The Anomaly(87)

“There’s one way to check,” Pierre said.

He turned left and moved into the darkness. Stumbled but kept going. Molly and I followed. It wasn’t far. About sixty feet, if I remembered correctly.

It didn’t take long before we hit a blank wall. This wasn’t like the one we’d seen before the map room, however—a point where the builders had stopped tunneling. This wall was uneven. It had been created by cementing an opening shut with rocks and mortar.

It was the bricked-up end of the corridor we’d encountered two days ago. And the other side of it…

…was the world.

“Okay,” I said, scarcely able to believe it. “We’re in the right tunnel. The first one we were in when we climbed up here. So we just have to go back to the shaft and…”

I realized Pierre wasn’t listening. Instead he was kicking at the wall. Kicking hard, time after time.

“Pierre…”

“I’ve got to have some air.”

“You’ll get it when we’ve climbed down the shaft.”

“I need it now. Nolan, I can’t wait anymore.”

I tried to put my hands on his shoulders, to calm him down. “Pierre, I get it. But—”

“I can break the wall. We can get out that way.”

“What? Of course we can’t. We can’t climb down hundreds and hundreds of extra feet of canyon wall in the dark. Or maybe you can, but I can’t. Certainly not now.”

I tried again to grab him but he shrugged me off. His skin was hot, his eyes wide.

“Leave him,” Molly said.

“No.”

“Leave him, Nolan. Leave him here in the dark. I’m done being in this place. I’m going out the way we know.”

She walked away.

“Pierre,” I said, as calmly as I could, “I want to get out of here as badly as you do. But this isn’t the way. Like Moll says—we know how to get out. Let’s just do it.”

But he wasn’t listening. Maybe he couldn’t even hear. He’d been solid the whole time. Thoughtful, dependable, always ready to do the right thing. He was done with that now, done with keeping on keeping on. He’d run out of being that guy.

And I was running out of being that guy, too.

I tried one more time to lay my hands on him, to again talk him down. He kept kicking at the wall, though it was clearly achieving nothing.

I did the only thing I could do. I believed he’d come to his senses soon. Sometimes you need to let the spastic energy out, let the panic fly.

And sometimes maybe you have to say screw the other guy and look after yourself.

So I turned and walked away.

Then I heard Molly scream from up ahead in the darkness, and shout out in fury.

I ran along the tunnel, phone held up in front of me.

“Feather,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

But then I saw Molly. She was rigid, eyes wide, an arm wrapped tight around her throat. And it wasn’t Feather’s.

“Hey, Indy. Weird situation you’ve got yourself into this time, hey?”

It was Dylan.





Chapter

51



I stopped dead in my tracks. In the near-darkness it was exactly like seeing a ghost.

“Feather…said she killed you.”

“Fake news,” Dylan said cheerfully. “It’s an epidemic, man. So—where are the other dickheads?”

“Dead,” I said, angrily and very loud. “Ken and Gemma and Pierre are dead. They died on the other side of that fucking ball.”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I gave a shit,” Dylan said. “And, hey, saves me doing it.”

“But…why did Feather say you were dead?”

“To keep you on your toes. Or off them. Without me there’s no way home, right? Very dispiriting. A real will-sapper. She’s all about the psych stuff, that girl.”

“Where’s she now?”

“Out of here. With my phone, because apparently you’ve got hers. Reporting back to base. Mobilizing Palinhem—or the ones we trust, anyhow. And about time, because once we thought you’d found the right place she was only supposed to sit tight and observe until it was confirmed. Which she did. But she also talked, hey.”

“Not much.”

“So how come you’re here, instead of trapped back there?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Right, Indy. She made a mistake. Doesn’t matter. I’m here to clear that up. It’s what I do.”

“You’re with Palinhem as well?”

“Of course. My father and grandfather, too.”

I realized something. “It was you, wasn’t it. You and Feather. You met in the parking lot of the hotel, a couple of nights before we came down here.”

“And you nearly found us. But didn’t. Story of your life.”

“Wait—your grandfather? But…the founder, Seth Palinhem—he only died ten years ago, Feather said.”

“God, but you’re dumb, man. There was no such guy. You need a story to explain why a foundation’s got so much money to spend, that’s all. In reality it’s older than your stupid country. Than any country. Feather’s born and bred to it, too, but she had a shine for you, Indy. She’s got big ideas and might have tried to wrap you into them. I don’t have that problem. I know my place. My job is not to reason why.”