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Maxwell was already on the retreat, backing up to Garrett’s side with his hand on the gun he’d decided to bring on this mission after all. He had no desire to be standing in the line of fire when surprising a group of terrified people, nor to get blasted with pent-up fear gas. Sebastian had assured him that the fear gas couldn’t affect him, but he didn’t want to find out. And he definitely didn’t want Garrett finding out if it didn’t.
But the door only opened onto an empty cavernous room. The ceiling lifted all the way up to the roof like a warehouse, and when Maxwell followed Garrett in, he saw a bank of small offices and supply rooms on the left and a massive metal door set into the wall on the right. His eyebrows rose at the size and number of locking mechanisms set into the seam of the double doors and even along its tracks on the floor and ceiling.
“The stockpile.” Garrett’s voice echoed from a bit ahead of Maxwell, and Maxwell realized he’d stopped as he gaped at the impressive door. He hurried after Garrett, who continued as he walked across the room without looking back. “There’s enough uranium back there to send a species state’s entire fleet around the galaxy three times.”
“The Klah’Eel must want that back.” Maxwell jogged until he caught up with Garrett at what looked like a giant, chain-link cage on the side of the room opposite the entrance they’d come in.
“They do.” Garrett input another long code into the keypad on the right of the gate, pressed a few buttons, and then the gate began to rattle open. “But it was Southern Tava labor that pulled that ore out of the ground, and it should be the Southern Tava people that profit from it. Besides, only a handful of people had the codes to open it, and they’re all missing. So for now, it’s no one’s.”
Maxwell didn’t argue as they entered the cage, and Garrett slid the gate shut behind them. He knew they were now at the very base of the spire and that the spire and this cage were, in fact, a huge elevator—the largest and strongest of its kind. It plunged deep into Tava’s crust, so close to the mantle that the very lowest levels were actually several degrees hotter than the upper levels. The spire’s height and size were to support the massive counterbalances required to lift the tons of ore pulled out from the bowels of the mine.
Maxwell had heard it described as the elevator to hell. And now they were on it.
“Get ready,” Garrett muttered just before he hit a button. The elevator jolted enough to make Maxwell stumble, and they began to descend, automatic lights turning on as they left the light of the surface behind.
Maxwell eyed Garrett’s tense jaw. “You know where you’re going.”
It hadn’t been a question, but Garrett nodded. “Yeah.” Then he sighed deeply, and his shoulders dropped, and he walked—easily, as though the floor shaking and sinking below them felt as solid to him as ground—over to one of the metal supports on the side of the elevator and leaned his back against it. He crossed his arms and stared down at a point between his feet. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had dreams of being back on this elevator.”
Maxwell wanted to take a step toward him but was afraid he’d lose his footing. “Not good dreams, I take it.”
Garrett huffed a laugh. “No. No, definitely not.”
Maxwell waited for him to add more, but the silence stretched on until the elevator shivered, and they stopped. Maxwell peered past the chain-link fence into the darkness of the tunnel beyond. “Are we there?”
“Not even close.” Garrett slid the gate open just enough for him to step out of it and clicked on his small flashlight. He went to the control panel a little way into the tunnel and pressed a few buttons and flipped a switch. A new grinding sound echoed from below them, and Garrett returned and closed the gate behind him. “There’s a series of air locks all down this shaft.” He leaned back against the pillar and crossed his arms. “Do you know what uranium powder does when it gets into the air?”
Maxwell had used the elevator’s pause to move to the side, and he grabbed onto the railing as it lurched and continued its descent. He didn’t like the almost nihilistic tone of Garrett’s voice. “No.”
Garrett gave him a ghoulish grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “It ignites.”
Maxwell raised his eyebrows. “When exposed to fire?”
“Nope.” Garrett shook his head and raised his hands. “Just”—he flicked the fingers of both hands wide in a pantomime of an explosion—“spontaneously.”
Maxwell’s chest tightened to the point of being unable to breathe as he imagined a wall of fire barreling down the black tunnel he’d just stared into. And then he imagined Garrett in that tunnel, and his stomach rolled. “Have you…?”
“Seen it?” Garrett raised an eyebrow and then shook his head again. “No. In here, if you see it, it’s already too late. That’s why we have all the air locks. We have to contain it and let it burn itself out so it doesn’t spread.”
The elevator came to another stop, and Maxwell watched Garrett go out to open the lock again. He hadn’t missed Garrett’s shift into “we.” As though Garrett were dropping back into time as they dropped down into the mine. He used the temporary stillness of the elevator to move quickly to the gate so that he could touch Garrett’s arm as he came back in.
Garrett froze as Maxwell laid a hand on him and stared down at it for a few seconds. Then he slammed the gate shut as the elevator continued and tangled his fingers with Maxwell’s. “Of course, the air locks seal people down here just as well as they seal fire.”
Maxwell’s stomach dropped out at the thought of what Garrett was implying. He didn’t want to ask, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he had to. “Your father and your brother…”
Garrett squeezed Maxwell’s fingers in his and hunched his shoulders. “We’re going down to the main way station halfway down the shaft. The whole mine spiderwebs out from there, so it has access to everything and mountains of supplies.”
Maxwell shifted closer to Garrett so that he could press their sides together as he held his hand. He knew Garrett enough now to know that this wasn’t Garrett deflecting. This was Garrett giving context, so he waited in silence for him to continue.
“So it’s a great place to hunker down from freak storms.” Garrett waved vaguely upward at the surface that was so far above them now Maxwell didn’t want to think about it. “And it really seems like a great place to start an uprising.”
Maxwell swallowed. “Of miners?”
“Against the Klah’Eel, yeah.” Garrett pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded. He paused for a second with his eyes far away and then licked his lips. “It was…probably fifteen years after the initial invasion? I’m not sure. I was so young when the war started, I barely have any real memories of it.”
Maxwell tensed as Garrett started to pull his hand away but then realized that the elevator had stopped and Garrett needed to get out to start them up again. God, he was young. Maxwell watched him go with his heart twisting. Maxwell knew he was young, not even thirty yet, but it struck him anew that that meant Garrett had never really known peace. He’d never known freedom. He didn’t even have a real memory of the past the Resistance had been fighting to reclaim.
When Garrett came back, Maxwell reached for him, and Garrett took his hand and pulled him to his chest. Maxwell stiffened in surprise but let Garrett wrap his arms around him and tuck his head under his chin. Right, Garrett was tactile. Maxwell wound his arms around Garrett’s waist as the elevator lurched onwards. This was what Garrett needed to get the story out.
