“I’m not used to sleeping through the night.” Normally, I’d be on the other side of the caldera by now.
They all think it’s restless energy or running away from other responsibilities.
I can’t tell them the truth.
I can’t tell them I’m searching for something that doesn’t exist.
Something thatcan’texist.
Shock and Risk both think Chrys will keep me here… and I can’t tell them why they’re wrong.
Putting the food back in the refrigerator, I pat Kissu on the head. “Keep an eye on them. I’ll be back.”
Kissu follows me down the hall but stops in the doorway to my bedroom.
I only pause long enough to slip into Shock’s and borrow one of his suits. I have an extra pair of boots downstairs.
Descending into the lowest levels of our home, I don’t want to go.
I wouldn’t if I didn’thaveto.
Those words play on a loop in my mind as I strap on my knife and gun and slot the fuel cell into my bike.
“I have to,” I tell the helmet as I pull it on.
The system inside doesn’t register it as a command, it just gives me a curious chirp that I ignore.
Once I’m outside it provides the standard information I need… until I switch it to my secondary presets. Then, it paints the inner caldera wall with a bright orange grid and notes from previous passes.
The grid on the other side of the wreckage is a flickering blue.
The data isn’t correct anymore. It’s worse than the usual shifts and changes to the terrain, and the computer warnings blare until I verbally turn them off.
Stopping in the wreckage, I use it as an excuse to let the sensors I added to my bike scan the changes into the local storage. None of my parameter triggers set off a warning as it completes the scan, and I leave before Breaker can come down and check on me.
If there was something to find there, he would have found it in the days since the crash.
It’s been too long since I’ve done this route, so I don’t have the luxury of skipping any of the labs. I just have to hope no one notices the oddity of my pace.
Normally I can pretend my only plan is to circle the Zone. I can meander and kick back to a casual speed…
Dotted around the inner caldera wall, more than half a dozen labs lie dormant.
His experiments had to be separated. If one got out of control, he could flood it with whatever he needed to destroy his work and then… start over with new specimens.
Poison gas to asphyxiate, water to drown, fire to burn…
I shove that thought away as I drive my bike straight into the ravine that hides the closest.
The door to this one was broken long ago, and the sharp screech it makes when I haul it open doesn’t startle me anymore.
Flicking the brighter beam on my gun’s light, I sweep it across the room.
The creature floating in murky water behind cracked glass doesn’t startle me anymore either.
Rot and decay have slowly eaten it away.
Pillars of blood, turned white and spoiled, sit waiting to be used in experiments that he’ll never finish.
