I could've told you it took forever to get from the open doorway to another, but I'd be lying. With the hood in place and armed with the fresh intel of Crawler hunting habits, the walk into the tunnels went by rather quickly and was mostly unremarkable.
The one major discovery of note: Every so often, I came across the skeletons of tiny creatures no wider than my hand and, in some cases, as small as my pinkie: Scrabs. It was during the final stages of the Global War when the Geneva Conventions were ignored. The resulting strikes, a combination of tactical nuclear arsenals and mass biological warheads, created a hellish landscape anywhere not actively defended by advanced screening systems. The hot spots affected by the immense fallout, radiation, and genetic cocktails left behind formed what we called "The Unrecovered Zones."
Sometimes able to chew and claw their way into the heavy metal containers used to transport bulk goods between cities, there were dedicated protocols for handling potential Scrab infestations. Seeing one usually wasn't a big deal. They were a common enough problem at the Port you'd rarely see anything more than single digits or the occasional solo straggler. However, if allowed to thrive, the little vermin could be more than just a headache.
The bare, grinning skeletons seemed no more desiccated than Branch's body despite their smaller size. Some of the bones were even large enough to be mistaken for fingers and metacarpals, possibly from children or small adults. The horrifying image of people being dragged down here by Scrabs mirrored the thought of being pulled into a sub-tunnel by a Crawler. Having not thought much about the subject as a kid when I'd been roaming around unmolested by either?
Nope. I was gonna just not think about that too hard right now.
Judging by the number of remains I'd already spotted, there must have been hundreds, if not a thousand, Scrabs at one point.
I came across a series of dotted trails made by the tapping feet of Crawler drones into the now powdered skeleton mounts. The dots pointed toward one of the doorway vestibules as, behind me, the interspersed lines led toward Branch's corpse. By the looks of the aftermath, the whole of the push inward by the Scrab Wave had been ceased by strategic flooding of nitrogen gas: they'd asphyxiated as the Crawler Drones executed their gruesome task.
Assuming the trail of intact skeletons would thin toward the breach point, I paced carefully toward the nearest vestibule and finally connected key pieces of a very fractured puzzle. The piles closer to the doorway ahead bore scorch marks, with fewer intact bones as the powder became finer and the coloration took on more of an ashen quality. As the numbers of charred piles increased, so too did the quantity of dots as the paths converged.
The ash piles made it difficult to walk as my suit's work light traced the outline of a plastcrete plug, flush with the surface of the wall and fitted to seal a roughened hole no wider than my head.
Surrounding the now-sealed hole were claw marks rising to the ceiling. The lines spread outward along the floor and corridor and were so numerous they flowed in a way reminiscent of an ivy plant, clinging to the dull plastcrete foundation. Moving my light to and fro made the lines stand out in stark contrast as they danced and stretched like wriggling tendrils.
I'd once seen a Creeper Ivy at a botanical garden.
There were other holographic exhibits intermixed, visible examples of the non-genetically modified variants the Ivy had pushed out as it adapted to our climate. The leaves of the Creeping Ivy were vibrant and had a certain aesthetic pattern despite being blended with the duller uniformity of modified genetics. Even with the warnings of its ability to spread and take over man-made ecosystems, the guide had informed us all attempts to control and reconcile the vibrant coloration were met with failure.
"Chaos theory exemplified," she'd said. I recalled the near reverence she'd had as she'd touched one of the leaves.
I'd found the idea beautiful if not also a touch creepy; pun not intended.
Here? The markings were ugly. The claw-created vines formed a hungry scrabble on the plastcrete as the swarm burrowed toward a desperate future. By the looks of the scene as I took it in its entirety, if you thought about it, the swarm only existed by a chain of genetic manipulations, time, and evolutionary theory. Being drawn toward the promise of heat and sustenance was in their make-up, what they were forced to do as a result of their created environment.
Branch had been caught in between Scrab and Crawler as he attempted to save himself. Trapped between two sides like trash in a compactor. Piles of powdered skeletons and bones acted as gruesome monuments to the successful work of Crawlers fighting against the Scrab menace. They'd brought order back from history-created chaos but spawned chaos themselves as the sins of mankind clashed. The machine logic of the drones focused more on order and maintaining environmental conditions. Their logic wouldn't, or couldn't, take humans into consideration as it cycled.
It was a risky trade-off: safety and protection so long as you didn't become an outlier.
Like Branch. Poor guy.
I let my light wander, visualizing a rough approximation of where Branch's body had been. Each gouge, tear, pile, and intact skeleton was a clear sign of how dangerous the threat had truly been as the trail followed the path. A threat stopped at the cost of ONE human life.
Was the cost worth it? I couldn't honestly answer. Hero? Victim? Unfortunate bystander?
There was just no way for me to tell. The breach point of a burrowing vermin infestation might not have been large in the scope of things, but its effects would've been locally horrifying if nothing had stopped it. It was entirely possible he was the one who raised the alarm, which led to his own demise.
As to why the drones were left on hunter mode and Branch's body had remained undisturbed once the threat was handled? I had no real way of telling. A silent but furious subterranean war had been waged as people like me lived our lives above, oblivious.
I'd never known. WE...had never known. Like the true appearance of the Spires, how much more had we been blind to, and why?
Would he have done it if he knew his death was guaranteed?
I moved past the plug, past all of the piles of crushed Scrab bodies and dotted trails, and approached the doorway. My interface was met with nothing as I held my finger over the contact point. The way out had been blocked, the internal mechanisms having been disabled or removed.
I felt a shot of anxiety. I'd had my own battles to wage, and I'd been held up too long unraveling the tangled threads of this unrelated mystery. How much air would I need to find another way out? How much air had I already wasted if I couldn't get another door to open?
From a technical sense, the choice to permanently disable doorways nearest the plug's location was a smart one. It also didn't bode well for my chances of finding a doorway in the immediate vicinity. The decision to flood the tunnels with nitrogen gas and set the triggers on the Crawlers to activate if they detected Scrab breathable air was also an efficient one. Too bad Branch and I needed the same ratios to live.
The sinking feeling in my stomach returned as I tried two other doorways, both disabled. I'd confirmed my theory. It was time to turn back; I needed air.
I continued to see Crawlers as I sped along, careful not to touch or trigger any of the singular units pausing to monitor me as I passed. I was able to observe several of the groups, always in threes, lingering in areas that were paths of least resistance from the location of the breach point.
Their movements and positions now made sense to me, and I was easily able to avoid them as I carefully picked my way back.
At last, the doorway opened with a quiet click, as I gasped, breathing as deeply and quietly as I could of the frigid air. Black spots had begun to creep into my vision, and I'd been miraculously closer to passing out than I felt comfortable admitting.
I took a few extra breaths, ready to close the hood in anticipation of another dive into the tunnel depths when I inhaled it. Thick and cloying, a stream of cigarette smoke drifted from outside the entry, making a straight beeline into my face.
My lungs were assaulted with a sudden urge to cough as a rough voice yelled from outside the doorway.
"HEY! What are you doing down here?!"