Algorithm - Book 1 - The Medallion

Chapter 12

Tap. Tap, tap. A muffled sound was coming from above them, from the corrugated metal roof, signaling the arrival of an early evening shower.

A thunder claps punctuated the downpour. The calm waters of the lagoon boiled under the cold rain. Linda started to cry, holding her hands to her eyes. When she reached the shoreline, she collapsed to her knees and continued to wail. The soldier looked at her with disgust. With her head bowed low, she inched her way closer until she was out of his direct view. Between sobs, she reached for a baseball-sized stone trapped in a knotted set of roots. The soldier turned toward her just as she hid the stone beneath a flap of skirt. She glanced upward at him, and as their eyes met, started to bawl again. As she prostrated herself even lower, from the corner of her eye she saw that he had resumed his watch over her family coming to shore.

***

            "Hey! Don't be stupid!"

The voice was nearby. Adam's feet slammed into the metal teeth, kicking up a blinding cloud of black dust. He reached down to the toothed rollers with one foot and traced their conical shapes, trying to gauge the size of the opening between them.

            "Don't be such a jerk!  Here, reach up and grab my hand!"

            For a moment Adam considered the suggestion. He looked to the voice and saw the dim outline of the uniform hovering almost within arm's reach. Adam bent down and traced the shape of the corroded tips of the crusher's teeth with his fingers. With one leg through the opening, he twisted his body, trying to find a gap between the rollers. 

            "Give it up! You're stuck."

            Every movement Adam made wedged him in even more tightly.  If the rollers were to start turning, he'd come out looking like a thin slice of bloody Swiss cheese. He began to think that it might be better to give up when a high-pitched screech announced the movement of one of the rollers. It had shifted a few inches, enough to loosen up his leg. Through the widening gap he saw a chute descending from below the rollers.

He pushed both feet down between the teeth and through the newly opened gap and let himself slip through. An incomprehensible grumble spewed from above. For a moment, thoughts of a bottomless pit overwhelmed him. He descended along a grimy slide in a spiral curve, gaining speed, slipping through mottled streaks of twilight. He passed by the third floor and as the second whipped by, he fell through empty space. The chute was gone and before he could gather enough of his wits to formally enter a panic mode, he landed on the leeward side of a shallow coal pile, tumbling down its short slope and rolling onto the cement floor in a bruised and blackened heap. A thick cloud of choking dust and stones followed him down the chute.  Adam was down, in one piece. A string of curses descended from above as the uniform began a search for a safer way back through the broken gangways above. Adam stood on bruised and shaking legs, and brushed himself off when a figure approached from the shadows.

            "Are you okay?"

            It was Ben.

            "I think so. What happened to you?  Where's the guy that was chasing you?"