The entrance to the mine was a wound in the earth.
It gaped open at the base of a cliff, framed by rotting timbers. The air drifting out was cold and salty.
"The elevator is wood," Napoleon said, kicking the rotting platform. "It won't hold the suit."
I looked down the shaft. It was pitch black.
"We rappel," I rasped.
The engineers rigged a heavy iron chain to a sturdy pine tree. They wrapped it around a winch.
"Hook on," I ordered.
I clipped the chain to the harness ring on my chest plate.
"Lower away."
The winch groaned. The chain pulled tight. I stepped off the edge.
Grind. Spark.
I descended into the dark.
The air grew cooler. My external temperature gauge dropped. 10 degrees Celsius.
I turned on my suit lights. Twin beams of yellow light cut through the gloom.
The walls were glittering. Not rock. Salt. Layers of ancient ocean sediment, crystalline and white.
"Depth 100 meters," Charles called down from the rope beside me. He was descending like a spider.
The shaft opened up.
My boots hit the floor. THUD.
I unclipped the chain.
I looked around.
It wasn't a mine. It was a cathedral.
The cavern was massive. The ceiling was lost in shadow. The walls were carved salt, translucent and eerie.
And it was lit.
Electric arc lamps buzzed on poles, casting a harsh, blue-white light that reflected off the crystals.
"Electricity," Napoleon whispered, landing beside me. "In a mine?"
"It's a factory," I said.
We walked forward. The Chasseurs fanned out, their boots crunching on the salt floor.
We entered the main chamber.
I stopped.
"My God," Napoleon whispered.
Rows of glass tanks lined the walls. Hundreds of them. They glowed with a sickly green fluid.
Inside the tanks were men.
But they weren't men anymore.
They floated in the suspension fluid. Tubes ran into their chests, their skulls, their spines.
Their eyelids had been removed. Their eyes stared blankly into the fluid.
Their muscles were unnaturally swollen. Metal plates were grafted onto their skin.
"Hunters," I said. "Mass production."
"He's growing an army," Charles said. He walked up to a tank. He put his hand on the glass.
The thing inside twitched.
"They're alive," Charles said.
"Burn it," Napoleon ordered. "Set the charges. Bring the roof down."
"Wait," Charles said. "Look at the wiring. It's connected to the brain stem. He's downloading something. Skills? Obedience?"
Suddenly, the white arc lamps flickered.
They turned red.
A klaxon blared. AHOOGA. AHOOGA.
"Welcome to the womb, Alex."
Cagliostro's voice boomed from loudspeakers hidden in the shadows.
"Do you like my children? They are so eager to meet you."
HISSS.
The fluid in the tanks began to drain.
The glass doors hissed open.
The Hunters slumped forward, coughing up green slime. They pulled the tubes from their bodies.
They looked up.
Their lidless eyes locked onto us.
"Kill them!" Napoleon shouted.
The Chasseurs opened fire. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
Musket balls hit the Hunters.
They didn't fall. They flinched, but they kept moving.
They were fast. Blurringly fast.
A Hunter leaped twenty feet, landing on a soldier. He tore the man's throat out with his bare hands.
"Retreat!" I roared. "Defensive line!"
I stepped forward. I punched a Hunter in the chest.
CRUNCH.
My brass fist caved in his ribs. He fell back, but he grabbed my arm. His grip was steel.
"Strength augmentation," I realized.
Another Hunter jumped on my back.
He wrapped his legs around my tank. He clawed at the hoses.
Warning. Integrity Critical.
"Get off!" I slammed my back into a salt pillar.
CRASH.
The Hunter held on. He found the main oxygen line. He pulled.
TEAR.
HISS.
A jet of white gas sprayed out.
My pressure dropped instantly.
Oxygen 50%... 40%...
I was suffocating. Again.
"Charles!" I gasped.
Charles was calm. He stood in the chaos, reloading his pistol.
He looked at the Hunter on my back. He couldn't get a clear shot without hitting the tank.
He looked up.
Above us, a massive stalactite of salt hung from the ceiling.
Charles aimed his pistol. Not at the enemy. At the ceiling.
BANG.
The bullet hit the base of the stalactite.
CRACK.
It broke loose. Five tons of rock salt fell.
It smashed into the Hunter on my back, knocking him off. It crushed two others who were rushing us.
I stumbled forward, free.
But the leak was bad. I could hear the gas escaping.
"The tunnel!" Napoleon shouted. "Fall back to the tunnel!"
We ran. Or lumbered.
We reached a narrow mining drift. The Chasseurs piled crates and mining carts to block the entrance.
The Hunters slammed against the barricade. They screamed—a high, inhuman sound.
I collapsed against the wall.
KHH... hhh...
The regulator was struggling. The leak was bleeding my supply dry.
"Patch it," I wheezed.
Charles was already there. He pulled a roll of rubber tape from his kit. He wrapped the torn hose.
Wrap. Tighten. Wrap.
The hissing stopped.
"Pressure holding," Charles said. "But you lost a lot. You have 10% left."
I nodded. The air was thin, but breathable.
I looked at the barricade. The Hunters were tearing at it. It wouldn't hold for long.
"We can't go back up," Napoleon said. "They block the exit."
I looked down the tunnel. It sloped downward. Deeper into the earth.
And I heard it.
A low, rhythmic thrumming.
Whom... whom... whom.
It sounded like a giant heart beating.
My suit sensors picked up a spike in radiation.
"We go down," I rasped.
"Why?" Napoleon asked. "Into a dead end?"
"Because that's where the power is coming from," Charles said. He was looking at his compass. The needle was spinning wildly.
"He's built a reactor," I said.
I stood up. The servos whined.
"If we destroy the core, the factory stops. The Hunters die."
"And us?" Napoleon asked.
"We liquidate the asset," I said. "Or we die in the audit."
I turned my suit lights to high beam.
"Follow me."
I walked into the dark.
The tunnel grew hotter. The walls began to glow with a faint blue luminescence. Cerenkov radiation.
We were walking into the core of a nuclear nightmare.
And I had twenty minutes of air left to stop it.