anders/book-1/5.tex

\chapter{5}

Nick didn't make a sound. For an elongated second he stood there motionless, then he slowly raised his arm and unbelievably examined the smoking stump that was right above where his elbow used to be. He took a staggering step, turned around to face Andrew and tipped over the edge without a sound.

Andrew stood there, paralyzed. He felt \dots nothing. No horror, no shock, not even pain or fear. He had seen what had happened, and a part of him made it mercilessly clear that Nick was dead --- but somehow this realization didn't get through to his consciousness. Nick was dead and now he would die too; But all of that didn't seem to matter anymore, as if it were something that were happening to someone else, someone who's fate he could follow from afar.

Slowly he raised his head and looked at the helicopter. The enormous machine had gotten closer again and the nose that reminded him of a shark's mouth pivoted in the same moment that the pilot made one final adjustment to force him into the perfect position. 


Andrew was close enough to the helicopter now that he could discern the pilots in the dimly lit cockpit. He could see the pilot stretching out his hand and braced himself for the terrible, but surely short pain that the blue lightning would hit him with. But in that moment something very strange happened: The second man in the cockpit made a quick movement to hold back the other pilot with one hand and pointed at Andrew with the other. These two also wore HAZMAT suits with mirrored visors, but Andrew believed he could feel their piercing gaze.

Suddenly the Helicopter silently tipped to the side and disappeared.

One second later two things happened at the same time: The door of the bulkhead flew off its hinges with a loud bang and the paralyzation finally wore off. With an immense pang he grasped what had just happened. That they had just killed Nick in front of him. The pain attacked him without warning and clawed itself to the depths of his soul. But he also saw three mummified figures storm through the broken door, running in his direction, and at that moment his survival instinct proved to be stronger than anger and sorrow. He turned on his heel and ran away as fast as he could.

There weren't very many places to hide. A good fourth of the roof was already bordered with flames. Andrew couldn't tell if the ground below his feet was still vibrating, but he could feel it getting hot. The whole building was going to be engulfed in flames, and that would happen in only a few minutes.

A blue bolt of lightning raced past him, vapourizing part of the parapet. Andrew veered left towards the collection of ventilation shafts, a more than pathetic cover --- strictly speaking it wasn't cover at all ---, but it was all he had. At least it would make it harder for his pursuers to hit him, and maybe there was another fire ladder over there that he could escape down.

Two more blue lightning bolts impacted the ground precisely one meter away from him on each side, and Andrew's careful ease was replaced with dull rage. Maybe the miracle that he attributed his survival to was more sinister than he had thought. Maybe they just wanted to play with their prey as revenge for the death of their colleague.

In spite of this he ran faster, limping in a zig zag between the ventilation shafts and made a grimace when one of the metal pipes was hit, bursting into thousands of tiny bits of molten metal that rained down on him. Just a moment later he reached the parapet and almost yelled out of disappointment. There was a second fire ladder, but it only had three rungs that ended in the middle of nothing.

Desperately Andrew looked around for any other escape route. There wasn't one. The three men were maybe twenty steps away from him and were slowly closing in. They hadn't just stopped shooting, they had also lowered their weapons; one of them had even hung his rifle over his shoulder. They were probably just panning on tossing him over the edge or break his legs so he couldn't move and then let him burn alive, Andrew thought.

Something rattled. Barely a meter away from him one of the covers on the side of a ventilation shaft fell to the ground and a hand appeared in the square opening, frantically waving at him.

Andrew didn't think any further of it --- there wasn't any time ---, he acted. With a single step he was at the hatch and squeezed his way through. Something moved in front of him in the darkness and he heard a series of rumbling sounds that perpetuated as [decreasing in volume] echoes in the deep. But he also heard other sounds: Stomping, heavy steps that were rapidly approaching.

He shoved the last doubts aside and crawled after the shadow that had lured him into the shaft. It was almost pitch black in there so he could only hear the scurrying in front of him; but whoever it was was moving with impressive speed and agility. Even without his injured knee Andrew wouldn't have had a chance to keep up.

Behind him the sound of squealing metal that was being torn apart with brutal strength filled the shaft. Andrew didn't stop, instead trying to go faster. He turned his head to look back and saw that one of the men had torn the end of the shaft apart and was staring in at him. This was irrevocably the end. The shaft was too small for them to follow him in their big HAZMAT suits, but it also made it impossible for them to miss him. He just had to raise his weapon and aim in his approximate direction and he \textit{couldn't} miss.

But he didn't do it this time either. He just stood there and stared at Andrew through his mirrored visor.

Andrew turned back around. His leader had suddenly disappeared, and before he even had a chance to be startled, the same went for the floor beneath his hands. Andrew gasped from the surprise and tried grabbing at anything within reach, but it was too late. He tipped forward and slid head first into the depths.

Thank god the shaft didn't end in a sharp corner, and the frantic sleigh ride didn't last to long either. Andrew carried out an involuntary roller-coaster and impacted six or seven meters further down; with a thud that sounded like the entire building around him wanted to collapse, but without injuring itself. He laid there motionless for a moment, then he righted himself and promptly hit his head on the low ceiling of the air shaft.

A quiet laugh rang out. Andrew blinked, carefully righting himself a second time and turning his head in the direction from which he heard the voice. It was almost completely dark in here so that he only saw a shadow, but the voice had sounded fairly high; and very young.

``Did you hurt yourself?''

``Not really'', answered Andrew. ``Who are you?''

``Later.'' The shadow moved around with a rustle. ``Come on. We need to get out.''

His first guess must have been correct. The voice of a child, possibly a teenager that was significantly younger than him.

Either way, the voice was that of someone that was right. They needed to get out of here, as soon as possible. The air smelled burnt and it was noticeably warmer here than it should be. The building was on fire. And there were still the pursuers. Even if they hadn't followed him in here they could easily shoot the buildings to pieces with their helicopter whenever they wanted.

``Watch out!'', the voice of his hero rang out in front of him. ``It goes down again.''

The warning didn't make it any better. He wasn't surprised this time, but the sliding didn't get any less uncomfortable and it lasted significantly longer than the first. The impact was correspondingly harder and the following rattling and droning was probably audible in the whole building.

Andrew hastily righted himself and saw something that \textit{really} scared him: The darkness had given way do a dusky red light that was coming from the bottom end of the shaft. It had gotten warmer.

``The building's on fire'', he said. ``Are we gonna get through?''

``Its there or not at all'', his hero answered. `` And if we wait longer, definitely not. Can you keep going?''

Andrew nodded. He still couldn't identify his counterpart, only that he seemed to be very slender and very pale. Without waiting for another answer the figure turned around and crawled away with astounding agility. The shaft led another fifteen or twenty meters straight ahead and went down at an angle again. As Andrew stopped to look into the depths, his breath caught in his throat.

Below them roared hell. A piece of the side wall had broken away and red fire light and flames licked into the shaft. Andrew couldn't tell if the metal down there was really glowing red or if the fire was just reflecting off the side of the shaft. The heat touched his face like a warm uncomfortably dry hand, and the smell of burning was so strong that he had trouble breathing.

``Come on!''

Andrew noticed way too late that the light would have also given him a great chance to look at his hero more closely. They only hesitated for a split second before pushing off the edge towards the flames with their hands protecting their face. Andrew only got a fleeting glimpse of brown tattered cloth pants, bare feet and flowing long hair of unidentifiably colored hair. He collected all of the courage together that he had and pushed off as well.

It was only a couple seconds long, but it was hell. Andrew closed his eyes and instinctively held his breath, only following the example of his hero to put his hands in front of his face at the very last moment.

He felt like he was sliding across a glowing stove. It was definitely not just the reflection of the flames that he had seen earlier. Even with his hands in front of his face he believed to feel the fire licking the skin off his face; and the only reason he didn't scream was because he was scared that the burning air would singe his lungs.

It was finally over. He crashed into --- this time with ferocious force ---, slid another five or six meters and almost instinctively felt the danger. Without exactly knowing why, he stretched his arms out as far as they went and held on to the first thing that he could grab. A fraction of a second later his legs were dangling freely over an abyss that could have been one or one hundred meters deep.

A brutal jolt went through his wrists and perpetuated as a wave of smaller continually repeating explosions of pain all the way to his shoulders. Andrew wheezed, but continued to hold on tightly and floundered uselessly with his legs as if he were treading water.

``Jump!'', a voice urged from below.

``Let go! It's not that far!''

Andrew was in such a panic that he didn't even dare to look down, but he didn't have any other choice than to listen to the advice of his hero. His strength wasn't enough for him to hold on any longer. He jumped.


\textit{Not deep} in this case meant a jump from a good four or five meters. He bounced off the ground and instinctively  rolled off his shoulder. He didn't pull it off anywhere close to as well as he had hoped, and his plunge was abruptly stopped by something equally hard and edgy. He lay there a moment, waiting hopelessly for the pounding in his knee to stop, and saw a narrow face framed with straggly hair over him when he opened his eyes.

``Everything okay?''

``No'', moaned Andrew. ``But I'm still alive. Thanks.''

Carefully he lifted himself up and looked around. It was almost grotesque: they were back in the hall where his and Jakes escape had started. Directly above him --- at least five or six meters above him! --- a burst air duct of burnt-out metal ran along the ceiling. \textit{Not far?} It was a miracle that his jump from that height didn't break all the bones in his body!

Andrew experienced a second miracle when he tried standing up. It worked. His leg hurt and he couldn't exactly stand, instead forced to an absurdly slanted posture like an old seaman that had leaned against the wind that had only come from one his whole life. Be he could stand, and if he didn't over do it he could probably also run.

For the first time he could actually look at his hero more closely. He was wrong at at least one thing: it was not a hero, but rather a hero\textit{ine}. A dark-haired girl that was roughly his age, but a good head shorter than him and would have definitely been pretty if she weighed twenty more kilos; or maybe thirty. Her sunken cheeks, the deep eyes and her bony hands destroyed this impression thoroughly. The girl was half starved, and the dirty clothing that seemed to be made mostly of lumps only emphasized this. Nevertheless he swallowed all the questions that lay on the tip of his tongue and forced himself to an unsuccessful smile.

``My name is Andrew'', he said. ``I'd guess you saved my life. Thanks.''

``Katt'', the girl said.

``Katt?'' Andrew blinked confused.

``My name'', she explained. ``My name is Katt. And if you want to live a little longer, we should disappear from here.''

An unusual name, thought Andrew, but Katt was also an pretty unusual girl. And either way she was right, they needed to get out of here. The building above them was still on fire and it had gotten significantly warmer down here. After the firestorm that had been hot enough to melt the glass, Andrew couldn't imaging that there  was anything left to burn here. But apparently the flames found enough fuel to burn. Maybe it was because of the strange weapons that the shark had started the fire with.

He nodded. Katt was about to turn around and march on, but at that moment a glaringly bright light lit up that plunged the entire hall in an almost painful brightness. Andrew protectively tore his hands in front of his face, and the girl with the unusual name also pressed her eyes shut and instinctively pulled her head in.

This time it wasn't just a single spotlight that was feeling in through the window. All of the windows and also the open door were filled with blazing white light that was so bright that the half dozen black mantled figures that came storming to the building were as ice cubes under a heat lamp.

Katt shrieked and whirled around, with Andrew instinctively following her moves. It there were anyone who knew how to get out of here it would be the girl.

They ran as fast as they could to the other end of the hall and then Katt had suddenly disappeared. Andrew stumbled on for a few more steps and would have almost fallen again; right in front of him where he expected there to be more floor was a steeply descending set of stairs. Katt was now only a blurry shadow somewhere at its lower end.

Andrew quickly grabbed for the bent railing and used his momentum to skip the first couple of steps as he stormed downwards. Before he sank below ground level he looked back at the entrance. At that very moment one by one his sinister pursuers rushed through the door into the hall. None of them had their weapons in their hands, but they didn't really need to. In spite of their plump looking exterior they moved with such speed that Andrew probably couldn't have kept up with them if he were well rested and unharmed --- and he was neither of those.

Katt had stopped at the lower end of the stairs and waited for him. In the looming twilight her face had turned back into a pale blotch with no sharp edges, but her nervousness was blatantly obvious. She fidgeted impatiently with her hands and whipped around as soon as he was next to her.

Andrew was completely out of breath, but Katt didn't make any effort to slow her tempo, instead hurrying along a few steps before stopping to look back at him impatiently. Even Andrew hastily looked over his shoulder a couple times, ready for men in black protective suits with frightful weapons to appear behind them, but curiously it didn't happen. Their pursuers had had plenty of time to catch up with them.

``Don't be scared'', said Katt suddenly. She had interpreted his looks correctly. ``They never come down here.''

``Really?'', Andrew asked out of breath. ``Then why are we running?''

``Because we shouldn't be here either'', Katt answered in a slightly surprised tone; as if he had asked the dumbest question imaginable. ``Its already way too late. Hurry up.''

Andrew tried, but his knee was impairing him so much that his tempo was only getting slower and slower. His gaunt leader reacted with visible impatience, but kept any comments to herself. Apparently she had noticed that he \textit{couldn't} go faster.

While he was fruitlessly attempting to keep up with his puzzling hero, he looked around for the first time; with about the same level of success. It was so dark that he could only recognize Katt as blurry silhouette even though she was only three steps ahead of him. And even if there were better lighting, there wouldn't have been much to see --- they were in a bare hallway made of naked concrete. Rusty pipes ran along the top of the wall and at regular intervals he saw open flaps in the walls with wires sticking out of them. However there was one difference between this tunnel and the stairwell up there: The burst lamps that hung from the ceiling at regular intervals weren't melted, and the walls were blackened but not burnt to a crisp. The heat must not have been as devastating down here.

``I haven't properly thanked you yet'', he said after a while.

``Yeah, you did'', answered Katt.

``Then I guess I'll do it again'', insisted Andrew. ``Why did you do it?''

Katt turned her head and looked back at him. Andrew could recognize her face even less than before, but he believed he could actually feel her confusion. She answered with a bit of hesitation at first and with the almost flippant tone in which you answer a known to be dumb answer to a dumb question. ``I felt like it.''

``You put yourself in mortal danger.'' Andrew stayed serious.

``Barely'', Katt answered. ``They've chased me lots of times before, but haven't ever caught me. Otherwise I wouldn't be here to save your neck.'' Her voice got quieter. ``They killed your friend.''

``Yes'', said Andrew. Suddenly he had trouble keeping back his tears. Of course he hadn't forgotten Nick, but Katt's words had freed his pain from its prison where his subconscious had locked it up. In a fraction of a second and against his will the whole scene played out again in his head, but with gruesome precision that didn't spare him even the smallest detail. He would never be able to forget the look in Nick's eyes when he turned around and plummeted into the depths.

``Yes'', he said again. ``But before he also got one of them.''

Katt abruptly stopped causing Andrew to run in to her, making them both stumble. With a start she turned around to him and stared at him.

``What?''

``He shot one of them.'', Andrew repeated. ``Or at least severely injured. And he would have gotten more of them if they had given him a fair chance. Nick was \dots'', he had to swallow to suppress the tears, ``\dots a good man.''

Andrew surprised himself with how coldly he talked about the death of a human. And it wasn't lightly said. He \textit{wished} in that moment that Nick could have shot more of the men in the black protective gear; if possible all of them. Even to them the life of a human wasn't worth anything. They had murdered Nick in cold blood and would have shot him in the back if they had had the chance. They had tried to often enough.

``You aren't being serious'', said Katt. ``You're just saying that to impress me.''

``What? That he shot one of them?'' Andrew shook his head. ``I'm just sorry it wasn't more.''

Katt looked at him with a piercing gaze. She tried to read his face to find out if he were lying, but seemed to arrive at a conclusion. Ultimately she stepped back, shaking her head. ``If that's true I'm not surprised that they're so mad.''

``Who are those people anyway?'', asked Andrew. ``You seem to know them pretty well.''

This time Katt's face didn't hide her doubts that he still had all his wits about him. ``You are a really odd guy, Andrew.'', she said. ``Where are you from?''

``From \dots far away.'' Andrew wasn't sure himself why, but he felt like it wouldn't have been a good idea to reveal the whole truth quite yet.

``That's what I thought'', Katt replied with a grin. ``But if you want to pull my leg, you really have to think of something better.'' And with that she abruptly turned around, storming off with such large steps that Andrew fell behind and lost sight of her within moments.