~~~~~
Nearly an hour had passed since Jacobi had lost his lunch. The trio continued to weave their way through the maze-like service tunnel and despite their attempts to console Jacobi about getting sick, neither Sara nor Charles could snap him out of his embarrassment. Other than their futile attempts to cheer him up the trip had been relatively quiet and Jacobi had gotten over the issue on his own.
They reached the end of a seemingly endless hall and Jacobi led them around the corner. When Charles saw the new, similarly seemingly endless hall he huffed an impatient sigh: “We’ve been walkin’ for forever, are we almost outta here?”
Jacobi had began to wonder the same thing, but the voice of reason told him to press on. “Don’t give up yet, just a bit further!”
“We should find our way back into the sewers soon and when we do it’ll be very close to an outlet on the outskirts of Titan City. From there it’ll be a short run to the hangar.”
Less than ten minutes later they reached another hatch, it was identical to the one they had passed through to get into the maintenance route.
“The voice of reason wins again.” Jacobi thought to himself as he pushed the door open.
He scanned the sewers for any signs of life but could sense none. He sharpened his ears but the slough of the slowly flowing sewer muck made it impossible to hear anything further than a few yards out.
Still uncertain about the safety of their new path, but with no other options, Jacobi led the twins through the door and back into the sewers.
“At least there’s no smoke here, eh?” Charles commented as he tightened the lock on the hatch.
“Yeah…” Jacobi replied absentmindedly. He looked down the tunnel, first to the left then to the right. Neither way showed any signs of natural light, nor was there a breeze. In fact, the air in the tunnel was oddly still.
He was just about to give up when he noticed the sewage in the center of the tunnel. “It must be flowing toward an outlet!”
“Bingo!” The voice of reason said in high-spirits. “Left it is!”
Jacobi started down the tunnel and Sara and Charles fell into line behind him.
The next few minutes were silent, save for the sound of the sewer water slowly flowing beside them. Perhaps Sara and Charles had noticed the worry that seemed to tense Jacobi’s shoulders.
Thus far their escape had been fairly easy. Sure, the explosion was an unforeseen obstacle but even that turned out alright thanks to Sara’s powers. Given the nature and the size of the explosion, Jacobi expected the whole place to be swarming with Gabgoblin’s agents, and yet there hadn’t been a sign of life since they passed the charred remains of the rat on the other side of the sewers.
“Something’s wrong.” The thought kept repeating in Jacobi’s mind and the fact that the voice of reason didn’t try to calm him made him all the more anxious.
With no definite answers as to why they hadn’t run into Gabgoblin’s agents, or even Wynn’s men for that matter, he decided to voice his concerns to his traveling companions and was interrupted - before he began - by the sound of footsteps. And from the sound of it there were quite a few pairs of feet.
He reeled around. Sara and Charles were frozen in place. They both looked to Jacobi for orders.
“At least they trust me at a time like this…” He thought. “Too bad I don’t have any brilliant plans.”
He wracked his brain for possible actions.
“We could turn back and hide in the service tunnel.”
“Nope.” The voice of reason shot the idea down within seconds.
“We could stand and fight,” Jacobi proposed. “Both Sara and Charles are Vi-”
“Not happening.”
Jacobi thought as much.
“The sewage!” It was the answer last time, why not this time too?
“You may have stumbled onto something!” The voice of reason mocked. “Or rather, into something…”
It certainly was true that the slowly flowing sludge was dark enough to hide in, but just thinking about all of the unmentionable junk that lie beneath the surface of the slimy green water made his stomach turn and his skin crawl.
“I say you have no other choice.”
He spent another half a minute thinking of another way out, but the footsteps were much closer now and a light appeared in the distance. Whoever it was, they were getting closer.
“I have a plan,” He whispered just barely louder than the noise of the sewage. “But you might not like it.”
Sara and Charles exchanged a glance and both nodded.
“The only way I can think of continuing down this path while evading capture,” He looked into the slime. “Is to swim past them.”
Sara’s look was filled with horror when Jacobi looked up, but it was Charles who voiced his concerns first: “Do you even know what’s in there?” His voice was lowered to the same loud-whisper that he had used earlier, luckily the ambient sound in the tunnel was enough to keep his voice from carrying too far. “I’m not gettin’ in there and there’s no way I’m lettin’ Sara get in there. I’d rather take these punks on myself.”
“There’s no way you could win against them. There are at least four of them heading this way and whether they’re Gabgoblin’s men or Wynn’s men, they’re going to have guns. Sure, you might be able to take down one or two of them, but the chance of us winning against them is very low.” Then, in order to back up his decision, he added: “Plus, there’s a lower chance of us getting sick from the sewage than there is of us actually winning against whoever is coming.” He wasn’t quite sure about that, but he couldn’t imagine that the actual odds were much different.
Charles made a deep noise that sounded like a growl, Jacobi assumed he was trying to think of a way to turn the tables back into his favor.
Sara gave Jacobi a nod. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but when she suddenly turned and tackled Charles into the slime he got the message.
He jumped into the sewage with his mouth tightly shut and his nose firmly plugged. The warmth of the liquid surprised him, but not as much as the strength of the undertow did. The current yanked him to the bottom and dragged him along against his will.
His saw light from behind his closed eyes, whoever was in the tunnel with them must have heard the splash. He prayed that the water was mucky enough to properly hide them like the voice of reason had suggested.
The light quickly faded and darkness enveloped him as he was left at the mercy of the deceivingly strong current.
He had jumped ahead of Sara and Charles, which meant that as long as they hadn’t surfaced, they were still behind him. But for all he knew Charles could have put up a fight and exposed the two of them, leaving Jacobi unknowingly alone.
“He wouldn’t do that, especially since it was Sara who had tackled him into the slime. Although, I couldn’t say the same if it were you who had jumped on him.” The voice of reason laughed.
The voice’s reasoning seemed to bring peace to Jacobi’s panicking mind and soon enough he just let the current do its job.
Time seemed to drag on and when Jacobi started to feel the pressure in his lungs reach its limit he felt around and determined which was was up. He kicked downward with all of his might and broke the surface. A few unsteady steps later he found his bearings and stood against the current.
He panted heavily. He couldn’t have been under the water for more than three minutes, but the eerie silence had made it seem like an eternity. He wiped the gunk from his eyes as best he could and when it seemed that he could remove no more he cracked them open. Surprisingly, they didn’t burn. The grimy water came to his chest and it took a considerable amount of strength to keep from being swept away, but he somehow managed.
He turned to scan his surroundings.
There was no sign of whoever had been approaching them, however, there was no sign of Sara or Charles either.
He counted to thirty and anxiety grew within him. He was about to start s
earching upstream when something suddenly ran into him beneath the water. He was thrown off balance and almost toppled backwards into the sewage, but before he could a small hand shot out of the slime and grabbed onto the neck of his shirt and pulled him forward.
Sara broke the surface and clung onto Jacobi to keep from going back under. Her breaths came in rapid succession of each other and her eyes were clamped shut.
Jacobi stood, frozen, with Sara clinging onto him. His face felt like it was on fire and his heart pounded in his chest like a drum. He was nervous, but he couldn’t say that he didn’t like being held onto like that. His joy didn’t last long. A few feet upstream a figure rose from the water.
Charles slowly emerged from the muck and, apparently, had no problems fighting the undertow. He brushed his wet, slimy hair away from his face, slid his hand over his tightly-closed eyes and flicked the slime back into the sewage. When his eyelids lifted his eyes were filled with rage. “Jacobi…” His voice seethed with anger as he slowly advanced.
Sara slung an arm over Jacobi’s shoulder and pawed at her eyes with the her free hand. “Charles, calm down.”
“No. I could have taken those guys out, no problem. But I guess jumpin’ in this crap sounded like a better idea to our Captain.”
“That’s right.” Sara shot back. “It did sound like a better idea. It was a better idea. Look, none of us are hurt, right?” She continued to wipe junk from her eyes, but even without being able to see, she knew that his anger had faltered.
She moved in for the kill: “It’s not like he knocked you into the sewage anyway. I did it. So if there’s anyone to blame, it’s me.”
Charles’ jaw had set, he looked angry but it seemed like she had cornered him.
Jacobi was quite impressed at the way that Sara handled Charles, but then again they had been together their whole lives.
Jacobi laughed nervously. “Okay,” He drew their argument to a close and changed the subject. “why don’t we get out of this muck and be on our way?” He took a step towards the walkway but the current was too strong and his footing was lost.
Sara screamed as Jacobi stumbled backwards. She threw her other arm around his neck and tightened her grip.
Jacobi took one step back and felt the current start to drag him under. A second step back and he lost his balance but was able to stay above the surface. With a third step he found purchase and fought the current, propelling himself sideways. His fourth step sent him to the walkway and with a fifth and final step the caught the edge and clung on to the cement with all of his might.
“Sara, are you oka-“ Someone grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled them from the water. Jacobi sailed through the air and somehow landed on his feet.
Charles stood before them and wiped his hands on his pants. His face twisted in a frown. “Are you two finished playin’ around?”
Sara finally opened her eyes and looked around. When her eyes landed on Jacobi, who’s face was only inches from hers, she yelped and flung herself away from him. She sat on her knees and stared at the ground a few feet away from Charles and Jacobi.
Ignoring the awkward situation between Jacobi and his sister, Charles huffed an impatient sigh: “Where to now, Captain?”
Jacobi looked around. Just ahead the tunnel split into three smaller tunnels, each one identical to the next. He chuckled. “I guess we’re lucky we stopped when we did.”
“Well?” Charles folded his arms over his chest and tapped his foot on the ground. “Which way do we go?”
The answer was obvious, Jacobi was actually a bit surprised that Charles hadn’t seen it himself. “That way.” He pointed to the tunnel on the right. “There’s natural light down that tunnel, that means a way out.” He smiled. “And where there’s a sewage outlet there’s bound to be a lake nearby. Hopefully it’s a clean lake.”
Charles’ frown disappeared. “Really?”
Jacobi nodded.
“Well what are we waitin’ for?”
Jacobi was amused at the man’s complete emotional 180, and couldn’t help but smile. “Are you okay, Sara?”
During Jacobi and Charles’ exchange she had gotten to her feet and rung out her hair. Now she was frantically searching through her pockets. Jacobi instinctively brought his hand to his chest and heaved a sigh when his fingers closed around the hard-plastic shell of Gabgoblin’s hard drive.
Sara turned and met him with a smile. “It’s still safe!” She held the orb out for Jacobi and Charles to see.
“Cool,” Charles said impatiently. “Can we go now?”
Jacobi nodded and the three of them set out towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
They had finally escaped the sewers.