Xeno Xoo Lost Chapter 8: The Tunnel Metaphor

“Are you sure about this?” Geddy asked.

Denk had donned his father’s old warden uniform. They were red, he explained, because it was believed that the crypsids couldn’t distinguish the color, making it a layer of visual camouflage on top of QP, the chemical one. Either it added a few years to his appearance or Geddy had finally come to see him as a man.

“It’s not a big deal.”

The whole crew — indeed, most of the city — had some to see Denk and Chief Dewhold off. Two fans about half their size had been procured along with batteries that would keep them running for a few hours — more than enough time, Krezek said, to spread the pheromone’s scent through the web of new tunnels encircling the city.

Krezek had labored all day and all night in Randhra’s crude facilities to produce ten milliliters of the distress pheromone, which was sealed tightly inside a special explosive canister to be carried by Chief Dewhold. Once they arrived at the myre, a twenty-minute hike through the warden tunnel, they would place the fans and the canister near the myre and hoof it back through the wardengate. Both the fans and the canister would then be activated remotely, and a system of cameras up and down the tunnel would verify whether it worked.

Geddy surveyed the sizable crowd gathered around the gate and flared his eyebrows. “Yeah, doesn’t look like a big deal at all.”

Denk gave his lower back a reassuring pat. “It’ll be fine, Cap. C’mon, I’ll show you guys the gatehouse.”

The crowd parted to let them through. Murmurs of gratitude and remarks about bravery percolated down the gauntlet of Durandians, which included many faces they’d seen at the Ministry meeting two days prior.

The gatehouse was a small command center to the left of the wardengate. The door was already open, Denk having insisted that Geddy and the crew be allowed to watch the operation from there. Because Chief Dewhold was going, the command fell, most unfortunately, to Ingo. When Denk entered the small metal building — one of the few things in the city not hewn from stone — Ingo turned from the large bank of screens to face him. Whereas the people outside wore looks of hope and encouragement, Ingo’s pinched face registered something more like derision and pity.

“I always suspected you had a screw loose, Junt,” he sneered. “This confirms it.”

Chief Dewhold stepped between them and puffed out his chest. “As many others have said, Deputy, this situation won’t be improved by you talking. Just do your damned job.”

Ingo’s face reddened, and he gave a thin-lipped, “Yes, sir.” He pivoted and retrieved two headsets from a table beside the console, then handed them to Chief and Denk. “Your comms.”

The headset included a small microphone, a side-mounted camera, and a tiny but powerful red light. As they donned them, the feed registered on two larger screens at the center of the bank.

While they ran through some diagnostic checks of the equipment, Geddy stepped forward to inspect the screens more closely. The crew formed a semicircle behind him, and they got their first good look at the warden tunnel.

It was a bit wider than tall, surprisingly symmetrical, and didn’t meander much. The bottom and sides were worn nearly smooth from decades, if not centuries of use. Most of the cameras showed it as empty, but occasionally, two or three of the diggers skittered past, so quickly you could barely tell what they were.

At the bottom middle of the bank of screens was a shot of what could only be the myre. Zigzagging layers of crypsid construction similar to honeycombs lined the walls of the cavern, which, as promised, resembled an inverted cone with a bowl shape at the bottom.

Geddy leaned in over the shoulder of a technician monitoring the cameras and pointed to an amorphous blob at the center, pulsing like a lung and surrounded by at least a dozen structures that resembled stubby pillars.

“Is that the queen?” Geddy asked.

“That’s her,” the technician replied.

“What’re those things around her?” Oz asked from behind.

“Those are what we call the elites. Sort of like the queen’s nurses. They’re dormant now because she’s not laying, but the smallest vibration in the myre would wake them up.”

“And she’s not laying because they think the myre’s threatened,” Oz said, and the technician nodded.

The camera was fairly high in the myre, probably right next to where the tunnel came in. A bit further down and directly across was a void in the glistening walls. Geddy pointed to it and asked, “Is that another tunnel?”

“That’s right.”

“Where does it go?”

He shook his head. “It’s never been mapped. We think it probably must eventually get to the surface for ventilation.”

Geddy shared a significant look with Oz. That’s where the Nads would get in. He half expected they’d already be there, so as grotesque as the queen was, he was happy to see her.

“Well, Cap, I guess this is it,” Denk said from behind him. “The warden tunnel’s as clear as it’s gonna get.”

He turned away from the screens to find Denk and Chief Dewhold were equipped and ready to go. The fans, which he suspected were spares from the Spine’s ventilation system, were strapped to their backs. They carried battery packs in one hand, leaving the other free to grab their blasters if needed.

Part of him wanted to forbid this, to take Denk’s place once again. But   this wasn’t his realm, and Denk had more than earned the right to take his own risks. Like a kid leaving home, all Geddy could do was watch and hope for the best.

“Don’t overstay your welcome,” Geddy managed.

Even with the outer gate safely closed, at least ten wardens formed a line in front of the wardengate in case something came through while the door was open. But the cameras showed it as clear, and when the locks were released, Denk and Dewhold slipped inside in seconds. The locks re-engaged, and the feed from their headsets flicked onscreen.

The bright, but small light of the headlamp didn’t throw as far as Geddy would’ve liked, but between them and the cameras along the tunnel, their progress down the tunnel was easy to follow.

Ingo adjusted his headset. “How’s everything looking in there?”

“It’s seen a lot of traffic, that’s for sure,” Dewhold said, pointing his camera at the bottom of the tunnel. Long, crisscrossing furrows in the gravelly dirt apparently meant that hundreds of spiny legs had crawled through it, and recently.

“Just keep moving.”

A faint click clack, almost like an old typewriter, came over the speaker, quickly growing louder.

“I think we’ve got company,” Denk said, his voice trembling.

If he was being honest with himself, Geddy wasn’t fully convinced about this pheromone business. Not exactly the first test of it he wanted to see, either.

On a nearby camera, four dark shapes blazed past. They appeared markedly larger than the diggers they’d seen earlier.

“We’ve got soldiers,” Ingo said.

On Denk’s feed, Dewhold’s arm shot out and grabbed his coveralls. “Don’t move.”

“I know!”

They pressed themselves against the side of the tunnel and froze. They were markedly larger than the diggers, with thick, spiny armor and forelegs that resembled folding black swords.

Geddy’s eyes peeled back wide and he turned to the crew, who looked equally worried.

Voprot, who was on all fours with his tail sticking out the back of the operations center, said. “Those look mean.”

“They’ll slice you in half soon as look at you,” Ingo said bitterly.

Denk’s breathing quickened as the soldiers neared their position. “Here they come,” he whispered.

The lead crypsid paused as it reached them and pivoted ninety degrees, its mandibles less than an arm’s length from Denk. Pulsing sacs on either side of its face puffed out, presumably testing the air. Oz sucked in a breath and grabbed Geddy’s arm.

But once it detected the queen’s scent, the soldier very suddenly pulled back like it was cowed, then kept moving quickly along the tunnel. The other crypsids gave them as wide a berth as possible.

Denk heaved a sigh of relief. “That was close.”

“Keep moving,” Ingo said.

The Chief turned back to Denk and smiled. “You okay, kiddo?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Three more groups of crypsids, two of soldiers and one of just diggers, passed them en route to the myre. None so much as paused. It was as though word had been passed to the others that Denk and Dewhold should be avoided entirely.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Geddy wouldn’t have believed that crypsid cologne could keep them safe, but it worked like a champ. The question now was whether Krezek’s new stuff would work as well.

“They’re almost to the myre,” Ingo said to the crew, then reactivated his headset. “Steady as she goes, guys.”

The ground in front of Dewhold’s headlamp, which had reached about five meters into the darkness, appeared to simply end. “Okay, we’re here.”

Both their cameras swung around wildly as they worked to undo the crude system of straps and hooks that carried the fans. They unrolled bundles of long spikes that would secure the fans in place, then Denk knelt and started pounding them in with a mallet.

“Keep an eye on the myre,” Ingo cautioned. “They’re not gonna love that vibration.”

While Denk pounded in the spikes, Dewhold peered over the edge. His headlamp didn’t light it up nearly so well as the night-vision camera nearby, but the queen was still pulsing slowly, and the elites were still arranged around her like a battlement.

The camera swung back and forth as the Chief shook his head. “They don’t even know we’re here.”

“All right,” Denk said, “the fan mounts are in. Let’s get that canister in place and get out of here.”

The two men fiddled with the brackets on the fans, which were meant to keep them from tipping or otherwise being knocked over. After a few minutes of muttering instructions to each other, they plugged each of the cables into the big batteries and secured them in place, as well.

Dewhold briefly turned away from Denk and back toward the myre. He withdrew a little plastic container from the pocket of his coveralls and a tool that looked like a putty knife, just like in the safety video.

“All right, Chief, hand me that … wait, whatcha doin’?” asked Denk.

“Hard part’s done,” said the chief. “We’ve earned the spoils.”

The Chief’s arms reached toward the gamat dripping down the wall, one holding the container and the other the knife. He scraped a thick wad of the stuff off and into the container it went.

Jeledine’s arm shot between Geddy and Oz, her shaking finger pointed at the feed from the myre camera. “Look.” A dim light emanated from the hole on the other side of the myre.

Ingo activated his mic. “Chief, something’s happening across from you. Can you see it?”

“What was that?” asked the Chief. “You’re garbled.”

“It’s the Zelnads,” Geddy mumbled.

“Chief, what are you seeing?”

“Get them out of there!”

Dewhold turned his head toward the light. It first pointed down at the queen, then swung up right at him, turning the entire frame white.

Startled, he gasped. “Wha … whooooaaa!”

“Chief!” Denk cried.

Chief’s feed became a blur, then jerked to a stop with a gut-wrenching thud, his headlamp settling on the glistening wall.

“Chief!” Denk yelled again, his breath quickening. The light across the myre swung down to where Dewhold lay then back up to Denk. “Oh, shit.”

Denk backpedaled, forgetting about the fans. He tripped over them and fell on his back just as a loud volley of blaster fire echoed across the myre, striking the tunnel all around him. Rock and debris filled his feed, and it didn’t stop. His panicked breathing, along with everything else, fell silent.