Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I go through the door and down the steps with my rifle ready, and when I get to the bottom, there’s another door, also partly open.
I’m a hundred-percent sure there’s no one down here, but I slice the pie anyway, peeking around the corner in appropriate military fashion, just to be extra careful.
And that’s when I understand the noise we’re hearing.
It’s a set of elevator doors trying to close, but it can’t, because Ike Monroe’s dead body is in the way.
I sweep the whole room, then go back to the stairs. “It’s clear.”
Amon and Collin come in and they both sigh.
The body has been here for weeks. It’s badly decomposed and if we didn’t have these helmets on with filtered air, it’d probably smell pretty bad.
“What’s that?” Collin points to the body. “Is that a note?”
It is indeed a note. Pinned to Ike’s shirt like he’s a second-grader going home to his mama.
Amon rips it off and hands it over to Collin. Collin reads it, then hands it to me.
It says: You’re up next. Love ya, Hattie.
“What’s it mean, Riggs?”
God, the way he sneers my name is really getting old. “Obviously, I’m the next target.”
Collin just grunts. Then he opens up Nash’s line. “We’ve got a body we need to bring up. Get a bag and take care of this for me, will ya?”
“I’m on it,” Nash replies in the open channel.
The three of us kick it, leaning against the wall, until the guys appear with a bag and take Ike’s body up. Then Collin points to the elevator. “Let’s go, Riggs.” Because of course, this isn’t all there is to Blackberry Hill.
I argued with him for an hour, at least, back at the compound about this part. I mean, what if there’s an army down there?
But Collin wasn’t hearing it. Partly because he can’t leave this thread dangling, but mostly I think he’s just curious. He wants to see it with his own eyes.
So fuck it. I enter the elevator and Collin and Amon come with me.
I press the bottom button and the doors close.
Elevator music plays as we descend, which I think Hattie probably did on purpose to make this whole thing just that much more creepy, and the three of us stare at the doors until we stop and they open.
Immediately, the three of us are in high alert mode, practiced actions taking over. The tunnel ceiling is weeping water, the ground has puddles, and it’s pitch fucking dark, so the hybrid night vision kicks in, making everything seem very first-person-shooter video game.
We don’t say anything now. It’s all business as we carefully walk down the long corridor.
We come to a crossroad of hallways and Collin stops. “Where to?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “I’ve never used this tunnel. I don’t even know where this is in relation to the actual city. It might be military.”
“It’s pretty quiet for military,” Amon says.
“That’s because they’re gone.”
“Gone?” Collin lowers his rifle to face me. Then he even opens his visor so he can see me properly.
Amon and I open ours as well and I shrug. “They’re gone.”
“I thought you said there was a city down here?”
“There is.”
“So what’d they do? Evacuate the whole damn place?” Collin doesn’t believe a word I say in the best of situations, and this isn’t the best of situations.
I shrug again. “Let’s go check it out, but I’m telling you, they’ve shut it all down and sealed it off. To keep you out, probably.”
Amon and Collin look at each other, have some kind of private conversation, and then Collin looks back at me. “Lead on, Riggs. Because I’m gonna need to see every fucking inch of this facility.”
We spend five fucking days down in the newly abandoned Blackberry Hill, people coming and going, relieving each other in teams of ten. There isn’t a single crevice that we don’t photograph and map. Just like the village up top, it’s empty and people left in a hurry.
I go to the consulate and find my pack, Clover’s too. Hell, our clothes are still there, strewn all over the floor, because Hattie took us out of there naked.
I pack them up, grab both packs, and then make my way back to the exit.
There’s only one way in and out now. Every exit has been either sealed with concrete or blown up. The train tunnel below has been collapsed. Even the door that Clover and I came in from has been sealed with concrete.
And it kinda blows my mind that the Colony gave this place up.
It’s a win for Collin Creed. A very big win.
Edge Security—sixty-five men, give or take—just defeated the Colony and captured an entire underground military installation.
And that’s it, I guess.
This is war.
Collin, Amon, and I enter the Gavel and Quill Tavern in Capitol Hill and push past the maître d’. He immediately opens his mouth as if to object, but you don’t get to be the gatekeeper at the Gavel and Quill by being stupid, so that mouth closes just as fast because the three of us are dressed like we’re on our way to ambush some underground city people, up to and including brandishing properly permitted weapons.