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“Let’s move out.”
Sola hands him a pair of night-vision goggles and puts on a pair herself. The rest of the crew does the same thing.
“Where’s mine?” I say.
Wells takes something out of his pocket and hands it to me. A cheap plastic LED flashlight.
I say, “Gee. How does this work?” and shine it into his eyes for a second.
“What’s wrong with you?” he says, his voice just a notch below rage. “This is no time for your playing.”
“Sorry. I’m not used to this advanced Vigil technology.”
As Wells starts down the tracks he says, “Stay behind me. But close behind. Marshal Sola, make sure our pixie doesn’t flutter off.”
“Yes, sir,” she says.
Not far into the tunnels, the water rises to almost ankle depth. I guess monsoons weren’t high on the worst-case-scenarios list when they built the place.
I play the light ahead into the tunnel. I can’t see much of anything. The tops of the tracks. Bare concrete walls with occasional maintenance access doors. Long lines of metal conduits carrying power up and down the station.
“See anything interesting?” I say to Wells.
“Not much more than you, but we didn’t expect to see anything out here. We’re taking a spur line up ahead. Employees and maintenance personnel only. A line the public never sees.”
“Great. If you spot any Angra roadside-attraction signs let me know. I’ll pick up a pecan log and a belt buckle.”
Wells ignores me.
Sola whispers, “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Go out of your way to aggravate Wells?”
“I have to do something. I can’t bring my knitting along.”
“No. Seriously.”
“Wells agrees with Aelita a hundred percent about me. I’m an Abomination. A monster. So I give him what he wants.”
“Why don’t you try to show him you’re more than that?”
“Try to convince him I’m a good guy? That would scare him more than if I showed up like Kali with ten arms and wearing a belt of severed heads.”
Sola is quiet for a minute. Then she says, “I’m trying to see you as a serious person.”
“What do you care? Are you spying for him?”
“No. I told you before. Maybe we can work together when this is over. I can restart my PI service. But I need to know you’re someone I can depend on.”
“When this is over.” I never took Sola for that kind of optimist. But I guess anyone who goes out on her own and hangs out her detective shingle has to believe there’ll be something down the road.
“How’s this? I’ve saved this world more than once already. I have friends here and I’ll kill anything that walks, crawls, flies, or oozes out of the ground if it hurts one of them. I know God and the Devil and their worst secrets. I know how to pull the plug on this whole rotten world and I don’t do it. You know why?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know either some days. But I don’t do it and the only reason I think I’d ever do it would be to take down the Angra.”
