Machinations (10 page)

“Then why all the fuss?” I ask.

“Because they're too bloody close,” he says, teeth clenched around the words. For once, I sense I'm not the source of his frustration, and that's something of a relief. Even if it does mean impending trouble with the machines.

“Is there anything that can be done, sir?” Rankin asks.

He stops, deliberating in the span of three seconds. “I need a man to lead a team down the southwest evacuation corridor. Reports indicate there may be a breach. The sensors have always been sensitive in that passage, but the last thing we need are machines infiltrating our exit routes.”

“Yes, sir. Better safe than sorry.”

“I can go with him,” I offer.

“No,” Camus says sharply. “You will return to your quarters and stay there.”

“And miss out on all the action?” I snort. “Hardly. It's like you don't know me at all, Camus.”

He shoots a glance down the hallway before looking back at me. “I don't have time to argue with you about this. But if you insist on defying my orders, at least have sense enough to stay out of the way.” His attention shifts to Rankin. “Lieutenant, you have your orders. See to it.”

Rankin falls away down a separate corridor. I continue on with Camus—which is no easy task, since he has a couple of inches on me, and a mean, relentless stride to go with it.

“You're more worried than you're letting on,” I say. “What else is going on that you're not saying?”

To my surprise, he actually opens up. I think he wants to tell someone, and since I'm technically a nobody now, I make the best candidate. It just confirms my theory about how excruciating the burden of leadership must have been for him over the past six months. He's desperate to talk. “The base's infrastructure has suffered some fatigue over the years. Nothing too serious, but this bombardment is putting unnecessary stress on some of the foundation. There's a very real possibility that parts of the level could collapse.” He glances uneasily at the ceiling.

“So, what are we doing about it?”

“I have men identifying the major faults, but”—he stops as we part for a group of soldiers to pass between us—“but at this point there's very little we can do.”

“Shouldn't we be evacuating the level then?”

Another posse of men in their outdated fatigues pass by, forcing us to squeeze together momentarily against the wall. Camus gives no indication he's even noticed the physical contact, apart from straightening his trench coat afterward. “Those nonessential personnel we can spare have already been sent to the military level,” he goes on to explain. “By all calculations, the lower levels should be able to sustain any fracturing that occurs above them. If, God forbid, the machines realize what they've stumbled onto, we'll still be ready for them on this front.”

For the first time, I see Camus's walls not as a barrier, but as a serious force to be reckoned with. Whatever's happened in the past six months, he has converted his introverted nature into a strength, becoming exactly what McKinley needs. Smart. Capable. Strong. I'm proud, but also a little sad. It's selfish, but a small part of me had hoped he would still need me. “Sounds like you have all the bases covered,” I say.

“Someone has to,” he answers grimly. “Now, I think it would be best if you—”

A sound like cracking ice cuts him off midsentence. The lights blink on and off as the walls convulse, the ceiling heaving beneath some extraordinary weight. Plaster sprinkles down. I mean to move, but Camus's reaction time is faster. He presses me to the wall a moment before it collapses completely, burying us.

At first, I confuse the darkness with being unconsciousness as my mind emerges groggily from the trauma. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead, which is good news except for the fact I can't seem to move. Something has me pinned—something warm and breathing. The heartbeat I thought was my own belongs instead to this other body.

“Camus,” I say, coughing from the dust. “Camus?”

There's no response.

I feel for his face, accidentally poking him in the eye. He groans. I think it might be the most beautiful sound in the whole world.

“Camus, can you move?”

His muscles tense against me as he tries. I can practically hear him grinding his teeth with the effort. “Not much,” he answers, pained. “Something has my legs trapped. They may be broken. I don't know. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Hard to tell with all the adrenaline, but yeah, I think I'm okay.”

Since I can't see, I let my other senses take up the slack—specifically touch. My hands make a preliminary search of our surroundings, and find twisted metal and flaking chunks of sheetrock. I begin forming a picture in my mind's eye. To my right—his left—there's what feels like a giant support beam lying beside us. Above, there's another one, angled against the wall. Together, I think they must have created a pocket, which explains why we weren't immediately crushed. But all of this is conjecture; I can't know for sure. And even if I'm right, there's very little separating us from a literal mountain of rock if the beams give out.

My breath starts to come a little faster. “We have to get out of here.”

“Agreed,” Camus says. “I trust you have a plan to go with that statement?”

“Not any particularly good ones. But I thought I should give you fair warning before I started poking around for an exit.”

He actually laughs a little at this, although it quickly dissolves into coughing. He's in more pain than he's admitting. “Awfully considerate of you,” he remarks dryly.

I tentatively test the strength of the pieces of debris closest to me. Some chip off or break away, but most don't budge from what little pressure I apply. With more pressure, I might be able to punch a hole through, but there's no guarantee that would get us anywhere, and the risk of a secondary collapse is entirely too high.

“Careful,” Camus cautions. “You could trigger…”

“I know,” I interrupt sharply, my mind already cycling through the grim possibilities, squeezing the calm right out of me as if I were a tube of toothpaste. “Believe me. I know.”

An unhinged note in my voice must give me away, because Camus advises me to be calm. “Someone will find us,” he reassures me, and there's such gentleness to his tone that my heart aches.

As I'm deliberating on whether or not to chance pulling at more debris, I think I hear the muffled conversation of what could be a rescue crew nearby.

“Do you hear—?” I begin to say when Camus shushes me.

We listen, and those are unmistakably human voices. Before we can even begin calling for help, though, the sound starts to fade, ebbing into silence again. We yell anyway, for all the good it does us. The pocket traps our voices. No one responds.

“They don't know we're here,” I realize and say aloud. Panic returns to gnaw on my nerves, making it difficult to concentrate.
Trapped,
I keep thinking, running into the word at the end of every train of thought like it's a solid, brick wall.
Trapped trapped trapped trapped.

God, I'm getting
really
sick of tight, confined spaces.

“Then we ought to change that,” Camus says. As he stretches his arm past me, the fabric of his coat brushes against my cheek, but it all ends in a hiss of pain. “I can't reach. Can you break through? We need to open a hole, so they can hear.”

“Hole. Right. Let me try.”

I scrape and claw at the fragments of metal, rock, and other potentially hazardous materials that form the walls of our cave. I'm making headway when the shaking starts again. For a moment, I worry I've pulled at the wrong something and this whole place is going to come crashing down around our ears, and it'll all be my fault. But then I realize it's just the machines continuing their damn testing. It's no more comforting, as I remember Camus's warning. One wrong move and we're dead.
No pressure.

Before I can resume, something sparks and stings me. The tremors unearthed some electrical wiring, now faulty from all the upheaval.

“Damn it!” I curse, withdrawing my hand two seconds too late. The exposed wire bites my skin, giving me a small but memorable shock.

“Careful,” Camus snaps. “Could you at least try not getting yourself killed? Again?”

“What would you care?” I reply, not thinking, just hurting and afraid.

“Do you really think I'm that heartless?”

“Yes!” I shout from a place of frustration, then, “No! I don't know.”

He falls silent, although I sincerely doubt it's for lack of something to say. Camus has always been better at holding his tongue and temper in check.

“Let's just focus on getting out of here,” I say in a barely comprehensible mumble.

I work in silence for the better part of the next ten minutes. Camus assists where he can, usually without needing to be asked, which I appreciate even more because it doesn't require me to talk to him. I don't trust anything I would say at this point.

Piece by careful piece, I dismantle part of the wall like a life-or-death game of Jenga, until there's finally room enough for me to squeeze through into the next section. From this angle, it's impossible to tell what lies beyond the dark hole I've fashioned into my escape hatch. I get only occasional glimpses from the sparking wires, and even then, all I can make out is more ceiling debris and crushed rock. Neither are encouraging signs. For all I know, the collapse could extend the length of the level, and this is a dangerous exercise in futility. But I have to try.

The last obstacle left to me is Camus. “I think I can make it out now,” I say to him. “Can you support yourself for a second?”

He pushes up with his arms, as if performing a push-up, and holds it there. I can't imagine the pain he must be in, particularly with the lower half of his body still pinned, but he doesn't complain or make any mention of it.

Instead, through gritted teeth, he gets out the word “
Go.
”

I wriggle out from beneath him, immediately missing the security of his body. The sudden loss of his weight throws my own vulnerability into sharp relief. For a moment, I'm back near Anchorage, my pulse hammering in my ears, death drawing near like the passing shadow of an animal in a forest. I concentrate on slowing my breathing. It's not like this would be my first time, should the worst happen. Knowledge is power, and I already know what to expect. A little pain, a little discomfort—then nothing. Dying once is an ordeal. Dying a second time is mostly inconvenient.

“Okay,” I say once I'm clear of him, getting stuck halfway through the hole. I briefly feel around the space beyond and find something smooth and cylindrical partially concealed by rubble.
My flashlight!
I must have dropped it when the ceiling came down. But my victory is short-lived when I switch it on and the light peters out.

“What was that?” Camus asks.

“Flashlight,” I answer. “But I think it's broken.”

“Just our luck,” I hear him say, quickly followed by, “Wait. Hand it to me.”

Even though it's a tight space and difficult to maneuver in, I manage to pass the flashlight back to him. He readjusts the lens, gives it a good swat, and it flickers back to life. At once I'm alarmed by the bright red cuts and yellow-and-black bruises on Camus's dusty face; he's in worse shape than I thought, having taken the brunt of the collapse. For me.

When he tries to hand the flashlight back, I reject it. “You keep it.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he says firmly, forcing my palm to close around it. I relish the feeling of his hand around mine. “You'll need it to see by if you can get us out of here.”

“You'll be left in the dark.”

“It won't be the first time.” Somehow, I know he's referring to the past six months. Six months he must've spent in the black pit of his grief—a grief I'm only skimming the surface of, through his rejection. A tiny hammer of guilt clangs at my heart. I thought I had it bad, but my grief is a pale echo of what Camus has endured these many months, carrying the utter certainty of knowing the person you love, the person you would've done anything for, who you promised to protect, is gone forever. At least I'm buoyed by hope. He didn't even have that much to hold on to. No wonder he drowned.

I suddenly find the idea of leaving him alone again distasteful in the extreme. So many things could go wrong while I'm away, and who would know until it's too late? No matter how I feel right now, I can't lose Camus, not after everything I've gone through to get back to him, and I don't want him to lose me again, either, regardless of how he claims to feel—or not feel—about us. I remain crouched by the hole for a few seconds more, knowing what I have to do, but reluctant to go through with it.

“I'm coming back for you,” I remind him.

His mouth grows slack for a moment, his eyes deeply haunted. In hindsight, my promise must seem an eerie iteration of my dying words. “Yes,” he says. “I know you will. Please be careful.”

With flashlight in hand, I begin climbing. I move as quickly as I dare, taking the path of least resistance whenever I can. Sometimes I have to stop and forge a new path by picking apart the unstable roof or making another hole in the wall to crawl through. It's nerve-racking work, and I'm mentally willing the precarious system to hold the whole time. Just a little longer.
Just a little longer.
There are no more quakes, thankfully. And then, after what feels like an eternity trapped in this metal labyrinth, I come across a small opening radiating a murky light.

I push my hand and arm through since that's all I can fit, reaching for freedom.

Someone grasps my hand on the other side. “Here!” they shout.

Acting against doctor's recommendation, I refuse to leave while they work on excavating the site of the collapse, searching for Camus. I hover uselessly in my blue shock blanket, forbidden from doing more physical labor. The situation is under control, they keep telling me. But I'll believe that once they've located Camus and gotten him out safely, not a minute sooner.

Samuel appears one hour and two nosebleeds later. I'm holding my nose, trying to stop a third, when he embraces me—or tries to. With his sling between us, it's a little awkward. Not to mention painful. We both grimace, his arm and my bruises protesting until he releases me. “Sorry. I heard about what happened from Matt, and I just thought—I assumed the worst.”

“I'm okay,” I assure him.

He frowns, still holding me gently by the shoulders. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Normally, that would've been the moment you'd make some crack about being hard to kill…”

“I'm sorry I can't be the comic relief right now.”

“What is it?” Samuel follows my line of sight as I strain to peer around him, at the crew still working diligently to free Camus. “Is someone else under there?”

“I was with Camus when it happened,” I explain, and suddenly I feel responsible. If I hadn't been there, slowing him down with conversation, distracting him…maybe we both would have been outside of the danger zone.

“Camus?” Samuel looks perplexed. “I thought you were with Rankin—”

I give Samuel the abridged version of events, and quickly go back to worrying about the pace of the rescue.

“Why are they going so
slow
?” I grumble, mostly to myself. I already know the answer. They don't want to risk a secondary collapse. But it's been too long, and my brain is starting to raise concerns I can't address calmly. Does he have enough oxygen to breathe? What about the circulation in his legs? I can't remember whether he was bleeding or not when I left, but what if he was? What if he's been bleeding out this whole time?

I feel something soft press against my nose, jolting me out of my neurosis. Samuel's holding part of his shirt to my nose, which continues to run red from stress. “You were getting blood all over your fingers,” he says by way of explanation.

“Now I'm getting blood all over your shirt,” I reply.

“I can change later.”

“Thanks,” I say, a little embarrassed in the face of his kindness. “I'll try not to ruin any more of your clothing today.”

“Good plan.” He smiles in that gentle, understanding way that has brought me so much comfort over the past week. I wish I could repay him for all the compassion he's shown me, but I don't know how.

Then the thought's shoved from my mind, and I go right back to fidgeting, anxiously awaiting word they've found him, that Camus is alive and well. Not dying alone in some godforsaken hole in the ground.

“What if I didn't make it in time?” I whisper to Samuel, unable to give voice to my fear any more loudly. “I gave him my word I'd come back for him.”

“He's survived worse,” Samuel reassures me. “He'll make it through this, too.”

I chew at my fingernails—a nervous habit I don't remember ever having before now. “You're right,” I say, thinking
Please God let him be right.
But I continue to fret, my brain wandering into the unattractive landscape of worst-case scenarios.

“Hey! Over here!” someone yells. “We've got him!”

The announcement goes up like a war cry, sending the rescue team into a frenzy of increased activity as they redouble their efforts. I want to be right there with them, contributing in some way, however small, but I'm kept back by a severe look from the medics standing by, and by Samuel, who's taken my hand, ensuring I stay put.