Steadying himself, Hardie banged harder.
“VICTOR!”
“Huh-huh-guh-huh-huh-guh-huh-huh-huh.”
Hardie spun to look at the half-human form in the dim light. The masked head had turned to watch him.
“Don’t you start with me,” Hardie said.
Under the mask came some kind of mumbling.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
The thing in the mask didn’t move. He simply waited. Like a puppy expecting his master’s next command.
Hardie banged again. “COME ON, LET ME THE FUCK OUT.”
Across the room, an electric bolt snapped; a door popped open a few inches. Problem was, that wasn’t the way he’d entered…was it? Hardie was disoriented; had he gotten turned around?
Then again, what did it really matter? It was an exit.
Hardie cane-staggered out of Zero’s chamber and used his right sleeve to wipe the shit off the rest of his face. Okay, yeah, fine, Victor was right. He should have kept the damned goggles on. He blinked compulsively, convinced some vile disease was worming its way past his eyes and into his brain.
God, a shower. He’d give anything for a shower right now.
After he was convinced that his face was somewhat phlegm-free, Hardie realized he was trapped.
In a steel room the size of a walk-in closet.
Behind him, the electric bolt snapped, locking the door shut.
Come on. Seriously?
He spun around and picked up his cane to bang on the door that had just closed behind him. But that only threw off his balance. His bad leg buckled and he staggered backward until he slammed into the opposite wall, just behind him. Something sharp stabbed the base of his spine. Goddamn it.
Hardie paused to catch his breath; it was embarrassing to feel so out of control. Heart in a tight knot, guts wound up so tight it felt like they were either going to bind themselves shut forever or explode in a wet hot gush. Neither prospect appealed to him.
Calm down, Charlie.
You’re just stuck in a steel coffin in a secret prison.
Could be worse, right?
Once he was steady again, Hardie smashed his cane against the door.
And followed it with a shouted
“HEY.”
“HEY, I’M STUCK IN HERE!”
Nothing, except…
…maybe Hardie was imagining this, but he could swear he heard the faint sound of…
“Fuck me,” Hardie muttered.
The cosmic joke was still unfolding, it seemed. Instead of dying up in that waiting room, maybe Hardie was fated to die in this steel closet. Unkillable Chuck, indeed.
Breathe, Charlie, breathe.
Remember what Batman said.
Batman, you are so full of shit.
Breathe, Charlie.
Breathe.
“FUUUUUCK!”
Hardie wasn’t sure how long it was before he regained his focus and felt the muscles in his neck finally loosen—for all he knew he’d spent an eternity in that steel coffin/closet, and for some reason, none of the other guards had bothered to come looking for him. Especially that bastard Victor, his tour guide. Hardie told himself to forget Victor and channel his inner Dark Knight. Batman would have been able to see a way out of this, like,
Which, of course, is the moment he noticed the metal grate at his feet.
Hardie worked his way down to the floor, steadying himself with his cane, getting his fancy new suit even dirtier, and tugged at the grate, lifting it a fraction of an inch before it settled back down into its groove. But at least it moved. That was something.
Hardie had to sit down on the floor for the leverage he needed. His left arm was almost useless, but with enough grunting and pulling he was able to mostly use his right hand to lift the grate out of its cement groove and slide it out of the way, revealing a small tunnel that ran parallel to the floor. The space would be wide enough to fit his shoulders. Just barely. Was he really considering this? Going down into a hole in the darkness?
Yes. Yes, he was.
Although Batman would have probably sent that skinny-ass Boy Wonder in first.
He tried to stay positive. Tell himself that maybe this was a good thing. See, in every prison flick he’d ever watched—which was a lot—the escape plan depended on secret tunnels and hidden passageways. If he somehow had ended up in the ductwork of this facility, then maybe he could find a way out. Or at least create a better mental map of the place, from the ground up.
So Hardie took a deep clean breath and went down.
There was only just enough room to move his right arm and left leg, pulling himself along the tunnel, a few inches at a time. The farther he crawled, the tighter the crawl space seemed to get. Hardie was beginning to panic now. Rationally, he knew that in the worst case, he could just crawl backward the way he came. But the irrational part of his brain suggested that his feet would bump into some barrier if he did that. And no matter how hard he kicked, the barrier wouldn’t budge. And he’d be stuck, beyond rescue, beyond reach…
The only sound was the steady hum of water tapping against some kind of surface; too steady to be a leak, but also too light to be a faucet. Still, it was something to go on. Hardie paused every few feet to make sure he was headed toward the sound, not away from it. The air stank like mold and wet stone. Whoever had built this place hadn’t ever come back to clean it. Ever.
After the confinement of the tunnel, the room felt as vast and limitless as a sports arena.
You did it.
Breathe.
Hardie craned his neck around. There wasn’t much in the way of light up there, and the smell of mold and mildew made him want to puke. It wasn’t just a smell, actually. It seemed to float in the air like a living organism, a free-floating apparition made of grime.
But at least he could go up.
Hardie climbed the ladder with his good arm and one good leg, which required a series of half pull-ups that completely drained him. Halfway up the ladder Hardie began to realize the folly of his decision. There was another grate above his head and not much light; fat, greasy drops of water were dive-bombing him from the grate. In addition to the slime and phlegm and filth already covering his hands and clothes.
