Conduits

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Somewhere Clara had dropped her junk torch. Maybe she left the torch back inside the closet where she'd dropped it originally when Roos pushed her!

Forward. Move forward. Phantom footsteps raced through Clara's mind, chasing her, keeping her from wasting time with things like finding her junk torch. Move forward.

She ran. Tink was her only light for guiding. That would do. The Nite's twinkling firefly light would have to do. Each of Clara's steps fell and squished in mud. But she did not trip, her boots provided enough traction. Tink's light illuminated the metal rails. The blue light made the metal tracks gleam as if the tunnels were above ground, open to night, the dark sky filled with stars and a bloated moon shining silver. She ran, placing each foot carefully on the boards that flowed between and underneath the dual rails, each plank sunk in the mud but providing Clara a solid surface.

Perhaps a minute into her run Clara realized she had no idea which way Tink had turned out of the maintenance closet. Left or right? She remembered approaching the closet with Roos, the door up on the platform and on her right side. That meant she and Roos had come from the left.

The tunnel walls on either side of Clara were twins with not a distinguishing mark she could recall from earlier. Clara cursed herself for not marking the way, leaving a trail. At this point, no telling which way she had come or was going. Was she running toward Roos and his surprise party? For all Clara knew Tink and she were heading toward the isolated city island in the middle of the flooded section of Nork, the place where Roos had promised the junk cache lay hidden. Either way presented problems. At one end she would trap herself in the middle of a body of water, no bridge to lead her off. The other way could find herself smacking her forehead against the very threat she was running from.

Her and Roos' footprints might help her discern the direction. Too bad she was moving at a dead run to keep up—barely—with Tink as the Nite traveled forward at a speed swifter than a shooting star. Several times Clara lost sight of the Nite as they came to a bend in the tunnel. Panic stabbed Clara worse than her shortness of breath when the darkness overtook Tink's light. Then Clara caught up with Tink in the straightaway and sighed as if a surgeon had drawn out the dagger from her chest.

Conduit and Nite continued down the tunnel. Arms pumping. Knees up. Inhalations growing shorter. A trail of Nite dust wafting always out of arm's reach, holding back the ever grasping fingers of the gloom.

Forward. Move for—

No! She needed to stop. To stop and think about what waited for her at each end of her choices.

Should she not have come across the hole the ceiling that lead up to the basement she and Roos used to get into the tunnel? If so, the rope dangling down from the hole should have whipped her in the face by now.

I need to stop. I need to stop before I run into trouble or trouble finds me.

Thinking about halting made Clara more aware of her ragged breathing, how much her legs burned with the effort of her run, the exhaustion hit her hard in the chest.

She began to slow the fatigue growing too much for Clara. As she did, Tink shot further ahead. Shadows reached for the tiring conduit.

Tired legs and short breaths pushed to the back of her consciousness, Clara pumped her arms more rapidly, kicked up her knees to her chest, and found an untapped burst of speed she used to pass the streaking blue light.

Having passed Tink and reached another curve in the tunnel, Clara threw up both hands to gesture halt. Her legs buckled, the sudden stop throwing her head forward to between her shaking knees.