Back to top Chapter 7

It was cold, so cold all around. He could feel tingling in all of his extremities. It was not a pleasant feeling. As he gained consciousness he realized there was a draft. The draft was cold rushing over him. Then he realized he was laying down. He was on cement, cold cement. Then sounds started to come into focus. The wind blowing past him and water dripping in the distance.

Then there was a vibration in the cement. This brought Holster more fully back into a full functional state. His eyes opened and he looked around. He was back in the subway tunnel. And by the vibrations the subway was coming. Though he didn’t seem to be in any danger. He was well away from the tracks back in an alcove.

With an effort, he stood up and started looking around for Kipper. He was still knocked out a few feet away in the same alcove. He began to stir as the vibrations became more pronounced. Within moments he also was standing. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, the unspoken question of what went on between Mavaria and Kipper answered before it was asked. Kipper wouldn’t be saying anything.

Kipper was really trying to figure out if it had all been a dream. After all they were in the same tunnel in the same place. Maybe there was a gas leak and they had passed out. That didn’t seem very likely on second thought. But what were they to do now?

Kipper turned to Holster to ask this just as Holster started to explain what they should do next.

Hoslter’s idea was to find the nearest maintenance office, which this subway tunnel was bound to have at some point, and use the floor plans of the tunnels to figure out where the hostages were being taken. From there they could cut them off or figure out where they were all staying.

Convincing officials to let them see the floor plans would be an issue. But if Kipper could strike a deal with Mavaria he could probably talk his way into some floor plans.

That was a lot of ifs to deal with. Was there even a maintenance office down here? The only way to get find out was to start jogging down the tunnel, avoiding the oncoming subway as it passed.

The two of them kept jogging and jogging for another ten minutes before they saw another door in the side of the tunnel. When they tried it, the door was locked. So they jogged on eventually found an unlocked, unremarkable door.

Inside it appeared to be a storage closet of some kind. There were several shelves full of junk and various parts for maintaining the subway line and for some reason a leaf blower. To one side of what Holster was realizing was a rather large storage closet was a desk with a bunch of rolled up papers on it.

Holster and Kipper went over to the desk to take a look. This apparently little used or possibly completely forgotten storage closet had some back up hard copies of the entire subway tunnel. Perhaps the conversion to digital had prompted the move. It didn’t really matter, they had found what they were looking for.

They rolled started unrolling the various sheets and looking them over. It didn’t take long for either of them to realize they didn’t actually know how to effectively read a large floor plan of a subway. They studied it a bit longer and started to see how it worked. They could see the subway station where they had left, the approximate area where the subway had stopped and based on that where the access tunnel was that the hostages were taken into and where they were now.

Based on the blue prints they the tunnel with the hostages lead off to several more maintenance tunnel that formed a whole labyrinth work of access tunnels of varying sizes. There was on particular area that looked like it was under construction but never finished. Holster and Kipper both agreed that was probably where they were headed.

Neither Holster nor Kipper mentioned anything of Mavaria even though both of them were thinking about her constantly.

The next stop would be to decide what their next step would be. Kipper was sure the best course of action would be to simply follow the same tunnel until they came across the hostages then decide the best course of action from there. Holster thought they should figure out where they would all be likely headed next and sit and wait there to make a move.

In the end they decided to split up and do a little of both. It was unfortunate they didn’t have any kind of portable communications device, Holster thought. That would make communicating back and forth so much easier.

As if sensing some how what he was thinking Kipper turned to him and said, “there may be some things they did to us in that lab we don’t know about, Holster. That and we are capable of things we didn’t know we could do. I mean I was in an active participant in your dream after all. Let me, let try,” he stopped talk and stepped back a little ways.

Holster only stared, a strange look on his face, as Kipper tapped various parts of his face and ears in combination with movements of his jaw. It was like he was expecting to just randomly figure out how to communicate with him by facial expressions. Or possibly he was having a seizure. Holster wasn’t entirely sure by the looks of it.

This thought was starting to amuse him a little when he heard an electronic sound beep and a voice vaguely like that of Kipper’s. Holster and Kipper’s face both shrank to nothing immediately as they turned to stare at each other. Apparently they could some how communicate with each other.

“Kipper . . . how did you do that? What is going on here??” he asked.

“Well,” Kipper started, “it’s not like this is planned or something. I just thought maybe who ever those people were with Mavaria perhaps like all good lab people they decided to tag their lab rats. In this case some kind of sub-epidermal two way microphone and receiver running along our jaw bone directly to the inner ear. The implant is harmless probably. All you have to do to activate it is go like this.”

Kipper started open is mouth a few degrees and tapped the side of his jaw just in front of his ear and below his temple.

“That is how you activate it. Two more taps to the same place deactivates it again. I think it works both ways so we can talk over each other. But lets use the walky-talkie idea of saying over after our lines anyway?” Kipper explained.

“Ok, so you activate it like this,” Holster said imitating him, “and deactivate like this,” Holster said deactivating it again.

“Ya, you got it. Lets get moving.” Kipper said.

Holster and Kipper left the storage closet and closed the door behind them, not bothering to lock the door.

With a glance back the two of them took off in different directions. Kipper was headed back the way they had come, Holster the other way toward another access tunnel to wait for the cult members to make their move.  ¶ 8:03 PM