MiNRS (7 page)

Chapter Ten

Chase

We caught up to the
group quickly. Too quickly. We needed to move faster.

I sprinted ahead of them and waved for them to follow.

We made the first planned turn into the third shaft entrance on the right. This was a smaller tunnel, one of the exploratory holes that hadn’t been fully dug out by an excavator yet.

A tall adult would probably bang his head on the ceiling, but we passed through easily. There were no emergency lights in these smaller holes, so we had to flick on our headlamps.

I looked back. Finn was bending down to hold Darcy’s hand. He didn’t look comfortable.

“I’m tired,” I heard Darcy cry to Finn. “I need to stop.”

I pulled to the side and leaned against the wall, waving for everyone to pass.

“Keep moving,” I said. “Take the third turn on your left. Mandeep knows where to go from there.”

Mandeep nodded as she passed.

Finn and Darcy caught up with me and stopped. Darcy sat on the floor, on the verge of tears, her eyes wide with terror.

Finn was puffing from the effort of pulling her along. “You rock, Finn, but I think you need a break.”

Finn smiled. “Thanks, Chris.” He turned to Darcy, “I’m going to run ahead. If you catch me, you can have my chocolate dessert!”

Darcy didn’t move.

“I’m going,” Finn said, turning and dramatically beginning to run. “Oh no, I better get going!” he said.

I leaned down to Darcy and said, “I’ll carry you for a while. We can get him!”

I swung my pack around so it was on my chest, then I picked up Darcy and hoisted her onto my back. “Wrap your arms around my neck,” I said. Then we started to run.

Finn gave a shriek of mock panic as we began to chase him, and Darcy actually giggled. I could have hugged Finn right then.

We alternated our path, Finn sometimes pretending to get tired and then sprinting again just as we approached him. Darcy even climbed down to run the last bit.

As we made our final turn, I could hear the sounds of the others up ahead. They’d reached the end of the twists and turns, and were collapsed in a semicircle on the floor, their headlamps glowing up and down the walls. They fought to catch their breath. Jimmi was lying down. He looked completely beat.

Darcy ran up to Finn and pretended she and Friendly were attacking him.

“Grrrr!” she growled.

Finn laughed as much as he could while he was winded, and fell to the floor, playing dead.

I leaned over, hands on my knees and fought the urge to throw up. I was covered in sweat. I checked my watch. The trip had taken us about half the day. Time-wise, we weren’t very far from the entrance. But mathematically, I felt we were safe. I did a quick calculation of all the various other possible tunnel combinations. If someone were following us, they’d have to guess right at each step to find us.

Unless, of course, Alek told them the sequence. Why had he stayed?

Maria stood up. “I’m so hungry. Did anyone grab some extra snacks?”

“Did you?” Pavel asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maria asked.

Pavel shrugged. “I’m not sharing my stash with anyone.”

“What a jerk,” Maria said.

“What did you call me?”

“What you are.” Maria took a step toward Pavel, who stood up and looked ready to fight.

I hurried in between them and held my arms out.

“I know we’re all on edge,” I said. “And I know I was probably a little hyper about moving out so fast.”

“No kidding,” Pavel said.

“But fighting each other isn’t going to solve anything. Let’s just set up a new camp. We can figure out the food and water situation later. I still have some extra chocolate bars.” I took a handful out of my backpack and tossed one to Maria and one to Pavel.

Pavel let his hit his chest and fall to the ground. He didn’t take his eyes off Maria.

“First I want her to apologize,” Pavel said through gritted teeth.

Maria took a bite of chocolate.

I looked at her, hoping my arched eyebrows would get across how important this was.

She lowered her hands. “Pavel, I’m sorry . . . sorry you’re a selfish jerk!”

Pavel lunged. I pushed him back, but not before he took a swing that connected with my nose.

The blood seemed to shock Maria and Pavel back to their senses.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Christopher,” Pavel sputtered. “It was an accident.”

Maria also sounded contrite. “Yeah. Sorry. There’s just, you know, a lot of stuff right now. . . .”

I nodded, holding my nose between my fingers. I pointed at Pavel, but I looked at Maria.

She lowered her head but said, “Sorry, Pavel.”

He gave a quick nod, which I hoped was a sign of acceptance.

I moved away from the wall. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. “Okay, good. Just . . . let’s all try to remember we have an enemy, and it’s not anyone in this room.”

They nodded.

Jimmi’s headlamp scanned the tunnel. “Hey, where’s Alek?”

Mandeep and I looked at each other. She gestured at me with her head.

“He locked himself in the infirmary,” I said, giving the short version.

“He did what?” Jimmi and Pavel said together.

“I don’t know. I have to hope he’ll come to his
senses and follow us before he’s in danger.”

“How will he find us?” Jimmi asked.

“I told him the sequence of tunnels we’d be using. He can find us.”

“What?” Pavel said. “What if he leads them right to us?”

“It was a risk,” I said, “but a small one. Like I said, he’ll come to his senses.”

“Unless he’s dead.”

I nodded. “But that blast door is sealed shut. I’m hoping it can’t be reopened.”

“Then why did
we
run?” Maria said. It was a good question.

“Because there’s a chance it will be reopened.”

“Which brings us back to the stupidity of telling Alek how to find us!” Pavel said.

Everyone started arguing and talking over each other. I had just stopped one fight, and now it looked like everyone wanted a piece of me.

“Stop!” It was Finn. He was standing a few feet away, his fists at his side, his face pinched with anger. “Stop talking now!”

Everyone stopped.

Finn walked into the middle of the group. “Christopher has kept us safe and fed and made sure we had water ever since we came down here. How many of us thought
to get Alek to the infirmary? How many of you have gone out looking for food and water for
everyone
, not just himself?” He looked pointedly at Pavel, who looked down at his feet. “How many of you stopped to help me and Darcy back in the tunnel?”

Suddenly everyone was looking at their feet.

“Exactly,” Finn went on. “Does anyone else down here think they can do better?”

Nobody raised a hand. He gave a
humph
and then nodded at me.

“Thanks, Finn,” I said. He nodded again and then walked back to help Darcy get a bed ready.

Pavel grabbed the chocolate bar I had thrown at him and stuffed it into his pocket.

I took all the food out my backpack and placed it on the floor.

“I’ll go back and check on Alek soon if he doesn’t find us first. But let’s set up camp together. We can pool all our stuff right now and see what we have, okay?”

Jimmi nodded first. Maria was next, and then everyone joined me with the supplies from their packs.

Everyone had a helmet. Jimmi had even grabbed some extras to use once the batteries died. I kicked myself for not thinking of that, but I was glad somebody had.

“Nice work, Jimmi,” I said, and meant it.

There was enough food and water for a few days if we rationed really well.

And, luckily, Pavel and Finn had grabbed a few extra coveralls, which meant we had something softer than rock to use as bedsheets and pillows.

Mandeep took a look at my nose and said it was probably
not
broken. It still throbbed like crazy, but I did my best not to show that.

•   •   •

I took first watch. I wasn’t sleeping very much anyway, and volunteering was one more way I could show everyone I was willing to make sacrifices.

Snores filled the passageway. I found them kind of soothing. My dad snored so loud sometimes that he’d wake himself up. My mom used to joke that he peeled the paint off the walls, but for me, it was the sound of nighttime.

I walked a short way back up the tunnel, close enough to hear the sounds of sleeping kids, but far enough that I wouldn’t bug anyone, and flicked on my headlamp.

I took out my copy of
Oliver Twist
and wrote the first variation of threes down on the back page. So the book was going to be a map after all, I thought.

Then I sat down and finally started to read Dickens’s story.

The first chapter was all about a baby born in a
workhouse. There were a lot of long sentences that basically described him fighting for his first breath.

The baby was Oliver. The workhouse sounded like a horrible place, dingy and seedy.

I turned the page. His mom kissed him. Then she “shuddered; fell back—and died.”

Died?

I snapped the book shut.

The image of my own mom’s death floated in front of me.

I dug my fingernails into my palms to stop myself from crying out.

Now I knew what my dad meant when he told mom to read it to me when I was ready. No wonder that hadn’t happened yet. This book was a one-way trip to misery town.

I took a deep breath and unclenched my fist. I stared at the red leather cover again.

I thought of the dedication inside. My own mother had never read it to me. I cracked the cover. I’d now read it for both of us, no matter how hard that would be.

This book meant something to my parents. You didn’t give a random book about a mom dying in childbirth to someone who’d just given birth to a child.

Why was this book so special to them?

I started chapter two.

Chapter Eleven

Crumbs

I woke up with a
shake, wiped my eyes, and ran my fingers over my face. Spit had dried all over my mouth. The tunnel was completely dark.

I flicked my headlamp. Nothing.

Stupid me. I’d fallen asleep reading the book, and my battery had run out.

Why had I wasted a precious source of light to read a book? That didn’t make me a good leader. It made me an idiot.

Everyone else was still asleep, so I tiptoed back toward the camp, hoping I wouldn’t trip over anyone or step on a sleeping head. As I got closer to the sound, I got on my hands and knees, feeling for a helmet.

Bingo. There was one just on the edge of the group.

I put my hand in front of the light to block it at least a bit and turned it on. It was Jimmi’s. I tightened the strap and looked down at him, sleeping. There were crumbs around his mouth and an empty chocolate bar wrapper tucked into his hand.

He had taken them from the group pile. We were in danger of using up what little resources we had way too quickly, and Jimmi couldn’t contain his sweet tooth? Anger flushed my cheeks. I had to talk to Jimmi, but that could wait. I remembered my own dead helmet light, another wasted resource, and felt ashamed but still angry. I walked over to the pile of extra helmets and grabbed one. I placed it next to Jimmi.

We needed to find more food. I knew there was still that break room in Tunnel 2, but that would only have snacks.

There had to be better-stocked refill stations somewhere else in the mines. These tunnels went on for miles and miles. Elena’s father was always coming by to talk to my dad about working conditions. They’d describe the different shifts, and how the newer and longer tunnels took the workers farther away from the cafeteria for longer times.

They’d agreed on satellite break rooms, not with
fully equipped kitchens but with storage for small meals, snacks, and water. I knew the Tunnel 3 system was one of the longest, which was why I’d picked it for our escape. Lots of places to hide. We hadn’t gone that far down the tunnel yet, but if we kept going, switching back to the main tunnel from time to time, we’d come on a break room eventually.

Jimmi had just volunteered to lead the first search.

I walked back to my book and my backpack, leaned against the wall, and flicked off my light. What else should we do next?

The last few days we’d done what my parents had said. We’d run. We’d hid. And we’d survived.

To keep doing that, I needed to explain to everyone what was going on, what we needed to do next, and why. I’d call a meeting before I sent Jimmi out.

And as I sat there in the dark, I began working on a speech.

It would need to be some kind of grand statement that would rally everyone to our goal: to find the beacon without a map and to somehow defeat the people who attacked us.

Who were they anyway? Why had they attacked us?

Were they pirates? Mercenaries? Attackers? Those
were kind of vague words. We needed something better to describe them.

As far as I knew, they weren’t interested in the mines themselves. It had taken them three days to even come down to the basement. They were up top where they’d landed on Perses—landed and destroyed our lives.

Landers.

That was what I’d call them. That could also work as a kind of code word. Whenever anyone heard or said the word
Landers,
we’d know it was short for immediate danger, and we should run. It was way quicker than saying,
Those guys who attacked us up top and killed everyone
are back.

Landers it was.

Did that mean
we
also needed a name? I guess we did, something that sounded different from Landers.

I considered calling us Melmers, in honor of Hans Melming and his Great Mission. But as much as I admired Melming, that just sounded stupid.

What were we, orphans, like Oliver Twist? Yes. Olivers and Twisters sounded just as stupid as Melmers.

I couldn’t believe I was wasting so much mental energy on this. Maybe I was avoiding the actual meat of the speech.

Tunnelers? If the Landers were on land, then we were
in the tunnels of the mine. Minors in the mine.

Wait, that was it. MiNRs. We were minors and we were miners.

When I spoke to everyone over breakfast and laid out my plan to keep moving and to survive, it would be the Landers against the MiNRs.

Now, what was I actually going to say?