16. Dallas
DALLAS
The sound of metal raking against metal screeched its notes across the room as I reached my hand up. One fist through that ductwork was all it took for me to get a grasp on it. But feeling it digging into my skin as I ripped out the first chunk wasn’t very pleasant.
“Christ,” I hissed as I tossed it across the room.
“Come on, we gotta be faster than this,” Rat said as he hopped up and yanked a piece down for himself.
“And quieter,” Gauge whispered harshly.
I slowly panned my gaze over my shoulder. “Then, why don’t you put your big ass to work then?”
Gauge’s face fell flat as he reached over his head and wrapped his palm around the top of one of the cylindrical metal pipes that was haphazardly slapped together with some screws and some prayer.
He yanked downward, causing the metal to scream out in mercy as he shoved the entire piece of ductwork to the floor.
It unbolted from the ceiling. It concaved to his movements as he shoved it all the way to the floor.
And as joints popped and sheets of metal groaned, he dug the heel of his boot into it as he ground it into the ground.
All the while, staring at me.
“Better?” Gauge asked.
Rat cackled with delight as he scaled the wall. “Come on, assholes. Someone give me a shove in. I can push this ductwork back into the room now.”
With a nod of his head, Gauge walked over to Rat. Both of us dipped down and held out our hand, and I grunted as Rat slammed his boot down against my skin.
“On three,” Rat said.
“Three,” Gauge said as he lifted his hand.
“What the flying fuck!?” Rat exclaimed.
We both hoisted him up toward the ceiling before shoving him through that hole.
We heard him cursing up a storm as he plopped down to the floor, and then we damn near scrambled to get to the metal door.
My heart leapt into my throat. My hands sweat.
My eyes scaled the wall, looking for a countdown clock as Rat trudged around behind the wall.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“What?” Gauge asked as he stepped closer to the door. “What is it? What do you see?”
“This place is definitely rigged to blow,” Rat said.
“Don’t touch anything then,” I said curtly, “just tell us what you see.”
“Did you trip anything?” Gauge asked.
I hated how silent Rat always got before he responded to things. If there was any time to make noise, it was that moment. And I didn’t even care about getting caught if that bitch was still around.
All I gave a damn about was getting Rat and Gauge back safely.
“Not that I can see,” Rat finally said.
“Is there any way you can get us in there without tripping things?” Gauge asked.
“You sure that’s smart?” I asked.
Gauge waved me away like a petulant child, and I had half a mind to break all those stumpy ass fingers of his just for daring to shoo me away like that.
“It’s worth a shot,” Rat said as he came closer to the door we stood at, “but there’s a lot back here. A bunch of fucking wires and shit. We needed to bring Plug for this.”
“Why?” Gauge asked.
“Just shut up and give me a second,” Rat hissed.
Gauge drew in a curt breath, but I placed my hand on his upper arm.
I shook my head at him and he shrugged off my touch, and I had to shove my hands into my leather cut in order to keep from pounding him to dust. I didn’t know what the fuck crawled up his ass and died, but he needed to get his head in the game.
Getting Char back depended on it.
“All right, you guys ready?” Rat asked.
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Whenever you are,” Gauge said as he stepped back from the door.
The hissing sound greeted us with a pop and my entire body rooted itself to the floor.
My heart fell to my toes and my vision tunneled as Gauge walked through the threshold.
Everything fell silent. Even the rushing of blood through my ears was nonexistent as I crept around the corner and peeked into the hidden room behind the shining metal wrapping paper.
And as I cased the walls around me, with everyone’s voices murmuring like that teacher bitch in Charlie Brown, I kept searching for that clock.
For that countdown.
For the inevitability of our death.
You’ve gotta shake it off, Dallas. Come on, man.
“You gonna get over here or what?” Rat asked.
I whipped toward his voice. “What’s up?”
Gauge swirled his finger around, causing me to take a harder look at the room around me.
Rat wasn’t kidding, either. We really needed Plug for this venture.
There were at least six different computer screens, all with different pictures on them.
Keyboards abounded everywhere, with all sorts of wires taped to the walls to keep them out of the way.
“No wonder the air conditioning unit down here works double time,” Rat said.
“It’s like Plug’s dream home in here,” Gauge murmured.
I reached down and toggled a lone mouse that caught my eye. It was clear, with all of the inner workings on display. Of course, a woman like Marcie would enjoy something like that. Like a goddamn science project, out on display for her eyes to see.
I wondered if that’s how she saw us.
Something to pick apart just so she could look inside.
“You find something, Dallas?” Rat asked.
The screen that lit up to my left caught my eye. “I don’t know yet.”
“Well, let us know if you do,” Gauge said as he brushed past me.
My jaw dropped when recognition washed over me. “Holy fuck, you guys. Get over here.”
“What?” Rat asked as he scooted toward me. “What’d you find?”
“What is it?” Gauge asked as he magically appeared over my shoulder.
But, when they both fell silent, I knew they saw it. I knew they recognized it.
“That’s our fucking meet-up spot,” Gauge snarled.
“That’s Mount Dust,” Rat said.
I raked my hands down my face. “She’s had eyes on us the whole goddamn time.”
Rat ripped away from me. “Toggle every mouse that you can. Quickly.”
Remember when I said there were six screens?
Yeah, there were six screens that I originally pinpointed because the other ones were fucking black screens.
Every mouse we touched, another screen lit up.
Another keyboard came to life with its backlights.
Another fan whirred as its contents heated up.
The air conditioning system kicked in overhead with a roar, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out my fears as my eyes darted to every screen that managed to turn back on.
God fucking damn it, we finally found her homebase.
“Oh. My. God,” Rat murmured.
“This is it. It has to be,” Gauge whispered.
My gaze darted between all of the pictures before a grin crept across my face. “This is where all of those little black cameras fed back to.”
Gauge shook his head. “We’re a good forty-five minutes outside of town, though. That’s a hell of a fucking distance to be transmitting information from those tiny things.”
Rat sighed heavily. “She’s got a fuckton of equipment in here, though. There’s no telling what she’s rigged together for herself.”
“That generates a fuckton of power, though,” I said.
Gauge looked over at me. “So where is she pulling the power from?”
I pointed at him. “Bingo.”
Gauge grabbed Rat’s wrist. “Come with me. Dallas?”
“I know, I know,” I said as I turned back to all of the electronics. “Stay here and keep poking around.”
“You can let me go now,” Rat said flatly.
Gauge didn’t listen, though. “Be back in a bit!”
As Gauge yanked Rat out of the room, I cracked my knuckles and tried to think like Plug. If he were the one staring at all of that shit except for me, what would he do?
He’d start by checking the desktops.
One by one, I minimized the pictures until I was on the main screen for every screen.
The blue background blinded me with its bright lights, but it enabled me to see something that I missed.
There far in the right-hand corner of the caddy-cornered position where she had all of those screens was a lone computer screen that didn’t light up yet.
Just a blank square, sitting off to the side like I wouldn’t notice.
I almost didn’t, had I not torn myself away from the pictures long enough to restart my train of thought.
I walked over and touched things until the screen came to life.
“Gotcha,” I whispered.
Disappointment caught me off-guard when I found nothing but the main desktop interface staring back at me with its bright blue background.
That was until the clock at the corner of my screen caught my eye.
The clock was changed to military time, and for whatever reason, I checked the other screens to make sure those clocks were military time as well.
What I found, however, was that all of the timestamps matched, except the one I just found.
I reached my finger out and pressed the escape key.
All of the blood drained from my face.
“Gaaaaaaaauge!” I bellowed as I whipped toward the door. “You and Rat gotta come see this!”
I only heard one set of footsteps rushing back to me, though, before Rat poked his head in.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.
I shot him a look. “Where the fuck is Gauge?”
Rat furrowed his brow as he stepped back into the room. “He needs a second. We just found the solar panels this bitch is using to power this place. He’s fucking them up.”
I turned back to the screen. “Get over here.”
And when Rat came to stand just over my shoulder, the growl that reverberated from him pulled one from my own throat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he snarled.
I heard bits and pieces of metal falling to the floor in the distance before Gauge stormed back into the room.
“What?” he asked hotly.
I turned around and looked down at the wires and hardware still clenched in his palms. The tighter he gripped, the more they cracked, until he released the contents from his hands.
It clattered to the floor, bouncing all over his boots before finding their death on the concrete floor, just like I hoped to do to that useless little bitch who took our comrade from us.
Then he peered over my shoulder. “My God.”
Rat scoffed as he turned around. “Yeah.”