Lords of Trillium (21 page)

“But what about those who are sick?” asked Montague. “They won't willingly stay in their cages. They've gone mad. They'll only cause chaos.”

“Yes, of course,” said Billycan, thinking of Topher and Liam. “They must be left here. There's no other choice.”

“They'll die!”

“They've already been given a death sentence!” hissed Billycan. “We cannot help them.” He crept out the door of the cage, gently shutting it. To the naked eye it still looked locked. “Stay put until we're gone.” He slipped around the side of the row of cages and climbed down to the floor, using the wire windows as a ladder. He stole quickly past Walter's feet and stepped lightly onto the lower tray of the cart. Seven dead bats lay at his feet, their dark faces mirroring the shape of his own.

The cart began to move, slowly rolling down a dark hallway with a checkerboard floor. Walter stopped at an elevator, punching in numbers on a keypad affixed to the wall. The keypad beeped and the doors of the elevator opened. As they entered the small compartment, Walter took something from his breast pocket and put it over his face. It was a small white mask that covered his nose and mouth.

The elevator descended swiftly. Billycan's stomach dropped. They were already well under the museum. How far into the earth could they go?

When the doors of the elevator opened, they emerged into darkness, the only visible light a flashing red bulb in the distance. Walter pushed the cart down a narrow corridor that led to a set of metal doors highlighted by the pulsing red glow. He punched a code into another keypad on the wall and put on a pair of thick black gloves. The doors opened, sliding into the walls.

They entered a cave, sounds echoing all around them. An overwhelming smell filled Billycan's nostrils. It was oddly familiar, brackish, verging on rotten, but strangely it didn't bother him. In fact he suddenly felt more at ease.

Walter pushed the cart into an open area and left it there. He walked to a metal railing that ran around the central space. He placed his gloved hands on top of the railing and looked down.

Billycan jumped off the cart. The ground was warm under his feet. He padded behind Walter, hiding himself beneath the railing.

He looked down, then clutched the railing and jerked his body back, stunned by the sight below him—a vast, cavernous hole in the earth! From the center of the hole jutted a lofty rock formation, a small mountain. Billycan stifled a gasp. The volcano!

Billycan sniffed the air, realizing the moldering scent grew stronger the nearer he was to the rock formation. “Brimstone,” whispered a voice from behind him.

He whipped around, mechanically priming his claws for a fight. He lurched forward, about to strike, but stopped short
when he saw the black rat before him. Billycan grabbed him by the shoulders. “Victor! You're all right?”

Victor's eyes darted around the cave. “Yes,” he whispered nervously, “I think so.”

“How did you get here?”

“I followed Duncan's directions through the sewer and up into the museum. I heard music and was going to follow it, but found a rat-made tunnel instead. It led me right to the lab. I tried to catch a scent in the tunnel, but all I could smell was chemicals.” He rubbed between his eyes. “I followed one of the scientists down here, but got locked inside.”

“The blue kibble the scientists feed the rats,” said Billycan. “That's what you smelled in the tunnel. Its artificial scent seems to take over everything.” Victor seemed quite shaken, so much so that Billycan decided not to mention that Topher and Liam had made the tunnel. Victor need not hear what had happened to the Hunters just yet. If he only knew how lucky he was not to have come across them alone in the sewer!

“What you said just now,
brimstone
. What did you mean?” asked Billycan. “That's Trillium City's original name, from the old days.”

“The diary Juniper and Cole found in the museum archives last year said we lived in the core of the extinct volcano for hundreds of years. We were isolated, trapped in our own little world, unaffected by the elements outside. It wasn't until the scientists discovered us that we found out we were so far advanced compared to other rats.” He stared down at the mountain. “The diary spoke of a mineral on the shores of the Hellgate Sea, a remnant of the volcano.”

“Brimstone?” asked Billycan. Victor nodded. “Maybe that's what we've been chasing all this time, going to the swamp and
Tosca—but their volcanoes were exposed. The elements must have carried away the brimstone.”

Walter turned. “Hurry,” said Billycan. “Onto the cart.” They dashed back to the cart, leaping onto the lower tray before Walter could spot them.

At the sight of the seven lifeless bats, Victor nearly ruined their cover. Stumbling over the feet of a dead bat, he crawled frantically backward in a crab walk into the corner of the tray, the weight of his body nearly toppling it. Billycan promptly took him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him toward the center of the tray, evening out their weight. “Steady, now,” he said, releasing his grasp. “You're all right.”

“How did you stand it?” Victor asked bleakly.

“You mean the lab?” Victor nodded. “I'm not sure,” said Billycan. “It was the only life I knew back then. I suppose one can grow accustomed to anything.”

“I'm sorry,” said Victor.

“For what?”

“For what happened to you. I didn't understand what you went through until I saw for myself what they were doing to the rats. I was only in the lab a short while, and I saw more than I could stomach for a lifetime.”

“And what did you see?” asked Billycan.

“I've seen so much horror in the few hours I've been here! Starving rats begging for food, banging around their cages, their minds eaten away, their eyes hollow and sunken. I saw the humans jab them with needles filled with a thick black fluid. Then they took their blood, testing it in their equipment, writing down the results, and then tossing it away into a yellow can as though it meant nothing to them!”

“It
doesn't
mean anything to them,” said Billycan, inspecting the row of dead bats, who all looked very young.

They were going down a ramp. “There are
more
of them down there,” whispered Victor.

The astringent scent of perspiring humans filled the air, mingling with the smell of the brimstone. A man walked up the ramp as Walter came down with the cart. The man was in a blue one-piece garment. He had large round goggles covering his eyes, a black mask over his nose and mouth, a hard hat, and oversized earmuffs to protect his hearing, giving him the look of a giant insect. He pulled down his mask. He was dirty, his face covered in sweat and ash. He and Walter stopped for a moment and exchanged words.

“Going to the Clean Room?” asked the man.

Walter nodded, pulling down his face mask. “After I deal with these,” he said, glancing at the cart.

“I still don't understand why you insist on tossing them yourself,” said the man. “You've got lackeys for that, you know.” The man waved him off before Walter could respond. “I know. I know. You respect your subjects for giving their life to science.”

“What's the latest?” asked Walter, nodding toward the volcano.

The man removed his earmuffs, resting them around his neck. “Well, we set off the explosion in the right quadrant, just like you directed. Given the uncertainty of the volcanic plug, we used only a small amount of explosives, but it was enough to open things up.”

“Anything?”

The man shrugged. “Just more petrified stone—no live magma.” He nodded at the rock formation. “This thing's as dead as those rats, Doctor. The stone's much darker, though, if that means anything.”

“If we find active magma, the mineral deposits will be far more potent—the darker stone is a good sign. It should
be much easier to isolate the mineral now,” said Walter, patting the man's shoulder. “Think of the bonus we'll all get if we're successful. Can you imagine? None of us will ever have to work again.”

The man laughed. “My grandchildren and their children's children will never have to work again either. You make a good point.” He started up the ramp. “I guess that's why you make the big bucks, huh, Doc?”

Walter didn't answer. He simply nodded with a closed-lip smile and continued down the ramp.

They passed several other men, all dressed in the same hard hats and blue jumpsuits. They were digging at the base of the rock. It was obvious where the explosion had taken place; large chunks of gray earth had been blasted away, revealing lustrous black rock beneath. The men were chipping away at the black rock, dumping it into wheelbarrows and moving down a corridor with them. They returned with empty barrows and then repeated the process.

“Victor, you said the needles, they were filled with a black substance?”

“Black as night,” said Victor.

Billycan looked down at the bats again, struck by their youthful faces. What must it be like to die so young? “What do you notice about these bats . . . other than the obvious, of course?” he asked Victor.

Victor swallowed hard, steeling himself. He looked down at the still row of bats. After a moment he cocked his head in thought. “They . . . they're all children,” he said.

“And large children at that,” added Billycan. “Where are they coming from? The colony's children are a fine size, but these pups are as large as full-grown bats.”

Walter wheeled the cart the rest of the way down the ramp and onto a stone walkway about the width of a city sidewalk. After circling halfway around the tower of rock, they came to a heavy iron door.

Walter entered the security code. The bolt inside the door clicked and the door popped open just a crack. Letting go of the cart, Walter pulled open the weighty door and rolled the cart inside, locking the door behind him.

The room was empty except for a large steel contraption in the center. The silver machine consisted of a long metal box with a barrel protruding from its side. Giant metal tubes shot out from the barrel like a man-made tree, leading all the way up to the cavernous ceiling.

The machine vibrated with sound. Heat radiated from it, making the air ripple. Walter wiped his brow, put on a pair of protective goggles, and wheeled the cart toward the machine.

“C'mon,” said Billycan, “we must get off the cart—now!”

Billycan jumped off the back of the cart between Walter's legs, and Victor followed, just grazing a trouser leg. Walter looked down for a moment, then continued toward the machine.

“What's happening?” asked Victor as they dashed behind a steel beam.

“I don't think you want to know,” said Billycan.

Victor heard a rush of sound, and a gust of hot air swirled around the beam. “No, I need to watch this.”

In silence the two rats stood on either side of the beam and watched as twenty rats and seven bats were picked up one by one with a pair of rusty pincers and tossed into the fire-breathing coffer, their bodies quickly turning to ash, every trace of them incinerated.

W
ALTER LEFT THE CART BEHIND
, so Victor and Billycan followed him on foot. Other than the well-lit area where the men were digging, the cave was drenched in shadows and full of outcroppings, making it easy for them to stay unseen.

Walter made his way back to the stone walkway and followed it around the other side of the rock formation. He stared up at it for a moment, sighed wistfully, and headed down another corridor.

The corridor led to a small glass room lined with metal cubbyholes and hooks. As the doors opened, the rats sprinted into one of the cubbyholes nearest the floor and watched as Walter took off his lab coat and hung it on a hook. He then emptied his pockets and placed their contents in an empty cubby.

Walter took something from inside a wide metal box attached to the wall. He sat down on a long bench below it. At first it looked like he was holding two crumpled tissues, but
then he stretched them out, crossed one leg over the other, grunting as he did so, and placed one of the stretched tissues over his shoe—a protective covering of some sort. After covering both shoes, he slowly stood up and walked over to a long steel rack where several paper-thin white garments hung. He took one and put it on. It was similar to the blue jumpsuits the other men had on, only it was exceptionally clean—not even a lone piece of lint. He zipped the suit up to his chin, then reached into a plastic bag attached to the hanger and took out a white mask and matching hat. The mask covered his nose and mouth, and the hat covered his entire forehead with a flap in the back that covered his neck and curled around either side of his head all the way to his ears. Once everything was snapped in place, only Walter's blue eyes were visible. Last but not least, he put on a pair of latex gloves and plastic goggles.