Free The World Beneath (Joe Tesla) by Rebecca Cantrell

could fall out now. He tucked it under his arm and lifted the lantern.
    The room was, as he’d expected, empty. He climbed through the hole he’d opened up. He swung the lantern in a slow circle, shadows chasing each other across the walls. No one out here, either. Hadn’t there been a man and a dog earlier? Were they back? He didn’t think so.
    The uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. He took the lantern and walked along an unused track, counting his steps. At just the right spot, as if he’d known it all along, he stumbled over a stack of broken train ties that looked as if they’d been tossed there before the Korean War. Quickly, he cleared a space in the pile, placed the briefcase in the middle, and then restacked the ties haphazardly atop it.
    Then he went back toward the car. He would find the other papers, the ones that the doctor must have hidden.
    The ones that told how he could be cured.
    Dread consumed him. What if they weren’t there?
    He half-ran back to the brick tomb and climbed inside. He ransacked the car, finding no papers concealed in the cupboards or fastened under the chairs, nothing on the floor or walls. The ceiling held nothing but a wire and pockmarks from bullets, nothing useful at all.
    With a curse, he threw the glass decanters one after another against the thick glass windows. The square bottles shattered, and shards of glass glittered against the thick dust.
    He jumped from the back of the train and ran to the doctor’s body, ripping the coat from the skeleton, hands delving into the pockets, searching even his pants pockets. Nothing. He repeated his actions with the soldier’s corpse, pulling them both into the center of the room so that he could see them better.
    Sweat ran down his back, and his breath grew tight. Calm down, he ordered himself. Think. The papers had to be here somewhere. After all, the men were trapped in this room. Nothing could have left the room.
    He started at the far end of the room and walked from one end to the other, lantern in one hand, peering at the dirty ground. When he got to the brick wall, he turned, took a step to the left, and walked back the other way. His footprints formed straight lines in the dust. He was walking a grid. If it was here, he’d find it.
    An hour later, he collapsed on the steps that led up to the car. He’d found nothing. There was no hope. He dropped his head into his hands and wept.
     

Chapter 8
    November 28, 4:52 a.m.
    Tunnels
     
    Ozan hated train tunnels. They smelled like oil and rat piss. The third rail ran electric death along the side of each track. One kick to the wrong spot, and Erol would be alone. Ozan walked on the train ties, both to avoid the third rail and to keep from leaving prints in the dirt.
    He’d brought a flashlight, but hadn’t had to use it yet. The tunnels were illuminated well enough that he could walk without one. The light would draw attention, and he never liked to draw attention.
    It was inconvenient that he had to come down here, but inconveniences were necessary on a job like his—as were the uncomfortable too-big shoes he currently wore, even though he had a pair that fit perfectly in his jacket pocket.
    A train rumbled up and Ozan slipped behind a pillar, taking cover. When he came back out, his target was gone. A shadowy figure headed back to the platform. Ozan tracked it. He caught up just as the man neared the platform. The man paused by the stairs, as if he sensed Ozan’s presence behind him in the tunnel, then hurried into the light. He was several inches too short to be Subject 523, so Ozan retreated.
    A few hours later, he was ready to call it a night.
    The trains started to run again at 5:30. That gave him only thirty-eight more minutes to search. After that, he’d head topside for a shower and a long sleep, and start again in the evening.
    The man should have been distinctive—tall, dressed in dirty fatigues, looking like a homeless man but walking like a military one. Ozan had