Chapter 35: See That My Grave is Kept Clean

Freezing brown water foamed around their ankles, surging against the walls, leaving muddy streaks on the lockers. She caught a single glimpse of the tunnel beyond, the faded eyes of long-dead soldiers peering at her above the flood.

Then Michael threw his weight against the door and she joined him, straining, but the force of the tide couldn’t be opposed.

It was around their knees, now. Panic gripped her throat.

“I can’t swim,” Lily whispered. It came out unbidden.

Michael hooked his arm around her waist as the water continued to rise, iridescent, swirling with trash. They backed together out of the room and Lily fought to control her breathing as she found herself hip deep in the oily mess. Stupid. So stupid.

She grabbed his belt with numb fingers and let him pull her. An alarm was pulsing somewhere, an ugly bleating sound she felt in her teeth as they were regurgitated into the hallway, a torrent pouring out after them. It was shallower there, just mid-calf — for now.

What a relief to not have to act. Michael opened the wall again, and she had enough presence of mind to wonder how he could tell when every panel was identical.

Inside it was dark and quiet. A little water hissed through the seams around the panel. Lily grabbed him, blocking out the faint smell of cordite that clung to his clothes.

Michael’s hand awkwardly brushed the crown of her head before coming to rest on her back. “You drowned.”

Lily closed her eyes. “You remember that?”

“I remember seeing you dead.”

She leaned back, exhaling shakily. Her trousers clung uncomfortably to her legs. “I came here with some people. They were headed to the sublevels. We could go back down, see if they know another way out. Will it all flood?”

Michael frowned. “The sublevels? Why?”

“He mentioned there was a computer.” This was the wrong time to bring up Anya. There never would be a good time. “They want it for something.”

Michael checked his pistol. Water dripped from the barrel. He started to speak a few times and then went silent, examining the weapon like it might talk for him.

“Lily, there’s something else down there. The Coalition doesn’t recruit Operatives, they—”

“The tanks,” she interrupted softly. “I know.”

He looked up. “Did I tell you?”

“No. It’s ok.” It was not. Lily shivered in her wet clothes, realizing belatedly that she’d dropped her weapon, that Michael was out of ammunition. “I don’t have a plan. All I wanted was to see you again. I’m surprised I got this far.”

He holstered the pistol. “I’m not. We’ll go down.”

—

They’d ducked back out into the base proper whenever they could, cutting the time with lifts, but for all she knew a day had passed since they’d found each other. The fighting might be over, along with any advantage it might’ve given them.

At least Michael had used 63’s knife to gain himself a few spare magazines for the pistol, and Lily had a sidearm of her own again. It felt so heavy.

He gave a final firm kick and a rusted panel clattered to the floor on the other side. The corridor was grubby and uncared for.

Michael gestured at foot-tall block letters stenciled in peeling paint on the wall. “Sublevel B.”

He frowned after he said it, and Lily knew he was wondering why he’d felt compelled to read aloud.

They stuck close together, Michael taking point. Lily was grateful for it. She’d kept nothing in reserve.

“I’ve been down here before,” he said as they walked. She liked this novelty; he’d never initiated a conversation with her before. Perhaps he’d spent all these months talking to her ghost, and had grown accustomed to it. “A few times. I don’t know what intel they could—”

A single gunshot, muffled and distant, froze them both in place.

Lily recovered first, drawing her weapon as a faint alarm blared, interspersed with an indistinct phrase that grew clearer as they advanced.

“Warning. Terminal overload. Evacuate the area.” It looped, unworried and genderless, before cutting off mid-syllable. The silence was worse.

They saw no one until they reached a heavy vault door labeled in stark white words that Michael did not read for her. It stood ajar.

A body in a white coat lay crumpled and silent on the other side, face buried in the crook of its arm. Strangely peaceful. A few paces ahead another sprawled in a boneless heap.

An arrhythmic dripping echoed off the bare walls and a burnt smell lingered in the air, the scent of overloaded circuits, melting wires, and meat.

They rounded the corner into a warm, high-ceilinged bay and Lily saw what could only be the tanks: squat and empty, traces of a thick yellow substance streaking the glass. A few smoked faintly.

Something clanged enthusiastically on the far side of the room. They followed the sound and a trail of fluids to a generously sized room with one wall entirely covered in screens. All they showed now was grey static, since Aiden was half inside the machine, beating it soundly.

“What happened here?”

“We had to — ow, shit. I had to take care of something,” he said cheerfully, worming out and hauling himself to his feet with a wince.

When he saw Michael the smile dropped off his face. “These evil sons of bitches, playing god down here in the dark…”

He took a step forward and Lily trained her pistol on his forehead.

Aiden whistled, setting his wrench down. Blood seeped through a makeshift bandage tied around his arm.

The burnt smell, half organic and half mechanical, was overwhelming. Lily breathed through her mouth. “There was no intel, was there.”

“Of course there was. It’s been a very productive afternoon.” He gestured vaguely around the space. “This is just a bonus.”

Lily thumbed the safety off. “Stop talking.”

Aiden laughed, short and bitter. “How about you listen for once. The Coalition ended the world. They killed ten billion people. There are powers on this earth that could make the bastards pay, but they won’t. No one gives a shit.”

Of course they’d done it. They’d done everything, every horror, but when compared to those two centuries of ensuing tragedies this revelation just...faded into the background.

“Well, I’m sure they’ll be real torn up over this,” Lily said.

Aiden was looking at Michael again. Staring, really. “They won’t be the only ones. But it’s all over now. They’ll fight their war without Operatives.”

Lily was running down like old machinery, gears grinding, power failing. “Where is Anya?”

“She flew off the handle. Wouldn’t let me explain.” Aiden considered the shattered, sparking monitors. “Is this really so hard to understand? Don’t you want to hurt them? Don’t you want revenge?”

“No,” Lily said. “I want to go home. Is she dead?”

He shook his head and pointed with the wrench to the far end of the bay, where a pair of doors stood half concealed by crates and boxes. “You better get a move on.”

Then she heard it too — Shouting. Booted feet, running. The alarm must’ve brought them.

As they fled she took a single look back. He was just standing there, staring at the tanks. Waiting his turn.

They reached the lift before the soldiers reached Aiden. Lily heard the commotion as she punched the button frantically — shouted commands, a gunshot.

She couldn’t see the tanks or the server room, which means the soldiers wouldn’t be able to see them either. They’d spread out and search, inevitably, but they had time. The light was on over the lift; the car was coming. They had time.

Her hope was misplaced.

Lily felt the bullet streak past her head before she saw the gun that fired it. The sound was lost in the roar of panic as she spun to fire back into the lab, at the indistinct swarming shapes—

And she remembered the tired, pale face of that Regular in the control room. The three letters on her nametag. The little boy in the locker room, two seconds too slow.

Something punched her in the ribs just as the lift doors opened.

Lily heard Michael’s wordless shout as he pulled her inside, shielding her as the doors closed. The sound of bullets hitting metal echoed the sick thumping of her own heart.

—

Michael slammed his fist against the emergency stop button. He eased her down as the lift ground to a halt between floors, trying to move her hand away from the bloody cloth.

“It’s just a graze,” she promised, pressing down harder. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

He sat heavily beside her, and she lay her head on his shoulder with a small shudder.

Michael traced the lines on her open palm with a fingertip, around and over the rough bandages. “Where would we have gone, if we’d made it?”

Funny how things changed. As time and distance unfolded Lily had lost all interest in the little room in Seattle, in the sea. In almost everything.

“We were in a town in the mountains, out west.” Lily felt him brush a kiss against her temple as the lift trembled, cables groaning. “I think we could’ve gone back there, and been happy. You and me.”

They began to ascend.

“I would’ve liked that,” Michael said.

“Me too.” Lily watched the counter above the door crawl backwards, trying to hold onto each second. When it read ten, she let out a jagged breath and squeezed his hand.

They stood, leaning on one another, and waited.

Floor one.

The doors hissed open.

An Operative lay on the white floor, eyes staring, hand outstretched. Blood pooled beneath her and trickled through the seam between the doors and the lift itself. A full complement of Regulars lay dead behind her.

Perched atop a corpse like some ragged battlefield crow was Operative 63, rifle in his lap, blood speckling his face.

“Finally.” He gestured to the sprawled bodies. “I had to start without you.”