Shade's Children (13 page)

They never got to manhole twelve on Northwest Eight—because that drain led out into an open storm-water channel just after manhole ten.

Fortunately the channel was running quite rapidly, so no Ferrets were waiting when Ella’s witchlight suddenly shone into open space, and she looked up to see stars in the night sky instead of a tunnel roof.

“Damn!” she exclaimed, ducking back into the tunnel. “It goes open from here. We’ll have to leave and go aboveground.”

“Do you know where we are?” asked Ninde, yawning. They’d had a rest in the mildewed map room but had traversed the Main Junction and several miles of drains since then. Now it was only about half an hour till dawn.

“I think so,” replied Ella. “But if I’m right, we’re still on the wrong side of the freeway. We’ll have to wear the Deceptors for longer than I planned.”

“How long last?” asked Gold-Eye, remembering the sudden vibration of the dying battery, the flashing light…and the Myrmidon Master.

“Depends on how close we get to a Projector, doesn’t it?” said Ninde impatiently. “Where’s the nearest one?”

“The television towers on Ravenshill…I think,” said Ella. “Unless there’s one in the Meat Factory…but even if there is, the batteries should last a couple of hours, and we’ve got spares. It’ll be okay.”

She looked at her watch. The dial reflected the witchlight, casting a floating golden disk on the ceiling of the drain, flicking about as Ella moved her wrist.

“We’d better move. We have to get in the gate with the last of the Ferrets, and it’s not long till dawn. Deceptors on!”

Once again Gold-Eye had trouble with his injured hands, trying to plug the battery wire into the Deceptor, and Ninde had to help him. It was strange feeling her hands touching the back of his head, cool skin just brushing his neck, which felt very hot and red.

“Okay,” said Ella. “Check the batteries—then we’ll move out. Stay close to me.”

Out of the drain, a light breeze just ruffled the air. Stars twinkled overhead, and the whole bright wash of the Milky Way was visible across the sky, with the half-moon low and luminous on the horizon.

Ella climbed up the concrete apron of the open drain and stood in a field of thistles and weeds. The stars and moon gave so much illumination that she put her witchlight away and let her eyes adjust. The night sky was bright enough to cast shadows.

The field of thistles ran up to an eight-lane freeway choked with empty cars and buses. Beyond that, arc lights flared white, destroying both night vision and the soft wash of predawn starlight. The lights lined the perimeter fences of the Meat Factory.

Ella looked back the other way, across the drain, and saw a vast cemetery. Gold-Eye was looking at it too, remembering something. Ninde, on the other hand, was staring back toward the Meat Factory.

“Ferrets,” she said. They turned around hurriedly, and Ninde pointed.

There were many Ferrets within the grounds of the Meat Factory, and others lolling about the open gates. Closer to the freeway, away from the glare of the arc lights, there were more. These were harder to see, but their rapid movement gave them away.

“What happens if one touches me?” asked Ninde. “Will the Deceptor still work?”

“Don’t let it happen,” said Ella, “and you won’t have to find out. Come on.”

She led the way through the thistles, using her sword to push the bushes apart when they clustered too close. Once across the thistle field, they had to find a way through a steel mesh fence to get onto the freeway.

A rusted hole provided access, and they were halfway across the express lane when a Ferret suddenly loomed up between two rain-wrecked convertibles, caught with their tops down by the Change.

For a second it looked as if it saw them, its red eyes gleaming, its long body uncoiling up into a striking position. Then it yawned, showing the long, blood-drinking fangs, and lowered itself back down. A second later it turned and half slithered, half undulated back toward the Meat Factory.

Ella looked over her shoulder and saw what it had seen—the first reddish glint of the sun on the eastern horizon, the stars paling in front of it.

She pointed at the Ferret and started to jog after the creature, weaving between the cars. Gold-Eye and Ninde followed her, both nervously checking that their Deceptors were securely on their heads and the batteries working.

Just across the highway, the Ferret they were following suddenly hissed violently and dove into a shallow ditch. Another Ferret burst up to meet it, and the two scratched and bit, bodies scrabbling together in a frenzy of hissing and spitting. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The first Ferret backed away, head bowed. The triumphant one ignored it, plunging its drinking fangs back into a dog that lay stunned and twitching in the ditch.

Ninde looked away, face scrunched up in fear and disgust; Gold-Eye felt the acid heat of bile rising into his mouth; and Ella ignored it, intent on following the first Ferret.

It crossed another thistle-strewn field, crushing the bushes along a fairly well-worn path. Ella and the others followed, ignoring the spikes that jabbed through their tough coveralls.

Across the field they hit a road, and the Ferret turned onto it, lengthening its strange, lolloping stride. Other Ferrets ran ahead of it toward the front gate, where the arc lights already seemed dimmer in the approaching dawn.

Gold-Eye and Ninde drew closer to each other and Ella as more and more Ferrets came onto the road, until they were a tight little knot of humanity separated from a hissing, writhing sea of Ferrets by only a few feet.

Fortunately the Deceptors not only made them invisible to the Ferrets, it also made the creatures uneasy about the space they occupied. Often a Ferret would close in on them, only to shy away at the last moment and move back.

The stream of Ferrets moved quickly at first. But as the front reached the bottleneck of the gate, where only three or four creatures could go through at a time, it slowed down. Kicking, biting, and scratching duels—to see who would go first—slowed things down even further.

Stuck in the middle of several hundred Ferrets, Ella, Gold-Eye, and Ninde watched the slow progress and thought of their batteries. If a Deceptor failed for even the few seconds necessary to change a battery, the Ferrets would be on them, dragging them down in an instant, the blood-draining fangs striking….

Ten minutes passed…and then twenty…and they were still more than a hundred yards from the gate. The top of the sun was clearly visible in the east, and sunshine was hitting the top of the cemetery pines.

The Ferrets were growing even more restless as night gave way to day. They kicked and bit still more, one even falling back into Gold-Eye. He staggered, one hand clamped on his head to keep the Deceptor on, the other on the battery wire. Then the Ferret was reabsorbed into the crowd.

After that, Gold-Eye found himself looking at the battery every five or six seconds, anxiety knotting his stomach as he waited for the blinking red light to announce his battery was at half charge and fading fast.

But it didn’t come on at fifty yards from the gate…or at twenty-five. And then they were passing through the gate itself, the Ferrets fanning out in all directions, heading for different entrances to their underground hidey-holes.

The Myrmidons were stirring too, leaving their bright tents to move into formation, their silent ranks swaying as they slowly came up to daytime speed. Only a Screamer could wake them quickly—a saving grace for many children in the past.

A Myrmidon Master left its tent too and went to the gate, shouting something in Battlespeech at the Ferrets. They might not speak it, but they seemed to understand, and their petty squabbling stopped for long enough to allow the last two score or more to come through quickly.

Once they were past the gate, Ella led them into one of the giant parking lots that ringed the Meat Factory. They stopped between two buses and thankfully slid down against the tires for a rest.

“We’ll wait about twenty minutes or so, till full light,” she whispered. “Then Ninde can try for a reading and we’ll go in. Are your batteries okay? No warning lights?”

Gold-Eye checked his for the fiftieth time, but it was still not down to half charge. Either that or the warning light was malfunctioning. Perhaps they really were good for five or six hours. He looked at Ninde, and she raised her eyebrows at him, a sign that her battery was fine also.

“Good,” said Ella. “Now we just have to wait a little—and hope that Drum’s still okay.”

“Gold-Eye, go to the other end of the bus and keep your eyes peeled,” instructed Ella. “I’ll watch from this end. Ninde, stay in the middle out of sight and do your stuff. If we hear or see anything, reconnect your Deceptor straightaway—don’t wait. Understood?”

Ninde didn’t bother answering but placed the knuckle of her left hand in her mouth.

“Lots and lots of creatures,” she muttered, chewing away, the skin pulling away from her knuckle in small folds. “Tons of ’em. Quite a few Myrmidon Masters…a sort of Head Drone, too…no Watchwards…uh-oh…Trackers!”

She had her knuckle out and was reconnecting the battery in the same second that the three-part whistle of a trio of Trackers announced they’d sniffed some prey.

Deceptor back on, Ninde followed Ella and Gold-Eye in a frantic sprint to another spot about forty yards away, between a station wagon and some executive’s luxury car. A minute later, a confused trio of Trackers arrived at the bus, whistling their repetitive “lost prey” announcement. A Myrmidon Master and a maniple of Myrmidons arrived a few minutes later and searched in, under, and around the two buses.

Finding nothing, they fell back into a line to stolidly await their next orders. The Myrmidon Master—a particularly tall and menacing figure in spiked armor of sickly, swirling green—turned on the trio and casually spiked each Tracker in the head with a short, needle-thin spear. All stood patiently for the blow and dropped where they stood, blue ichor bubbling out onto the asphalt.

“It must have thought they’d gone crazy,” whispered Ninde. “Reporting prey when there was nothing to find.”

Another Master strode up then, with another maniple of Myrmidons. This one wore silver armor with black roundels on it, and a cloak of black-and-silver shreds—the same colors as the slain Trackers.

The two Masters spoke and waved their respective weapons, almost coming to blows. But the green-armored one seemed to explain his actions satisfactorily; soon both forces turned away and resumed their patrols. When they’d gone, Drones appeared with trolleys and loaded up the dead Trackers.

“Never let a spare part go to waste,” whispered Ninde, nudging Ella with her elbow.

Ella ignored this.

“So did you hear anything that will help us get in?” she asked Ninde.

“The big entrance the Wingers use at the front is most popular,” said Ninde. “There are other doors, but most of the creatures just walk in the open side if they’re close enough. With the Deceptors we can just walk in too.”

“Don’t depend on them,” muttered Ella, reflexively checking her battery. “They’re bound to have limitations we don’t know about yet. Besides running out if we get too close to a Projector.”

She hesitated, then added, “I suppose we have to depend upon them now. The big hangar doors, you think? Let’s go.”

With that, she started walking across the parking lot to the other end of the enormous building, where the giant hangar doors stood open to receive the Wingers. The first ones would be arriving soon with their burdens.

It was very strange, thought Gold-Eye, walking between the cars in sight of the Myrmidons. Like a waking dream that simply couldn’t last. There they were, out in the sunlight, walking along as if there was nothing to fear. Except for battery failure…and Gold-Eye felt a familiar rush of panic as he checked his yet again.

They crossed from sunshine into the interior shadow of the Meat Factory through the wide-open hangar doors. Inside, beyond a large landing dock for Wingers, there were walls and many doors. All shut.

A few Drones waited at the landing area, near a great bank of trolleys. Otherwise the Meat Factory was silent and enigmatic. Whatever went on there was beyond the closed doors.

“Which door?” whispered Ella to Ninde. She shrugged, indicating that she hadn’t picked up enough information to know.

But Gold-Eye, looking at the different colors and shapes of the patches on each door, realized that they matched the Overlords’ blazons. And in his vision of Drum, all the corridors and the body shelves had been marked with a red patch—red for Red Diamond. It was Red Diamond’s creatures who had captured Drum.

“Red door,” he said, pointing at the door marked with a diamond-shaped patch of red. “Drum.”

There were seven doors marked with colored patches and three plain white doors. Ella thought of all the Overlords she knew about, and matched them to the colors and shapes. Unless the white doors indicated a white-badged Overlord she’d never heard of, there were seven Overlords all told. Seven great enemies of humanity…

The red-badged door, like the others, was Myrmidon-sized and modern. It had no visible means of opening, no knob, catch, or handle. Ninde reached it first and touched the flat, plastic-like surface, but it wouldn’t open to her pushing and there was nothing to pull on. It wouldn’t slide, either, not sideways, up, or down.

All three of them were clustered around it when it suddenly whooshed up into the wall—and they barely managed to jump out of the way to allow two trolley-pushing Drones to get past. All around, Drones were coming out of the other colored doors, getting ready for the first influx of children.

As soon as the Drones were past, Ella dashed in before the door closed—and back out again just as quickly, the door snapping shut at her heels.

“There’s an inner door,” she panted. “Didn’t want to get stuck between them. We’ll have to wait for the Drones to go back through.”

“Try trolley,” suggested Gold-Eye, who had been watching some Drones taking bodies through one of the white doors. It opened when the trolley got within a few feet; the Drones didn’t seem to control it.

“Good idea!” exclaimed Ella. She strode over to the bank of trolleys and pulled one away. Two nearby Drones started to look across, but stopped as if losing concentration. Instead, their eyes turned to the open sky, reminding Ella of pet dogs waiting to be fed tidbits from a human table.

The trolley did work. As soon as Ella pushed it toward the door, it slid open, revealing a small chamber beyond and another door. She pushed the trolley in and the others followed.

When they were all in, the outer door slid shut. Ella pushed the trolley forward again, but the inner door didn’t open—and for a moment she had the terrible feeling that they had just trapped themselves in this small room—until the inner door slid open, accompanied by a strange popping sensation in their ears.

Then there were rows and rows of shelves, stretching up a hundred feet and down corridors half a mile long. On the shelves were thousands of unconscious humans, waiting to be cut up and used to make creatures. Thousands of shelves, each marked with the badge of Red Diamond.

Ella looked out at the great expanse of shelves and wondered how long it would take to find Drum…and felt a stab of guilt so painful it made her wince. They’d come for Drum, but there were so many unconscious children here! Their future held a semisentient servitude more horrible than death. Nothing more.

“How…how do we find Drum?” whispered Ninde. Ella didn’t answer. She was still looking at those silent forms, hoping she wouldn’t see anybody she knew.

“Near a corner,” said Gold-Eye, brow furrowed as he remembered his vision. “Six rows up.”

“Okay,” said Ella. “I guess we’d better check near each corner.”

She pushed the trolley down the nearest aisle, looking up at the bodies on the shelves. Most were wearing the simple white gowns assumed on a Sad Birthday, so they’d obviously come straight from the Dorms. Some, wearing the mismatched odds and ends from pre-Change shops, were escapees whose luck had run out.

Then Ella saw the distinctive coveralls worn by all of Shade’s Children, and almost called out. But it wasn’t Drum—he’d still be in his wet suit. This was a slighter, shorter boy, with reddish hair. He was on a shelf well above her head, so Ella couldn’t see his face, but she thought she knew who it was. Alen, lost on a fossicking expedition a month ago.

“That’s Alen!” said Ninde. “Shouldn’t we…”

“No,” replied Ella, regret making her voice husky. “We don’t know what keeps them unconscious, and it will take all three of us to handle Drum if we can’t wake him…or bring him back.”

“But he’s just there!” protested Ninde. “Are you sure…”

“Ninde, there are probably six people here we know…maybe more, if they store them for longer than a month. We can’t do anything for them.”

“We could rescue Alen, since we saw him first,” argued Ninde. “Alen and Drum wouldn’t be too much…and we’ve got spare Deceptors….”

“I said no,” replied Ella sternly. There was too much risk in trying to help more children. “We won’t have enough batteries for more than four of us to get out of here anyway. So keep looking for Drum.”

She walked on, pushing the trolley in front of her. Ninde kept looking up at Alen, till Gold-Eye hesitantly touched her shoulder.

“One day,” he said. “We beat Overlords. Everybody free.”

“Sure!” said Ninde sarcastically, shrugging his hand away. “And Ella will care about someone other than Drum!”

She started after Ella. Gold-Eye took a step forward, then sank to one knee as he was suddenly gripped by his Change Vision and the soon-to-be-now.

He saw a red-badged corridor—possibly the one he was actually in—where the people on the shelves were stirring slightly, making little noises, their chests visibly rising and falling for the first time. Then, all of a sudden, something like blue dust began to fall from the ceiling. Great clouds of dust, falling through the air in visible layers.

As the dust touched them, the people became still again, so still they no longer appeared to be breathing. When the last of the blue dust fell, the shelves were once again totally quiet.

Gold-Eye came out of the vision and looked up—just as the blue dust began to fall.