The Green Ones

Episode 2, Part 9

The cave isn’t a complex maze like the ones leading to my mother’s garden. The large room at the mouth is situated for communal gatherings. Stumps and stones litter the inner space, straw bedding stuffed around the rim. Beyond that, we enter an elongated chamber. Branching once to the left, we reach the door in seconds.

“Hello, underground.” Grasping the door, Yetic yanks it open.

“Just like that?” I can’t believe there isn’t a lock, or a trick, or something.

“If there’s no reason for security at the main gates, why bother here?” He strides through the opening.

On the other side, the tunnel doesn’t look anything like the well-lit underground Neca introduced us to earlier that morning. Musty and dark, the hastily built shaft isn’t as pleasant as the queen’s natural cave.

Yetic sets a casual pace. “As you might have guessed, this tunnel’s illegal. Ceiling’s a bit low in places. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

Olin snorts.

“Don’t worry about us.” Yetic’s inane concern makes Neca’s oversharing seem pleasant. “While we’re talking, though, I wouldn’t mind knowing where we’re going.”

“An address.”

“Oh, wow, really? Thanks for the insight.”

“That’s all Neca gave me, smart mouth. An address, district nine. I don’t know anything more about what’s at the address than you do.”

I bite my tongue. Even if he knows more, digging for it wouldn’t do Olin and me any good. But there is one thing I’ve been wanting to ask. “What exactly is this deal with Neca that’s worth risking your life over?”

“First off, at no point have I, or do I plan on, risking my life for this.”

“Oh, right. Running from Huatiani, disintegrating twitchers, and groveling before the queen is all part of your training regimen.”

“I didn’t grovel, xoxochueyi.” Lowering his voice, he proceeds to mumble a streak of swears that brings a smile to my face.

“So the deal?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have naively thought the value placed on my safety was my business.” It’s possible I’ve pushed the matter too far. All I can hear is Olin’s failed effort to suppress a chortle and the accelerated slap of Yetic’s feet on the rough stone floor of the tunnel.

Left alone with my thoughts, I drift from hoping Neca will be waiting for us at the address to wondering if my dreams have already been smashed into tiny bits. How could I have been so stupid at the mouth of the underground? My current plan takes into account wiping a few smudges from our past, providing a legitimate address. But if Huatiani knows who we are?

If the reports are true, one of the hurdles of registration is a one-on-one interview with the general himself. A chadzitzin girl at the market once told me Huatiani had simply shaken his head and pointed at the door. She got up and left.

How can Olin and I register for the academy now? Even in the slight chance Centavo’s still alive, he can’t remake my face. I shiver at the thought. At least not in a pleasant manner.

A few minutes later, we emerge from the illegal tunnel into an abandoned maintenance shaft. Part of the original infrastructure of New Teo, the shafts were outmoded by the modern Masa mind pits several decades ago. Most of the shafts were incorporated into the new system. Inevitably, fractured sections were sealed off and forgotten to all except the chadzitzin with the motivation and creativity to ferret them out.

Someone, possibly Centavo, has rewired the lights to draw a negligible current—just enough to emit a dim glow, not enough to warrant a Masa repair team to look into the seepage. Picking our way forward, the light assists in navigating the large clumps of cementitious material fallen from the ceiling. Some sections seem on the verge of complete collapse.

“This is the spot.” Yetic stops in the middle of the tunnel, gazing at the ceiling.

“We’re supposed to wait here?”

“Up there.” He points at a hinged, metal disk above us. “Since you’re so clever, I’ll leave you in charge of devising a means of climbing through it without bringing the whole tunnel down on our heads.”

“How chivalrous of you.”

“What can I say? I’m a real gentleman fighter.”

Olin steps forward, shielding the nearby light fixture from his eyes. “It opens outward, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

I look around the floor for a pole or a pipe. “So what? We find something to push it open?”

“Something like that.”

I hear the sound of metal scraping metal and jerk around in time to see a faint blue glow disappear from the dark outline of Olin’s hand. The metal door falls open above us, knocking a light dust from the ceiling.

“We should all be able to jump that high, right?” Olin looks at me while dusting the flecks from his hair.

I stare from him to Yetic.

The stocky fighter is gawking, frozen by what I’m assuming to be envy. “How did you—”

Olin slaps Yetic on the back. “Why don’t you check it out for us? To make sure it’s all clear.”

Yetic steps directly under the opened portal and waves his hands back and forth, as if looking for some sort of trick. Finally, he leaps upward and catches the rim with both hands. Pulling himself up with ease, he disappears through the opening.

Olin gently brushes the dust from my head and shoulders, a smirk on his face. After a moment’s silence, he leans in and whispers, “I said I didn’t want to learn to kill, not that I didn’t want to learn.”

I punch him in the shoulder and hug him. “Now come on, before Yetic decides to close us down here.” I offer to go first. Both of us know I can’t pull myself up like Yetic did. The last thing I want is my little brother reminding me.

Luckily, I’m tall enough to not have far to jump. Once I grasp the lip, Olin helps me without being asked. As soon as I’m clear of the opening, he follows.

Scattered beams of gray light pour into the high-ceilinged structure through crumbling sections of wall. Puddles of water creep across the floor, accumulating via a multitude of drips and drops. At first glance, the safe house appears to be an abandoned warehouse.

A quick movement to my left indicates that, whatever the building used to be, it is not currently abandoned.