You must be this old to enter the Dungeon

54) Improvise, Adapt. Blow shit up.

We didn’t even make it fully inside the building before I heard the last gunshots from near the bus and knew that the Heap had been taken down.

So gone, but according to Brackets, not beyond recovery. I just had to get back home and I could remake it.

Outside of the Sanitarium, I could hear confused yells and frantic orders as we made our way past some torn yellow tape labeled ‘Caution’ and into the abandoned remains of the building.

With, I realized, me not having a single clue about where exactly the Dungeon had opened up inside the building.

“Hirum, where are we going? Do you even know where the entrance is?”

The Sabatour turned his head to look back at me, and I could only barely see the gleam on his teeth in the pale white floodlights shining in from the outside. “Seems like something you should have asked me earlier Harry. I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

Then he began running ahead with a flashlight that had appeared in his hand from his storage. A fancy black mag light over a foot long.

Mine was a bit older, with a simple push switch and rust marks on parts of the steel casing. But it worked fine, and it was lighter.

One thing we had talked about before we came in, was not getting our guns out until we got into the Dungeon, so the Border Agents didn’t have any real excuse to shoot two old guys.

A discussion I realized that would have been a good time to ask about where the entrance was. Dammit.

I caught up with Hiram as he was awkwardly shining his flashlight around looking at directions painted on the walls since he had been holding it upside down like he was going to use the handle as a club.

Looking at his phone, then back up at the signs, the Saboteur turned and headed down a hallway, “This way Harry.” Checking the way with my light showed me we were heading to ‘Maternity.’

Were we heading for the mother of all Dungeons?

Then the building’s old speakers began to crackle and someone started to talk to us. Well, more like order at us.

“This is Special Operation Supervisor Amos Pena. You will stop and wait for my officers to take you into custody. Your cooperation will result in lighter sentences gentlemen.”

Me and Hiram looked at each other as the coyotes circled around us sniffing nervously, then we turned and well, not so much ran as hustled down the hall.

“Mr Bright. Your family is very concerned about your safety. You are in no condition to be doing this, neither is Mr. Colshek. If you don’t stop now, we will use force to detain you for your own safety.”

Family? I slowed a bit, getting a curious look from Blue. Who would have…

“Clever boy.”

Reed. He had done something, coming at me from an angle I wouldn’t see coming. After all, who else could it be? Bea is a kid, her mother didn’t give a dam about me one way or the other, and Beryl knew better than to try something like this. I would rather burn rather than cooperate with her again if she did.

Up ahead I could see Hirum scratching at his head as he looked into the open door of an elevator shaft, catching up with him I could see all the blocks wrapped in gray plastic that were wired into the structure of the elevator shaft.

Now just wired as in held in place with wire, which it was, but electrical wiring going to devices with stubby little antennas and other wires going off down the hall.

The other end of the wire went to what I would guess were detonators stuck into the blocks.

The voice on the speakers sighed. “For god’s sake. We already armed the shaft with sensors to blow up any mass movements that are detected coming out of the Dungeon. The two of you going in with your pets could get you both killed. Please. Back off and surrender yourselves. You won’t be harmed, just detrained.”

The voice on the speakers sounded more pleased with himself than concerned as he warned us. Which made me lean in to ask Hiram in a low voice. “Any of that true.”

He shrugged. “I only know bombs from the movies, but it all looks like remote control detonators. Either from a radio or whatever the wires going off that way might be hooked up to. But setting up a bomb at the entrance seems like a good idea. Only…”

With a grin, he began nodding to himself. “This isn’t set up to tear up anything coming out, it’s just plastic explosives with nothing wrapped around them for shrapnel. It even looks like they put in on the structural stuff to drop part of the building on top of the entrance.”

He bent over the wiring with a set of clippers of some sort. “In fact, I think we just got us an exit plan.”

“Mr. Coshek. What are doing? Stop that! What you are doing is very dangerous!”

I heard another voice say “Sir! You…” as if it was in the background before it was cut off.

Clipping the wires from about ten feet down the hall, Hiram quickstepped back toward me even as the ends of the halls began to light up behind us from around the corners.

“Go! Go! Go!” Hiram ran into me from behind shoveing me into the translucent gray barrier going entirely across the elevator shaft about two feet below us. Stumbling forward my feet hit the top of a steep slope just inside the Dugeon and I lost my balance, slipping down two feet before falling backwards with the back of my head hitting the edge of the entrance to the elevator shaft.

Before I could try to get up a fat coyote pup used my head as a stepping stone before landing on my crotch feet first and then went tumbling down the slope. Followed by his mother jumping over and half running, half falling her way down along behind him.

Blue landed next to me and gave me a concerned look as I fell over halfway on my side clutching at myself. The little bastard hadn’t quite nailed me, but even a glancing hit down there was enough to make it hard to breathe.

From behind me, I heard the Sabatour trying to yell over the sound of the Border Patrol guys screaming at us over the loudspeakers.

“You boys might want to back off, I'm setting off this mess above me after I go in. You won’t have time to disarm all this, but you should have just enough time to get clear of the building. Stopping us isn’t…”

A burst of gunfire came from above, and a skinny old man came dropping down with a yell of “Geronimo!” into the entrance of the Dungeon and coming down just in front of me. Landing flat on his back below my feet he began sliding down the steep slide of rusted metal, a length of wiring still clutched in his hand.

“Wait…” What did he say he was going to do?

For once I really wish we had talked things out more in advance.