“You might want to sit down on the floor. No, on second thought, let’s keep your tailbones out of it. More of a squatting posture might be good.” Conor demonstrated by backing into a corner of the elevator within reach of the gutted control panel, then sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches.
Saskia was with T.R. in thinking it didn’t sound so bad, until the first time Conor touched two wires together and the motor came on. Then the bottom seemed to fall out of the lift and they dropped what seemed like a hundred meters in a fraction of a second. Then they stopped so hard she thought they must have smashed into something. To her embarrassment she let out a scream.
T.R. broke the silence that followed by saying, “Gotcha.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s like popping the clutch in a truck. Full power all at once.”
“Good analogy, sir.”
“How far did we drop?”
“I have no idea.” Conor, displaying admirably good knees and leg muscles, stood straight up and looked through the mesh wall of the lift, through which it was possible to see the shell hoist and much more routed-systems clutter choking the mine shaft. This was dimly, unevenly lit by emergency lights. He craned his neck and put his face close to the mesh so that he could peer upward. “Not that far,” he said.
But this could have been guessed anyway from the sound of gunfire echoing down the shaft. It sounded close. Saskia’s impression that they had dropped a hundred meters was totally wrong. Ten was more like it.
The gunfire wasn’t heavy. This was not a full-blown firefight. This was selective and it seemed to come from several directions.
“Shotguns,” T.R. pronounced them. “Our boys trying to take out drones.” He listened a little more. “That there was a pistol round.” He looked down at the others. “Much as it shames me to run from a fight, I do believe we should descend farther. You okay, Saskia?”
“Perfectly fine, thank you.”
“So why don’t let’s get comfy and you pop the clutch again and—”
“Sir?”
Conor had slid back down into his squat and was poised to touch two stripped wires together, which Saskia knew would lead to another drop. But he was looking at T.R. who had held up a hand to signal wait just a sec. T.R. had turned his face upward and opened his mouth. He was listening. So they all listened. Gunshots were still popping off here and there. But something very weird could now also be heard. It was a woman’s voice, electronically amplified, speaking calmly: “Place your weapons on the ground and lace your fingers together on top of your head. Proceed in the direction indicated by the green arrow.” Though they had to listen for a while to completely decipher it, the same announcement seemed to be emanating from multiple drones in different places at different times.
“Sounds like a fucking airport,” T.R. remarked. His eyes rotated down toward Saskia. “Would you call that an Indian accent? As in, from India?”
They all listened to a few more repetitions of the message.
“Definitely,” Saskia said.
“I concur, Your Royal Highness.” He looked at Conor. “Hit it.”
Conor had to “hit it” at least a dozen times before they got to the bottom. Toward the end he was just tapping the wires together for the briefest instant possible, producing a series of jolts that dropped them only a meter at a time. But he didn’t have to explain that this was preferable to slamming full-tilt into the bottom of the mine shaft. When they got to within about a meter of the Level Zero lift stop, all aboard wordlessly agreed that this was close enough, and that clambering down the rest of the way was preferable to the sickening lurch-drop-jolt of “popping the clutch.”
Conor did the thing that caused the door to open. They looked out into the side chamber at Level Zero, which Saskia had last seen the better part of a year ago, on the day the gun had first been fired. It looked the same, just a bit more lived-in. Conor climbed down to the floor and helped T.R. out. Both men then made a show of trying to help Saskia until she pointed out that they were merely getting in her way. Waiting for them was Jules.
Though partly obstructed by all manner of plumbing and mechanical equipment, the whole length of the shaft from here up to the surface was basically open. Air and light could filter up and down it, and sounds echoed down from above. At this distance they would no longer hear the Indian lady delivering her calm but firm instructions. Gunfire was audible, though. As before, that was sporadic. The shots seemed to come fewer and farther between as time went on.