"Rebecca! Rebecca! Ah, man, this is so not cool!" Doc called after his partner's running form. He tried going after her, but she was too fast, and so he decided to go get the others. Luckily they had heard him and were already headed his way.
"Soto, what's wrong? Where's Madsen?" Hauser demanded when they reached him. Doc pointed toward the mine and, huffing a bit, answered,
"She — Rebecca — she saw...something, and she, she ran after it. I think...it might have been...Tommy." Hauser and Lucy looked at each other, then Hauser started taking the same path Rebecca had, heading straight for the mine. Lucy and Doc followed, the former trying to match her pace so the latter wouldn't get left behind.
Someone — an off-duty tour guide, or other some such official, perhaps — noticed Hauser and tried to stop him (never mind Rebecca had just done the same thing and hadn't gotten caught), running up to him and grabbing onto the agent's arm.
"Sir, you can't go in there!" the man informed Hauser. Hauser frowned and flashed his badge, but the official wasn't impressed.
"It's potentially unstable right now," he insisted. "We just discovered a lot of damage to the wood, and it's very unsafe!"
"Well, first off, I don't care," Hauser replied as Lucy and Doc snuck behind the official; they needed to find Rebecca and make sure she had enough back-up after all. "Second, a dangerous and wanted criminal is believed to be in there right now. And third," the agent pressed on despite the surprise and skepticism on the official's face, "I have an agent in there, and if it's as unstable as you say then we need to get her out. So excuse me." Hauser brushed by the other man and quickly caught up with the other two members of his team. Doc didn't like the way the overhead roof of the mine blocked out the sun. He could hear footsteps behind him as they descended; it was the official, stopping just outside the mine.
"I'm telling you, it's not safe! Get out of there! Stop!" But they were beyond the point of hearing him, and anyway, in that moment, there was suddenly a big Boom! which rocked the mine and caused Doc and Lucy to stumble into one another. Doc looked up, at first uncomprehendingly and then horrified as the cave of the mine collapsed right where they had been, sealing off the entrance — their only exit! — and whatever else the official might have tried to say.
Doc went over to the pile of wood that was in their way and, when his tongue finally started working again, started to moan. "Oh no, oh no, oh no! Why? Why couldn't we have just listened to that nice man who was only trying to help us?"
"Because your partner — and Tommy — are down here," Hauser replied, helping Lucy up. Doc sent him a withering glare as the agent took out a flashlight and shone it into the darkness that might just end up being their tomb.
"Yeah, well, why did they have to come running down here in the first place?" he muttered. Lucy sent him a smile — at least he thought she did; it was pretty dark down there.
"We'll be fine, Dr. Soto," she said soothingly, sticking close by to Hauser as they resumed their trek, walking carefully as they faithfully followed the yellow beam of light. "Come on, then. Or do you prefer to stay here?"
"No, no, I'm coming," he responded, scrambling after them. It wouldn't do to be separated here, in the dark with no way out as far as he could tell. The good people of Leadville would find a way to rescue them, he was sure, but that might take a while, and he still had a missing partner to find, after all.
...
Rebecca groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. What was that rumbling just now? An earthquake? A bomb explosion? She'd been in the middle of calling for her grandfather — "Come on, Tommy, I know you're here; why not show yourself?" — when she'd been tossed to the ground. She felt herself gingerly, checking for any worse injuries than she'd started out with. Nothing seemed too bad, though now she had a nasty headache and a small cut on the back of her leg that dripped blood down the limb, but that would close up in a little while.
She fished out her phone from her pocket which had, thankfully, survived her fall seemingly unscathed, and shone it into the darkness, turning the brightness all the way up. She wished she had brought a flashlight, but she hadn't thought she would need it until nightfall. Waving the beam around she saw nothing dangerous, but still no Tommy. She'd been right behind him; how could he have disappeared in so little time as if he was a shadow? Hadn't that earthquake-thing thrown him, too, or had he been behind it?
"Dammit, Tommy, come out! Where are you?" she shouted into the dark. Ugh, where was a lamp when she needed one? Even an old-fashioned oil lamp, or something to break up this darkness, would have been fine.
"Where do you think, Rebecca? In the dark." The detective whirled in the direction his voice had come from, frantically scanning with her phone light, but couldn't find him. Gritting her teeth, she continued on the path she'd been following before the shock, carefully following the light.
"So what, are you the Boogeyman or something?" she responded, a challenge in her voice. Where was he? Why couldn't she find him? Had he been here before, gotten a chance to discover nooks and crannies she couldn't even dream of?
She heard him laugh, farther up ahead. "No. Why? Do you have nightmares about me, Becky?"
"Don't you dare call me that," she snarled, pressing on, hand that wasn't holding the phone straying to her waist, where her gun waited patiently in its holster. "And of course not. Unconscious or not, there s no way I'd lose sleep thinking about you."
"Alright, alright," he replied, voice full of amusement. It made Rebecca feel like a mouse being played with by a cat, and she did not appreciate being his prey.
"Why don't you just come out? Too scared?" she prodded, hoping maybe to provoke him. No answer from him, just more chuckles. They sounded closer this time, though, and with renewed hope she rounded a corner, certain she would catch him soon. She brought her phone up, the light revealing little bits of the room at a time –
There he was. Her light had found his face, blue eyes blinking in disorientation at the brightness. Rebecca, too, blinked, somewhat startled to finally see him. He put up an arm to shield his eyes, and that hand, at least, was weaponless. But that couldn't be said for certain about the rest of his person so she whisked her gun out and, in a voice only a police officer or higher could use, demanded, "Hands up!" When he looked at her, startled, she growled "Now!" and he slowly raised both hands. He did not, however, erase the cocky smile on his face as he did so.
"Now, sweetheart," he said, tone carefree and almost happy. "Is that any way to greet your grandpa?"
"What did I tell you last time?" she said, moving closer and wishing she didn't have to hold the stupid phone in one hand so she had only one hand on her gun. "That I don't know you. You're not my family. You are nothing to me."
"Not nothing," he corrected. "If I was just a regular crook, you wouldn't care as much as you do. I mean something to you, Rebecca. And you can't deny that."
She gritted her teeth. He was right, but of course not in the strange demented way he thought. She was only so hell-bent on catching him because she wanted to get her justice, not because she cared he was the man who had fathered her dad.
"You know," she said, refusing to acknowledge what he had just said, "I'm surprised you let me catch you. What, get lonely down here in the dark all by yourself?"
His eyes — so like hers because they were hers — showed no fear or anger, only more of that irritating amusement. "Oh, so I 'let' you catch me? You mean you wouldn't have been able to find me all your own, Detective?" He laughed when she made hissing sound with her teeth. "Ah, but never mind. I guess you can't see it, considering you're keeping that obnoxious light on me."
"See what?" Rebecca asked warily. Tommy waved his one hand behind him, and despite herself, she found herself moving the light to see what he was indicating. Directly behind him — he was leaning on it, actually — was a wall of wood and rock, blocking off any exit. And it was the same to the right of him, and the left. Rebecca realized slowly that the shaking of the earth had caused part of mine to collapse, and that's why Tommy hadn't been able to continue on.
Well, that was fine. She would just go back the way she came. Just then she heard a noise. Straining, she realized it was her team, calling her name. Keeping her eyes, and gun, on Tommy, she called over her shoulder, "I'm here! Just keep coming straight and then go around the corner!"
"So your friends came after all," Tommy noticed. She ignored him. Finally Hauser rounded the bend first, then Lucy, and lastly, Doc. Hauser had a flashlight and Lucy had a phone light; when they saw Prisoner #2002's face in her own light, their lights, and gun in Hauser's case, immediately became trained on the fugitive.
"Well, hey, now, one light and one gun would suffice," Tommy complained.
"Shut up," Rebecca told him. Turning her head slightly in Hauser's direction, she continued, "So now we just head on back, right? Turn around a bring him in?"
"Yeah, well, there's a problem with that," Doc said. Rebecca frowned.
"What do you mean?" she asked warily.
"It means the exit has been blocked by rocks and wood," Hauser answered. "We can't get out that way, and since it seems we can't go this way either...we're trapped." Rebecca blinked as she let that sink in. Trapped? No exit? What were they supposed to do? Her grip on her gun tightened as she tried to calm herself.
"Well," Tommy said, looking at them all and grinning. "All of us, down here, together. Won't this be fun?"