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Chapter 13: Sunday still
Higgs had
spent the night wandering tunnels. His bag was overloaded with as much gold and
valuables as he could carry. He was growing tired of walking, and wasn’t sure
how much further he could go. He shook his kerosene flashlight. There was a
slight sloshing, but he didn’t expect it to last more than another hour. He
didn’t know how long he’d been walking, but it felt like hours. His eyes ached
from lack of sleep and trying to make out details in the darkness of the city’s
tunnel system.
He sat
down on the edge of a doorway. He shined the light on the makeshift map that
Everton had hastily drawn for him the night before. He was trusting these
directions far more than he ought. For all he knew, Everton was sending him to
get lost. If his light ran out, he would never find his way out of these
tunnels in the dark. He had no idea where he was in the city. His only hope was
to emerge into a station and find his way to the surface.
He found the point where he believed he was
on the map. If it was true and he didn’t make any wrong turns, he was quite
close to his destination. He stood up. His feet and back ached from lugging the
heavy bag of gold, step after step along the uneven rail bed. He wearily picked
up the bag and set it gingerly on his shoulder. He willed himself to take the
first step forward. He could only hope that he found something before his
flashlight ran out of fuel.
After
another half hour of walking and two intersections in the tunnel, he finally
found what he hoped was Everton’s fabled hideaway. The tunnel continued
endlessly ahead, but he saw the symbol on the wall that Everton said would
indicate the entrance. It was some kind of lightning bolt symbol. Something
Higgs had never seen before. He shined his flashlight around, but couldn’t find
any kind of door. He hadn’t been told what to do when he got here.
“Hello?”
he said weakly. “Is there anybody here?”
He waited,
but heard no response. Now he was certain that he’d been misled. His kerosene
light flickered. He gave it a shake and the light brightened momentarily. He
tried again. “Hello? Everton Montebanque sent me here.”
Still
nothing in response. Higgs leaned against the wall of the tunnel and allowed
himself to collapse. The release of pressure from his feet and back felt good.
His light flickered again, then went out. So that was it. He was stuck in a
tunnel, without a light, with no way to get out. He would die here of
starvation or dehydration or something like that.
He
blinked, hoping that there would be some source of light somewhere that would
cast enough for him to see the faintest outline of a shape somewhere in the
tunnel. There was nothing. This tunnel was utterly black. He shouted down the
tunnel, “Curse you, Dr. Everton L. Montebanque!” He laughed loudly at his
foolishness.
His
laughing was cut off in an instant as he was blinded by a light so sudden and
bright, it overpowered his dilated eyes. He covered his eyes with his hands and
let out a wail of agony. The ground below him began to vibrate and he felt as
if he were falling. That was it, he was going insane. It happened faster than
he expected.
The
vibration stopped and now he could hear voices. He opened his eyes, squinting
in the light that was still too bright. He saw person-shaped blurs moving
around him, some were holding weapon-shaped blurs. He blinked until his vision
began to clear. Red spots were still dancing at the edge of his vision, and he
felt an overriding sense of vertigo. He held his hands up in the air to show
that he was not dangerous.
The people
crowded around him and hoisted him to his feet. The tunnel where he had been
sitting was the same, but at either end was open space, lit with bright, steady
daylight. He was led out of the tunnel into the bright lights. He still wasn’t
entirely sure that he wasn’t dead, but he was beginning to get a better picture
that he most likely was not.
He was
lowered onto some sort of soft couch. He blinked a few more times to clear his
vision. The picture of his surroundings became clearer. He was not, as he had
previously assumed, at the surface. The light was steady, and appeared to be
daylight, but it seemed to be coming from some kind of lamps installed into the
ceiling of a stark concrete room. In front of him was a bank of what he could
only describe as light panels. Colored lights and shapes danced across the
panels.
People sat
in front of these panels with what looked like the keyboard from a typewriter
in front of them. He came to the slow realization that he was looking at a
computer. Higgs had been a child when the Traditionalists outlawed technology,
and even then hadn’t really seen one of the devices in person. This place must be a Technologist hideout.
That realization did not make him any more comfortable than he had been when he
was dying in a rail tunnel.
A man
approached from across the room. He wore corrective lenses and a thick beard.
He stood in front of Higgs and looked at him, a clear look of displeasure on
his face. “Who are you?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“My name
is Thurmond Higgs. Dr. Everton L. Montebanque sent me here.” Higgs continued to
blink too much as his eyes struggled to adjust to the harsh lighting.
“You don’t
belong here. This place is not for your kind.” The bearded man said, clearly
unhappy.
“I’m very
sorry.” Higgs replied, clearly at a disadvantage in this place. “I didn’t know
where I was going, I only followed Everton’s directions.”
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