Straight above us, a long black crevice cuts through the ceiling like a deep scar that’s about to split open. Indeed, the only things holding it together — and thereby keeping the ceiling from splitting open — are nine-foot- long strips of rusted steel that’re bolted to the roof like metal stitches across the crevice. From this distance, they look like the girders from an old Erector Set — lined with circular holes that the bolts are riveted into.
“I’m sure it’s just a precaution,” I say. “At this level… with all the pressure from above… they just don’t want a cave-in. For all we know, it’s just a simple crack.”
She nods at the explanation but doesn’t move from her plank-of-wood seat.
In front of me, the ceiling lowers and the walls narrow like a wormhole. It can’t be more than nine feet high, and just wide enough for a tiny car. Along the muddy floor, I follow the ancient metal train tracks. They’re more compact than standard tracks, but they’re in good enough shape to tell me how the miners are moving all that computer equipment through the mine.
When I was twelve, Nick Chiarmonte’s dad took our entire sixth-grade class to Clarion, Pennsylvania, to tour a working coal mine. We got to go a hundred feet below the surface, which back then felt like we were burrowing toward the very center of the earth. When we got to the bottom, Nick’s dad said a mine was a living organism no different from the human body — a main central artery with dozens of intersecting branches that move the blood to and from the heart. It’s no different here. The train tracks run straight ahead, then branch out like spokes on a wheel — a dozen tunnels in a dozen different directions.
I eye each one, searching to see if any of them are different. The mud on most of the tracks is caked and dried. But in the far left tunnel, it’s soaking wet, complete with a Sherlock Holmes boot print from the group that came down right before us. It’s not much of a lead, but right now it’s all we’ve got.
“You ready?” I call back to Viv.
She doesn’t budge.
“C’mon…” I call again.
She’s motionless.
“Viv, you coming or not?”
Shaking her head, she refuses to look up. “I’m sorry, Harris. I can’t…”
“Whattya mean,
“I can’t,” she insists, curling her knees toward her chin. “I just… I can’t…”
“You said you were okay.”
“No, I said I didn’t want to be upstairs all by myself.” It’s the first time she faces me. Beads of sweat dot her face — even more than before. It’s not just from the heat.
Viv looks up at the crack in the roof, then over at an emergency medical stretcher that’s leaning against the wall. Bolted above that is a metal utility box with a sign that says:
“You should go,” she blurts.
“No… if we split up-”
“Please, Harris. Just go…”
“Viv, I’m not the only one who thinks you can do it — your mom-”
“Please don’t bring her up… not now…”
“But if you-”
With everything we’ve been through in the past forty-eight hours, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Viv Parker completely paralyzed. I’m not sure if it’s the claustrophobia, her hyperventilating on the elevator, or just the simple, stark grasp of her own limitations, but as Viv buries her face in her knees, I’m reminded that the worst beatings we take are the ones we give ourselves.
“Viv, if it makes you feel better, no one else would’ve made it this far.
Her head stays buried in her knees.
It wasn’t until my senior year of college — when my dad died — that I realized I wasn’t invulnerable. Viv’s learning it at seventeen. Of all the things I’ve taken from her, this is the one I’ll always hate myself for.
I turn to leave, sloshing through the wet mud.
“Take this,” she calls out. In her hand, she holds up the oxygen detector.
“Actually, you should keep it here — just in case th-”
She wings it through the air, directly at me. As I catch it, there’s a loud screeching noise behind her. The cage rumbles back to life, rising up the elevator shaft and disappearing through the ceiling. Last plane out.
“If you want to leave,” I tell her, “just pick up the receiver and dial the-”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she insists. Even now she won’t completely give up. “Just find what they’re doing,” she says for the second time.
I nod her way, and my helmet light draws an imaginary line up and down her face. As I spin back toward the tunnels, it’s the last good look I get.
41
“So can I get you a room?” the woman behind the motel’s front desk asked.
“Actually, I’m just looking for my friends,” Janos replied. “Have you seen-”
“Doesn’t anyone just want to rent a room anymore?”
Janos cocked his head slightly to the side. “Have you seen my friends — a white guy and a young black girl?”
The woman cocked her head right back. “Those’re your friends?”
“Yes. They’re my friends.”
The woman was suddenly quiet.
“They’re my friends from work — we were supposed to fly in together last night, but I got delayed and-” Janos cut himself off. “Listen, I got up at four A.M. for my flight this morning. Now are they upstairs or not? We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
“Sorry,” the woman said. “They already checked out.”
Janos nodded. He figured as much, but he had to be sure. “So they’re already up there?” he added, pointing at the tall triangular building at the top of the hill.
“Actually, I thought they said they were headed to Mount Rushmore first.”
Janos couldn’t help but grin. Nice try, Harris.
“They left over an hour ago,” the woman added. “But if you hurry, I’m sure you can catch them.”
Nodding to himself, Janos stayed locked on the headframe as he headed for the door. “Yeah… I’m sure I can.”
42
Ten minutes later, I’m ankle-deep in runny mud that, as my light hits it, shines with a metallic rust color. I assume it’s just oil runoff from the engine that runs along the tracks, but to be safe, I stick to the sides of the cave, where the mud flow is lightest. All around me, the walls of the rocky cave are a patchwork of colors — brown, gray, rust, mossy green, and even some veins of white zigzag through them. Straight ahead, my light bounces off the jagged curves of the tunnel, slicing through the darkness like a spotlight through a black forest. It’s all I’ve got. One candle in a sea of silent darkness.
The only thing making it worse is what I can actually see. Up above, along the ceiling of the tunnel, the rustiest pipes I’ve ever seen in my entire life are slick with water. It’s the same on the walls and the rest of the ceiling. At this depth, the air is so hot and humid, the cave itself sweats. And so do I. Every minute or so, a new
