AN – Still don't own the Hunger Games.

Darker

"Hell's teeth, Johanna! Five minutes and I'll have this figured out."

"I don't have 5 minutes. In fact, you've already made me late. I need to time this right and get to the top of the Pit during Beetee's distraction or else I'm going to jail. The distraction, whatever it is, is at noon. I'm not missing it."

"Go then. Fine. I'll figure the maps out without you." I didn't even look at her as she left. She was so set on the plan she'd set up with Beetee. She wouldn't listen. Anything she could do up top, she could do more down here, but it didn't matter now.

After she was gone, I dropped my head into my one good hand and tried to rub the sting out of my eyes. Even with the light from my helmet and the flashlight Johanna had left, it was still dark as hell down here, and the faint blue lines on the old maps were hard to trace. I knew that I could find a way out of here, a better way than climbing up the Pit, but we couldn't afford any mistakes.

I decided to take a break. I had been rushing through this for almost an hour, comparing maps from different levels, trying to figure out which of the air vents we could use to climb out, trying to find the answer before it was time for Johanna to leave. But now, there was no rush. I sat back and drank some water, tried to eat one of the energy bars from the supply room.

But I felt sick. It felt wrong somehow that one of these vents was going to save my life – and the lives of everyone else still down here – when I was the one who had wanted to block them. I had wanted to suffocate everyone down here, as if the rest of the destruction I caused hadn't been enough. Sometimes I wanted to go back in time and find myself, throw the vicious kid that I used to be up against a wall and make him see how out of control he'd gotten.

I wondered if that's what my dad would've done.

I took another swig of water. I didn't have time to get caught up in crazy thoughts. There was too much to do, and with Johanna gone I had to get it all done myself. I forced myself to take another bite of the energy bar.

At least I was well supplied now. My left hand still ached, but Johanna had splinted it. As long as I could remember not to use it, it wasn't too bad. With her gone my communication with the others was cut off, but if they could pull off their part of the plan I'd be seeing them soon. Johanna had her issues, lots of them. But, as obnoxious as she was, I owed her a lot.

Once she'd quit giggling like a school girl over the voice in her earpiece, the news was amazing.

"Who's robot man and what's going on?" I had asked after she finished her silent conversation that had started with the mechanical voice.

"We get the robot voice because he can't talk out loud. So he punches in the words and we can get them vocal, in the earpiece or typed back. The earpiece is most efficient." And most private, but I didn't say that. I just waited for her to go on. "Mercurius. He's I.I., undercover. I wasn't sure, but I had my suspicions."

Mercurius was I.I.

I'd been living and working with an undercover I.I. agent and I'd had no clue. I'd even investigated him. No wonder his file had been wiped clean.

"Does he have an implant like yours?" How could I have missed that?

"Yep."

"Hell's teeth." I still couldn't believe her whole working through my squad bit had been an I.I. mission. They certainly had unconventional methods. "I guess all your careful investigation has paid off then."

"You're just mad because you accidentally provided me perfect cover. And because you missed out on the fun. But yes, it was an investigation and now I know more about your squad than you do."

"I don't think your methods would have worked as well for me. At least, I hope not. Any other spies?" I'd let her gloat if it would help us get out of here alive.

"Two spies on the squad not enough for you? At least Mercurius was spying for the good guys. But there's a termite in Paylor's office and it might be one of the ones in there with them. Merc is keeping an eye on them for now. We've got to find a way to dig them all out."

"We should take a look at it. There's a lot of rock. Can he tell if the walls are stable?"

"He's worried about that. He says the doorway's sagging, under a lot of pressure."

"They need to brace it somehow. There were always lots of extra wood beams around in the mines in 12 for that. None down here. Let's go."

We headed back toward the office. With better light we could make out the door to the office behind the pile of rock. Between the two of us we soon made some progress removing rock, at least from around the doorway.

They were still going to have to do some blasting to get out. Lots of potential for things to go wrong, but there wasn't anybody I knew who had a better chance of doing it right than Mercurius. We debated methods back and forth, through Johanna. By now he'd let the others in the office know that he was talking to us. He quit using the robot voice and they all joined the conversation. It was good to hear their voices, to know that they were alive.

We decided that they would use the office desks, turned up on one side, to brace the ceiling. They were big, metal desks, strong enough to hold it, at least for a while, but not quite tall enough, so the drawers would be pulled out and added on top until they reached the ceiling. Once again, it'd be good enough to hold while they got out. There shouldn't be anybody on L4 so if the ceiling collapsed after that, so be it.

Once we had the rock cleared, I went back to supply and got some body bags. Johanna thought it was a waste of time, but I wasn't leaving Shine and Marik out there. Sooner or later someone, maybe our squad, would come get them and it would be easier it they weren't buried under more debris from whatever explosions Mercurius was going to cause. Despite her complaining Johanna helped me move them. We left them in an empty resi unit and she even made a sign for the door: "Morgue."

Then we'd found some maps and took a lunch break while we looked over them. I was surprised when she told me it was only 1030, still morning. I'd really lost track of time down here.

"It doesn't make sense to try to climb back up the Pit. The whole base is watching and we still don't know who can be trusted." I wasn't sure what was the right way to get out of here, but the more I thought about it, that was definitely the wrong way.

"You're just saying that because there is no way you can climb up the Pit. And you can't stand being left behind."

"I'm not the only one. Asher won't be able to climb, and who knows if it is safe enough for the president."

"But you think you can get up the air vents."

"Yeah – we can crevice climb." She looked at me quizzically. "You know, when you brace your back against one wall and walk yourself of up the other wall. Didn't you get trained on that in 13?" We'd worked on it again here in 2, but the first time I'd ever seen it done was way back in the mines in 12. And by using my legs more I'd be able to get by with just one hand. "Anyway, it's the best way to get up the air vent. Plus we only have to go one floor at a time. We can rest in the intake vents at each level, at least until we get above L1. That's why I am looking for a vent that doesn't go up too much further in the mountain past L1, but doesn't open right out into the Surface either."

"Asher's not going to be able to crevice climb."

"There'll be enough of us. We can lift him."

"But then we'll walk into a tracker jack nest when we get up there. We don't know who we can trust." Johanna gripped her chin and closed her eyes, frowning with deep concentration. "We've got to keep Paylor alive. Beetee thinks this whole thing might be the way to flush out the rats."

"We can do that better when our lives, and hers, aren't hanging by a thread. We get out of here and they can't do anything to us in broad daylight. Down here, they can kill us and no one will ever know."

"You just want to breathe fresh air. You think they can't get to us up there, you're kidding yourself."

"And you're the one who is in a rush to get up and get some of that fresh air right now."

"I want to go talk to Beetee, see what he has figured out." Johanna thought Beetee walked on water. She was sure he'd be able to figure something out.

"You trust him a lot more than I do," I said.

"I only trust two people up there, Brighton and Beetee. Are you saying Beetee's another skunk?"

"I don't know. I just think he's out to save his own skin lately. Don't forget Katniss is up there now too."

"The real reason you are in such a rush."

"Yeah, otherwise I'd be fine with just hanging here." I felt like I almost had her convinced, but not quite.

"How 'bout if I promise to send down some pizzas once I get up top?"

I had to laugh at how tempted I was by that idea. I could almost taste the hot cheese. Pizza was one of the many foods they had in 2 that I'd never had before and one of the things the mess hall did really well.

I saw a flash of green and Johanna flipped her wrist around. She pressed something on her arm and then I heard Katniss's voice coming from under Johanna's skin.

So Johanna had gone up top and would see what she, Brighton, Katniss, and Beetee could do from up there. Mercurius and I were going to get the rest of them out of here. I didn't want to mark up the maps too much, but I'd now tracked the best air vent down to Level 4. The question was - how would we get to it down here? It was on the other side of the Pit.

This was actually not my idea. Asher had been the one to insist that we have an exit plan, to look into how we could get out of here if something went wrong. And to know that there had to be air vents, that there was always another way out.

I heard a rumble and paused. Mercurius had asked us to clear the area. He thought they could be blasting in as soon as an hour, but that couldn't be them yet.

The sound grew, not a quick neat blast, but a slowly spreading avalanche, lots of rock, too much. I went to the doorway of our chosen resi unit. The noise was to the left, not right. Not Mercurius – the Pit. The Pit was collapsing.

Johanna.

I rushed into the hall then pulled back as a cloud of dust swept by. I grabbed my helmet, holstered my now-loaded gun, and went back into the hall. I pulled down the gas mask on the helmet as I ran into the dust. It would help me breathe, as long as there was oxygen somewhere in all of the crud. Every time I thought this hellhole couldn't get any worse, it did.

The Pit, or what was left of it, wasn't far. Johanna had been gone for 10-15 minutes. Was it enough time for her to have climbed up into the gap? Not enough time to have gotten to the top. I stopped to listen for her, but heard nothing over the still tumbling rocks. Whatever had caused the collapse was over, but the whole thing was unstable now. I moved blindly through the mess, checking with my feet to make sure that the ground below each step was still there.

"Johanna!" I called, hoping she could hear me over the rumbling.

"Damn it!"

I moved toward the voice until I could make out a black-clad figure sitting on the ground.

"Stupid frickin' rocks!" That was Johanna.

"You okay?" Her head jerked up and I could see a huge crack in her helmet. Better her helmet than her head.

"Just flippin' peachy!"

"Come on, we've got to get out of here."

"Let's go," she said, then fell over as she tried to stand up. "Oh, damn it!"

I pulled her up, put one of her arms over my shoulder and helped her limp down the hall. She must have been hurting since she took my help.

Once we got back to the resi unit she sat down. "Alright, now it's my turn to be your nurse," I said.

"Great. Now I'm a felled oak for sure."

I ignored her and took off her helmet, showing her the gash in it. "How's your head feel? That had to be a big rock."

"Yeah. I didn't even see it coming. I'd just started climbing, then everything was loud and it hurt and I was back on the ground."

The back of her shoulder was ripped and bloody. The rock must have bounced off of her head and then hit her there. "Try to lift your arm. How's it feel?"

"Like my skin's ripping off," she said, but she lifted her arm. It must not have damaged the bones.

"What else hurts?"

"My ankle. I must have landed on it." I tried to rotate it, but she jerked it back.

It took a while, but I got her shoulder bandaged and her ankle splinted. She said it was just a sprain, but it seemed like a bad one. She complained a lot, but I ignored that and other than her insults and foul language she cooperated.

"Still trust Beetee?" I thought she would have put it all together by now, but she must not have since she looked up at me with a start.

"What do you mean?"

"The Pit hasn't moved in a year and it suddenly collapses during the 20 minutes you're supposed to be climbing out. Nothing suspicious there?"

"I . . . I must have dislodged something."

"How many times have you climbed in or out before today?"

"I don't know. A dozen?"

"But now you dislodged something, just a few feet up into your climb? Nope."

I saw a flashing green light on, well, in her wrist. She held her hand up to her ear. Another private call.

"I'm fine," she finally answered. "Mostly, fine. Bumped up a bit, had to let Hawthorne splint my ankle, but I don't think you can die of a bad splint." She could be answering her call silently, but that wouldn't be any fun.

"That's what Gale said." Mercurius probably agreed with me about Beetee. "By the way, weird thing. Just after everything went boom I got a message from up top, from Eagle: Horse. . . . No kidding. How soon until you guys are out?"

By the time she got off we had the beginnings of a new plan. Johanna finally agreed that going back up through the Pit was a bad idea. But she had a theory that we could get to the vent I identified by going down near the Pit and over on L6 to the vent. When I asked her how L6 was she just shuddered. This should be fun. Mercurius said it should be a couple of hours before they were out so we decided to see what we could find in that time.

As we headed back toward the supply room, I asked her "What was that bit about the message from up top? Who's 'Eagle'?"

"It's not good. 'Eagle' is Brighton. Somehow he had Katniss's communicator. But 'Horse' is the code for communicator going into unfriendly hands, don't trust it any more. Not a good sign."

"There goes our chance to figure out what's going on up there." I sighed. Not only did we have to get out of here, but we had to be ready for anything when we reached the top. And somehow keep the president alive. I was glad that Paylor was a soldier herself. We'd need all the help we could get.

I looked over at Johanna and realized that she was packing an arsenal, and she'd already put on body armor. "I guess we're not travelling light."

"Just being prepared. Look, L6 hasn't been cleared. The detention cells are down there . . . and the labs."

"What labs?"

"I haven't gone in them yet. I'm not sure what they were for, but I don't think they were looking for a cure for cancer. We need to be ready – for unexploded pods, for booby traps, for mutts, for whatever."

I'd taken my body armor off. It was just too hot down here to wear that stuff if I didn't need it, but I slipped the shirt back on and began strapping on the arm and leg guards. Then I began packing. I included some ammo, door charges, detonator tape, and tools, both for climbing and for taking the fans out of the vent. And food and water. I wasn't going anywhere without enough supplies again.

"You need to get a new helmet," I told Johanna. "Your old one is shot." There were a couple of spare helmets in the supply room. She found one that fit close enough.

We looked over the map of L6. The air vent I wanted to use led into a furnace room, just behind the labs. We needed to check it to make sure it hadn't collapsed when we bombed the Nut, or today when the Pit caved in. I folded up the map, slipped it into my pack and we were ready to go.

The Pit was a mess, loose rock everywhere, although at the moment nothing was collapsing, blowing up or rumbling around. Johanna was trying not to limp on her splinted ankle. "There was an easy way to get down to L6. Let's see if it is blocked now."

She led the way to the old elevator shaft, down a hallway I hadn't seen, just off of the Pit. Up above the shaft has collapsed, but the section between L5 and L6 was still clear. Johanna tied off her rope to a rock she'd obviously used before, clipped onto the rope and was one story down in seconds. I was a little awkward with only one hand, but if she could do it with only one good leg, then I could follow. We left the rope there. We weren't planning to be down there for long.

Somehow L6 seemed even darker, although I told myself that L5 was pitch black. It's impossible to be darker than that. But the air felt closer, the ceiling wasn't as high, and there were smells much fouler than coal.

"What's with the smell?" I asked Johanna. She was probably the only live person who had been on this level since the avalanche.

"Labs." It was a weird chemical smell, on top of the usual coal mine and death trap aromas. I pulled down my gas mask. Couldn't hurt. As Johanna pulled her mask down, her hands were slightly shaking. She'd never say so, but something down here was making her tense. "There's no resi units down here. Just some offices, then detention."

We made our way silently through the hall, passing a couple of skeletonized bodies. I wondered why they had died, apparently just running down the hall. Most bodies were found crushed under rock. No time to think about those unfortunate souls now. We needed to make sure we didn't join them in their tomb. We stepped through some puddles of water on the floor, but Johanna didn't seem fazed by them.

We passed the offices, then Johanna said "Detention. Don't look." Was she protecting me? I was tempted to go take a peek, mostly just to peeve her, but there was no time for that sort of thing. "Why?"

She shivered in response. "The cells are pretty full. They don't look like they went happy."

"You mean they starved?"

"No." She didn't say any more. Damn. Brighton's son was in there. I wondered if he was the only kid or if there were others.

Johanna stopped abruptly outside of a door. "Here. We need to go through here." Her shoulders clenched. She took a deep breath and willed them back down.

She must have used a door charge before, since the doorknob had already been blown off. I waited for her to open the door. When she didn't I reached around her and pushed it open.

Then I knew why she was acting so strangely.

It was an interrogation room. Like the ones we had both been in in the Capitol, although she'd spent a lot more time there than I did. Same bright white paint, but here most of it was covered with some sort of smoky residue. Same metal table, restraints included, in the middle of the room. Same gray floor, wet with dank water. My heart sped up and I forced myself to swallow.

"Come on," I said, but she gave a barely perceptible shake of her head and stayed frozen. "You coming?" This time she turned and limped briskly back down the hall.

I followed her. "Johanna, what's wrong?

"Can't do it," she said in a brittle voice.

"You've done this before, in the block. It won't take long. You can do it."

She gave another tiny shake of her head. "At the block. They didn't understand. It wasn't the same. They made me walk over live wires, but that wasn't the same. I didn't care."

"It's the water, isn't it?" I remembered Katniss telling me about her fear of water. "There isn't much of it."

"But it's just the same. Just like . . . after they . . . just a thin layer of water left after, on the floor. I thought they were done. And then they zapped me with it, again." Her breath was rapid as she stared off into the darkness. Her arms were crossed and I could see her nails digging into her own skin.

"Come on. We'll take it slow. You can do this."

She squatted down and began rocking back and forth, her eyes clenched. By now I could hear her breathing, coming fast and shallow. My words were just making her worse. She hated pity. The water was getting to her bad enough that instead of snapping at me when I tried to help her she was shutting down. That wasn't the Johanna I knew.

I needed to think of something. We didn't have much time and I needed her help. Plus, if she really lost it - if she panicked and started running down here - that would be a nightmare. I needed to try something different.

"Johanna," I barked and I pushed her, hard enough that she fell over from her squatting position. "We don't have time for this garbage."

She sat on the floor staring at me, then her eyes snapped with anger.

"What the . . . you jerk." That was better. That was Johanna. But she still wasn't on her feet.

"I don't have time for all of your weak female stuff. Pull yourself together."

"I saved your damn life, Pretty Boy. I'm not the weak female here."

"Then quit your whining and let's go."

She got to her feet, glaring at me, but then her eyes began to dart around, looking for a way out. Not good. She needed to be too mad to think, too mad to be scared. I took my pistol out of the holster. "You watch this. I am taking the first round out and putting in a rubber bullet. It won't kill you, but it will hurt like hell. The second one stays in. It will kill you. You march in there right now or I will shoot you."

I'd kept my gun aimed down, but she grabbed it by the barrel and forced it towards the floor. "You frickin' creep! Don't even think about pointing that gun at me. I'm not trading my first round out for a rubber one. You put that thing back in your holster and keep it there or we'll have a quick draw contest and you'll be going upstairs in a box." She grabbed her pack from the floor, slung it onto her back, and stomped toward the interrogation room. She slammed the door open. It made an echoing metal clank as it hit the wall behind it. Johanna was across the wet floor before I could catch up to her.

She didn't pause as she rushed through a lab with several white-coated skeletons on the floor. The noxious smell made me pull my gas mask down, but Johanna kept going. Either the air wasn't poisonous or she was too mad to breathe. Either way worked.

It was nice when we could get along, but it wasn't necessary. She wanted to get the president and my squad out of here as much as I did. And she wasn't going to shoot me any more than I was going to shoot her.

The adjoining room was some kind of storage room. The shelves were full of nearly spherical metal shapes. Bombs? I wondered. No, unexploded pods.

This room was more dangerous than the armory. One of the metal cases was open on the floor. Whatever had been in it was gone now. Maybe it had killed the scientists in the next room. I tried not to wonder whether any of them were filled with chemical death that would eventually eat through the metal casing.

Johanna was walking more softly now. She knew how dangerous this stuff was. Once we were out the door on the other side of the room, I shut it behind us. I let out a breath I hadn't meant to be holding when I heard the 'cush' of the door's airtight seal. We'd need to go back through later, but I felt better with that door closed.

Johanna slid to the floor and started rubbing her ankle. All of her stomping must have hurt. She activated an ice pack from her bag and I went to look for the vent. I found the furnace room without too much trouble. I was glad it wasn't locked. It would be better not to use any door charges near that storage room.

The vent shaft was there. I almost cheered out loud. I aimed my flashlight up into it, to the side of one of the fans. It was clear as far as I could see, probably 4 floors or so. There were huge fans between each level which we would have to take out as we went. As I tried to get a better look at the closest fan to decide what tools we would need, I felt a rumble somewhere far off in the Nut. We would have to wait a bit to find out if that was Mercurius and whether he had gotten them out.

I went out of the furnace room. "The vent looks good. We'll need some bolt cutters, screwdrivers, duct tape, rope . . ." I was thinking out loud and pulling things out of my pack. Johanna didn't answer. I pulled the map of L6 out of my bag to see if there was a way around that storage room. The more people who tromped through there, the more likely something would go off.

Hell's teeth. The room wasn't even on the map and there was no way around it.

Johanna's wrist flashed. Her hand flew to her ear and I could tell she'd been as anxious as I was to hear from them.

"They're out. On their way. They want us to meet them by the elevator shaft. If we shine our lights up through it, it'll be easier for them to find."

"Do you want to wait here?" I asked.

"Of course not," she snapped, as though there was no reason to think she might not want to go back through the interrogation room, not once but twice. And when we got there, she didn't even hesitate. Was she still mad? Or had she realized it was easier if you didn't give yourself time to think?

Johanna kept up the world's fastest limp as we went past the detention cells. "By the way, Merc says the President wants to have a little conference once they are all down here. He thinks she's going to deal with her bodyguards, you know Tweedle Mean and Tweedle Mum."

"What's she going to do? Is one of them the snake?"

"He doesn't know. But he wants you and Redstone to keep an eye on Tweedle Mean, that's the lady. I'll help him watch Tweedle Mum. We have them outnumbered. We're not going to let either one of them pull anything."

"Fine. But by this time they'll be getting desperate."

"I know. Do you have 'cuffs with you?"

"No."

She handed me a pair of handcuffs from her belt. I pocketed the key.

"Be ready to use them."

As always – IrishLuck19's help is amazing. Always the perfect comments.

BTW – I've revised the Prologue. It gets so many hits and it was just weak.

Thanks for reading and reviewing: GirL0vesDoom, zebrapirate, Smileyface Devil, Howlynn, Harryfan626, EchoDeltaNine, cattastrophies, haymarkers54, NotYourAuthor(I'm blushing after your enthusiastic review), Heart the Squid, KidsInLovex, Solaryllis, GaleKatniss, April 25, Ripred the Gnawer, alwayssmile8, XanimexotakuX, Daydreaming Viking Girl, WisdomGoddess26, iluvdinos and tina.