Decades of corrosion had done their damage. The ladder simply ended, broken off like the peg of a rotten tooth. Between the break and the platform, there was a gap easily twenty feet wide, and it wasn’t a straight drop either. The platform was secured in a bolted bracket to the concrete and stuck out in a tongue, ending ten feet to the left of the break.
“Oh boy,” Luke breathed.
“Way I see it,” Weller said, pulling off his coil of two-inch rope, “one of us shimmies down, then swings over and ties off for the other two.”
Tom glanced up at Luke. “When was the last time you hung around a jungle gym?”
“How does ‘so long ago I don’t remember’ sound?” Luke said. “I just hope I don’t piss myself.”
“Remind me to tell you about swinging across a gap of fifty feet, thirty feet off the ground.”
“They make you do that in the Army?”
“Oh yeah. Then the smart guys figured out how to make a rope bridge.” He looked down to see Weller already tying off rope to several rungs above his head. “I can go first.”
“Better let me.” Weller gave the rope a final tug, then furled the coil to which he’d tied off another, thinner rope. “One less old fart to worry about if I don’t make it.”
“What’s the other rope for?” Luke asked.
“Watch and learn, boy.” Wrapping his hands around the rope, Weller got a good footlock, trapping the rope under his right boot and looping it over his left before easing off the ladder. The rope let out a squeal as the knot tightened with the added weight, and the iron squalled. There was the bounce and ping of rock against rock and then a distant splash as the dislodged concrete found the water. “Don’t come down until I’m across.”
Don’t worry about that. Tom’s breath hung in his chest as Weller inched down, but the old man clearly knew what he was doing. Getting up or down a rope wasn’t about arm strength; the legs did most of the work. Five feet before his rope played out, Weller tucked so his feet were nearly at the level of his chest.
“What’s he doing?” Luke asked.
“Grabbing the other rope.” Tom watched as Weller made a one-handed snatch. Then, still hanging by his free hand, Weller used his weight as a pendulum, folding at the hips and bucking. The rope complained: cree-cree, CREE-cree . . . The rope’s swing widened, and then Weller was sweeping over the platform: once, twice. On the third swing, he let go. His arc was perfect; the second rope unspooled behind, and he landed on bent knees with a dull bong, fell to his knees, then staggered to his feet.
“No sweat,” he said, but he sounded winded. “Hang on.” Weller unreeled the second rope, walked backward, then tied off the end to a platform support.
“Whoa.” Luke made an impressed sound. “He made a bridge.”
“Use your hands and feet,” Weller said. His voice echoed in the shaft. “It’s got enough give for a good lock. Just don’t look down.”
Easier said than done. Tom was sweating by the time he was midway, hugging the rope to his chest, nearly bent at the waist, feet firmly locked around the rope. He did exactly the wrong thing then, thinking about the water below and the drop—and felt cold sweat lather his face. His arms trembled, and he thought, I’m going to slip, and then I’ll fall—
“Tom,” Weller said, sharply. “Keep moving! Come on!”
That snapped him back. “Right,” he breathed, swallowing back a ball of fear. He kept his eyes focused on the rope, tried not to think how much further he had to go. He heard Weller scuffing over metal, and then the old man was moving alongside, bracing him up as Tom dropped onto the platform. “Thanks,” he said, gulping back air that tasted, very faintly, of scrambled eggs. “I froze.”
Weller clapped a hand to Tom’s shoulder. “Everyone freezes once in a while.”
“Why are we going uphill?” Luke whispered as they moved in a single file through the tunnel. “Don’t we need to go down?”
“Opening’s actually a little lower than the level you’ll be working,” Weller muttered. “But it’s easier to move skips—these big metal buckets—down instead of up.”
“But we’ll still end up below the Chuckies, right?” Tom asked. The tunnel was much smaller and tighter than he’d imagined. He’d had visions of expansive, soaring ceilings; instead, a network of wires and hoses ran only three feet overhead. He felt the weight of all that rock and earth pressing down.
He noticed something else. They weren’t walking on dry earth but splashing through puddles on the tracked floor. The air was very moist, almost humid, and he could feel and hear the dull patter of water as the ceiling wept onto their heads and shoulders. We’re below the water table, but there must be enough air pressure to keep the water from rising any further. Or this might only be an isolated pocket and there was water all around them. Not a comforting thought. Break through the wrong wall and they’d be caught in a flash flood.
Moving out of the tunnel, they hooked right. Tom immediately felt the change, how the tunnel was higher and wider. Bits and pieces of machinery were scattered here and there: a square metal bin, lengths of metal protruding from rock, frayed nets strung along the stone. His light caught a flash and sparkle, and he heard Luke: “Whoa, is that gold?”
“No, that’s fool’s gold: pyrite. Real gold’s a little dull, and you find it with a lot of quartz.” Weller trailed his light over the rock and then pointed to a thick, milky-white buckle. “Right there’s a bit. That kind of dirty orange stuff.”
“That’s it?” Luke sounded disappointed.
“People have died for less,” Weller said.
Tom opened his mouth to say something, but then he heard a scratchy buzz. Not footsteps. This was like a hive of bees. Then, from somewhere very far away came an airy scream.
Luke gasped. “What is that?”
“Voices,” Tom murmured. He felt the hairs rise on his neck.
“Chuckies don’t talk.”
“I don’t think they’re Chuckies.” Tom turned, straining to hear above the thump of his heart and the crack and pop of damp rock under his boots..
“You mean, normal people?”
“Yeah.” Protruding from the rock was the mouth of a yellow metal duct. It reminded Tom of a ventilation system, but this opening was very wide. Through it came a fitful, intermittent buzz: a distant ebb and flow like the susurrant whisper of the sea stirring stone. People talking. “What is this?”