We went through four locked gates. One of them required a swift kick to open properly. The trip took thirty minutes, in part because of the gate slowdown. The Rockhurst soldiers up above clearly did not want the workers escaping anytime soon.
The final set of elevators was noticeably smaller, with the exception of what appeared to be an equipment elevator. Our elevator made ominous noises as we descended. Even Corporal Rivers looked relieved when the doors opened and we could escape.
A wide foyer area was cut off from the main hallway by a guard’s station and another heavy gate. The guard was on our side of the gate. She smiled at Rivers in greeting.
“They made it, I see,” she said. “I’m five credits richer. I told Kelley that MineCorp wouldn’t send someone who couldn’t hack it.” She looked at me. “No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken,” I said.
She looked like she wanted to question me about the face mask but the corporal shook his head at her. “Thank you, Private,” he said. “Please let the hole know we’re on our way. Tell them to hose it down.”
We were too deep for wireless signals to reach, but Rockhurst had run down communication lines and put in signal repeaters. Based on the scarcity of messages, they weren’t repeating everything topside. The private radioed a quick message and received a confirmation in response.
“They’ll be ready for you, Corporal,” she said. She stood back with her hand on her blaster while we went through the gate. After we were through, she checked that it had latched properly.
The hallway felt narrower on this level because pipes and wires were bolted to the ceiling and walls. The temperature was noticeably warm despite a cool breeze blowing from the direction of the elevators.
“Are we deep enough that heat is a problem?” I asked.
“Yes,” Rivers said. He pointed at a thick pipe on the ceiling. “They pipe down a salt solution that they chill on the surface for the climate control system. It helps combat the heat in the main tunnels, but deeper in the shafts, the temperatures can hover over forty.”
The light was better here, but only because the rooms carved into the rock on either side of the hallway were lit. We passed the typical military base facilities—barracks, medbay, and mess hall. I counted at least four off-duty guards milling around. Another guarded gate separated the soldiers’ area from the miners’ area.
The same rooms were duplicated on this side of the gate, bigger but more roughly cut. Guards stood at each doorway. In the mess hall, a few bedraggled men and women stared blindly at their plates.
I schooled my face into a cool expression and hardened my heart. I could not save them all. I had to save my brother, and I potentially had less than thirty minutes until the lieutenant general knew that I was a fake.
We cleared the final gate, then Corporal Rivers led us through an increasingly complicated maze of tunnels that narrowed and heated as we went. Sweat plastered my blouse to my back. Just as I thought I’d be stuck in this rock hell forever, I heard the sound of laughter and spraying water.
We emerged into a small square room with open doors on both sides. A table with a half-finished card game and a pair of chairs stood off to the left. Three tall cabinets lined the right wall.
The air was blissfully cold. They must be using a cooling field because the change from hot to cold had been instantaneous between one step and the next. The laughter and water sounds were coming from the darkness beyond the far door.
“Looks like they’re still cleaning up,” Rivers said. He moved to the cabinet and retrieved a trio of light sticks, a flare, and a stunstick. He handed us each a light stick and kept the rest of the stuff for himself. “Are those smart glasses?” he asked with a nod to my face.
“Yes.”
“Good, that will help. It’s dark in the hole even with the light sticks.” He glanced at Ian’s face. “You and I are on our own.”
He clicked on his light then led us through the far door. A short hallway led to a large circular room with a low ceiling. A waist-high railing surrounded a dark hole at least five meters wide. Two soldiers, a man and a woman, were using high-powered fire hoses to spray water into the hole.
“They use the same water used for the cooling system,” Rivers said, “so it’ll bring the temperature down for a few minutes while we’re down there. Otherwise, it’s stifling.”
The soldiers shut off the water. “It’s ready for you, Corporal,” the man said. “We’ve washed out most of the shit, but watch your step.”
“Thank you. I’ll let you know if we need anything else,” Rivers said. The two soldiers nodded and headed for the room we’d passed through.
I approached the railing with trepidation. What new horror lurked below? My glasses adjusted to the dark. The pit was approximately six meters deep. A deeper gutter lined with drains ran along the edge at the bottom of the pit. Five people were shackled by their ankles directly to the stone with less than half a meter between them. They were hunched in on themselves and none of them moved.
The only way down to the pit seemed to be a small lift cage dangling from a pair of chains attached to winches in the ceiling.
Rivers saw me eyeing the setup skeptically and laughed. “It’s perfectly safe,” he said. He ushered us inside and used the small space as an excuse to press up against me. Ian wrapped a possessive hand around my waist and neatly switched places with me. Rivers backed up fast with a nervous laugh.
The cage slowly lowered into the pit. The people huddled at the bottom didn’t bother to look up, despite the fact that the winches and chains made a hellacious noise.
“How long have they been like this?” I asked.
Rivers glanced down at the captives. “No idea. But the hole breaks their spirit pretty quickly. They’ve been down here at least twenty-four hours, starving and dehydrating in the heat.”
The cage settled onto the ground. Corporal Rivers was right; the darkness of the pit clung in dancing shadows every time our light sticks moved. My smart glasses fought to compensate, but it was a losing battle.
“Let me go first,” Rivers said. “Just in case any of them are still feeling energetic.”
“I need them alive,” I said.
He unlatched the safety chain across the door and stepped out. The nearest captives curled more tightly as if to protect themselves from a blow. “Ms. White is with MineCorp. She’s here to examine you. Give her any trouble and I’ll stun you, then withhold water rations for the day,” he said. “Get on your feet. Now,” he shouted when none of them moved.
Three of them silently lumbered to their feet. The remaining two didn’t move, not even when Rivers kicked them. All five of them had the same buzz-cut hair.
I held the light stick up and approached the first person. The light revealed it was a young woman with a bruised face. She kept her eyes glued to the floor.
I desperately wanted to move on, to see if Ferdinand was here, but my cover depended on this ruse, so I pulled out my penlight and asked her to track the motion. Her reactions were slow and her eyes were foggy. I wasn’t a doctor, but that couldn’t be a good sign.
I was examining the third captive, a middle-aged man, when I caught a flurry of wireless signals. Rivers touched his ear, frowned, and glanced at me.