Bunker Bird

9. Ye're Weird

Our lives are naught if not spent serving.

The Manuals of the Bunker, Vol. 3, Verse 1

The girl, Amy, ignored me as she bathed her toes in the rivulet gurgling along the tunnel's floor. Her feet were bare and her grimy trousers torn off at her calves, one of their legs shorter than the other.

They had called her Amy bird. Probably for the scary red of her mane—red like the one on the craner's amulet.

"And what's happening now?" I asked.

"I can tell ye what's happening now. If ye really wanna know." Her foot landed in a puddle with a noisy splash. "Boss, Mom, George, and Sam, they'll do..." She spread her hands and turned her eyes at the ceiling. "... their council. And then they'll snuff ye." She looked back at her feet.

"Snuff?" I had a pretty good idea what it meant, but I wanted it spelled out.

"Unplug ye. Cut ye." She still didn't look at me. "Kill ye."

The translation didn't come as a surprise. But still, it was funny, in its evil, twisted way. I laughed, harsh and loud. I couldn't help it. What a day this had been. Jasmine had betrayed me with Frankie's fat buttocks. The guards had arrested my dad and probably the craner, and they had chased me, too—intent to have all of us trialed and executed. I had turned my back on the ruin of my life, and the next thing I knew, here I sat. Tied up in a wet, forbidden tunnel, with a gang of filthy cave rats preparing to snuff me. And a foul-mouthed redhead kept me company.

She cocked her head at me, frowning. "What's so funny about getting killed?"

I took a deep breath to chase off the uninvited mirth. "It's a long story."

She chewed her lips and studied me. Her skin was whitish where it wasn't grimy, and the red of her hair had a fierce glow in the light from the garden. "Whatever. Ye're weird." She bathed her toes again.

I was weird? That made two of us.

The tunnel headed straight in both directions, with the garden to the left of me. The greenery grew from mounds of earth on both sides of a muddy track. The garden and the lamps ended no more than two hundred steps away. In both its directions, the tunnel continued, losing itself to darkness. It was barely wide enough for four men abreast, and I probably could touch its ceiling when I stood.

I felt stuffy and hot, despite the chill of my wet clothes. This constricted place was stifling, its walls too close for comfort, so different from the two airy caverns I knew.

Was this the realm of the Engineers? It had to be. The Manuals said there were the tunnels and the realm—nothing else.

But these folks couldn't be the Engineers. According to the Manuals, the Engineers had knowledge. The people here knew nothing.

A cracking noise whipped out of the dark, from the side of the garden. A faint hiss followed it.

Amy turned her face towards the sound, frowning.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart. "What was that?"

She shrugged.

The Manuals were right—people should stay away from these tunnels.

What else prowled their darkness?

Then I remembered the things in the shaft. Something had attacked me there before I fell. Had it followed us?

I peered into the darkness, uneasy. "How long have I been out?"

She spread her hands. "Do I look as if I've been watching over ye while ye had yer nap at the bottom of that ladder? I ain't strange like that, and I dunno. Found ye half a day ago, in a sad heap, while I was collecting flatworms. Tasty buggers. Didn't hear ye smacking the ground. Ye may have been lying there for..." She gestured at the tunnel's ceiling and then rubbed her arms. "... for ages. Yer head was all bloody. The stuff was everywhere. I first thought ye were snuffed. But when I got closer to yer face, ye were breathing. Some bad breath ye have, I tell ye. So I dragged yer sorry ass here, which took quite some time. And effort. I didn't wanna take ye down the ladder there... Even though it might have been fun to give ye another fall. So I got Sam and George."

Probably exhausted by her lengthy speech, she stomped into the small channel at her feet, making it splash and reminding me of my parched throat.

"I'm thirsty. Can I have some water?" I asked.

She stepped into another puddle. "Oh, the soft, pampered cavern dweller is thirsty. Here's some good news for you: We've got plenty of water today. And here's the bad news: I have no cup. And even if I had one... do ye think I'm the type to serve others?" She grinned at me. "Think again." One of her front teeth was missing, leaving a dark rectangle between its siblings.

"Please?" I pulled the corners of my mouth into what I thought might be a friendly smile, wondering if she'd be familiar with that kind of facial expression.

She rolled her eyes, and, with a sigh, she plodded off towards the garden. There, she stooped, rummaged through a heap of tools, and finally returned, holding a battered metal bowl. She filled it at a puddle.

"Here." She held it before me.

"Thank you," I said. "Er... someone's tied my hands."

"I'm sure they had their reasons for tying ye, boy." With another sigh, she squatted and pushed the bowl against my lips, making it smack my teeth.

I drank eagerly. The water smelled like our swamps.

Holding the bowl with one hand, she watched me drink from under a pair of raised brows. She tugged at her ear lobe. Something glittered on her finger.

A ring—it held a piece of metal looking like a bird.

Birds seemed to haunt me today. I was sick of them.

When I had quenched the worst of my thirst, I stopped, afraid to drink more of that stuff. She took the bowl back to the garden.

The draft felt stronger now, chilling my clothes and making me shiver. The hum hung still in the air.

"What's that noise here?" I asked when she returned.

"Machines," she said. "Boss calls'em pumps."

This made sense. The pumps for the water we cleaned.

So, we were below the swamps.

And the pump that didn't work had to be here somewhere.

"Are you the people..." I began, unsure how to phrase this question, "the people running the pumps?"

Were they Engineers? Not that I ever had expected Engineers to act and dress like these yokels. But if they were, they might make that pump work again.

Her short laugh echoed from the rock. "No, silly. The pumps do all the running themselves."

"They don't," I said as an idea formed in my head—I might be able to save my father. "There's something wrong with one of these pumps. The—"

"Hey, you two, stop sweet-talking." Sam waved at us from the ladder. "Boss wants to see the shit shoveler."

"Ye wouldn't know sweet if it swatted yer face," Amy shouted back at him.

"Sweet never swats my face," he said, approaching. "She kisses my lips."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Which shows you don't know her, and ye're nothing but a bleeding liar."

Without a further word, they unbound me and took me to the ladder.