The earth moved.
Moved! Right over my chest, movement! Someone was chopping at the earth with some kind of hand tool. Salvation! A warm wave rushed over me-a full-body orgasm of sheer delight, the blood pounding in my ears.
The earth loosened and I still could see nothing, but my left arm moved. I forced it up, and the earth gave way. Someone grabbed my arm, and pulled. I struggled frantically, wrenching my body from the grave with the full power of the A-suit. The earth gave, loosened, and I burst free.
I clawed at my dirt-encrusted faceplate with my one free hand. Movement, across my vision-a green glow, coming at me quickly. An explosion of jagged pain shattered my skull, and a silent white-hot flash of searing agony burst through my brain.
“Get down!” Priestess, blessed Priestess, screamed into my ears. “I’m going to fire!”
Where the hell is my E? I struck out blindly with both arms, and ghostly figures swarmed over me. My armored fists struck flesh and bone.
A sudden series of loud, sharp explosions jolted me. V bolts! Something heavy fell on my leg. I saw only green dust, swirling madly. My arms were free, where was the E? I seized my hot knife and struck upwards. The knife burned its way into something, and shuddered to a stop.
I had to see! I grabbed my flash and triggered it. It burned into focus. Chaos, through swirling clouds of green dust. A Scaler, mouth open, eyes glazed. He collapsed slowly, like a rag doll, and I pulled my knife free. Another Scaler, whirling, snarling like a swarmer, blinded by the light. He raised his metal axe up and back, poised it to bash out my brains. I lunged up at him with the knife. It burnt with an icy blue flame, and sank into his thigh. My head exploded with pain.
“Get down!” Priestess pleaded. I collapsed, the knife glaring in a hopeless, wobbling arc, then fading as I lost my grip. The Scaler’s chest flashed, the sharp crack of a V bolt.
“Get down, Thinker! Get down!” I lay in a tangle of bodies, Scaler warriors draped over my armor. A tomb of earth surrounded me, a tunnel of black dirt and smoking dust, figures coming out of the dark and V bolts exploding all around me.
Priestess continued firing and I cringed in the dirt, clenching my teeth to stay conscious, swirling in a whirlwind of throbbing, gritty pain, wondering just what it was that had clobbered my helmet. I was still in my A- suit but my head had taken a beating. I caught a foggy glimpse of Scaler warriors, dirtmen, crouching behind mounds of black earth and jagged rocks, peering into the searing light from the torch, mouths open, shielding their eyes. I had dropped the hot knife but I still had the flash.
“Point the flash right at them, Thinker,” Priestess calmly instructed me. “Keep it right there.” She fired again, a continuous burst, knocking the Scalers senseless, blowing them away into the dark. My flash wobbled. It pointed down tunnel, illuminated only swirling dust. My vision was narrowing and I knew I was about to pass out.
“Love you, Thinker. Love you!” Priestess exclaimed. Somehow it made perfect sense. But I could not respond. Sweety zapped me with a stim, but it did not work.
“I’m going under, Priestess. I need you.”
“I’m coming, my love. You stay awake! They’re still out there. Keep that light shining!”
And then she knelt close beside me, aiming that big, beautiful E down the tunnel. She had her medpak out in a frac and pressed something into an access port on my armor. Strength burst into my veins, driving the webs from my mind. The pain began to fade.
“Priestess-Deadman, that stuff makes Green obsolete! What was that?”
“I gave you a biotic charge, Thinker. How do you feel?”
“What happened to me?”
“I saw the Scalers dig you out,” she replied, scanning the tunnel with her E. “One of them hit your helmet with an axe, just as I fired. He didn’t hurt the armor, of course, but the shock must have been transmitted to your head. Concussion.”
“That’s a big ten,” I confirmed. “What happened to our nice little smoke-free road?” I could almost move now. I kept the flash pointed shakily down-tunnel. It wasn’t much of a tunnel. We crouched in a great pile of collapsed earth, the soggy roof close overhead.
“It was a trap,” Priestess said. “Percy says it was a false ceiling, holding up tons of dirt-and we bought it! Then they came to dig out the dead, I guess.” Percy was her Persist. He had a voice like the hero in a subgirl’s sex fantasy. I always imagined him as a big, blond goon with a prominent chin and a tiny brain. It made me wonder about Priestess. But I had no complaints at that particular time, with Priestess hauling me back from dreamland and Percy scoping out the neighborhood.
“Sweety, what about Merlin and Psycho? Report!”
“I have a fix on Merlin up ahead as marked,” Sweety said calmly. “He is accompanying the enemy. I do not detect Psycho.”
Accompanying the enemy! I checked my tacmap. The tunnel ran on up ahead. There, B4 on the chart, surrounded by the enemy, a dark red glow. Scalers! Merlin, a captive of the dirtmen! My head cleared up fast.
“It’s Merlin!” I could hardly believe it.
“They’ve got Merlin,” Priestess echoed in amazement.
“How could they do it? It’s incredible!”
“How could he let them do it? Oh, no!”
“Merlin, Thinker! Merlin, Thinker! Report!” A faint hissing in my ears. Why couldn’t he hear us?
“Where are our people, Priestess? We must call Snow Leopard in!”
“No commo, my darling. There is no exit…no exit to our side. We’re cut off.” She seemed as cool as ice. “Be calm. We are together now. Together. How do you feel?”
Together. No exit. The tunnel went on. Dead quiet, the dust still hung in the air, smoking in the beam of my flash. My E was gone, but I still had my handgun, the mini, and we both had plasmapaks. I picked my hot knife up from the dirt.
“Estimate Psycho’s situation, Sweety.”
“Situation unknown. I do not detect him in this area.”
I said something rude.
“That is not within my capabilities, Thinker.”
“Blackout, Sweety!”
“Yes, Thinker.”
“They’re up ahead,” Priestess said. “Waiting. We’d better dig our way back out.”
It rushed over me, the certain realization of what we had to do.
“Merlin is up ahead,” I said.
“Yes, Love. Yes, yes, yes, I know that. But Psycho must be buried. And the Scalers…”
“We have to go after Merlin.”
“But what about Psycho? What about the Scalers?”
“Psycho’s in armor. He’ll survive. Beta will dig him out. And don’t tell me about Scalers! It’s because of them that we’re in this mess!”
Sweety sent an alternating charge across the outside surface of my faceplate and the mud and goo that clung to it melted away. I turned off the flash. We wouldn’t need it; we’d be safer without it. The Scalers needed light to see, and we didn’t. The tunnel faded to a dark green glow…only phantoms, in the dust. No further decisions necessary, I thought. I could feel that cold rush, again, crawling over my skin. I always accepted it, when only one possible course of action remained.
Now the Gods of Fate had us in their hands.
“Let’s go, Priestess. I’ve got my handgun, you use that E.”
“Thinker.” She reached out and touched my armor. “I…” She hesitated. “I want you to know. We might die…” She stopped, embarrassed. “I love you. I want to be yours…I want you to be mine. Please tell me…if I’m dreaming. Am I crazy? Do you love me?”
I reached over and touched her helmet. She was a shadowy creature of the dark, a demon in green, a lover from Hell, reflections glittering off her A-suit and helmet and that long evil E. Yes, yes, just the two of us, Thinker and Priestess against the world. Wasn’t that what I wanted? What I really wanted? Stop fighting it!
“I do love you,” I said. “And I want you. But what about Valkyrie? She’ll kill us, if she finds out.”
“I told you. I don’t care about her! All I want is to live with you. Forever!” The Gods of Fate. She knew
