SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

A HOLE IN THE WORLD Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden

Vasily Glazkov was warm. He reveled in the feeling, because he had not been truly warm for a long time. His fingers and toes tingled with returning circulation, and he could feel a pleasant stinging sensation across his nose and cheeks. Beyond the open doorway Anna held a steaming mug out to him. She was grinning. Around her was the paraphernalia of their mission – sample cases, laboratory equipment, tools and implements for excavating, survival equipment and clothing. As he entered the room the door slammed shut behind him, the window shades lowered, and they were alone in the luxurious warmth. Nothing mattered except the two of them. He took the mug and sipped, the coffee's heat coursing through him and reaching even those deepest, coldest parts that he'd believed would never be warm again.

Anna started unclipping her belt and straps, popping her buttons. She dropped her rifle and pistol, her knife, shrugging out of her uniform to reveal her toned, muscled body. He felt the heat of her. He craved her familiar warmth and scent, her safety, but he still took time to finish the coffee. Anticipation was the greatest comforter.

"Vasily!" A hand grasped his arm and turned him around. He frowned, stretching to look back at his almost-naked lover. But however far he turned she remained out of sight.

"Vasily, wake up!"

Glazkov's eyes snapped open. His breath misted the air before him, and he sat up quickly, gasping in shock as his dream froze and shattered beneath gray reality.

"Amanda?"

Amanda Hart stood in his small room, bulked out in her heavy coat. There was ice on her eyelashes and excitement in her eyes.

"Vasily, you've got to come."

"Where?"

"Down into the valley. It's stopped snowing, the sun's out, and you have to come. Hans is getting ready."

Glazkov looked around and tried to deny the sinking feeling in his gut. His room was small and sparse, containing his small supply of grubby clothing, a few books, and a single window heavily iced on the inside.

"You've been out alone again?" he asked. They had all been warned about venturing beyond the camp boundary on their own. It was dangerous and irresponsible, and put all of them at risk. But Amanda was headstrong and confident, not a woman used to obeying orders. He wondered if all Americans were like that.

"That doesn't matter!" She waved away his concerns.

"So what's down in the valley?" Glazkov asked. The cold was already creeping across his skin and seeping into his bones. He wondered whether he would ever be warm again, even when he and Anna were together once more. It was only twelve weeks since they'd last seen each other, but the inimical landscape stretched time and distance, and the sense of isolation was intense. In this damned place the cold was a living, breathing thing.

"Come and see," Hart said, and she grinned again. "Something's happened."

Outside, the great white silence was a weight he could almost feel. It always took Glazkov's breath away – not only the cold, but the staggering landscape, and the sense that they might be the only people alive in the whole world. There were no airplane trails to prove otherwise, no other columns of smoke from fires or chimneys. No evidence at all that anyone else had ever been there. Old footprints and snowcat trails were buried beneath the recent blizzard. The three interconnected buildings that formed their camp – living quarters, lab and equipment hall, and garage – were half-buried, roofs and upper windows protruding valiantly above the white snowscape.

"We taking the snowcat?" Hans Brune asked.

"It's only a mile," Amanda replied.

The German tutted and rolled his eyes. His teeth were already clacking, his body shivering, even though he was encased in so much clothing he was barely identifiable as human.

"Come on, Hans," Amanda said. "I've already been down there once this morning."

"Stupid," Brune said. "You know the rules."

"You going to report me?"

Hans shook his head, then smiled. The expression was hardly visible behind his snow goggles.

"So if we're going to walk, let's walk," he said. "I'm freezing my balls off already."

"You still have balls?" Amanda asked.

"Big. Heavy. Hairy."

"Like a bear's."

They started walking, and Glazkov listened to the banter between his two companions. He knew there was more than friendship between them – he'd seen creeping shadows in the night, and sometimes he heard their gasps and groans when the wind was calmer and the silence beyond the cabins amplified every noise inside. None of them had mentioned it, and he was grateful to them for that. On their first day here they had all agreed that any relationship beyond the professional or collegial might be detrimental to their situation. While they weren't truly cut off, and their location was less isolated than it usually felt, there were no scheduled visits to their scientific station for the next six months. Hart and Brune probably knew that he knew, but there was comfort in their combined feigned ignorance.

He knew Amanda had a husband back home in America. Hans, he knew little about. But Glazkov had never been one to judge. At almost fifty he was the most experienced among them, and this was his fifteenth camp, and the fourth in Siberia. He'd been to Alaska, St Georgia, Antarctica, Greenland, and many other remote corners of the world. In such places, ties to home were often strengthened by isolation, but sometimes they were weakened as well. Almost as if such distances, and the effects of desolate and deserted landscapes, made the idea of home seem vague and nebulous. He had seen people strengthened by their sojourns to these places, and he had seen them broken. He knew the signs of both. Most of the time, he knew better than to interfere.

Amanda led them away from the research station and toward the steep descent into the valley. The trees grew close here, hulking evergreens heavy with snow, and beneath their canopy the long days turned to twilight. But once they were into the thick of the forest the snow was not so deep, and the going was easier.

Glazkov, Hart and Brune were here as part of an international coalition pulled together to study the effects of climate change. While politics continued to throw up obstacles to meaningful action, true science knew no politics, and neither did the scientists who practiced it. Sometimes he believed that if left to real people, human relations would settle and improve within a generation. Sport, music, art, science, they all spanned the globe, taking little notice of politics or religions, or the often more dangerous combination of the two. So it was with their studies into climate change. Deniers denied, but Glazkov had seen enough evidence over the past decade to terrify him.

"So what were you doing out here on your own?" Brune asked.

"Couldn't sleep," Hart said. "And I heard a noise. Felt something. Didn't either of you?"

"No," Brune said.

"Not me," Glazkov said. "What was it?"

"A distant rumble. And something like... a vibration."

"Avalanche," Brune said.

"It's possible," Glazkov agreed. "Temperatures are six degrees higher than average for the time of year. The snowfalls've been less severe, and there's a lot of loose snow up in the mountains."

"No, no, it wasn't that," Hart said. "I've seen what it was."

"What?" Glazkov asked. He was starting to lose his temper with her teasing.

"Best for you to see," she said. They trudged on, passing across a frozen stream and skirting several fallen trees, walking in silence for a while. "I thought it was an avalanche," Hart said, quieter now. "Wish it was. But the mountains are ten miles away. This thing... much closer."

Glazkov frowned. For the first time since she'd woken him, she sounded nervous.

"Should we call this in?" he asked.

"Yeah, soon," she said. "But we need photos."

"We can do that afterward."

"Not if it goes away."

They walked on through the snow, emerging from the forest into a deeper layer, grateful for their snow shoes. Brune shrugged the rifle higher on his shoulder, and Glazkov glanced around, looking for any signs of bears. There was nothing. In fact...

"It's quiet," he said.

"It's always fucking quiet out here," Brune replied.

"No, I mean... too quiet." He almost laughed at the cliché, but Hart's and Brune's expressions stole his breath. Heads tilted, tugging their hoods aside so they could listen, he could see realization dawning in both of them.

Far out on the desolate Yamal Peninsula, three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, there were few people, but they were used to hearing the calls, cries and roars of wildlife. Brown bears were common in the forests, and in more sparsely wooded areas there were elk. Musk deer were hunted by wolves. Bird species were also varied, with the great eagle owl ruling the skies. Some wildlife was dangerous, hence the rifle. Yet after twelve weeks here, not a shot had been fired.

"Nothing," Brune said. He slipped the rifle from his shoulder, as if the silence itself might attack them.

"I didn't notice before," Hart said. "Come on. Not far now, and we'll see it from the ridge."

"See what?" Glazkov demanded. Hart stared at him, all the fun vanished from her expression.

"The hole," she said. "The hole in the world."

Oh my God, she's right, Glazkov thought. It really is a hole in the world. But what's at the bottom?

"I didn't go any farther than this," Hart said.

"I don't blame you," Brune said. "Vasily?"

"Sinkhole," Glazkov said.

"Really?" Hart asked. "It's huge!"

"It's inevitable. Come on."

They started down the steep slope into the valley and the new feature it now contained. Glazkov thought it might have been over five hundred feet across. With the sun lying low, the hole was deep and dark, only a small spread of the far wall touched by sunlight. At first glance he'd had doubts, but there was no other explanation for what they were now walking toward.

A melting of the permafrost – an occurrence being seen all around the globe – was releasing vast, stored quantities of methane gas. Not only a consequence of global warming, but also a contributing factor. In some places such large quantities were released that these sinkholes formed overnight, dropping millions of tons of rock into vented caverns hundreds of feet beneath the surface.

"We'll need our instruments," he said. "Methane detectors. Remote camera. Everything."

"So let's go back and get it all," Brune said. "And we need to call this in. We really do."

"Yes," Glazkov said.

"Yeah," Hart said.

But they kept walking toward the hole, hurrying now, excitement biting at their heels.

It took fifteen minutes to descend to the valley floor. It would take a lot longer to climb back up, but Glazkov didn't care. He could already detect the eggy trace of methane on the air, but it didn't smell too strong for now. It started snowing again, and as they followed a stream across the valley floor toward the amazing new feature, visibility lessened. The stream should have been frozen at this time of year, and much of it still was. But a good portion of the water flowed. Approaching the hole's edge, Glazkov heard the unmistakable sound of water pouring down a rock face.

"What was that?" Brune asked. He was frozen behind them, head tilted.

"Waterfall," Hart said.

"No, not that. Something else."

They listened. Nothing.

"We should head back," Brune said. "We need breathing equipment, cameras."

"Not far now," Glazkov said. He was unsettled to see that Brune had slipped the rifle from his shoulder.

"What are you going to shoot?" Hart asked, laughing. "Monsters from the deep?"

Three minutes later, as they emerged from a copse of trees only a hundred feet from the hole's edge and saw what waited for them there – the crawling, tentacled, slick things pulling themselves up out of the darkness, skin pale from lack of pigment, wet mouths gasping in new air – Amanda Hart was the first to fall.

Captain Anna Demidov and her team were ready. Fully equipped, comprehensively briefed, fired up, she was confident it would be a straightforward search and retrieval without the need for any aggressive contact. But if the separatists did attempt to intervene, Demidov's small Spetsnaz squad was more than ready for a fight. Either way, they would return with the stolen information. In this day and age a printed file seemed almost prehistoric, but the habits of some of Russia's top intelligence operatives never ceased to amaze her.

With her squad milling in the helicopter hangar, she took the opportunity to assess them one last time. Her corporal, Vladimir Zhukov, often teased her about being over-cautious and paranoid about every small detail. Demidov's reply was that she had never lost a soldier in action, nor had she ever failed in a mission. It was something he could not argue with. Yet the banter continued, and she welcomed it. The good relationships between members of her five-person unit was one of the most important factors contributing to success.

"All set, Corporal?" she asked.

Zhukov rolled his eyes. "Yes, Captain. All set, all ready, boots shined and underwear clean, weapons oiled, mission details memorized, just as they all were five minutes ago."

Demidov appraised the corporal from head to toe and up again. A full foot taller than she, and a hundred pounds heavier, some knew him by the nickname Mountain. But no one in their unit called him that. He didn't like the name, and none of them would ever want to piss him off.

"A button's undone," she said, pointing to his tunic before moving on. She heard his muttered curse and allowed herself a small smile.

Private Kristina Yelagin was next. Tall, thin, athletic, grim-faced, she was one of the quietest, calmest people Demidov had ever met. She had once seen Yelagin slit a man's throat with a broken metal mug.

"Good?" Demidov asked. The woman nodded once in reply.

"I don't like helicopters," Private Vasnev said. "They make me feel sick."

"And when have you ever been sick during a helicopter trip, Vasnev?" Demidov asked.

"I didn't say they make me sick, Captain. I said they make me feel sick."

"Feel sick in silence," she said.

"It's okay for you, Captain," Private Budanov said. He was sitting on a supply crate carefully rolling a cigarette. "You don't have to sit next to him. He's always complaining."

"You have my permission to stab him to death if he so much as whispers," Demidov said.

Budanov looked up at her, his scarred face pale as ever, even in the hangar's shadow. "Thank you," he said. "You all heard that? All bore witness?"

"See, now even my friends are against me!" Vasnev said. "I feel sick. I don't want to go on this mission. I think I have mumps."

A movement caught Demidov's eye and she saw the helicopter pilot gesture through the cockpit's open side window.

"That's us," Demidov said. "Let's mount up."

Professional as ever, her four companions ceased their banter for a while as they left the shadow of the hangar, boarded the helicopter, stowed their weapons, and cross-checked each other's safety harnesses. Demidov waited to board last. As she settled herself and clipped on her headset, and the ground crew closed and secured the cabin door, the crackle of a voice came through from the cockpit.

"We've got clearance," the pilot said. "Three minutes and we'll be away."

"Roger," Demidov acknowledged.

"Sorry to hear about Vasily, Captain,” the pilot said.

Demidov froze. The rest of her squad, all wearing headsets, looked at her. Corporal Zhukov raised his eyebrows, and Vasnev shrugged: Don't know what he's on about.

Demidov's mind raced. If something had happened to Vasily and she hadn't been informed, there must be a reason for that. Perhaps the general would assume that such a distraction would affect her current mission, and he'd inform her of any news upon her return in six hours.

But after the pilot's comment, her distraction was even greater.

"What's that about Vasily?" she asked.

The comms remained quiet. A loaded silence, perhaps. Then a whisper, and the helicopter's turbines ramped up, the noise increased, and the green 'prepare for takeoff' light illuminated the cabin.

Demidov hesitated, ready to throw off her straps and slip through to the cockpit. But she felt a hand on her arm. Budanov. He shook his head, then lifted what he held in his other hand.

Without pause, Demidov nodded, giving silent assent.

Private Budanov was their communications and tech guy. Just as heavily armed as the rest of them, he also carried a bewildering array of hi-tech equipment, some of which Demidov barely understood. There were the usual satellite phones and radios, but also web-based communication systems and other gadgetry, all designed to aid their mission and help them in case of trouble. He'd saved their skins more than once, and now he was promising something else.

Sorry to hear about Vasily, Captain.

As the helicopter lifted off and drifted north, Budanov opened a palmtop tablet and started tapping and scrolling. Three minutes later he handed it to Demidov, a map on the screen. He motioned for her to place her lover's last known position on the map, which she did – the scientific research base on the Yamal Peninsula. He took the tablet back, nursing a satellite phone in his other hand, and four minutes later he paused.

None of them had spoken since taking off. When Budanov raised his eyes and looked at his Captain, none of them needed to.

Demidov took the tablet from his lap and looked at what he'd found.

"This is all on me," Captain Demidov said. Her heart was beating fast, and a sickness throbbed heavy in her gut. Part of that was understanding what she was doing – disobeying orders and going AWOL whilst on a highly sensitive mission, as well as hijacking a Russian army helicopter. But most of the sickness came from the dread she felt about Vasily's doom.

Science team missing... seismic readings from the area...

"Captain, I can't alter course," the pilot said. She could see his nervousness. He and his co-pilot were sitting tense in their flight seats, and she could sense their doubts, their inner debates. They wore pistols, true. But they also knew who they carried.

"I'm ordering you to," she said.

"Captain, my orders—"

"I'm not pulling rank," Demidov cut in. "This isn't about that. But I will pull my gun if you don't do what I say."

"And then what?" the pilot asked. "You'll shoot me?"

... drastic landscape alteration... entire region quarantined...

"Let's not discover the answer to that question. Yelagin, here with me." Private Yelagin squeezed through into the cockpit beside Demidov and behind the two pilots. "You know what to do," Demidov said.

Yelagin leaned forward and started flicking switches. She'd been a pilot before being recruited into Spetsnaz, and she knew how to disable tracking devices and transponders, and where any emergency beacons might be.

"Keep an eye on them," Demidov said. "I'm going to speak to the others. And Kristina... thanks."

Yelagin nodded once, then settled against the bulkhead behind the pilots.

Back in the cabin Demidov looked around at the others. She saw no dissent. She hadn't expected any – they'd been together as a solid core group for over four years, had seen and done many terrible things, and she knew their trust and sense of kinship went way beyond family. Yet she still felt a burning sensation behind her eyes as she met their gaze.

"You know what we've done," she said, a statement more than a question. Of course they knew.

"We're just following your orders," Zhukov said.

"I can't order you to do this."

"You don't need to," Vasnev said. "Vasily Glazkov is your friend, so he's our friend too. We all help our friends."

"There'll be repercussions."

Vasnev shrugged. Budanov examined his fingernails.

"Right," Demidov said, sighing softly. "It's only an hour's detour. Our original target isn't going anywhere, and we'll finish our mission as soon as possible."

"That's if the Major doesn't send a jet to blow us from the sky," Zhukov said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but none of them dismissed the notion. They were on dangerous, unknown ground now, and no one knew exactly what the future might hold.

We're coming for you, Vasily, Demidov thought.

Anna will come for me, Vasily Glazkov thought. She'll hear about this, put her team together, and come to find out what happened.

He could see nothing around him in the darkness. But he could feel them there, sense them, and whenever they moved he could smell them – rotting meat, and grim intent.

If only I could warn her to stay away.

"Captain, you need to see this." The pilot sounded scared, and as Demidov pushed through into the cockpit she fully expected to find them facing off against two MI-35s. That would be the end of their brief mutiny.

But the airspace around them was clear, and she saw from Yelagin's shocked expression that this was something worse.

"What is it?" Demidov asked.

"Down there." The co-pilot pointed, and the pilot swung the helicopter in a gentle circle so they could all see.

There was a hole in the valley. Hundreds of feet across, so deep that it contained only blackness, it had swallowed trees and snow, ground and rocks. Two streams flowed into it, the waters tumbling in spreading sprays before being swallowed into the dark void. It was almost perfectly circular.

It looked so out of place that Demidov had to blink several times to ensure her eyes were not deceiving her.

"What the hell is that?" Yelagin said.

"How far's the scientific station?" Demidov asked, ignoring her.

"Just over a mile, north and over the valley ridge," the pilot said.

"Take us there."

She heard his sigh, but beneath that was a groan of fear from the co-pilot.

"Don't worry," Demidov said. "We can take care of ourselves." She knew that was true. She commanded the biggest bad-asses the Russian army could produce, and they'd seen each other through many treacherous and violent situations. They had all killed people. Sometimes the people they killed were unarmed, more often than not it was a case of kill or be killed.

They could definitely look after themselves.

But none of them had ever seen anything like this.

"Get ready," she said back in the cabin. The others were all huddled at the cabin windows, looking down at the strange sight retreating behind them. "We're going in."

Where the hell are you, Vasily?

Demidov stood in the main recreational space of the research base and stared at the half-drunk cup of coffee that sat on the edge of a table. Somebody’d walked away from that cup. Maybe the coffee was shit, or maybe they’d been in a hurry.

“Captain?”

She turned to see Corporal Zhukov filling the doorway. His face told the story, but she asked anyway.

“Any sign?”

“Nothing,” he confirmed. “All three of them. Budanov and Yelagin are checking logs to see if there’s any record of what drew them out of here, but there’s no question they’re gone. Vasnev found nothing in the lab to give us any clue.”

“They went to the hole,” Demidov said, thinking of Vasily Glazkov. Not her husband, but he might as well have been. Would be, someday, if he hadn’t fallen into that fucking hole.

“Would they all have gone?” Zhukov said. “That doesn’t seem logical.”

“Scientists. Every discovery’s an adventure. They know better, and protocol demands certain procedures, but it’s easy to get carried away when something new presents itself. Like ravens seeing something shiny.”

Zhukov shifted his massive frame, his shadow withdrawing from the room. “I take it we’re going out there.”

It wasn’t a question. He didn’t have to ask, and she didn’t have to tell him.

Vasnev moaned about the cold every step of the way. To be fair, it was cold enough to kill, given time. So cold that the snow refused to fall, despite the gray sky stretching out for eternity overhead. It was as if the sun had never existed at all.

“My balls have crawled up inside my body for warmth,” Vasnev whined.

“You’re confused,” Yelagin muttered. “They never dropped to begin with.”

Demidov tried to ignore them. The wind slashed across the hard-packed snow and the bare rock and cut right down to the bone. They had heavy jackets on, thick uniforms, balaclavas and gloves. Their mission had been meant to take place an hour’s chopper flight from here, where it would still have been damned cold, but they’d never have been this exposed for this long.

“This is idiotic,” Vasnev groaned. “They kept this from us for a reason. They’ve got to be sending a team. And you know damn well the pilots have probably already called it in… probably reported us the second we set off. We should just wait for someone else to arrive, someone with better gear—“

Budanov slapped the back of his head. Vasnev whipped around to glare at him, and for the first time Demidov worried real violence might flare amongst them. They’d had their share of hostilities over the years – any team does, given time – but this moment had venom. It had teeth.

“If we wait,” Budanov sneered, “do you really think they’ll let us help look for Vasily and his science friends? We’ll be hauled out of here, original mission scrubbed and this one along with it. We’ll be slammed into a room and made to wait while they decide on our punishment, and meanwhile someone else will be looking for Vasily and we won’t know how long they’ll take or how much effort they’ll go to.”

Demidov stared at him. They were about the most words she’d ever heard Budanov say at any one time. His ugly face had twisted into something even uglier, but his eyes glinted with fierce loyalty, and she wanted to hug him. Instead, she trudged onward as if nothing had happened.

Vasnev mumbled something else as they all started walking again. Demidov did not turn when she heard the sound of a rifle being racked, but she knew it had to be Zhukov. The Mountain.

“Don’t think I won’t shoot you just for the quiet,” Zhukov said.

Vasnev kept silent for a whole four minutes after that. It was a brief but blessed miracle.

They reached the ridge above the valley and took a breather, staring down at the hole. The sky gave no hint as to the time, not up here in the frozen fuck-you end of the world, a place the world knew people had once been sent when they’d screwed up worse than anyone. Yet Vasily had been so excited to come here with his two research partners, to live in a prefabricated base smaller than a Soviet-era city apartment and freeze his ass off, all to prove what the world refused to believe. Yes, the planetary climate was changing. But Siberia was still cold enough to kill you.

They slid and climbed and scrambled their way down into the valley. Demidov checked her radio. “Wolf to Eagle. You still reading me?”

A crackle of static on her comms, but then she heard the pilot’s voice. “Eagle here. Still tracking.”

“You might need to make a pick up in the valley later.”

“At this point, why not?” the pilot said. Just as she’d expected. He might have called in their diversion from the mission already, but until someone came to shut them down, Eagle wasn’t going to abandon Wolf. Not a chance.

They started across the hard-packed snow toward the hole. Even from a distance, the darkness of it yawned, as if it had a gravity all its own, drawing them in.

“I’m going to be moaning along with Vasnev in a moment,” Yelagin said. “I don’t know I’ve ever been this cold.” Her teeth chattered.

“Kristina, you’re Spetsnaz,” Demidov said curtly. But they both knew she meant something else. It wasn’t about their training, their elite status, their special operations. It was about being a woman in a field dominated by testosterone-fueled men who waved their guns around like they were showing off their cocks. They had to be tougher, she and Yelagin did. Especially Demidov, the woman running the show.

“I’ll bear your disappointment,” Yelagin said. “My nipples are going to snap off like icicles.”

That got a laugh, breaking the tension, and suddenly Demidov felt grateful to her. Their closeness had started to fray a little, but now they were a team again.

“Captain,” Vasnev said cautiously, lagging behind.

“I swear I will fucking shoot you,” Budanov reminded him.

Then Corporal Zhukov echoed Vasnev. “Captain.”

His voice gave her pause and made her turn. Vasnev had knelt in the snow. Zhukov stood over him, face as gray as the Siberian sky.

Vasnev looked up. “We’ve been moving parallel to some markings I couldn’t make out, like someone dragged branches through here to obscure animal tracks.”

“You didn’t mention the tracks themselves,” Zhukov said.

“Bear,” Vasnev said. “And I saw some wolf tracks, too, up on the ridge. Same weird markings there, brushing the snow. But something happened right here, on this spot.”

Demidov didn’t like the hesitation in his voice. It sounded a bit like fear. Vasnev might have been a malingerer and a moaner, but he’d never been a coward.

“What ‘something?’”

Zhukov answered for him. “The bear tracks stop. Whatever made those brush marks, it picked up the bear. Carried it off.”

Vasnev stood, pointed at the hole. “It goes that way.”

Demidov stood at the edge of the hole, a few feet back, not trusting the rim to hold her up. Sinkholes had appeared in many places in the area but she didn’t think any of those on record had ever been this big. The hole seemed carved down into the permafrost and the rock and earth below. No telling how deep it went without doing a sounding. They had nothing to gauge the depth except two long coils of rope they’d found in the science team’s base. That seemed unlikely to help them.

“Do you not just want to shout down, see if you get a response?” Kristina Yelagin said, standing at her shoulder.

Budanov snickered. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Yelagin shot him a death stare, but he ignored her, wrapped up in his own efforts. He had taken out the comm unit attached to his belt and begun searching through channels for any kind of beacon or signal. On each frequency, he’d broadcast the same message. “Research Unit one-one-three, please come in. Research Unit one-one-three, do you read me?” A few seconds, then again. With no answer, he’d move on.

They were getting nowhere. Vasnev had stopped whinging, but the cold had gotten down into Demidov’s bones. Come here, Anna, I’ll warm you, Vasily would have said. And she’d have let him. As she had so many times before. Where are you, my darling? The loving part of her felt lost, but Demidov had spent a lifetime training to charge forward when anyone else would flee.

Zhukov glanced around, nervous and on guard. He’d been more unsettled than any of them, and that concerned Demidov. If the Mountain worried, they all should.

“I don’t hear a thing but the wind.” Zhukov shifted, boots crunching snow. “Don’t see a thing. Not so much as a bird.”

“Enough,” Demidov said. “Private Yelagin, get those ropes out. There were a few pitons with them.”

“We don’t have enough climbing gear for all of us,” Yelagin said. “Shall I radio Eagle, have them bring more equipment from the base?”

Demidov wanted to tell her to follow orders. Do what she was fucking told. The woman made sense, but the problem was that it would delay their descent, and a delay would be costly if Eagle had really radioed the situation back to command.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Meanwhile, get those ropes out and—“

“Captain,” Zhukov said.

“Fuck me, what the hell is that?” Vasnev whispered.

Demidov narrowed her eyes. Her balaclava had slipped a bit and she tugged it away from her eyes. The others had begun swearing, lifting their weapons, taking aim. Demidov blinked to clear her vision, thinking somehow in spite of her team’s reactions she must just be seeing something. Spots in her eyes. The things moving across the valley toward them couldn’t possibly be real.

But they were moving nearer, coming into focus, and in moments she could no longer doubt. They weren’t spots in her eyes or her imagination. They moved like some strange combination of tumbleweed and sea anemone, their flesh such a pale nothing hue that they blended almost too well against the snowy ground. Had they only stopped and kept still, they’d have been almost invisible at a distance. But they weren’t stopping.

“Holy shit,” someone said. Demidov thought she recognized her own voice. Maybe she’d said it.

They weren’t stopping at all. They came from all directions, perhaps ten or twelve in all, rolling or slithering or some combination thereof, and they did not come without burden. They seemed nothing but a mass of tendrils, but each of them dragged something else behind them – something more familiar. Animals, some struggling and some limp, some broken, some bleeding. A musk deer, some squirrels, a leopard. One of the things had wrapped itself around a wolf. The beast could not extricate itself but it continued to fight, clawing, attempting to escape. It snarled and howled, as if trapped between the sister urges to fight and to scream in sorrow.

“Captain,” Zhukov said, his voice gone cold. That was when the Mountain turned most dangerous. The deader his voice, the more she knew he must be feeling. The Mountain didn’t like to be made to feel. “Give me an order please, Captain.”

In the distance, Demidov saw something big and brown in the midst of a squalling twist of those white tendrils. Three or four of the things had surrounded a moose – a fucking moose – and were dragging it back toward the hole. A knot of dread twisted in her gut as it finally hit Demidov. Stupid, she thought. So goddamn stupid. Should have seen it instantly, should have understood. If they could drag down a moose, a trio of curious, unarmed scientists would be no problem at all.

Feeling sick and jittery and wanting to roar out her fear for her mate, Demidov clicked off the safety on her Kalashnikov AK-12.

“Weapons free. Don’t let these things get anywhere near us.”

“Weapons free,” Zhukov confirmed.

Instinctively they spread into a defensive circle, edging thirty yards away from the hole and using trees and rocks as cover. Demidov glanced around at her squad, already knowing what she'd see – professionalism, preparedness, calm in the face of these strange, unknown odds. Her senses were alert and alight, sharpened on the fear she felt for Vasily.

Whatever the hell these things were—

"Incoming, my eleven," Yelagin said.

The creature carrying the wolf had diverted from its route towards the hole and now moved towards them. The wolf still whined and howled, snapping at tendrils that seemed to arc easily away from its teeth. The creature seemed almost unaware of its burden.

It paused twenty meters away, half-hidden behind a tree.

Almost as if it was looking at them.

"Another this side," Zhukov said. "They're paused, as if—"

The creature holding the wolf slipped past the tree and came towards them across the snow, leaping rocks, compressing beneath a fallen tree and dragging the wolf through the narrow gap.

Demidov's finger caressed the trigger, and she experienced a moment of doubt.

Then Vasnev opened fire. He shot the struggling, crying wolf from sixty yards out. The wolf’s blood spattered the snow and bits of fur and flesh scattered across the stark whiteness. The tumbleweed creature twitched and whipped backward, bullets tearing at its tendrils as it dropped the dead wolf. But then it drew itself up and began to slide toward them once more, skimming the surface of the snow, moving quicker as it came on.

“It’s not… the bullets aren’t…” Vasnev couldn’t get the words out.

“Don’t just stand there!” Yelagin moved up next to him and unleashed a barrage from her AK-12, took the tumbler mid-center, and blew it apart. It splashed across the snow a dozen steps from them, insides steaming as they sank into a drift. “Keep shooting till it’s dead.”

“Center mass!” Demidov said. “Blow them to hell.”

Hunkered down behind a rock she braced her AK-12 against her shoulder and zeroed in on the thing dragging the musk deer. Then she opened up. Bullets ripped it up, stitching the dead deer and scattering the tumbler's twisted, pale tendrils across the snow. Several of them slapped against a tree and remained there, held in place by the sticky goo that must have been its blood. The fear that had coiled into her heart calmed itself. They could be stopped. They could be killed.

The feel of the recoil, the stench of gunpowder, the reports smashing into her ears were all familiar to her, and she kept her calm amid the chaos. They all did. That was why they made a good team, and why they had never faced a situation they could not handle.

Not ever.

Budanov and Zhukov were on her immediate right and they were both better marksmen. They twitched their weapons left and right, letting off short bursts and then adjusting their aim, anticipating the creatures' movements. All around them, bullets impacted trees and showers of snow drifted down. Visibility was reduced. The creatures took advantage and rushed them, but the soldiers chose their targets and kept firing.

"Ammo!" Zhukov shouted, and the others covered his field of fire as he reloaded.

"How many?" Yelagin shouted.

"Don't know," Demidov replied. She saw movement ahead of her, a pale shape slinking from cover behind a rock, and she concentrated a burst of fire. The shape thrashed and spun, tendrils or tentacles whipping up a snowstorm. One more burst and it grew still. "One less."

For a few more long seconds, the hills all around them threw back brutal gunfire echoes. And then it was done.

Demidov's eardrums throbbed in the silent aftermath. She breathed in, let it out, finger still on the trigger.

"Clear," she breathed, and the others repeated the word in turn. She stood slowly from behind her covering rock and stood in the center of their defensive circle, turning slowly to survey the scene. It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but the area around them had taken on the appearance of a bloody battlefield.

Trees were scarred and splintered from the gunfire. The animals being carried by the tumblers were all dead, their demise signed across the snow in blood, bodies steaming, one or two still twitching their last. The other creatures – Whatever the fuck they are, Demidov thought – also lay dead, tendrils splayed across the snow's crispy surface and, here and there, melting down into it where their sickly pale blood had been spilled.

Hot-blooded, she thought. Hot enough to melt snow. But what the fuck has blood that color?

"Holy shit," Vasnev said. "What just happened?"

"Something from down there," Zhukov said. "Subterranean. Pale skin, no eyes..."

“What do we do, Captain?” Budanov said. “You want me to call this in?”

“Call it in,” she agreed. “But I’m not waiting. We all know Vasily and the others must be down there. Somebody’s got to stay up here and wait, but I’m—“

Zhukov and Yelagin called out that there was movement, the two of them shouting almost in the same voice. Demidov swore and lifted her weapon again, scanning the landscape all around. Between them and the sheer drop into that vast hole she saw motion down close to the ground, a slithering undulation, perfectly camouflaged but moving in.

"How many?" she asked.

"Can't tell," Zhukov said. "They're moving differently."

"Almost like they're under the snow," Yelagin said.

"Watch your ammo!" she shouted, then they opened fire again.

Snow flicked up and bullets ricocheted from scattered rocks. One creature erupted from a deep snowdrift and came apart beneath a sustained burst of fire, innards spattered down, those thin, tendril limbs whipping through the air.

Demidov's weapon clicked on an empty magazine. She ejected the empty, reached inside her jacket to grab another, smashed it into place and raised the AK-12 again—

—just as Budanov screamed to her right.

She turned just in time to see his head jerked hard to one side, tendrils across his face, skin stretching where they touched, tugged by some adhesive on those tendrils, or by octopus-like suckers. Even as she brought her gun to bear, blood sprayed from Budanov's mouth. He fell to the ground and the tumbler flowed onto his back, tendrils wrapping tight around his neck and skull.

"No!" Zhukov shouted, as he and the others opened fire. Their onslaught blew the creature apart. The thick white paste, its blood, splashed down across Budanov's back, mixing with his own in a sickly pink hue.

"Form up!" Demidov shouted. "Close in! We've got to get back to the base."

"Up that hill?" Yelagin asked. And she was right. They'd descended into the valley down a steep slope, almost climbing at times. To retreat up there with these things on their tail would be suicide.

They had to hold out down here.

"Mark your targets!" she said. The matter of ammunition was already worrying her. They'd come equipped for a simple in-and-out, an extraction that might not even have involved a firefight. As such they'd come light, bringing only the bare minimum of spare ammunition. Four mags each, if that, and she was already on her second. Three more shots and—

She ejected, reloaded, marked a new target and fired.

The chaos of battle had always remained outside for Demidov. Inside, her mind worked quick and calm, always able to place an enemy and work out the various strategies and logistics that would enable their success.

Now, everything was different. This was like no fight she'd ever fought, and already she could see its terrible, eventual conclusion.

"Grenade!" Yelagin said, lobbing a grenade and ducking down. The detonation was dulled by the deep snow, the gray sky made momentarily light by sprayed snow and pale body parts.

More came. More and more, and as she loaded her final magazine, Zhukov was taken down.

Three of them wrapped around the big man's legs, throat and right arm, and a wave of tentacles ripped the weapon from his hands. Demidov twisted around and took aim, but she was thinking the same as the others – Do I pull the trigger? They could not fire without hitting Zhukov.

The decision was snatched from them. Tendrils punched in through Zhukov’s eyes, he screamed, a creature leapt onto his back and plunged its limbs around and into his open mouth. His throat bulged with the pressures inside, and as he fell he was already dead.

Demidov felt a surge of unreality wash over her. Zhukov had saved her life several times, and years ago before Vasily, the two of them had enjoyed a brief, passionate affair. It had ended quickly, because involvement like that would have put their squad in jeopardy. But the affection for each other had remained.

"No," she whispered, and she started shooting. Her bullets ripped through the fallen man and the thing on his back, tearing them both apart.

"Too many!" Vasnev shouted, turning as his machine-gun ran out of ammo, swinging it like a club, falling beneath a couple of tumblers as they surged from the snow.

Yelagin dashed to Demidov's side and turned back to back with her captain, and both of them continued firing for as long as they could.

When Demidov's weapon ran out she drew her sidearm with her left hand. But too late.

Yelagin was plucked from behind her and thrown against a tree, several of the pale, grotesque creatures surging across her and driving her down into the snow.

By then Demidov understood.

They weren’t coming from across the valley anymore. A fresh wave had come up from the sinkhole. Dozens of them.

As they crawled over her, wrapped around her throat, tore the useless Kalashnikov from her hands, she raised her pistol. Too late. Her legs were tugged out from under her. Tendrils covered her mouth, pulled her arms wide, and she thought they might just rip her apart, that she’d be drawn and quartered by these impossible things, these tumbleweeds.

But whatever they intended for her, it wasn't instant death.

She felt herself sliding through the snow as they dragged her back toward the hole. They were warm where they touched her, and they smelled something like cut grass on a summer day. It was a curious, jarring scent. She tried to raise her head to see what was happening and whether she was alone. Am I the only one left alive? she wondered. But the tumblers were strong, and for the first time she sensed something in them other than animalistic fury.

There was intelligence. They kept her head back so that she couldn't see, and when she struggled she felt a slick, warm tentacle drape itself across her eyes, then pull tight.

Seconds later she felt the world drop from beneath her. She gasped in a breath and prepared for the fall, but she felt herself jerked up and down as the creatures descended into the hole. They must have been using their strange limbs to grab onto the sheer sides. Maybe they stuck like flies, or crawled like spiders.

Coolness became cold. She didn't notice the gentle kiss of weak daylight until it vanished entirely. The thing carrying her must have needed all its other limbs to descend, and her eyes were uncovered again. She could look up and see the circle of pale grey sky vanishing above. Around her, a strange luminescence seemed to accompany their descent. To begin with she thought it came from the walls, and that perhaps there was strange algae growing there, issuing a pale light through some chemical process. But then she saw a tumbler's limbs working before her as they rapidly descended into the hole, and they glowed.

A procession of terrors crossed her mind. Poisonous! Acidic! Radioactive! But she suspected she would be long-dead before any of those potential hazards caused her harm.

She caught a glimpse of Yelagin being carried by other things further along the sheer rocky wall, and then she heard Vasnev screaming. Three of them were still alive, but Budanov and Zhukov were dead. Perhaps soon she would have reason to envy them.

Amanda Hart was screaming.

Quiet, Glazkov wanted to say. Stupid American, keep silent. Can’t you hear? He liked Hart, had no real issue with Americans in general, but they had a tendency toward hysterics. Now was not the time for hysterics. In the dim glow of the creatures’ luminescence he could see Hart hanging from the ceiling like a forgotten marionette, but of course that was an illusion. Her limbs were not dangling, they were restricted. She screamed his name – Vasily, Vasily, Vasily – until he wished his mother had chosen another for him at birth.

Yes, Hans Brune might be dead. Given the way his ears had leaked after his skull had struck the wall, he pretty much had to be dead.

But we’re alive, Glazkov wanted to say. We’re alive.

His eyes blurred. It might have been tears obscuring his vision, or it might’ve been the blows he himself had taken to the head. He blinked and tried to focus. Glazkov hung upside down, so it might have been the head-rush contributing to his blurry vision.

No, he thought, looking at Hart. That’s not it.

She cried out his name again.

His vision wasn’t blurry after all. There were things moving on her face and body – things much like those that had carried them down into the hole, but so much smaller. Tiny things, like spiny creatures he might’ve found at the ocean bottom, but they were not underwater now. There must have been hundreds of them on her, perhaps thousands of the little things, moving around her with the industry of an anthill or a beehive, all of them producing that sickly glow. They moved with purpose, as Hart screamed.

As loudly as he could manage, Glazkov shushed her. Screaming wouldn’t help anyone.

It occurred to him that it was strange, how calm he was. So strange.

But then he felt a little tug on his right forearm and he tried to crane his neck ever so slightly to get a glimpse of it, to see what might have caused that tug, and he saw that they were all over him as well. The tiny ones. Babies, he thought. But something told him that despite the size differential, the tiny ones were not the babies of the larger ones. Not at all. No assumptions ought to be made. Particularly not when the tiny ones were so busy, so full of intent.

He felt that tug again and cocked his head, managed a glimpse. They were there, skittering all over him, but now he understood something else.

He understood why Hart kept screaming.

They weren’t just all over him, those little ones. They were inside him, too. Under the skin. Moving, and busy. So very busy.

Glazkov blinked, and for the first time he understood one other thing. Perhaps the most important thing. They weren’t just moving inside him.

They were also speaking to him.

Budanov’s whole world was pain and cold. He could hardly see. His head throbbed, his neck hurt, and his skull felt like something was tied around it so tightly that the slightest movement would cause it to burst. He'd spill his brains across the frozen ground. At least the pain would be gone.

No, Budanov thought. No, I won't let that happen. He never had given up in anything, and he wasn't about to start now.

He tried moving his limbs. They seemed to shift without any significant pain. Nothing broken. He rolled onto his right hand side and felt a heavy weight slip from his back, wet and still warm. He ran his hand up his front to his neck, checking for wounds. Nothing split open. He spat blood, and a tooth came out, too. His lip was split, and he'd bitten his tongue.

"Fuck," he whispered. Good. I can still talk.

Everything was silent.

Still lying on his side, he scanned his immediate surroundings until he saw his gun. It was down by his feet. He leaned down, head swimming, pulsing, and snagged the weapon with one finger. Straightening, hugging the rifle to his chest and checking that it was undamaged, he felt more in control.

He feared that everyone else was dead. His last memory was of one of those things coming at him, tendrils spread wide like a squid about to attack. He'd felt the impact of its warm, wet body upon him, then the sickly sensation of the limbs tightening around his neck and head... and then nothing.

He glanced behind him and saw the torn ruin of the creature, limbs split, body holed by bullets. A stinking fluid had leaked and melted into the snow.

Budanov sat up slowly and looked around.

Zhukov was to his right, dead. There was so much blood. Budanov's heart stuttered, then he calmed himself and brought his weapon to bear. His head swam. He'd known Zhukov for almost ten years, and they'd fought well together.

"Sorry, brother," he whispered. The words seemed too loud, as if a whisper could echo across the landscape.

He realized how silent everything was. How still. Groaning, biting his lip to prevent dizziness spilling him to the ground, Budanov stood and looked around. He staggered a few paces from the mess of Zhukov's body and leaned against a tree.

Nothing moved or spoke, growled or sang. The whole valley was deathly silent, and he wondered whether he was actually dead and this was what came after – desolation and loneliness.

Then he heard something in the distance. A buzzing, far away, so faint that he thought it might be inside his head. He tilted his head left and right, trying to triangulate the sound, but it came from everywhere.

There were many of those alien creatures lying dead all around, and trees and rocks bore scarred testament to the strength of the firefight he'd missed. But other than Zhukov's corpse, there was no sign of his comrades.

Except...

Drag marks in the snow.

"Oh, no," Budanov breathed. They'd seen the animals being gathered by the tumblers and hauled towards the hole, before those things had switched their attention to the Spetsnaz unit.

He checked his weapon, switched magazines for a full one, wiped blood from his face, and started toward the hole. He would not leave his people, not while there was even the smallest chance they were still alive.

The buzzing grew louder. Close to the edge of the abyss he frowned and hunkered, still stunned by its size but now terrified by what might be down there. He turned left and right, trying to pinpoint the sound, but did not identify it until moments before the first helicopter swept into view.

The big Mi24 attack aircraft and troop carrier appeared above the ridge line across the valley, closely followed by two KA-52s in escort formation. Help had arrived, and he hadn't even had a chance to call it in.

Their helicopter pilots must have reported the forced change of destination the moment his unit left the aircraft back at the scientific station. Budanov didn't know how long had passed – he guessed little more than an hour – but that was plenty of time for this new unit to be scrambled and sent their way.

He knew how much trouble they were all in for disobeying orders and scrapping an important mission, but right then he didn't care. Something amazing and terrible had happened here. But for now his main concern, his only concern, was for the surviving members of his unit.

Budanov popped a flare and waved it back and forth several times, then tossed it onto a pile of rocks close by. He was ten meters from the hole's edge.

As the three aircraft circled the valley and hovered for a while above the massive hole in its floor, Budanov edged closer. He kept his weapon ready, convinced that at any moment one of those tentacled things would surge up from the depths and come at him.

If it does I'll blow it apart.

But nothing came. He reached the edge, leaned over and looked down, and saw only darkness in that intimidating pit. The walls seemed sheer, and there was no sign of life. He thought of lighting another flare and dropping it over the edge... but he was afraid of what he'd see.

"Hold tight," he said, but there was no one to hear his words.

As the helicopters swung around and came in to land in a clearing three hundred meters away, Budanov jogged toward them, ignoring his aches and wounds. He wondered how long it would take to make them believe.

Their descent into the pit seemed to take forever.

Vasnev's screaming faded to a whimper, and Yelagin might well have been dead. Demidov tried to keep tabs on them both, alerted to where they were by the strange, shimmering luminescence emanating from the tumblers bearing them. Their bodies glowed, reminding Demidov of deep sea creatures – just as compelling, equally mysterious and alien. She couldn't help seeing beauty in their flowing movements, even though the tumbler held her with painfully tight tentacles clasped around her stomach, left arm and both legs. It was pointless struggling or attempting to escape, but as they descended deeper and deeper, she had time to plan.

She could not simply submit to whatever was to come. Vasily and his companions were likely dead, but while there was even the slightest chance they were still alive, Demidov and the remainder of her unit had to fight.

She had a knife in her boot and a grenade still hanging from her belt.

"Oh, my God," Yelagin said from over to her left. "Look down."

Demidov was glad to hear her friend's voice, but when she twisted and followed her advice, cold fear slithered through her veins. Down beneath them, far down, a faint glow was growing in size as they continued their descent. To begin with it might have been just one more tumbler, but as they drew closer she could see many separate points of illumination. It wasn't one. It was hundreds.

"Yelagin," Demidov said. "Vasnev. We need to get away."

"Captain, there are tunnels in the walls," Yelagin said.

"You're sure?"

"I just passed one. The glow of this thing lit it, just for a second. I don't know how far it went but..."

"But that's enough," Demidov said. "Vasnev? You alive?"

"I can't..." Vasnev said. "I can't believe..."

"You don't have to believe," Demidov said. "Do you still have your knife?"

A grunt that might have been an affirmative.

"We can't let them get us down there," Demidov said, wondering all the time what these things heard of their voices, what they thought, and whether there was any way they might comprehend. She guessed not. Hoped not. They were something no one had ever seen or heard of before, how in the hell could they know Russian? "If they get us all the way down, we're finished. Look down, scan the rock face, and when you see—"

"There!" Yelagin said. "Just below us. A ledge."

"Right," Demidov said. She'd seen it. A narrow ledge like a slash across the wall, similar to many they might already have been carried past. But this one was where they would make their stand.

As the creature carrying her flowed down the wall, limbs reaching and grasping, sticking and moving, Demidov slid her hand down her hip and thigh, bending slightly, to reach the knife in her boot.

This is when it stops me, she thought. It'll know what I'm doing, sense the violence, and one wrench of those limbs will tear me in half.

But the creature seemed unaware of the weapon now grasped in Demidov's hand. The ledge was close; they were running out of time. Without trying to make out whether Yelagin and Vasnev were ready, she slashed at the tentacles pulled tight across her throat.

The creature squealed. It sounded like a baby in pain, but Demidov was committed now. She cut again, then grasped the thing's body with her left hand – soft, fleshy, wet – and stabbed with her right. She felt the blade penetrate deep into the thing's hide and the squeal turned into an agonized scream. Working the blade hard to the left and right, she gutted the beast.

From a little further away she heard other screams. She hoped they weren't human.

Demidov fought, slashed, thrashed, cutting limbs and seeing them drop away into the darkness like exclamations of pain. A gush of warm fluid pulsed across her throat and face. She tried to close her mouth but wasn't fast enough. She tasted the dying thing, its rank spice, its hot sour blood, and as it dropped her and she fell, she puked into the darkness.

She slammed onto the ledge and the breath was knocked from her. Spitting, wiping a mess of gore and puke from her face, she rolled back against the wall and looked up.

Glowing like a ghost from the gore covering her, Yelagin was climbing down the rock face just a couple of meters above. She dropped and crouched beside Demidov.

"Captain!"

"I'm fine. Vasnev?"

"Vasnev fell. I saw him go, still fighting the thing that had him."

Demidov rolled again until she could look down... and wished she hadn't. She guessed they were fifty meters above the hole's base, and it was pulsing with the glowing things, all of them shoving forward to congregate around one place at the foot of the sheer side. Vasnev was plain to see, splayed across rock, broken, splashed with luminous gore. If the fall hadn't killed him, they soon would.

"We should go," Yelagin said.

"Go where?"

"A cavern. Just past the end of the ledge, I think we can make it. I saw it as I watched Vasnev fall."

Demidov stood, the two remaining soldiers holding onto each other to protect themselves from the dark, the fall, and the terrible glowing, monstrous things that lived in the depths. They moved carefully along the ledge, and just where it petered out was a crack in the rock wall. Standing before it, a waft of surprisingly warm air breathed out at them, as if this whole place were a living thing.

"What the hell was that?" Yelagin whispered.

"Doesn't matter," Demidov said. She had already heard the sounds from below, and a quick glance confirmed her fears. The things were climbing again. Coming for them, ready to avenge their dead. "We've got no choice."

Yelagin tucked her pistol into her belt and climbed away from the ledge toward the crack. Demidov followed. She had never been great with heights. Inside an aircraft or tall building was fine, but if she was on the outside, then the great drop below always seemed to lure her with the promise of an endless, painful fall. Knowing what was coming for her from below only made matters worse.

"Here," Yelagin said. She was braced in the crack, back against one side and feet against the other, and reaching for Demidov with her left hand. Demidov grabbed her gratefully, scrambled, and soon they were inside.

It opened into more of a tunnel, relatively flat and leading directly away from the great hole. The wet, stinking remnants of the things they had killed still provided a low luminescence on their clothing and hair, and Demidov hoped the effect would last. They both carried flares, but they would burn harsh and quick. She couldn't imagine anything worse than being trapped down here in smothering, total darkness.

She tugged the grenade from her belt.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Yelagin asked.

“What choice do we have? They’re coming!”

Yelagin drew her sidearm again and put it into Demidov’s hand. “With respect, Captain, you blow the mouth of this tunnel, you could kill us quicker than those things out there. You’ll trap us in here, if you don’t bring the ceiling down on us. Hold them off as long as you can. I’ll see if the tunnel leads to something other than a dead end.”

Demidov nodded, switched the gun to her right hand and the grenade to her left. The bullets wouldn’t last very long.

She heard Yelagin move away behind her, using the luminescence from the tumblers’ blood to see. As the footfalls faded, fine tendrils whipped up over the ledge, and the first tumbler spilled into the mouth of the tunnel. Demidov took aim, dead center, and pulled the trigger.

"We're to place you under arrest and take you back to base," the Lieutenant said. He hadn't given Budanov his name. He hadn't even seemed keen to give the private any medical aid, but his medic had come forward and started tending Budanov's wounds anyway. While she bathed and dressed, another man – a civilian – took careful photographs of the injuries. Two others had disappeared into the snowy woodlands, each of them guarded by a heavily-armed soldier.

Budanov had warned them, but they didn't seem to believe a thing he said. All but the civilians, who looked terrified and excited at the same time. More fucking scientists, Budanov thought. That's why we're here in the first place.

"But my captain and the rest of my unit might still be down there," he said. "The things took them down, and perhaps—"

"Your fault," the lieutenant said. He seemed eager to move, shifting from foot to foot and scanning the snowscape. One of the men had thrown Budanov a thick coat, and he was eager for the medic to finish so that he could cover himself. All he wanted now was somewhere warm.

Demidov and the others aren't warm, he thought. They're down there. Cold, afraid. Maybe dead. But I have to know for sure.

"Can't you at least look?" he asked. "Get one of the KA-52s to hover over the hole, shine a light down?"

"We're not staying long enough for that," the lieutenant said. He was a tall, brash man, young for his rank, but Budanov sensed a good military mind behind his iciness. He knew what he was doing.

"You were coming here anyway," Budanov said. "Before you heard from our pilots. Isn't that right?"

"Not for long," the lieutenant said again, staring him in the eye for the first time. "Just long enough for these white-coats to get what they want, then we're getting the fuck out. You're lucky we're taking you with us. Your pilots left an hour ago when they heard."

"Heard what?"

The lieutenant glanced aside. Frowned. One of his soldiers ran across and stood close, muttering something into his ear.

"Everyone, back to the chopper!" the lieutenant shouted.

"But we're—" one of the scientists said. He was hunched closer to the hole, examining something hidden in the snow. One of them, Budanov thought, and he wondered whether it was one he'd shot himself.

"Do as I fucking say!" the lieutenant said. He looked rattled.

"What is it?" Budanov asked. Bullets were his only answer.

The KA-52 that had been circling the site dropped low over the hole and opened up with its big cannons, tracer rounds flashing into the darkness and impacting the wall. The explosions were so powerful that Budanov felt their vibrations through the solid ground, and snow drifted down from trees as if startled awake.

"But we don't know—" one of the civilians shouted.

"We do know," Budanov said. He stood, and just for a moment he fought every instinct that was telling him to flee.

I can't just run, he thought. I have to help. They'd do the same for me.

He turned his back on the helicopter and sprinted into the trees. No one called him back; either they didn't see him going, or they didn't really care. That lieutenant had been scared, and he'd had more on his mind than capturing an AWOL soldier.

Skirting around where Zhukov's body had been marked with a red flag, he saw a heavy white rucksack, dropped by one of the civilians. Coiled around its handles was a thin nylon climbing rope. He ripped it open, and inside were various devices and sample jars, and a radio.

As the cacophony of gunfire from the KA-52 ceased, the radio hissed into life.

"...leaving in three minutes!" It was the lieutenant's voice. "Ground Cleanse commencing eight minutes after that. You do not want to be here when the MiGs arrive."

Oh Jesus, they're going to blast the hole to hell!

Budanov crouched and ran closer to the wound in the land, tied the rope around a sturdy tree, and wondered just what the fuck he was doing as he threw the coiled mass over the edge and started to abseil into the darkness.

He descended nearly a hundred feet before he paused on a ledge, taking advantage of the glow from far below. From his pack he drew a couple of pitons and hammered one into the rock face as quickly as possible. Tying it off, he set his heels at the corner of the ledge and prepared to drop deeper. The seconds were ticking by in his head. How long since he’d heard the transmission? How many minutes remaining before MIGs started bombing the shit out of this hole in the frozen heart of the world?

The smell of methane lingered and he wondered if he was being slowly poisoned to death. Funny way to go, with bombs on the way.

To hell with it, he thought, and kicked off the ledge, shooting downward at reckless speed.

As he swung toward the wall again, boots shoving off for another rapid descent, he heard gunshots echoing up to him from below. He kicked off again, glanced down into the darkness… only it wasn’t truly dark at all. Far below, a pale white glow rippled and undulated like a strange ocean. Closer, on the opposite wall, the same glow shifted and crawled and slid along the rock, and now he saw them on his side as well. Slowing his descent, Budanov's breath caught in his throat.

He hung on the rope and saw the glowing, many tendriled-creatures coming for him, racing up the rock wall of the hole. He shot a single glance skyward, calculated how long it would take him to reach the top from here, and realized he would be dead soon. In reality, Budanov had known this from the moment he had snatched the coils of rope and run for the methane-cored hole, but now he truly understood what he had done.

Down was his only chance.

“Captain!” he screamed. “Kristina! Vasnev!”

Budanov kicked away from the wall and let the rope slide through his hands, nearly in free-fall. He rocketed downward, and the tumblers raced up at him. All of his choices had been made, now. From this point onward, there were only consequences.

Demidov slid backward, the jagged rock floor of the tunnel snagging at her pants. The blood of two tumblers cast a ghostly pale illumination in the tunnel mouth. The pistol was warm in her hand as she waited, heart pounding. One of the tumblers she’d killed had fallen backward off the ledge but the other lay twitching just a few feet from the soles of her boots. She dug her heel into the rock and shoved backward again, gaining a few more inches of distance from the dead thing and the ledge beyond it.

It hissed as it bled. That might’ve been the sound of it dying or just the noise of its warm blood staining the cool rock floor of the tunnel, like the ticking of a car engine after it’s been shut down. She whispered small prayers, her voice echoing in that cramped space, and she listened for Yelagin’s return. How would they get back to the surface? If they kept themselves alive long enough, help might come, but what about Vasily and his science team? The hard little bitch she thought of as her conscience told her the man she loved had to be dead, but Demidov wouldn’t listen. She told herself Vasily had to be alive.

Though maybe it would have been better if she could imagine him dead. If she could imagine he no longer needed her, that she could simply surrender to fate, give herself over to the death that even now crawled toward her.

The dead tumbler twitched and Demidov jerked backward, taking aim. She blinked, staring as she realized it was not the dead thing that moved but a new arrival. Behind the cooling, dimming corpse, another tumbler had crept over the ledge and slithered toward her, camouflaged behind its dead brother. They were getting sneaky now, and that terrified her more than anything.

They weren’t just cruel, they were clever.

“I see you,” she whispered.

It froze, as if it understood.

Demidov lifted the gun, still clutching the grenade in her left hand. The tumbler whipped to the right, raced along the wall and then onto the ceiling, clinging to the bare rock. Tendrils whipped toward her face and Demidov back-pedaled hard, sliding backward along the tunnel as she pulled the trigger. Bullets pinged and cracked and ricocheted off the walls, sending shards of rock flying. Two caught the tumbler at its core, splashing luminescent blood across the tunnel floor. Tendrils snagged her ankles from above, others tangled in her hair, and she screamed as one of them curled around her left hand – where she held the grenade.

Should have pulled the pin. Should have just thrown it. Should have—

She shot it again, center mass. Three more bullets and the gun clicked empty.

The tumbler dangled from the ceiling, its tendrils still sticking to the rock overhead. Demidov tried to catch her breath, to calm her thundering heart. Setting the grenade into the cloth nest of the crotch of her pants, she patted her pockets and checked her belt. Still had her knife, but she needed ammunition… and found it. One magazine. She ejected the spent one and jammed the fresh magazine home.

Something moved out on the ledge, slithering, rolling.

Demidov didn’t even look up at it. She knew. They weren’t coming one a time anymore.

Gun still in her right hand, she snatched up the grenade again, pulled the pin with her teeth and held on tightly. The second she let it go, the countdown would begin.

Taking a breath, she looked up.

The tumbler dangling from the ceiling dropped to the floor of the tunnel, dead, just as the others rushed in. She saw two, then realized there were three, maybe even four, their glowing tendrils churning together and filling the tunnel mouth. Demidov fired half a dozen shots, bullets punching through the roiling mass, but she knew her time had come.

She dropped the grenade, turned, and bolted to her feet.

Bent over, she hurtled down the tunnel, firing blindly back the way she’d come. The countdown ticked by in her head as she ran. In the dimming light offered by the blood soaked into her clothing, she saw the tunnel turning and followed it around a corner. The ceiling dropped and the walls closed in and she feared that she'd found a dead end, except there was no sign of—

“Kristina!” she screamed. “Take cover, if you’re here! Take—“

The grenade blew, the sound funneling toward her, pounding her eardrums as the blast threw her forward. She crashed to the floor, skidding along rough stone as bits of the ceiling showered down onto her, dust and rock chips. A crack splintered across the stone overhead and she stared up at it, lying there bruised and bloody, and waited for it to fall.

Nothing.

She took a dust-laden breath and realized she was alive. She'd dropped the gun when the grenade blew her off her feet. She looked around, ears pounding, but in that near darkness the weapon was lost.

She heard footfalls coming her way, reached for her knife, realized that the tumblers had no feet. The narrow beam of Yelagin’s flashlight appeared, along with the remaining glow of the tumblers’ blood on the woman’s uniform.

“You’re alive!” Yelagin said, more in relief than surprise. She didn’t want to be alone, and Demidov didn’t blame her.

“Seems we both are,” Demidov said, sitting up and brushing dust off her clothes. “For all the good it will do us. We’ll starve to death in here, if we don’t suffocate first.”

Yelagin knelt beside her. “We may die yet,” she said, “but it won’t be in this tunnel.”

Demidov frowned, glancing at her, refusing to hope.

“Come on,” Yelagin said, helping her to stand. “There’s a way out.”

“A way up?” Demidov asked.

Yelagin would not meet her gaze. “A way out,” she repeated. “That’s all I can promise for now.”

A fresh spark of hope ignited inside Demidov and once again she allowed herself to think of Vasily. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he was still alive.

All she and Yelagin had were knives, but for the moment they were still alive. They would fight to stay that way.

The tunnel sloped downward. Demidov’s ears were still ringing, all sounds muffled thanks to her proximity to the grenade’s explosion. Her head pounded but she took deep breaths and kept her arms outstretched, tracing her fingers along the tunnels walls as she tried to keep her wits about her. There were ridges and striations along the rock that were quite different from what she’d been able to make out on the side of the massive hole. If that sinkhole had been bored up from below by an enormous methane explosion, as Vasily and his team believed, then this side tunnel had been created by some other means.

Something had carved it out.

Several minutes passed in relative silence, with Demidov following Yelagin, the two women doing their best not to slip. The twists in the tunnel often led to a sudden steep section, and a wrong step might have led to a broken neck.

The luminescent blood they’d been splashed with faded with each passing minute, and soon Yelagin’s flashlight was their primary source of illumination. The air moved gently around them, not so much a breeze as a kind of subterranean respiration, the tunnels breathing, evidence there were openings somewhere ahead and below.

Noises came to them, quiet whispers of motion followed by what sounded like thousands of tons of rock and earth shifting, but they remained very much alone in the tunnel. Demidov exhaled in relief when the tunnel flattened out and she found she could stand fully upright. Yelagin picked up their pace, and soon they were hustling along in a quick jog. The thumping of her heart, the familiar cadence of their steps, lent Demidov calm and confidence that allowed her to gather her thoughts. Find the source of the air flow, she told herself. See if we can climb. Track down the tumblers and try to ascertain the status of the science team – dead or alive?

“There’s a glow—“ Yelagin started to say.

Then she swore, stumbled, and hurled herself forward in the tunnel. Demidov pulled back, reaching for her knife, ready for a fight. Her backpedaling saved her. Just in front of her, Yelagin scrabbled her hands to get a grip to keep from falling into a hole in the tunnel floor, an opening that seemed to drop away into nothing. Air flowed steadily up from the hole.

“Kristina!” Demidov called, glancing around, trying to figure out how she could help.

Yelagin had already managed to drag one leg up, prop her knee on the edge of the abyss, and now she hauled herself to safety on the other side of the five-foot gap. She’d seen the glow, but had been moving too fast to stop, so instead she’d jumped. And almost not made it at all.

They stared at each other across the gap, neither of them wanting to be left alone. Yelagin used her torch to search the edges of the hole, and it looked to Demidov as if she would be able to get around it – if she was extremely careful – without falling to her death. She lay flat on her belly and dragged herself to the edge to stare down into the depths, drawn by the soft glow that emanated from within. On the other side, Yelagin did the same.

Demidov went numb.

It was Yelagin who spoke first. “Is that...? Is it a kind of... city, do you think?”

Far below, perhaps hundreds of feet, were loops and whorls of stone, a kind of labyrinth of strange tracks and bowls and twisting towers. From those strange spires of rock hung innumerable tendriled things, either asleep or simply static, dreaming their subterranean dreams or contemplating the labyrinth of their underground world, and perhaps the new world they had discovered above them.

“Oh, my God,” Demidov whispered.

“Captain,” Yelagin said quietly.

Demidov looked up and saw that Private Yelagin had risen to her knees. Now the woman took to her feet, braced herself against the wall, and reached out across the gap. The message did not require words – get up, don’t look, don’t think, and let’s get the hell out of here. Demidov ought to have been the one in command, but in that moment she was quite happy to let Yelagin guide her.

She glanced one more time at the sprawling, glowing city-nest below and then she stood, never wanting to see it again. Taking a deep breath, she put one foot on the bit of stone jutting out from one side of the hole, and then she shook her head.

“No,” she told Yelagin. “Back up.”

“Captain…”

“Back up, Private.”

Yelagin withdrew her hand, hesitated a moment, and then backed away, giving her plenty of room to make the leap. Demidov got a running start and flung herself across the gap. She landed on the ball of her left foot, arms flailing, and then stumbled straight into Yelagin, who caught her with open arms.

For a moment they stood like that, then Demidov took a single breath and nodded. “Lead the way.”

They followed the beam of Yelagin’s light, passing several places where the tunnel branched off in various directions, until they found one that sloped up. Demidov paused to feel the flow of air and then gestured for Yelagin to continue upward. They’d been moving for only a minute or two, Demidov staring over Yelagin’s shoulder, when she realized she could see more details of the tunnel ahead than ought to have been possible. Her breath caught in her throat and she reached out, grabbing a fistful of Yelagin’s jacket.

“Stop,” she hissed into the other woman’s ear. “Quietly.”

For long seconds they stood in the tunnel, just listening. Demidov felt her heart thumping hard in her chest as she stared ahead. Sensing the trouble, Yelagin clicked off her flashlight, confirming what Demidov had feared. Not only did the tunnel ahead gleam with the weird photoluminescence of the tumblers, but the glow was becoming steadily brighter. They could hear the slither of tendrils against rock.

Part of Demidov wanted to just forge ahead. But she remembered all too well the glimpse she’d had of the tumblers killing Zhukov, and she thought perhaps they ought to retreat, find a side tunnel, and wait for this wave of creatures to pass them by.

Demidov took Yelagin’s arm and turned to retrace their steps.

The same glow lit the tunnel behind them.

“No,” Yelagin said quietly.

Demidov slipped out her knife. They had no other weapons and nowhere to run. A numb resignation spread through her, but her fingers opened and closed on the hilt of the knife, ready to fight no matter the odds.

The tumblers sprawled and rolled and slunk along the tunnel, arriving first from one direction and then the other. Some slipped along the ceiling or walls, filling the tube of the tunnel with their undulating tendrils and their unearthly glow until it looked like some kind of undersea nightmare.

“Captain,” Yelagin whispered. “Look at the little ones.”

Demidov had seen them, miniature tumblers about the size of her thumb, maybe even smaller. They clung to the others and moved swiftly amongst them. The little ones seemed to cleave more to the ceiling, creating a kind of mossy mat of shifting, impossible life. The tumblers flowed in until the only bare rock was the small circle where Demidov and Yelagin stood.

And then the smothering carpet of creatures parted and a pair of dark silhouettes emerged, like ghosts against the creatures' strange light.

Demidov could not breathe. For a moment, she could not speak, and then she managed only to rasp out a single word.

“Vasily?”

As Yelagin swore, frozen in shock, Demidov lowered her knife. Vasily Glazkov – her lover and best friend – came to a halt just a few feet away, with Amanda Hart behind him. The small tumblers clung to their clothes and flesh. Hart’s face seemed to bulge around her left eye, as if something shifted beneath the skin, near the orbit. Demidov wanted to look at Vasily, but that bulbous pulsing thing in Hart’s face made her stare.

“Hello, Anna,” Vasily said. His voice seemed different, somehow both muffled and echoing. The tunnel turned it into a dozen voices. He looked sad, and sounded sadder.

"Vasily, you're..." She didn't know what he was.

"It's such a shame," he said. "So many dead."

"We're all that's left," she said. But when he next spoke, she thought perhaps Vasily wasn't talking about the soldiers who had died.

“You must understand that they are no different from us.”

“What?” Yelagin said, shaking her head in confusion. “They’re nothing but different from us.”

Vasily did not so much as glance at her. He focused on Demidov. “There's beauty here. A whole world of wonder. When the shaft opened above them, they went up to explore, just as we came down. They're studying us, beginning to learn about our world. Already they have touched us deeply. Amanda suffered a terrible injury and they have repaired her, strengthened her.”

Things moved beneath the skin of Hart’s neck, and something twitched under her scalp, her hair waving on its own. Demidov stared at Vasily, gorge rising in her throat, hoping she would not see the thing she feared more than anything. Was that his cheek bulging, just a bit? Where his temple pulsed, was that merely blood rushing through a vein or did something else curl and stretch his skin?

“Who's speaking now?” she asked.

Vasily frowned. “Anna, my love, you must listen. There's so much we can learn.”

She could not find her voice, did not dare ask who Vasily meant by we.

“Dr Glazkov,” Yelagin said, shifting nervously as the small tumblers skittered above her head. “Whatever there is to learn, we'll find time for that. But some of our team has died and I don’t see Professor Brune with you. Captain Demidov and I have to report in. You know this. Can you get us to the surface? Whatever these things are, whatever you’ve discovered, our superiors will want to know. We need to—“

“Stop, Kristina,” Demidov said.

Yelagin flinched, stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“This isn’t Vasily talking," Demidov said. "Not anymore.”

Vasily smiled. Tiny tendrils emerged from the corners of his mouth, like cracks across his lips. “The truth is the truth, regardless of who speaks it.”

Demidov raised her knife.

They swept over her.

Yelagin screamed and they both fought, but there were simply too many of the creatures, binding them, twisting them like puppets.

Dragging them down, deeper than ever before.

It made her think of what drowning must be like. Tendrils gripped and caressed her, surging forward, one creature passing her to another like the ebb and flow of ocean currents. Sometimes tendrils covered her eyes and other times she could see, but the eerie phosphorescence of their limbs – so bright and so near – cast the subterranean labyrinth into deeper shadow. It was difficult to make out anything but crenellations in the wall or the silhouettes of Vasily and Hart. The sea of tumblers brought her up on a wave and then dragged her under again, carrying her onward. Demidov caught a glimpse of Yelagin, and felt some measure of relief knowing that whatever might happen now, they were together.

She tried not to think about Vasily, tried to focus just on her own beating heart and the desperate gasping of her lungs. Had it been Vasily speaking, lit up with the epiphanies of discovery? Or had these things been masquerading as her man, recruiting for their cause, attempting to find the proper mouthpiece through which to communicate with the hostiles they’d encounter aboveground?

The image of the things twisting beneath the skin of Hart’s face made her want to scream. Only her focus on surviving gave her the strength to remain silent. Every moment she still lived was another moment in which she might figure out how to stay alive.

The ocean of tumblers surged in one last wave, dumped her on an uneven stone floor, then withdrew. She blinked, trying to get her bearings. Glancing upward, she saw they had brought her to the bottom of the original vast sinkhole. Demidov stared up the shaft, the gray daylight a small circle far overhead, just as beautiful and unreachable as the full moon on a winter’s night.

Not unreachable, she told herself. You could climb it if you had to.

But she’d never make it. For fifty feet in every direction, the glowing tumblers shifted and churned, rolling on top of one another, piled as high as her shoulders. Demidov didn’t know what they wanted of her, but she had no doubt she was their prisoner. The tumblers parted to allow Vasily and Hart to approach her once more.

“Anna,” Vasily began. “They need an emissary. There is so much—“

“Where's Kristina?” Demidov demanded. “Private Yelagin. Where is she?”

With a ripple, the ocean of tumblers disgorged Yelagin onto the ground beside Demidov, choking and spitting, tears staining her face. Demidov took her arm, helped her to stand. In the weird phosphorescence she looked like a ghost.

Yelagin whipped around to face her, madness in her eyes. “I saw Budanov! He’s down here with us!”

“Budanov is dead.”

“No!” Yelagin shook her head. “I swear to you, I saw him clearly, just a few feet away.” She swept her arm toward the mass of writhing tumblers. “He’s in there somewhere. They’ve got him!”

Demidov stared at Vasily, or whatever sentience spoke through him. “Give him to me.”

Vasily and Hart exchanged a silent look. Things shifted beneath Hart’s skin, bulging from her left cheek. A tiny bunch of tendrils sprouted from her ear for a moment, before drawing back in like the legs of a hermit crab.

“He is injured,” Vasily said. “They can help him. Heal him.”

Demidov heard the hesitation in his voice, the momentary lag between thought and speech, and she knew this wasn’t Vasily speaking. Not really. Not by choice.

“Give him to me,” she demanded, “and I’ll carry your message to the surface.”

The things pulling Hart’s strings used her face to smile.

Vasily nodded once and the mass of tumblers churned. Like some hideous birth, Budanov spilled from their pulsing mass. One of his arms had been shattered and twisted behind him at an impossible angle. Broken bone jutted from his lower leg, torn right through the fabric of his uniform. His face had been bloodied and gashed, but it was his eyes that drew Demidov’s focus. The fear in those eyes.

“Private—“ she began.

“No, listen!” Budanov said, lying on the stone floor, full of madness and lunatic desperation as he glared up at Demidov and Yelagin. “There’s an airstrike coming! Any minute now… Fuck, any second now! They’re going to—“

Demidov stared up at that pale circle so high above.

She could hear them now – the MiGs arriving – the familiar moaning whistle of their approach. They had seconds. A terrible sadness gripped her, a sorrow she had never known. She looked at Vasily, feeling a hole opening up inside her where the rest of their lives ought to have been. He gazed back at her, mirroring her grief. Then she saw the twitch beneath his right eye.

“All the things we could have taught them,” he said, and she wasn't sure whether it was her Vasily talking about them, or them talking about everyone else.

The scream of bombs falling. The roar of an explosion high above – a miss. A shower of rock cracking off the walls of the shaft.

The sea of tumblers closed around Demidov and she shouted, reaching for Yelagin. They covered her, lifted her, hurtled her along as the MiGs roared and she felt the first explosion, the impact, the flash of searing heat as the tumblers rocketed her into their tunnels. They burned, and her skin burned along with them, and then she felt nothing at all.

Just a pinch, at first. That’s all it was.

Then a scrape.

Demidov flinched, surprised that she was still alive, but in pain. Searing pain, scraping pain that made her moan and wince and whisper to God, in whom she had never believed.

Her eyes fluttered open and for a moment all the pain faded, just a little. The city around her – city was the only word – could not have been real, and yet she was certain it was no dream. For a moment she let her head loll from side to side, gazing at the beauty and wonder of its whorls and curves and waves, and the strange spires that looked more like trees, towering things whose trunks and branches were hung with thousands of tendriled creatures, all glowing with that pale, ghostly light. She and Yelagin had glimpsed it from far above, but now she was here in the midst of it. She was in their home.

Another scrape and the pain roared back in.

Groaning, Demidov looked down and saw them on her naked skin, a hundred of the tiny things, their tendrils caressing and scrubbing her raw, burned flesh.

“No!” she cried, trying to shake them off and then whimpering with the agony of movement, lying still as her thoughts caught fire with the horror of their touch.

She remembered the bombing, the blast that scoured the tunnel even as they rushed her away.

“They saved your life,” a voice said.

Demidov recognized the voice without turning toward him. She steeled herself, because she knew that when she let herself see Vasily it would look like him, but it wouldn’t be him. He surprised her by not speaking again.

Swallowing hard, feeling the gently painful ministrations of the tumblers, she looked to her right and saw him standing nearby, watching over her. They clung to his clothes and skin and hair. When he spoke again, she might have glimpsed one inside his mouth, but it might have been a trick of the light.

“Yelagin?” she asked. “Budanov?”

“I’m sorry.”

Demidov sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Why save me?”

Vasily’s reply came from just beside her. “I told you. They need an emissary.”

She opened her eyes and he was right there, kneeling by her head, studying her with kindly, almost parental concern.

“There are other shafts. Other holes. They’ve been opening up all over this area. Some will be destroyed, as this one was. But not all.”

Her burnt skin throbbed, but she could feel that the stroking of those tendrils had begun to soothe her. Slowly, she sat up.

Demidov exhaled. “Vasily…”

He ignored her, forging ahead. “They'll share some of their gifts with you,” he said. “Teach you wonderful things, including how it is possible for them to heal the damage to your flesh—“

“Vasily?”

“—and then you will carry their message to the surface.”

“Vasily!”

Blinking as if coming awake, he looked at her. Vasily had stubble on his face and his dark hair was an unruly mess, just as it always had been. For that moment, he looked so much like himself.

“What is it, Anna?” he asked, eyes narrowing, as if daring her to ask the question.

She almost didn’t. Just getting the words out cost her everything.

“Who am I speaking to?” she said.

Vasily did not look away, but neither did he give her an answer. Several seconds passed before he continued to describe the mission the tumblers intended for her to undertake.

Demidov tasted the salt of her tears as they slid down her scorched cheeks and touched her lips. She hung her head, Vasily's words turning into nothing but a low drone.

Her right arm had not been burnt. That was something, at least. She stared at the smooth, unmarked flesh.

A shape moved beneath her skin.