mother would notice. But there was some measure of strength there now that hadn’t been there before, as if Three had given some of his own for Wren to carry with him. Wren didn’t even look at her as he stepped closer to the wall.

“Hey, one last thing,” said Three. “Give your mom a kiss.”

Wren obeyed, shuffled over to Cass. She knelt, hugged him, received his little wet kiss on her cheek.

“Be careful, sweetheart. Don’t get hurt.”

It sounded wrong to her, somehow, like telling a soldier in the arctic to remember his mittens, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying it. He pulled away before she was ready for him to go.

“ Always kiss the lady goodbye,” Three said, easily swinging Wren up onto his shoulders. “So she remembers you.”

Wren scrabbled up to a standing position on Three’s shoulders. His head just below the vent, he reached up with his knife and jammed it into the seam between metal and concrete. He pulled hard on the handle, but the vent wouldn’t budge.

“It’s stuck.”

“Work it back and forth, little bit at a time… yeah, yeah, that’s the way.”

Wren worked the blade and the vent inched away from its concrete base. After a few moments, it swung suddenly free, catching him off-guard. He swayed backwards, but caught the lip of the vent, balanced himself.

“Be careful, baby.”

“Mom. I am.”

It was the first time Cass remembered Wren calling her anything other than Mama.

“Alright, soldier. In you go.”

Three had Wren step up on to his hands, then boosted him higher. Wren stretched his hands into the opening, scooted in up to his shoulders.

There he hesitated, and for a moment Cass thought, hoped even, that he would back out, say he couldn’t do it, that they’d have to find another way.

“It smells bad in here.”

“You won’t be in there long.”

Three’s eyes flicked skyward, judged the ratio of blue to purple. The first stars were just visible.

“Quick as you can.”

With that, Cass watched as her baby son scuffled and shimmied his way into a dark shaft, headed into the unknown, alone, without her, and she was frightened.

Three stepped back, watched Wren’s small feet kick their last way into the opening, and disappear from view. He and Cass stood in silence for a few moments. Then, wordlessly, with the slightest glance and nod, Three patted her shoulder twice, and squeezed it once.

“He’ll be alright.”

“If he’s not, I’ll kill you myself.”

For once, Wren was thankful for his size. The airshaft, or whatever it was he was in, was bigger than he’d first thought, big enough for him to move pretty freely in. But the darkness made it seem tighter, more confining. The yellow-green chemlight splashed out in all directions, and didn’t show nearly as far ahead as Wren wished it would. There was a very slight breeze, more draft than anything, but it was hot, and the smell from inside was getting stronger. Wren couldn’t place it as any one thing. It just reminded him of being sick.

It’d seemed so easy, so possible when Three had told him about it. A simple crawl, a drop, a lever to pull. Nothing he hadn’t done playing in any of the places he’d been with his mother, even more so when he’d been out with Ran and Dagon. But here, now, alone in the dark, he just felt afraid. Something about the darkness just changes when grown-ups aren’t in it with you.

He glanced back at the entrance, now a hole of waning light small enough to hide behind his thumb. Mister Three had said it wouldn’t be far, but how far was it? Not far to him sometimes seemed like a really long way to Wren. Wren started to wonder if maybe he’d passed the way out already, if maybe he should try to turn around, or crawl backwards. But Mister Three had said to be quick, and Wren already felt like he’d taken too long.

He crawled on a little further, and suddenly felt a change in the subtle draft. A swirling, like wind colliding. He stretched the chemlight forward as far as he could. And his heart fell.

Mister Three had said there might be a left or right turn. He never said there might be both, in the same place.

Wren was at a T in the ductwork, blackness stretching off to his left and right without hint or clue as to which way he should go. A coldness crept up inside, and he looked quickly back to the entrance, hoping maybe it was closer than he remembered. It wasn’t. In fact, it was harder to see it now; smaller, darker. Night was falling. A quiet sort of dread crept into his heart.

He wanted to call out, call for his mommy to tell him what he should do, but felt somehow that he shouldn’t, that now that he was inside, he needed to be quiet. And pimming her was a no-no: Asher would be looking for that, and that’d be even worse than not masking, since it’d make them both easy to find. Should he crawl back? Tell them he was lost?

No, he didn’t want to make Mister Three mad. There was no telling what he might do if he got mad. Or disappointed. He’d said he was a soldier. Soldiers probably didn’t call for their mommies, and they probably weren’t afraid of the dark. Tears came to his eyes.

Wren gripped his knife tighter, held the blade up, looked at it. He was a soldier. He was a soldier.

“I’m a soldier,” he whispered, as the first hot tear streaked his face. “I’m a soldier.”

For some reason, he just decided to go right. It felt better somehow. He took one last look at the entrance, and then moved on. And once the decision was made, he found it suddenly easier to move, to crawl faster. To quit crying. It’d been a fleeting glimpse of the entryway, but Wren knew now that time was short. The Weir would be out soon. And Mama was counting on him. Mister Three was counting on him. He wouldn’t let them down.

He crawled on, elbow after elbow, and in another minute or so, he nearly passed over top of the very thing he’d been looking for. Another vent. A way out. Below him, and smaller than the one he’d come in through, it nevertheless looked like his best and only option.

Wren scooted back, tried to get some leverage on the fitting, but it was no good. A couple of minutes of trying to wedge the blade into the seams didn’t work. In the end he took to stabbing the vent over and over, each strike echoing sharply throughout the Vault beyond, and sending a chill up his spine. Finally, the metal bent outward, making a hole big enough for him to slip through.

For a time, he sat listening, straining for any sound of human life below. Then, he scooted forward, and peered downward into more of the same deep blackness that he’d just crawled through. He remembered back when Mister Three had hidden them before, back in that big wet place, when he’d dropped their chemlight down the stairwell. It’d been an accident then. Now, it seemed like a good idea.

Wren reached through with the chemlight, then let it fall from his hand, watched as it floated into nothingness, and then clattered suddenly, and rolled to a halt. Its meager light pooled on what looked like a smooth concrete surface. It didn’t seem that far down. Too far to go head first, though. Wren dragged himself forward over the vent, then, once his feet were clear, dropped them through the hole and scooted backwards.