The Tunnel Of The Bats
Chapter 15
XV
Maria looked down the dark corridor of the unfinished tunnel in both directions…
"What do you think, Isabel? Don't you have some kind of gut feeling… some kind of alien psychic thing or something… about which way we should go here?"
Isabel shook her head wearily. "No," she said after a few moments reflection and without any pretensions. "I just don't know."
Maria sighed with genuine frustration. "Okay, then, let's go… right… no, left! We go left."
Isabel nodded. "Left is good." She reached down and picked up a small object from the ground. It was a pop top from a soda can or perhaps a beer can.
"Somebody was here," Isabel said. "Looks like it was a long time ago, though. It's rusty… or maybe just coated with… something. It's changed color." She dropped the pop top back onto the ground and kicked it with her foot, scuffing the dirt with her shoe.
The two girls turned into the bisecting tunnel and followed the left route. It seemed that the corridors had become increasingly damp and dusty since Maria and Isabel had left the larger, developed parts and entered the unfinished tunnels. The developed tunnels were huge corridors. Trucks, even tanks, could drive through some of them, and there were rooms off to the sides… but these tunnels were a far cry from those. Some of these were barely big enough to stand up in… and they were damp and dingy. Maria wondered who had gone through this mountain digging all these tunnels and why they never finished them all.
After an hour of walking in the new tunnel –sometimes crawling, in places where the ceiling was too low- the girls stopped to rest. Maria sat down on the ground then noticed something in the dirt beside her.
"Another pop top."
She handed it to Isabel, and Isabel looked at it, then she looked at the ground beside it. There was an unmistakable scuff mark on the ground. She buried her face wearily in her hands.
"We've been walking in a circle, Maria. This is the same pop top I kicked over an hour ago."
Maria swallowed silently, as she looked at the scuff mark on the ground and the pop top in Isabel's hand. She knew Isabel was right. For a moment, Maria almost felt a pang of desperation, but she quickly shut it out, replacing it with a plan that came as fast as the feeling of desperation had fled.
"Okay, then, this time we go the other way… and we mark our trail. If we start seeing any of our marks again, we backtrack and find another route… any other route."
Isabel nodded.
Unknown to Maria or Isabel, about two miles away, in a larger but equally unfinished tunnel, Max, Michael, and Rahn were also searching for a way out. The one difference was that, with Rahn's help, they had an idea where they were going and how to get there.
Max sat down on a rock in the tunnel, as they stopped momentarily to assess their position. He looked at Rahn hesitantly, as though he wanted to ask something but was afraid.
"Rahn… do you have any feeling about Maria or Isabel? I mean… Do you think they're both alive… both okay? Isabel may have been hurt when she was escaping. I keep seeing her over and over in my mind, and I can't stop thinking about it… but I can't let it keep us from finding a way out of here. I can't help any of us if I can't get us out of here or if we're caught again."
Rahn shook his head slowly. "I can't tell if they're alive or not. But I thought you could."
"Well… I can… sometimes," Max admitted. "I can feel Isabel sometimes, but I stopped feeling her at all for a long time. I didn't want to say anything, because I was afraid that… that she had died. But I felt her again a little while ago."
"Is she alright," Michael asked, immediately concerned. "Is Maria alright?"
"I don't know," Max said, nervously tossing a small rock into the middle of the tunnel. "Not for sure anyway. Isabel seems stronger now. Her aura was giving off a very weak feeling before… then I couldn't detect it at all… for a long time… but now it seems to be back and stronger than before."
Michael smiled. "And Maria?"
"I can't really feel Maria the same way, Michael."
Michael's smile slowly faded again.
"But I can sense something in Isabel that suggests she's not alone or desperate or frightened the way she might be if something had happened to Maria. I can't say for sure, but I believe Maria's okay… at this moment."
Michael nodded, taking note of the words: 'at this moment.' Michael understood all too well that in a split second and without any warning everything could change for any or all of them.
Rahn stopped suddenly and put his hand up, cautioning Max and Michael to be quiet. He listened. Then he turned back to Max and Michael.
"Did you hear something, Rahn?" Michael asked.
"I thought I did. But now I don't hear it."
"Could you tell what it was?"
"Soldiers."
"How can you tell," Max asked.
"The sound their feet make… but… I don't hear it now. Maybe they're outside the tunnels."
Max nodded. "Well, we need to be moving anyway. We have to find the place where we can dig out of here."
"Right," Michael agreed. "Let's get the hell out of this place… the sooner the better."
As Michael stood up, the eerie silence in the tunnel was suddenly shattered by the sound of a rifle being fired nearby. In the confines of the tunnel, the single shot sounded almost like an atomic explosion, and it echoed repeatedly from every direction… Max and Michael both dropped to the ground and rolled against the walls. When they looked up, Rahn was gone.
"Did you see where that came from," Max asked Michael quietly.
Michael shook his head. "I think it came from down that way. Keep your head down, Max. Somebody out there wants to blow it off."
"Where'd you get that idea," Max asked, crawling over to Michael on his stomach, keeping his head low.
"Just a hunch."
"Where'd Rahn go?"
Michael shook his head. "I don't know. I dropped to the ground and rolled. When I looked up, he was gone."
"Yeah, same here."
Max looked up suddenly, as a bat flew low over his head then ploughed into the dirt like a crashing fighter plane. As they watched, the bat began to grow and change form.
"Rahn!" Max and Michael both whispered at the same time. "Where were you?"
"I went to see who was shooting at us," Rahn said simply.
"Did you see?" Michael asked.
"Yes. There is one soldier behind that bend over there. Behind him there are four more. Much further down the tunnel, not very close yet, there are at least two dozen soldiers… coming this way."
"Crap!" Michael said. "We need to get out of here before the others get here, but with this guy holding us down, we'd have to crawl away on our bellies or get our heads blown off."
"I think I can distract them," Rahn said, closing his eyes and concentrating. As he did, Max and Michael head noises, sounds of running and a few curses. Max looked at Rahn quizzically.
"They were attacked by a large number of bats," Rahn said simply.
"You can call bats?"
"No. I made them think they saw them. It is a kind of mind warp. But it works just as well sometimes. Let's go… while they're occupied."
Max and Michael jumped to their feet and ran with Rahn, leaving the soldiers who had been pursuing them ducking and running back the way they had come, swatting and cursing at a thick swarm of imaginary bats. After about thirty minutes, Max, Michael, and Rahn slowed their pace somewhat.
"Do you think they're still following us," Max asked.
Michael nodded. "I'm sure of it. They'll follow our footprints now that they've seen us. We'll have to work fast."
"Which way?" Max asked Rahn. Rahn pointed down the corridor to the right.
Michael nodded. "Okay, then let's make footprints down the left tunnel a ways and come back and wipe our footprints away in the right tunnel as we go down it."
"Won't they know what we did and come back and go down this tunnel when the footprints run out suddenly in the other one," Max asked.
"Not necessarily," Michael replied with a grin. "Watch and learn, Max."
After the three had walked about a hundred feet down the left tunnel, Michael took his hand and wiped some of the footprints away, making it obvious that they were wiped away.
"They'll think we're erasing our tracks, so when they don't see them anymore, they'll keep going this way."
"Okay," Max nodded. "And what happens after they've gone a ways further and still see no more tracks?"
Michael thought about this a moment. "Rahn, could you turn into a bat again?"
Rahn shrugged. "Sure. Why?"
"Fly down the tunnel about two hundred feet then leave some more footprints so they'll find them and think we're still headed that way. Then fly back. It'll look like we erased our tracks for a while, but then they'll pick them up again. Maybe that'll confuse them for a while."
Rahn began to shrink… then black, leathery wings sprouted from his sides. He leapt into the air before his legs had completely shrunk to bat-sized, changing the rest of the way into a bat in mid air, then he flew off down the tunnel. A couple of minutes later, he came flying back again. This time, instead of making a head over heals landing in the dirt, he perched upside down on the tunnel ceiling then morphed back into a man… hanging from the ceiling with bat feet."
"Lovely," Michael said. "Don't you think you'd better change those?" He pointed at Rahn's huge, bat-like feet.
"Help me down first," Rahn said. Michael and Max helped Rahn flip over onto his feet. By the time his feet touched the ground, they looked completely "human" again… shoes and all.
"I found out bat's can't land on the ground without humiliating themselves," Rahn said.
Michael nodded. "Yeah, you looked ever so much better hanging there from the ceiling with big bat feet."
"A lot less painful," Rahn replied. "Let's go."
On this last part, at least, Michael and Max were in total agreement. All three headed off down the right hand tunnel, carefully removing their footprints behind them with power blasts from their hands until they were far enough in so that the footprints wouldn't be readily seen. Then they hurried in the direction that Rahn had indicated. Several times, Rahn told them which way to turn into a new tunnel, and each time, Michael took a moment to make it appear that they had gone down the other tunnel… or left footprints in both tunnels.
Then Rahn stopped.
"Are we there?" Max asked hesitantly.
"We're here," Rahn confirmed. "We need to dig eighteen feet through this wall right here. Can you do that?"
Michael smiled and held up his hand. A blast from his palm removed about two feet of dirt and debris from the wall. Max went next, blasting another two feet into the soft dirt of the tunnel wall.
"Any questions," Michael asked, looking at Rahn smugly. Rahn shook his head. "Just hurry. My bats will not fool the soldiers for very long. I just hope it will be for long enough."
Michael blasted another four feet out of the tunnel wall, and Max, not to be outdone, blasted four feet of dirt out after him.
"We should be almost through," Max said. "You want to give it a double whammy, Michael… both of us together? Punch it out?"
Michael grinned. But before they could blast the final six feet of wall out, they heard noises coming their direction in the tunnel behind them. Rahn shoved Max and Michael down to the ground.
"They're coming. The soldiers…"
"Damn," Max said. "We were almost through. Can you make them get attacked by bats again, Rahn?"
Rahn shook his head. "It is unlikely to be effective again. Stay down. I will see what I can do."
"Try the big anaconda thing again or something," Michael said. "Scare the hell out of them."
Rahn leapt into the air and changed into a bat then flew off down the tunnel in the direction of the noises they had heard. Max and Michael both stayed on the ground, keeping their heads low, remembering what had happened before. And they waited. For a long time, they heard nothing.
"Shouldn't we check and see if Rahn is okay," Max asked.
"Give him a little while more," Michael said. "He may be having to digest his… prey."
Max grimaced. "You think?"
Michael shrugged. They lay there a while longer, and as the time passed, both Max and Michael began to succumb to the effects brought on by insufficient sleep and days of walking and crawling in the tunnels. Neither Max nor Michael was willing to let himself go to sleep right now, even for a few minutes, but both found themselves resting their heads on their arms… and fighting to stay awake… as they waited for Rahn to return.
Neither Max nor Michael was aware of having dozed off, but the next thing they were aware of was the sound of footsteps beside them. Both of them jerked their heads up suddenly to discover someone standing over them… and it wasn't Rahn.
"Well, isn't this cute! Here Isabel and I are busting our butts trying to find a way out of this place… and getting shot… and we find you guys all cuddled up together taking a cozy nap. I might have known!"
Michael's mouth dropped open. "Maria? Maria!" Michael leapt to his feet, no longer feeling tired. "Isabel! Are you okay?"
Max was already checking Isabel's wound. He pressed his hand to the partially healed wound on her back, and his hand glowed momentarily.
"That feels better," Isabel said. "But I wouldn't be here if it weren't for someone else who healed me most of the way already."
"Someone else healed you?" Max asked.
"Maria," Isabel said with a nod toward Maria. "I still don't know how."
"My Maria? This Maria?" Michael stammered in amazement. "How?" he asked, looking at Maria.
"I don't know, either," Maria said. "Every time I touched her wound, it just seemed to get better… and my hands glowed. I thought it was radiation poisoning from the tunnels, but Isabel told me that your hand glows like that when you heal someone, too, Max."
Max nodded. "I felt someone sourcing my power. Were you calling on my power to heal, Maria?"
"Actually, I was cursing you for not being there to heal Isabel yourself," Maria said matter-of-factly… "especially when I thought she was going to die."
"Interesting," Max mumbled, raising his eyebrows. "I'll have to remember that method. I guess the emotional stress you were under channeled you to me when you thought of me… I'm glad it worked."
"No more glad than I am," Isabel said. "Have you guys found a way out of here?"
"Yeah. We're waiting for Rahn to return. Where is Rahn?" Max asked, looking at Michael. "He should have been back by now."
"He went to see how close the soldiers are," Isabel said. "We saw him in the tunnel, and he told us where to find you."
"Well, at least he didn't eat you," Max said.
Isabel looked at Max and raised her eyebrows.
"Never mind," Max said. "He can turn into a huge anaconda. You had to be there, I guess."
Isabel nodded.
As they spoke, a bat flew over their heads and changed into a cat in mid-air. The cat fell to the ground on its feet and morphed back into a man.
"Interesting landing method," Michael said.
"Cats land on their feet," Rahn replied… "but it's still not a perfect solution."
"Try a bird," Max said.
"What?"
"A bird. Try changing from a bat into a… a sea gull or something when you land. Sea gulls can land without injuring themselves."
Rahn nodded. "A sea gull… A sea gull! Yeah. That could work!"
"Hey, that's what I'm here for," Max said. "Any time you need morphing advice…"
"Psh," Maria waved her hand at him. "How about getting us out of here!"
"I can do that, too!" Max said. "Michael? You want to give me a hand?"
Max and Michael both raised their hands, and a blast of power went out from each of them, demolishing what was left of the wall. As the dust cleared, everyone stared through the hole at the other side.
"There it is," Max said, breaking the awed silence. "Freedom."
tbc
Coming: Alex and Liz struggle with their situation and discover why Judge Lewis and certain elements in the army really wanted them sent to Crestview. Jim Valenti searches for a way to help Liz and Alex without conspicuously ignoring a state court order. And Max, Michael, Rahn, Maria, and Isabel find themselves in a new place with new concerns and mysteries… and some old ones.