Shadows (Ashes Trilogy #2)

Shadows (Ashes Trilogy #2) Page 48

Finn let out a satisfied sigh, just like a guy getting a taste of the day’s first cold brew. He placed the open canteen on the grimy concrete, then reached into his pocket again. This time, he came out with a plastic bag. “Take our little experiment,” Finn said, teasing open the plastic and releasing a bloom of peanuts, salt, chocolate, and sugary dried fruit. “Our exploration of pressure, for example.”

He wasn’t sure which ache was worse: the desert dryness in his throat, or the way his gut knifed. “Pressure?”

“Well, isn’t it?” Finn tossed back a handful of trail mix and munched. “Evolution is the study of environmental pressures. Either the individual adapts, or he doesn’t. Adaption is Mother Nature’s idea of ”—Finn smiled—“torture.”

“Yeah, you’re really good with that.” Water, Peter decided; the need for that was much worse. He watched Finn wash down his trail mix. If he’d had any tears left, he might have wept.

Across the width of the cell block, he saw Davey, in his usual spot, squatting at eye-level and watching him with the same avidity. The kid was patient as a spider in a web: all glittery-eyed, just waiting for a nice, juicy fly to blunder by. The other Changed also kept an eye on him, more or less. When he fought, that really seemed to grab them. But Davey was the only one who actually studied him.

That morning, Davey had dragged on a pair of olive-green pants for the very first time, too. His chest was still bare and he hadn’t quite figured out shoes, but those pants were a step up. The only other kid anywhere close was a pimply boy who’d draped on a girl’s bra so the cups covered his ears.

“I’m not trying to torture you.” Finn inclined his head in Davey’s general direction. “Or him or the other Chuckies. I agree the metaphors are the same. But torture someone and all you get are lies, because everyone wants the pain to stop. What we are doing here is truth. We are studying how the Chuckies and normals adapt under selective pressure. Some Chuckies, like Davey here, will adapt better. Choking you was, well, a new skill. They can learn.” Finn smiled. “Just like you.”

This was true. Davey’s method wasn’t quite how Peter had killed Wendy but close. After two rounds with the girl, he realized that she was a southpaw and always led with the left. So he’d waited, timed the blow just right, ducking and then pistoning out with his balled fist to fracture her windpipe.

He could’ve ended it right there. A quick snap of the neck, and it would be over. It was the way he’d dispatched a flabby kid with a bristle of broken braces the day before Wendy. But Finn hadn’t liked that. Hadn’t told him why, but when Peter didn’t get water that day, he realized that he either had to deliver a killing blow first time around or step back and let nature take its course.

So he let Wendy suffocate, slowly, for three very long minutes. He didn’t look away either, because he worried that would cost him, too. He got his water and a little food that day, but nothing since. This fight with Davey was the closest he’d come to actually losing.

“Why are you keeping me alive?” he asked Finn.

“I’m not.”

“Bullshit.” Peter tried to laugh, but all he managed was a dry wheeze. “The guards pulled Davey out before he could finish me. You won’t kill me outright but make me fight for food and water. If I can’t fight, I’ll either die from thirst or because one of them finally kills me. So, yeah, you’re keeping me alive. Why?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Peter.” Finn planted his hands on his thighs and pushed to his feet. “Next time, don’t fight.”

“What?” Peter stared. “What are you talking about? How can I not fight?”

“Easily. You just don’t.”

But that was crazy. He had to fight, because that was his one shot at food and water. He might die; he might not. Don’t fight and he’d die for sure. A Changed would have him for lunch, literally.

“If I don’t fight, it’s suicide,” he said. “That’s not an option.”

“Well, if you want this to stop, it is,” Finn said.

Kill himself ? The idea had never occurred to him. Anyway, letting a kid tear him to pieces wasn’t suicide . . . was it? No, suicide was a bullet to the brain, a knife across his throat, a noose. Murder wasn’t suicide.

“I can’t just stop,” he said.

“Yes,” Finn said. “You could. It’s a choice, right? Not fighting just happens to be a choice you don’t like. You’re very vince aut morire that way. Conquer or die.”

“But I’ve always fought,” Peter said—and then he got it. “That’s what you want them to learn: how to fight until they win. How not to give up. You want to see which ones can learn.”

“I knew you were a smart boy,” Finn said, and turned to go. As he did, his boot collided with his canteen, which overturned, sending water sheeting over the filth. “So you see? I’m not keeping you alive, Peter. You are.”

But Peter wasn’t listening anymore. He was on his belly, lapping water like a dog.

Part 5 - Kill All the Enemy

66

Ten days ago, Tom had still been dubious about the whole plan. In part, this was because he didn’t trust Weller or Mellie as far as he could throw them. But he was also uneasy because of his reliance upon Weller’s memories and assurances about the mine and its layout. By his own admission, the old man hadn’t set foot belowground in the more than thirty years since the mine ceased operations.

“There are things you just don’t forget, though,” Weller had said, unfurling a grubby roll of yellowed paper over a low workbench that reminded Tom, too much, of Wade’s butcher block. Considering that Mellie and Weller’s camp was situated on an abandoned farm whose hog barn had been converted into a command center, Tom thought this wasn’t such a great omen.

Weller’s map was crap: just a rough pen-and-ink schematic with virtually no detail and nothing to scale. Yet the old man’s description had been accurate. With its rough grid of vertical shafts and horizontal tunnels, broken up by cartoonish balloons where the biggest chambers were located, the thing did remind Tom of a glorified ant farm.

“When it comes to hard rock mining, you basically got two options,” Weller said. “You can either tunnel in from the side and then truck ore out on a decline ramp—”

Tom shook his head. “I’m already lost. What’s a decline ramp?” “Just a big underground road. But you get to a point where you’re down deep enough that using only the ramp becomes real expensive and inefficient.” Weller’s finger jumped to a vertical line. “So you drop a shaft, like what you see in movies.”

“And that’s how they hauled up the iron ore?”

“Not iron,” Weller said. “Gold.”

“Gold?” Tom’s eyebrows rose. “In Michigan? You’re kidding.” “Nope,” Weller said. “Ropes Gold Mine is the most famous; that’s way, way east, near Marquette. We’re in the second-best place in the U.P. for gold, in Gogebic County. When the original Yeager—this would’ve been the current reverend’s dad—started the first iron mine—”

“The one they eventually turned into Devil’s Cauldron, right?” “The lake, yeah. It’s pretty common in these parts to fill tapped-out pit mines with water. Anyway, looking for gold was the brothers’ idea, and once they did find it, they first tunneled into the mountain and then dropped shafts later. A shaft is a way of cutting down on distance. This ore body runs west to east, so it’s better to drop a shaft over top and work your way down. Besides, once you’re that far over, you need other escape routes in case something goes wrong—and in a mine, something always goes wrong. Plus, you situate the shaft right, you catch the air for better ventilation.”

“With cross currents.” He understood that. It was the same principle as opening multiple windows in a house depending upon the prevailing winds. “So how many shafts? I see three here.”

“The biggest ones, yeah, going west to east.” Weller touched the vertical line left of center on the paper and closest to where he’d labeled the entrance to the mine. “Shaft One, the Yeager Shaft, is the oldest, and goes down to eight hundred and fifty feet. Further east, they drilled Shaft Two, which peters out at twelveseventy.”

Tom studied the name scribbled next to Shaft Two: Ernst. That rang a bell. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the last name of that kid you told me about—the one who got killed in an ambush?”

“Peter.” Weller made a face like the name smelled bad. “Yeah, that’s him. The Ernsts partnered with the Yeagers from the get-go. Those families have always been tight.”

Tom’s eyes skated to the third shaft, which was both the deepest and the furthest east. “Who’s Finn? Is he on this Council of Five you were talking about?”

Tom thought he saw something spirit through Weller’s eyes, but it might just have been a trick of the light. “No,” Weller said. “Tell the truth, I don’t know much about the Finns, other than they went in on the mine as partners and then there was some kind of falling out. There is no Finn in Rule now.”

“Okay. And you’re sure these are the only shafts?”

“No, but they’re the only ones that matter. I know there are others, but they’re real straws by comparison, probably only big enough around for a couple people to get in and out. I don’t even know where they are, tell you the truth. Most will have caved in or filled up with water by now anyway.”

“What about the kids? Which shaft are they using to get in and out?”

“Near as we can figure it, they’re not using any of the shafts. I think the Chuckies are holed up in the oldest chambers around the Yeager Shaft.” Weller traced the rough rectangles outlined in ink that lay less than a finger’s width to the right of the Yeager Shaft. “Those are right off that underground road, and the easiest to get to.”