Chapter 134

“Stand back,” Mist told them, her voice calm and collected.
Rain wasn’t sure what her friend had in mind, but she had to trust her. Along with Walt and Adam, Rain retreated away from the door, all three of them going back further into the stairwell they’d just exited.
Rain couldn’t quite see what Mist was doing, but a few moments after she commanded them to get out of the way, she came running at them, full speed. Walt grabbed her in his arms and pulled her away as a ball of fire came shooting across the opening from the door to where the four friends stood huddled on the stairs.
They weren’t quite far enough away to avoid the singe of the explosion. Their uniforms were somewhat fireproof, but not entirely. Rain lifted her arm to cover her face as the sound of a bomb going off shook the floor and sent pieces of metal flying at them.
The shrapnel was small. None of the pieces that hit Rain penetrated her uniform. A few that hit her in the hands stung a little, but once the shaking was over, she lowered her arms and took a look around.
Smoke stung her eyes. Breathing in the dense air wasn’t easy. She tried not to cough because they didn’t need to draw any more attention to themselves, but they were all still standing. Walt had a small cut over his left eye. He didn’t even seem to notice.
They sprinted back over to the door to find a little more than half of it had been blown apart. Luckily, it was the part that included the lock. “What the hell kind of explosive was that?” Adam asked Mist.
“The kind that gets rid of doors,” Mist replied. “Come on.”
Adam and Rain exchanged a look and a shrug and then followed Mist and Walt through the opening.
Everything was different down here, compared to the floor above them. The white, medicinal-looking hallways above them gave way to gray, dismal halls, floors, and ceilings. Again, Rain was reminded of the cellar at the house they’d found. It also reminded her of the hellhole she’d been stuck in not long ago. She couldn’t think about that, though or she’d panic, and that wouldn’t help anyone.
“I’m sure the Mothers will send a group after us if they have one to spare,” Mist said as they hustled down the hallway.
“You don’t think there are already Mothers down here?” Walt asked.
“No,” Mist told him.
“Why not?” Adam asked as they continued to run down the hallway going wherever it led.
“Because if there were, they would’ve intercepted us by now,” Mist reasoned.
She took a left at a split in the hallway. Rain had no idea where she was going or how she knew where to go; the basement wasn’t on the blueprint she’d seen. When they heard voices at the end of the hall, Rain had to pray that the voices she was hearing were friends, not foes.
All of the voices sounded raspy and weak, but it seemed like they were shouting in fear, not for help. Could it be that they’d found the prisoners from the rebellion? Had the Mothers actually allowed some of them to live?
The voices got louder as they flew down the hallway. There was another door at the end of the hallway, but it wasn’t locked. Mist grabbed hold of it and easily tugged it open.
As soon as they entered the room, the stench had all of them gagging. The scent of every human bodily fluid imaginable hit Rain’s lungs at the same time--and they were all pungent.
The first thing Rain saw was blood. It was splattered all over the floor. Old stains, flowing to a drain, covered a good deal of the floor right in front of the door.
Raising her eyes, she saw the cell in front of her. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Never in her life had she seen such a horrid display of human torture as what she was looking at right now.
Seven women were standing in the cell, back against the far wall. All of them were rail thin and smelled atrocious. But beyond that, there was urine and excrement coating one-quarter of the cell.
And then there were bodies.
Rain couldn’t tell where one began and another ended. There was a haphazard stack of bodies on the far side of the cell. The smell from those poor deceased women was atrocious. It was difficult to tell how all of them had died, they were so decayed. Rain had to assume some of them had been killed by the Mothers since there were boots prints on blood-stained floors. But judging by the appearance of the other women who were still alive, some of them may have starved to death or died of dehydration.
“Rain? Mist? Is that you?”
The voice was familiar, even though it was raspy. When Lightning stepped up to the bars, Rain hardly recognized her. She looked like she had lost half of her body weight. She was covered in filth, bruises and cuts all over the visible parts of her body, including her face and arms. Her lips were so chapped, even from across the room, Rain could see the white crust.
“It’s us, Lightning,” Mist said as Rain continued to attempt to recover the ability to speak, she was so shocked by what she was seeing. “We’re going to get all of you out, and you’re going to be safe now.”
Rain hoped she was right. If the Military Mothers followed them down here, there was a good chance they’d simply sped along the inevitable deaths of these poor tortured souls. But then… if they hadn’t come, they would’ve died a much longer, painful death.
A keypad on the wall likely unlocked the door, though there was also a keyhole. There was no key to be found, so Mist stepped over to the pad. A table on the other side of the cell with two chairs, one on either side, had a stack of papers. Walt and Adam went over there, perhaps to look for a code scribbled on one of the pages or to see what sort of information the Mothers had gathered from these prisoners.
Mist studied the keypad, likely looking for fingerprints or smudges to tell her what buttons to push.
“It’s 07142035,” Lightning said. “We’ve been watching them push the code in for months. We just can’t reach the pad.”
Mist pushed those buttons in, and sure enough, the door swung open about a foot. It was wide enough for the women to come through even without it having to be pushed wider, they were so thin.
Rain wanted to hug them and tell them they were going to be okay, but she didn’t want to harm any of them beyond what they had already been through. “We will get you out,” Mist said, turning to look at them. Some of them looked so weak, Rain wasn’t sure they could make it up the stairs. “But Lightning, we were hoping you could help us hack into the computer system. We were on our way to the records room to find the proof we need that the Mothers are using fossil fuels, but it’s been impossible for us to get through there. Do you think it’s possible for you to break in and get us the info we need?”
She looked like she was about to fall over. How could she possibly have the mental capacity to do something so important?
Despite her utter exhaustion and physical frailty, Lightning nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” Mist said. “Two of us need to take the other six out while the other two find a computer.”
“There’s a computer in the office off of the cafeteria in IW,” Adam said.
Lightning nodded. “I know that one. I’ve seen it on my communication rounds. It’s probably wired into everything else.”
“All right. Adam, do you think you and Rain can get Lightning there?” Mist asked, taking charge of the situation--as usual.
Adam nodded. “Yes,” he said before looking at Rain. She nodded, too, but she wasn’t as confident as he was. It seemed like all of the Mothers had to be focused on the four of them by now, so if the rest of their team was still focused on trying to get to the records room instead of defending them on their mission, which she had to assume they were, since none of them knew what they were up to, there was a good chance they’d be inundated with Military Mothers at any moment.
Would they even make it up the stairs?