Free Extinction Game by Gary Gibson

least.’
    ‘But there are other exits,’ I said. ‘Aren’t there?’
    ‘Yeah, but it’s going to take a while longer to reach them.’
    ‘Just as long as we’re not trapped down here.’ The steel cage that had wrapped itself around my chest loosened slightly.
    ‘Go take a look at the maps of the Retreat,’ said Nadia, ‘see which of those exits is nearest. You know where they’re kept?’
    ‘Sure.’ I walked, stiff-legged with terror, through to the rear of the EV. Barnes, asshole or not, might have been right when he ordered Nadia not to come down here. I pulled open a
drawer where printed maps of the entire Retreat were kept, then spread them out on a fold-down table next to the EV’s tiny kitchenette, and tried not to think about the lava slowly filling up
the whole vault.
    ‘We found ’em!’ Nadia practically screamed from up front, just a few minutes later. ‘I got the others on the radio!’
    By now, the vault was incandescently bright with lava. More and more of it came pouring in behind us, and showed absolutely no signs of abating. It had melted the frozen air that lay on every
surface, filling the vault with dense clouds of gas and dust that pooled beneath the ceiling and reduced visibility to nearly zero. It took an effort to keep my focus as I studied the spread-out
sheets.
    I came back up beside her, but could see nothing through the windscreen – not even the far wall of the vault, although I knew we were rapidly approaching it.
    ‘Where are they?’ I asked, looking over at Nadia.
    ‘In the next vault after this one,’ Nadia replied. ‘There’s a connecting tunnel, if I remember the map. We should be able to just drive straight thr—Oh
shit
.’
    Before I could ask her what the problem was, I looked back up and saw the fog had cleared sufficiently to reveal both the far wall and the connecting tunnel directly before us. The tunnel
entrance, however, had become partly blocked by rubble – heavy girders from an adjacent construction project had collapsed across its entrance in a great pile. I knew immediately there was no
way the EV was going to be able to get past such an obstruction.
    ‘Is there enough space we can at least walk through?’ I asked in desperation. Blocked or not, there were gaps through which I could see into the darkness of the next vault. Even if
the EV couldn’t get past the wreckage, it didn’t mean we couldn’t.
    ‘I guess,’ said Nadia, pressing a button next to the microphone. ‘Rozalia, can you still hear me?’
    ‘Loud and clear, sweetheart,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘What the hell’s going on back there? There’s all that light and—’
    ‘Hekla’s erupting,’ said Nadia. ‘A lava flow’s flooding the first vault.’ She pulled to a halt as near the mess of collapsed girders as she dared. ‘It
looks like we’re going to have to come through to your side on foot.’
    ‘You shouldn’t have come, Nads,’ said the woman’s voice. ‘There were some real bad tremors down here and the EV went into a ditch and we’ve been stuck here
ever since.’
    ‘Anyone else with you?’
    ‘Two Authority scientists I was escorting.’
    ‘What about your towline?’ asked Nadia. ‘Did you try using that to get you out?’
    ‘We tried. We got the winch running, but it got damaged when we crashed. It’s not strong enough to pull us back out of the hole we’re in.’
    I could just make out a glint of silver in the next vault that might have been the other EV.
    ‘Are they just on the other side of the tunnel?’ I asked Nadia. ‘I thought I could see them.’
    ‘Yeah, they are. Why?’
    ‘Maybe we can use our own towline, if it stretches that far. Our EV might be able to drag theirs back out of whatever hole it’s stuck in.’
    She gave me an appraising look. ‘Smart boy,’ she said approvingly, and leaned over the microphone. ‘You hear any of that, Rozalia?’
    ‘I did,’ the other woman said, her voice crackling. ‘Frankly,