Page 89 of Elanie & the Empath
I barely caught myself from turning around to check.
He just shook his head.
“Well, I’m sorry,” I snapped, a little wounded by his recrimination. “It’s not every day you get to meet your idol.”
His eyes rolled. “You Portisans are so sensitive.”
I bristled. “Sensitive, huh? Try being an empath for five seconds and see how ‘sensitive’ it makes you.”
“Fine,” he said, backing down a hair. “If either of us survives the day, I’ll tell you my entire tale of woe. But the odds of that are vanishingly small.”
“That’s heartening,” I muttered.
“Pay attention, Portisan.” He snapped his fingers in my face. “Tonight, after everyone on day shift has fallen asleep, you will leave your post and enter the pipe at the third junction after the pumps.”
“Tonight?” Dread dug its claws into me. “Can’t we talk about this a bit more? Do some practice runs?”
“At the third junction,” Maximus continued, ignoring me completely. “There is a lever, right behind the pipe. When you pull the lever, the water will shut off for sixty seconds.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I installed it.” He winked. “Like I said, I’ve been waiting for you. You’ll have one minute to climb into the pipe and close the hatch before the water flows again. The pipe leads to a cistern just under the surface. You will swim like your life depends on it.” His grin was chilling. “Because it does. When you reach the cistern, you’ll be out of breath,and it will be very dark. You will panic. You’ll think you’ve lost your way.”
“Remember when I said I didn’t want to die?”
“You must keep your head,” he went on. “Swim hard to the surface, reach out with your hands, feel around. You will eventually find a latch. It may be rusty. It may not want to turn?—”
“Rusty?” I raised my hands. “I’m not doing this.”
“You must! Whether you like it or not, you are our only hope. Once you find the old, rusty, brittle latch, turn it as hard as you can. It may be so rusty that it breaks off in your hand.”
“What?” I barked. My head was shaking, palms sweating.
He reached for me, fisting my shirt, jerking me so close that our noses touched. “Listen to me. If the latch breaks off, you will need to punch and kick and force the hatch open. Do not give up. The hatch will give.”
Terror gripped me. “Have you ever tried to punch or kick underwater? Can’t I just bring a wrench with me? Or a hammer?”
Releasing me with a disgruntled shove, Maximus sneered, “Of course not. The weight will slow you down. You shouldn’t even wear clothes. And you should probably cut your hair before you go if you want to live.”
I ran a hand instinctively through my beloved hair. But the old man had a point. “What do I do once I”—I couldn’t even believe I was saying this—“punchthrough the hatch?”
“Once you get to the surface, you’ll need to find a gen-1 up there named Mal.”
“Mal? I know him.”
“Stars be praised!” Maximus clapped his hands together softly. “You’re not entirely useless after all.”
I pouted. Literally. Like a child. Until Maximus said, “Mal knows about the underground.”
“Mal knows?” My chest cinched tight. “He knows about us down here?” Did he know that I was here? “And he does nothing about it?”
“Do not judge him, Portisan,” Maximus bit out. “Mal has his reasons for staying subservient to Gol. But he can be turned. You must convince him to come to the underground. He’s stronger than Gol, he just doesn’t know it. But I can show him. I just need two minutes with Mal, and this place will fold like the flimsy house of cards it is.” A thick, wet cough racked Maximus’s body. “If I don’t die first.”
“That cough doesn’t sound good.” My brow furrowed as I reached instinctively for the stethoscope that was no longer around my neck.
“Don’t I know it, boyo. That’s why I need you to get me out of here. Swim out tonight, find Mal, convince him to come down here and meet with me. I’ll do the rest.”
Realizing I was going to do it, I said, “This is actually insane.”
