“Struggle,” the demon encouraged. “It only makes the inevitable more pleasant to watch.”
Pain screamed through Leah’s body. For a time, she heard her own screams, then she either went deaf or lost her voice. After a while, she passed out.
Leah stared at the featureless metal walls of the small room around her and struggled to remember how she’d arrived there. There were obvious gaps in her memory because the last thing she recalled was having the collar around her neck.
She raised a hand to her neck and felt nothing. More than that, instead of being naked, she wore her blacksuit again. She opened a comm-channel.
“This is Raven Leader. Does anyone read me?”
There was no reply.
“This is Raven Leader. Is anyone out there?” Anxiety ratcheted up inside Leah. For a moment, she thought a shadow drifted along the ceiling. She ducked, raised her left arm, and drew the Thermal Bolter and SRAC machine pistol from her holsters.
Her distorted reflection formed a large, fuzzy patch on the metal ceiling. Even when she recognized it, Leah didn’t lower her weapons. The sense of dread remained strong within her.
No door existed in the ceiling. She scanned the floor. No door existed there, either. How could she have entered a sealed room?
She stomped the floor, but it sounded solid. Unable to accept the fact that no opening existed in the room, she sheathed the Thermal Bolter and rapped the SRAC’s folding butt against the wall. She took a sounding every six inches.
When she’d made her way around the room along all four walls without finding anything, she took a break, calmed herself, and started from top to bottom. On the second wall she detected a hollow bong that let her know the area beyond wasn’t solid.
Trying not to get overly hopeful, Leah concentrated on the section of wall. She ran through the various light bands open to her goggles and finally discerned a hairline crack in the surface.
An image floated to her mind and she remembered the strange machine she’d discovered with the demons in the Apple store. Where had that gone? How had she gotten away from that?
Heat filled the room till it felt like an oven. She placed her palm against the section and sprung the nanohooks that allowed her to cling to walls. Released, the hooks bit into the metal. She pushed a foot against the wall to gain leverage, then pulled.
The wall section creaked open reluctantly. Darkness filled the narrow opening behind it.
“Raven Leader,” a weak voice called over the comm-link.
Thank God. “This is Raven Leader,” Leah answered. “Who is this?”
“Geoffrey,” the voice responded. “Geoffrey Timms. I need help. I’ve been wounded.”
Geoffrey Timms was one of the younger men who had been assigned to the team.
“Stay calm,” Leah said. “Tell me where you’re at.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look around.”
“Some kind of room. Metal walls.”
“Do you remember how you got there?” Leah asked.
“No. I just woke up here.” Geoffrey broke into a fit of coughing. When he started speaking again, he sounded weaker. “I’m bleeding bad.”
“I’ll find you,” Leah said, even though she didn’t know how to manage that. She closed her eyes and thought. “Bang on the wall. Let me hear you.” She prayed that he was close by.
A moment later, thuds sounded behind the wall to her left, not the wall with the opening.
“Can you hear me?” Geoffrey asked.
In answer, Leah banged on the left wall. “I can. Do you hear me?”
“I do.” Geoffrey laughed in relief, but that quickly ended as another coughing fit started.
“Hang on,” Leah said. “I’ll find a way to find you.” She sheathed the SRAC and hauled herself into the narrow hole in the wall.
The darkness inside the short tunnel was complete. She couldn’t see anything. Now that she thought about it, though, she didn’t know where the light in the small room behind her had come from. Just as she thought that, the light went out.
Leah couldn’t tell how far she crawled. It didn’t make sense that it was far, but it seemed like forever. Her ragged breath sounded like a bellows in the confined space. It was worse because she couldn’t see. Her imagination filled the darkness with all kinds of demons. None of her suit’s light emitters worked.
“Geoffrey,” she called out because she didn’t want to be alone anymore, “are you still with me?”
“Yes. Barely.”
“Just hold on. I’ll be there soon.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“The way is confusing. Just keep talking to me.” The comm-link suddenly spat painful static into her ears. She almost ripped her mask off before it stopped. “Geoffrey?”
There was no answer.
“Geoffrey?” Leah crawled a little faster. She wondered if the demons had found him.
Then she reached the end of the tunnel. Her fingers brushed against it, then she put a palm against the smooth metal surface and found that it completely covered the end of the passageway.
Panic vibrated through her. She tried getting leverage against the end but couldn’t push hard enough. It didn’t make any sense that the passageway went nowhere.
Machinery hummed behind her and a light came on. When she glanced back the way she’d come, she saw that the other end of the passageway was now closed as well. Even worse, a series of spinning blades fired into motion and came inexorably toward her feet.
Desperate, she glanced around and spotted another wall section to her right. She slammed her palm against it, fired the nanohooks, and yanked the cover from the opening behind it. Hoping to jam the spinning blades coming for her feet, she spun the metal at them. Without pause, the blades turned the metal cover into confetti in a harsh buzz that deafened Leah.
“Leah!” Geoffrey called.
His communicatio came as a surprise. Leah had barely enough room to twist her body and pull herself inside. She imagined the blades were only fractions of an inch from her feet when she got clear.
“Leah!”
The blades stopped moving an inch or so
