Ch 3: Turbine

“Left corner, then right once more; actually, no-” angrily murmured Eury in her head, reading the digital map of the tower and realizing that it didn’t count for the broken down corridors, hallways filled with extremely toxic gasses or very freezing puddles of an unknown substance.

Eury-” I could probably pass through some of those with minimal injuries, but Sammy. Not with his fully biological body”, thought the girl before being notified that the cheap plastic covering her arm skin was corroding from the gasses. “Fucking cheap Comp 3 prosthetics. Skimming off the protection lotion as well?”

The child stood a few steps backward, worried sick from just thinking about the path ahead, and the one they came from. Even the only option of going right had him sweating buckets.

Sammy- “ Eury…”, he mumbled through his sniffs. “ Should we have run off like that? Maybe that maintenance boy was a good person?”

Eury- “ Maybe, possibly, but unfortunately there wasn’t much time to ask about his life story. I feel for him as an underground worker, but putting as much distance between us and that hunter was more vital.”

A gust of wind passed through the girl’s short hair and the boy’s baggy clothes, taking the corner to their right in a hurry and traveling peacefully through the next hallway.

Eury- “ See? We can handle ourselves.” After checking her map, though, a prickling sense of fear nestled inside her chest. That corner was a ghost on her chart. “ Goddammit, please be just a glitch or something dumb like that.”

After a few minutes of walking without anything happening, Eury still couldn’t get rid of that feeling in her chest. The tunnel was silent, clean, illuminated; the air was clear and moving; no other being with a pulse felt near them; so why then?

The answer came just a few moments later, when their backs felt like they were being pushed forward. Firstly, in small steps; then larger ones, steadily growing in a need to grab on the wall to withstand the shoving.

Sammy- “ Eury, I can see something in front of us”, he cried out at the sight of gusts of air passing by the exit frame in fast rotations. A tornado was flourishing from the quietest turbine the world has never heard. The kid felt like his grip was being loosened one finger at the time, but once his guardian held him with one hand, he felt safe.

The turbine then slowed down, and the two were a bit more at ease.

Eury- “ Phew. So this is a death trap. Took the wind right out of our sails, right Sammy?”, she gave a reassuring smile, which took the child by surprise. Next thing that surprised him, though, was the sudden push to the chest and stomach.

The wind now blew forward, rapidly gaining speed and, to their bad luck, force as well. Eury wanted to advise to turn away, fastly, but before she could even utter his name, Sammy’s emaciated body was lifted off the ground and blown backward by the current.

He tried to grab on to something, but the walls were either too smooth or their broken parts were too sharp to be grabbed on.

Eury- “ Sammy!”, she yelled in fear of the approaching wall behind the boy, ready to break his brittle bones to dust.

-”Gotcha little man”, said a muffled voice who managed to jump in just in time to catch the boy. “You good?”, to which the boy nodded as his face felt too numb to chirp a word. “ Good. Once again, I got to ask. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

A bit shaken, the boy only murmurs something back. “...the bishop…he…he wants to sell me.” This wasn’t enough to make Diaz understand a thing, except for the fear emanating from the kid’s trembling shoulders.

The maintenance worker looked at the out of breath guardian and her little ward; he could smell that the two would be only trouble. Especially since “this is a corridor for engineers only. It appears only on their, more expansive, map version. The one you have is for vent cleaners and rat catchers.”

Diaz then pressed on a button nearby, and a pair of rails came out of the wall. “ Usually you’d have a harness to-”

Eury- “ Wait, wait, wait-”, she repeated, waving her palms left to right.

Diaz-”- so that the turbine doesn’t suck you in or blow you away. But-”

Eury- “ Why are you taking the lead an-”

Diaz- “ And that’s why Ubala Ornius is the best engineer to ever upgrade the rail design. We should go now while the rotation is still slowed down.”

Sammy- “Uhm…”, the boy pondered, having paid his full attention to Diaz monologue. “what if the floor could move you forward and backward in long hallways?”

The young man stared blankly and deeply in front of him for a moment. “...Maybe.”

Eury- “ STOP FOR A SECOND!” Her scream managed to leave only herself with a widely beating heart, but it managed to draw their sights on her issue. “Just a moment to catch-”

A harpy cry came echoing once more from the tunnels behind them. Its weird sound came screeching from both the left, right, and above; making the target feel like it was cornered.

Eury- “ …You lead, fearless bottom dweller.”

Diaz- “ Still on with that? It’s Diaz, by the way. Don’t you ceiling walkers set those communication devices to log everything you do?” The young man then gruffed, hastening his pace before the girl could reply. He didn’t know why, but this time the name calling felt more insulting.

Eury- “ Sure, I’m sorry Diazz.z.z.; my wretched life as someone living on a middle level left with a bad image about the ones below.” Her words appeared to be directed at Diaz, but her mind and head were fixated to the corner behind them.

A few tens of meters behind them, a lanky man with red-shot eyes waved a crying blade around, using the sound to gather more information about his surroundings.

???- “...FInally. My pius* quest is about to be fulfilled. The boy is nearby, and best guess is that the relegate* is with him.” The man starts to giggle, happy at the thought of what he will be able to achieve at once. “No worries, sister Seto, I will put you down, lay your body to sleep so that your sabbatic* thoughts no longer trouble you.