The Rising Sea

50

Kurt and Joe had been taken deeper into the mine where they were chained to a cast-iron pipe, thicker than a man’s arm. The pipe ran downward into the depths of the pit beside them and upward until it disappeared through a grate in the ceiling.

Facing each other with their hands chained around the pipe and the opening of the pit to the left of them, they were secured in a very effective jail. It was good enough that once Han’s men had double-checked the locks, they walked back up the tunnel, leaving Kurt and Joe to themselves.

“Kind of weird to see you wrestling with yourself in more than a metaphorical fashion,” Joe said.

“Even weirder to lose,” Kurt admitted. “Humans: one. Robots: one.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kurt said. “Just keeping score.”

Joe studied the surroundings. Only the dim glow of the distant LEDs lit the tunnel, but just enough light to see by. “I’d say we’ve been in darker spots, but I don’t think that’s literally true. Nice of them to leave us alone, though. They must think there’s no escape from this.”

Kurt placed his feet on the wall and pulled with all his might. The pipe moved a few inches, but it didn’t come loose. “Probably anchored every ten feet or so.”

“In which case, you’ll never pull it free,” Joe said.

Kurt could not disagree. “Brute force isn’t the only way to get out.”

He stood up, studying the grate above them. Even though it was clogged with debris, water dripped through it, falling here and there and running down the wall in a sheet.

“Rainwater,” Kurt said. “This is an air shaft. It goes all the way to the surface.”

He found a foothold and climbed up the side of the wall to test the strength of the grate. Using the pipes for leverage, he leaned across the pit and stretched upward, putting his shoulder into the metal lattice and pushing.

Like the cast-iron pipe had, the grate moved just enough to tease him before jamming against some obstruction. Kurt pushed again, but his footing gave way. He dropped awkwardly, his shackled hands sliding down the pipe. If not for a deft move to the side, he would have dropped into the shaft.

Scuffed and scraped, Kurt sat back down. “If only General Lasalle were here.”

“I don’t remember any Lasalle on our payroll,” Joe said.

“He works for the French,” Kurt said.

“Then we’re out of his jurisdiction.”

Kurt laughed. “He’s probably long gone anyway. The last time he showed up was to rescue the narrator in ‘The Pit and Pendulum.’”

“Ah,” Joe said, suddenly getting it. “Is that the one where the rats chew through the ropes?”

“That’s the one,” Kurt said. “Don’t see any rats around here, though.”

“Wouldn’t be much use against these chains,” Joe said. “But it’s a nice thought.”

Kurt gazed downward, but it was so dark in the pit he could see nothing past the first twenty feet. He kicked a stone off the edge and listened to it fall.

Click… Clack… Clunk… Splash…

“Flooded,” Joe said.

“I expect the lower levels are all flooded,” Kurt said. “Without the pumps running all these years, the seawater would seep in. If all else fails, we could risk going down and swimming through the tunnel.”

“You’re forgetting the iron pipe we’re chained to.”

“It’ll be rusted to nothing down there, especially if that’s saltwater.”

Joe shifted position and looked down. “Let me get this straight. You want to drop into a flooded mine shaft, search for a flooded horizontal tunnel, swim through it in pitch-black conditions, with our hands in chains, and no idea where it leads or whether it’s caved in or blocked by debris. All on the chance it comes out somewhere advantageous.”

Kurt feigned offense. “I didn’t suggest there was a high probability of success. Just that it was an option.”

“Try zero probability,” Joe said. “In fact, if there’s such a thing as a negative probability, I’d go with that. Even if we made it through and found another vertical shaft, we’d have to scale the walls with our bare hands.”

“I was thinking we could come up in the elevator we saw on the way in,” Kurt said. “I realize the machinery doesn’t operate, but the framework would make for an easy climb. If we can find the air shaft we passed on the way in.”

“Another big if,” Joe said. “We’d be more likely to swim ourselves into a dead end, drown down there and never be found.”

“At least Han wouldn’t be able to dress my body in the clothes those robots are wearing and frame us for the most blatant assassination since the Archduke of Austria in 1914.”

“Hopefully, this one won’t start a new war.”

“The war is already on,” Kurt said. “It’s all about influence. And Han is going to pull off a masterstroke if we don’t do something about it.”

“Come up with a better plan than suicide and I’m with you.”

Before Kurt could reply, the beam of a flashlight appeared in the tunnel as two people came toward them dragging something along the ground.

Only when the glare of the flashlight was pointed away did Kurt recognize Ushi-Oni’s jaundiced face and another of Han’s men. Carried between them, held up by the arms but with his legs dragging on the ground, was the lifeless form of Superintendent Nagano.

They tossed Nagano down and chained his hands around the pipe. The jailer with the keys unlocked Joe and pulled him to his feet.

“Am I first for breakfast?” Joe asked. “Fantastic. Steak and eggs will do just fine.”

Oni backhanded Joe, striking him across the face and sending him to the ground. Before Joe could spring to his feet, something sharp and cold jabbed him in the back. He felt it split the wetsuit right between his shoulder blades. He dropped back flat on the ground, the tip of a sword up against his skin.

“Han ordered me not to kill you yet,” Oni said. “But if you stand too quickly and impale yourself… that’s on you.”

Kurt could see the sword plainly; it was a different weapon than the one Oni had been carrying earlier. “Don’t get up,” he warned Joe. “It’ll run you through.”

“Quite content to lie here,” Joe said, as he waited until the sword was pulled back and then slowly got to his hands and knees. When he turned around, he was face-to-face with a figure of malevolence.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” Oni said. “Every time I move, I feel agony. Every time I sweat from this endless fever, I blame you. I will pay you back for the pain you’ve caused me. Count on it.”

“Technically, it was the Komodo dragon’s fault,” Joe said. “I was just an innocent bystander.”

“The plan is for your facsimile to die in a car crash,” Oni said. “That means I get to burn you alive. You won’t be so funny when you’re screaming for death.”

Joe was dragged off and Kurt could do nothing but watch him go. He hoped Joe had caught the clue that Ushi-Oni had inadvertently handed him.

When Joe and his captors had vanished down the tunnel, Kurt turned to Nagano. “Superintendent, are you all right?”

Nagano looked up through a mask of pain. Kurt saw no overt injuries to his face, but his hand was bandaged.

“He killed the monks,” Nagano said. “He slaughtered them.”

“Ushi-Oni?”

Nagano nodded. “They had the swords. We thought we’d trapped him, but… He killed my men. He took my fingers.”

Nagano seemed almost delirious. He spoke without looking at Kurt.

“They ask many questions,” he continued, “most of which make no sense. But if you don’t answer, they shock you. It comes through the chains. They shock you until you fall and then they start over.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Everything,” Nagano said. “Then they ask you to read and talk and speak, angrily or quietly. It was like a mind game instead of an interrogation.”

Kurt sat back. “They wanted to hear your voice and record how you formed your words.”

Finally, Nagano focused on him. “Why?”

“So they can make a duplicate of you, like they made one of me.”

“A duplicate?”

“A robot that walks and talks and looks exactly like you. Did they take your ID?”

“Everything,” Nagano said, “even finger and thumbprints.”

Han did not miss a trick. With Nagano’s Federal Police ID and a thumbprint for authentication, he could get into a lot of places that the Austin facsimile alone would not be able to access. “They’re taking Joe for the same treatment.”

Nagano’s eyes opened wider. “They will torture him without remorse until he answers.”

Kurt didn’t doubt it. All the more reason he had to act. “Can you stand?”

Nagano tried to get up but dropped back to his side. “I don’t think so.”

Kurt helped him to a sitting position. “Your strength will come back. Just relax for now.”

As Nagano took deep breaths and tried to accelerate his recovery, Kurt eased his way out over the pit and started a cautious descent. “Warn me if someone’s coming.”

“Where are you going?” Nagano asked.

“To find a rat with metal teeth.”