Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Quaid made it into the wall recess last, and felt the explosion as some leviathan's belching of air and debris. Limestone fragments showered the group. He wrapped Molly in his arms and they held on tight, heads in each other's chest. Gritty smoke stung his eyes and filled his nose.

Once the air had settled, a quiet whistling could be heard. Molly looked down. Quaid's eyes followed, and together they saw that a rock shard had pierced Jesse Holt's belly.

Quaid shrugged off the girdle and dashed back to the tunnel to check whether it was still passable. Visibility was poor—the blast had taken out many of the purple tube lights.

The ceiling and walls were caved in, forming a barrier of rubble where the charge had gone off. The rubble's jagged faces, freshly exposed limestone, had a film of eerily green sludge that made Quaid wonder what got released into the earth below Roche Rivard.

Voices penetrated the rubble.

"Clear it, immediatement!"

"That could be five bloody yards thick."

"That's none of my concern, find a way! Make a passage!"

Fabienne and Leathersby were bickering—but sooner or later, she'd get her way and they would make it through.

Molly and Durwood had joined Quaid in the tunnel. The trio twisted from the rubble and up the limestone ramp, the only direction open to them.

Quaid asked, "Can we hit the supply tunnels going this way?"

Durwood shook his head soberly. "They're lower."

Molly was already hustling up, with Yves Pomeroy tottering after her. Piper Jackson stood between the two factions, committing to neither one, her jaw set.

"This way, higher," Molly urged. "Third elevator shaft—that's where the Great Safe is!"

Quaid blinked a few times. He'd figured she had just wanted to put distance between them and the bad guys. The Great Safe? The third elevator shaft?

"We've got alarms blaring, Leathersby hot on our trail," he said. "This is no time to be a hero."

"It's exactly the time to be a hero!" Molly took Piper's wrist, her expression rabid. "My children aren't growing up in this..." Her eyes skimmed over the tunnel, the greenish slime, the oubliette. "...this cesspool. We have to stop it. We have to try."

Durwood slapped the rubble, which didn't give an inch. "'Bout the only choice we got."

So up they went. Quaid had covered this same ground not twenty minutes ago, bullied forward by Leathersby after Fabienne Rivard had seen through his disguise. The distance felt longer uphill. He kept misstepping in the scant light. The frequent tunnel switchbacks surprised him. He ran into Yves Pomeroy's back. Piper ran into his.

Sue-Ann intermittently howled as if answering the alarm. She kept losing her balance and falling, aftereffects of Leathersby's brutal kick.

Durwood slipped back to the rear. They'd only been moving a few minutes when he called ahead, "They're through."

Quaid kept scrambling higher, running beside Molly now. He heard shouts and curses and rock-slapping boots and stilettos below.

Something hard and angular poked into his back. He turned and found Piper Jackson trying to give him a pistol.

"Your boy's passing out guns." The hacker held up a silver one. "I already helped myself."

"I'm sure the French have some Second Amendment equivalent," Quaid said, taking the weapon, moving higher still. Soon popping, cracking echoes joined them in the tunnel—sharp, insistent waves of sound.