there, but I’m sure it was at least half a second.”
“Which would mean there’s another whole level down there,” Yarrow said, crouching down. “Yes, you can see the hole on this side, too. Reese is right—it must have hit really hard to break through that much concrete.”
“Has to be more of the complex down there,” Callahan said, standing up and getting a grip on one of the Terminator’s outstretched arms. “Let’s see if we can move it.”
Yarrow took the machine’s other arm.
“On three.”
But T-600s were heavy, and not even the four of them straining together could lift or roll it from its resting place.
“That’s not going to work,” Yarrow said breathlessly, straightening up. “We’ll need to find another way down.”
“Wait a second,” Kyle said. “You want to go
“Why not?” Yarrow said, looking around. “If there’s an actual room down there, there might still be some useful stuff in it.”
“Like what?” Callahan asked.
“Guns and ammo, maybe,” Yarrow said. “Or food. Wouldn’t that get us some smiley points if we brought back a few cartons of food.” He pointed at an angled, meter-wide section of broken concrete pipe sticking half a meter out of the ground. “That looks promising. Let’s take a look.”
The top of the conduit had been crushed inward, possibly from an impact with a piece of girder lying nearby. The broken section was connected to the rest of the cylinder by twisted pieces of the pipe’s metal reinforcement mesh, and was hanging in a loose flap that covered most of the opening.
“Might be clear,” Yarrow said, shading his eyes as he looked in past the concrete flap. “Can’t tell until we get this stuff out of the way. Either of you bring any tools?”
“I’ve got a knife,” Kyle offered.
“Me, too,” Callahan added.
“I was hoping for something more along the lines of a pry bar,” Yarrow said.
“How about my shotgun?” Kyle suggested.
“Better than nothing,” Yarrow said. “Let’s have it.”
It took a few tries, but he finally found the right combination of positioning and angle to pry the dangling concrete away from the opening.
“Wish we had a light,” he muttered as he stuck his head and torso as far into the cylinder as he could. “Looks like it goes all the way down. Bend this flap a little higher, will you, Callahan?”
“What are you going to do?” Kyle asked as Yarrow handed the shotgun back and got a grip on the sides of the conduit.
“I’m going in for a quick look,” Yarrow said. “You three wait here.” Jumping up, he slid his feet inside the opening.
Kyle looked at Callahan. His expression was troubled, but he didn’t look anxious to challenge a superior’s decision. Zac, in contrast, merely looked intrigued.
“Shouldn’t we check with someone first?” Kyle asked, feeling his heart starting to beat faster. This didn’t sound like a smart idea.
“Like who?” Yarrow countered, grunting as he eased his hips into the duct. “You want to go all the way back to camp and find someone to ask if we can do something other than the job we were assigned? One of the things you need to learn, Reese, is that Connor really likes initiative and bold thinking.”
Kyle looked around. With the sentry ring spread out beyond the hills of rubble so that they could cover the whole hunt area, there wasn’t a single person in sight. Even the edge of the main camp over half a mile away was deserted, with everyone there out of sight somewhere inside the camp.
“You could whistle it in,” he suggested.
“You find me a code for this situation, and I’ll be happy to use it,” Yarrow said. He was all the way inside the conduit now, gripping the edge as he did a controlled slide down the rough concrete.
“What happens if you get hurt?” Kyle persisted.
“Then you’ll come down and get me,” Yarrow said. “Relax, Reese—I can see the ground from here. Nothing’s going to happen.” His head disappeared into the darkness, and then his hands. “Okay, I’m touching bottom,” he called, his voice echoing oddly. “Let me see if I can see anything—”
And he broke off amid a sudden crunch of breaking concrete.
“Yarrow!” Callahan snapped, pressing his face into the conduit. “Yarrow! Can you hear me?”
There was no answer.
“I’m going in,” Callahan said, grabbing the sides of the opening and jumping his feet inside the way Yarrow had. “Reese, whistle a distress signal, will you?”
“I can’t—Yarrow has the whistle,” Kyle told him, biting back a curse. So much for initiative and bold thinking. “No, wait—”
But he was too late. With a sliding hiss and a second, quieter crunch of breaking concrete Callahan was gone.
“What do we do?” Zac asked anxiously.
Desperately, Kyle looked around again. But there was still no one visible. If both Yarrow and Callahan were injured, or even dead—
“Reese?” Callahan’s voice floated up hollowly from the cylinder.
“I’m here,” Kyle called back, sticking his face into the opening. It was too dark down there to see anything. “You okay?”
“Yes, but Yarrow isn’t,” Callahan called grimly. “He must have hit his head on the way down—there’s some blood on the side of his face and he’s not really conscious. And his leg’s jammed.”
Kyle clenched his teeth.
“How far down are you?”
“Not very,” Callahan replied. “It’s less than three meters from the floor to the base of the pipe, plus the two meters of the pipe itself. If you and Zac can find a rope or something we can tie up there and then tie under his arms, I think the three of us can get him back up by ourselves.”
“Right,” Kyle said, looking around again. “Let me think.”
“How about the backpacks?” Zac suggested.
“Worth a try,” Kyle agreed. “Dump ’em.”
It took half a minute for them to dump all the scavenged ammo and brass out of the four backpacks. Kyle tied their shoulder straps together, then took the sling off his shotgun and added it to the makeshift rope. A quick knotting of the sling to one of the bits of metal mesh protruding from the edge of the conduit, and it was ready.
“Here it comes,” he called, and lowered the packs down. “You need any help down there?”
“Yeah, and a lot of it,” Callahan called, his voice grim.
“I can’t get his leg free. It’s bleeding, too, pretty bad.” “We’ve got to get some help,” Zac breathed.
Kyle nodded. “Callahan, I’m sending Zac back for the medics,” he called into the conduit.
“There’s no time,” Callahan said. “We have to get him back up before we can treat him, and I’m going to need both of you down here for that. Once he’s up and we’ve got room to start bandaging,
Kyle grimaced. But if Yarrow really was bleeding badly, Callahan was probably right. The main part of the camp was a good mile away, which meant at least a fifteen-minute round trip, plus whatever time it took to find a medic.
“Hang on,” he said. “We’re coming.”
“I’ll go first,” Zac volunteered. Before Kyle could say anything, the younger teen grabbed the edges of the conduit, swung his legs inside, and slid out of sight.
Grimacing again, Kyle rested his shotgun against the side of the conduit and got his legs up inside. Holding on with one hand, he retrieved the weapon and shoved the barrel awkwardly down the waistband of his jeans. He shifted his grip to the sling and slid carefully down the pipe.
