Prologue
“Joel’s gotta be kidding me if he thinks I’ll remember.”
The woman frowned at the bricks. Locating the right one was already hard in the tunnel’s gloom, but even worse with a million to pick from: every stinking piece gray, identical, and crumbling to nonentity.
Rachel dusted the powder from her earth-shade robes. The feeling made her shiver, the way peeling cakey mud from her socks felt after a walk through the fen. It coated everything down here, especially her hair. Enough days in this sewer-like passage and her locks’ honey luster would turn like an old lady’s. If she was lucky she might finish before then. If things continued like this she’d be dead first. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be!
‘Ah-choo!’
Sniffle, wipe nose dry, nudge bricks. The process never ended. This wasn’t the kind of thing people did for kicks. Like, let’s go stare at a wall today. Here the world was tumbling into oblivion and she couldn’t find the right bloody brick.
This little one… no, it wasn’t that small. That chunk… no, it was smoother. Give up? In my dreams.
Rachel clacked her tongue and folded her arms. She was just about to the point of lining up explosives and blowing the place to the sky. But it must be around here somewhere.
Rachel bent and brushed another. Paused. Her silver chain necklace dangled in front, the one she’d worn since she was a little girl. Its X shaped facets reflected her bluish eyes like a mirror. Suddenly she remembered. Twenty years and bam! it came back—the destruction, the elderly man, the way she ran down here with the box. He gave her the necklace and told her to—
She pressed the X flat against the wall.
Click.
A crease formed and ran in a square. It broadened to a deep crack and, slowly, a panel scraped open. Gray dust billowed out from the darkness like a tide. About time.
Rachel inched inside, blinking. She drew her handlight. It cut through the black just enough to make out shelves. Pale wood, hundreds of them filing out of sight.
She went down the center aisle.
Packages sat upon the shelves. The color of ash and smell of rotten leaves. Each one unique to a purpose known only to their owner. Some probably had assorted canned food or water. Others more personal things like teddy bears. The child could have forgotten to come back. But Rachel knew better. The last raid has no warning. The city hadn’t had the time to find shelter.
Rachel thrust this from her mind before it could cause her emotions harm. “Eighth shelf, third from the left…” she murmured, moving with care. She ran her fingers along each cold flap, caressing them, wondering about the last person to touch them; when that was, what were they thinking. We’re safe, they were thinking. If only that had been true.
She stopped and pushed a crate to the side—it toppled and fell with an upside-down thump. She reached into the space and drew out a fist-sized box, mottled with mold and with a drop of something brownish.
About how she remembered it, only the drop had been red. And no mold. But then, everything molds after twenty years.
Rachel passed it between her hands, silently ecstatic at her success. The first beam of hope flashed through her body. Whatever had caused the collapse of that city a few months past couldn’t have been this. Relief. But that only brought up more questions. What did spawn the shadow, if not this? Why were the cities in trouble!?
A splitting pain shot through Rachel’s hand. She dropped the box and fell against the shelves, bringing a whole load down with her.
When the dust and noise cleared, Rachel looked over her palm. A line of crimson ran across, pinkie to wrist. It welled up and dribbled down her arm. Blood. She had to turn away. Her head became lead and dipped like her head couldn’t hold it anymore.
Rachel found herself lying on her back. She didn’t know when she rolled off the pile, but when she saw the pool of red her thoughts launched in a million directions. Survival mode. Her injured right hand couldn’t lift. She flung her left over to tug the sleeve down. She patted the cloth against it. For a second there was burning, then all went numb.
More time passed; Rachel couldn’t be sure how much. The area was never visited. No chance of help, and she wanted none. As long as she could stand up soon she would be okay.
Beep.
“Rachel, are you there?”
The voice came from her waist—her brother Joel’s. In the confusion, she forgot about her pager. Shaking and slipping between her wet fingers once, she brought it to her ear.
“Did you want something?”
She used her authoritative voice. Bit down on her cheek and spoke through the teeth.
“Rachel, Rachel…” he repeated.
“Yes, that’s my name. Is that all you called to say?”
“It’s just… we have another clue.”
“Another clue to the next city?” Her spirit sunk, and the throbbing in her hand returned. She gasped.
“Number three,” Joel went on, apparently unhearing. He sounded like he’d just wakened from a sleep. “Menaphrolis this time. I believe we might just have to go there.”
“How do you know this?”
“It’s big. Just like the others.”
“Is that all you called me for? To tell me it’s big??”
“Well—yeah.”
Rachel couldn’t manage more. She sat slowly up. The box lay a foot from the pool, a hole in one corner—the hole where her hand had covered. Clearly dangerous. Two decades ago, this object caused so much devastation the world turned on its head. Picking something like this up should have called for more than fingers.
Undaunted, Rachel scooted through the pile of other boxes and clutched it from the other side. She wound the sleeve tighter around her cut. Then, swaying, she stood.
Rachel used the shelves for support on the way out. She had to go, and quickly. The opening in the far wall took a thousand merciless steps to grow to a size she could exit. Her blurring eyes made it seem to change size. She bumbled through.
Rachel touched the necklace again and the wall rumbled shut. She decided even if the device in the box wasn’t the cause she’d hold onto it for safekeeping. With such intelligent criminals on the loose there was no telling how soon it could have been discovered. And now another city in their sights? Rachel’s chest knotted sickeningly. It was like her youth all over again.
She turned up the tunnel. The walls and ceiling felt small and yet so did she. It was an odd impression. The sort of place where you had a hard time thinking of anything but escape.
The pager tooted again.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Joel asked, sounding like he was right beside her.
“Yes, I know,” Rachel said, irked that he wasn’t gone yet.
“Our city’s next.”
“I know. I’ll be right there.”
Rachel clipped the pager back to her waist. Light rayed from an open trapdoor in the roof. A wooden ladder leaned against the rock like a stairway to heaven. Box in one hand and soaked sleeve in the other, Rachel had to clamber up its rungs like a one-armed seal.
She emerged in the middle of a country road. Light, powdery sand paved the way, bordered by pocket-sized fire stones. Ruins lay on either side: concrete plots, tilted walls, all deeply shadowed across the fields in the morning sunlight. Green plants consumed everything in sight, overtaking metal frames, wheels and some other pieces that didn’t seem to belong. Rachel was six when it’d been abandoned—two decades ago—and she remembered it clearly. Apocalypse had been the term at the time. Now it was referred to as the Great Change, the dividing line between the past age and this.
She continued off the road and down a small hill. One object stood out from the rest—a ruby glass booth. She always thought it a little odd, surrounded only by clumps of grass and soil, but stepped in as she had before.
“I’ll be right there,” Rachel repeated to herself.
She punched a code into the keypad. A hum began, emanating from every corner of the booth. It grew louder and louder until—POP! She disappeared.