Against Gravity

Kendrick was the first to notice something strange. He was clambering over a scattering of loose boulders when he spotted a silvery glint in the nearby foliage, mistaking it at first for a spider's web.

Then he looked much more closely. "Hey, Buddy. Check this out."

They could discern the thread-like substance everywhere – a fine nacreous filigree, so thin and delicate that it was almost invisible, spreading across trees and rocks and bushes alike.

Buddy reached out to touch a thread and jerked his hand away almost immediately.

"What's up?" asked Kendrick.

Buddy looked afraid. "Touch it and see."

Kendrick fingered the strand. For a moment he was somewhere deep and dark as a sense of unutterable loneliness washed over him. He quickly wiped his hands on his jacket, aware that they were shaking.

"Remember following that kid Louie halfway across Venezuela?" he muttered. "This is the same kind of thing we found then." He suspected that the threads extended deep beneath their feet, all the way down into the Maze itself.

Buddy nodded. "Like I could forget."

Kendrick stepped away. "We shouldn't be surprised by this. This stuff is what keeps Los Muertos so close to the Maze."

Buddy shrugged. "I know, but…"

Kendrick nodded in turn. Sometimes there just weren't the words, but he was shocked by the fear that he detected in Buddy's voice.

Buddy's eyes widened and he pointed over Kendrick's shoulder. "Hey, I think I see the entrance!" He picked his way between two vast tree trunks, sliding down a muddy slope until he reached the base of the cliff. Kendrick followed, grabbing at roots or anything else he could use to stop himself falling too fast. The air was filled with the sound of exotic and primal wildlife, and those silver filaments were everywhere: it was like being on another world.

The threads had even woven themselves into the rough surfaces of tree trunks and were also visible in patches of mud, or stretching between blades of grass. As the sun sank towards the western horizon they reflected its light in an unearthly glow, giving the surrounding forest an hallucinatory dimension.

Sure enough, at the base of the cliff, hidden behind bushes and moss-covered rocks, lay the mouth of a cave, its interior dark and mysterious. Kendrick gazed long into its lightless depths before kneeling and brushing his fingertips against some of the thin fibres that extended ahead.

It was like someone finding, while standing in the middle of a vast crowd, that they possessed a hidden talent for telepathy. A rapid series of impressions flew through Kendrick's mind, faint enough for him to be uncertain whether or not they were the product of his own imagination.

Suddenly he had an image in his mind of a clearing in the jungle…

He lingered, feeling a powerful urge to look over his shoulder as if someone – or something – was standing there watching him. Something malevolent.

Buddy stepped past Kendrick and on into the cave. More threads glinted from deep within, making it appear that he was walking into the i

Kendrick gave in to the urge to glance over his shoulder. Nothing there – just the deep, darkening jungle behind them.

But it felt so strongly as if someone had been right there. He walked back towards the fading daylight. The clearing he'd seen in his mind's eye, like a scrap of someone else's memory…

"Where are you going?" Buddy demanded, staring after him with a bewildered expression.

Whatever it is I felt when I touched the thread, it knows we're here. Not Peter McCowan, but something else.

Kendrick crossed the banks of a stream that drained the pools beneath the cliff, his boots splashing noisily through the shallow water.

Over – there.

The jungle around him suddenly felt full of an overwhelming sense of presence.

Buddy shouted after him. "Kendrick! Where are you going?"

"Two seconds."

He pushed deeper into the jungle, past trees and bushes, almost slipping and twisting his ankle on wet rocks. He cursed and pulled himself upright, moving past more trees. Then he saw it.

He stared at it for a long time. After a little while, he heard Buddy come up next to him, breathing hard.

"Kendrick, what the fuck are you- Oh, hell."

Threads had gathered together to form a vast woven bowl extending between the tree trunks, filling a wide glade beyond. Thick ropes, comprising thousands of filaments clumped together, extended downwards from the underside of this bowl, entangling themselves in the living soil below.

Kendrick had seen it earlier, when the threads had first brushed his skin.

"Do you know what it looks like?" Buddy breathed.

"I know what it looks like. Like a transmitter – or a receiver."

As they looked up, through the thick matting of strands glistening in their millions, they could make out the dusk's sky and the sparkle of its stars.

A few dozen metres into the cave they came to a familiar shield door. The sight of it sent a riot of memories surging through Kendrick's mind.

"The question is, can we still get it open? The electronics might be shot." Buddy shone his torch across the surface of the door.

"Damn," he exclaimed, jerking his hand away.

"More threads?" asked Kendrick.

"Yeah." Buddy's face was pale, even in the darkness.

Kendrick reached out and touched the shield door's rusting metal. Nothing happened, although he was surprised to detect a faint glimmer of current. Then he slid his hands across the surface and sensed something shift subtly, deep within the metal.

Something inside him reached out and twisted.

The door rumbled, filling the humid air with an appalling groaning sound. At first it looked as though this entrance had been too long neglected to function any more and all their efforts would come to nothing. But then it creaked again and slowly, slowly began to slide open. Then it stopped, leaving a sliver of space barely wide enough for one man at a time to slip through.

"Okay," said Buddy. "I'm going to die underground." He shrugged. "Suits me."

The two men worked their way through the gap to find themselves in a near-absolute darkness that brought back unpleasant memories for them both.

Kendrick looked around him. It was almost as if he'd never been away, or as though the whole complex had become indelibly stamped into every cell of his brain. He shivered, only partly because it was cooler behind the shield door.

"Like a haunted house," said Buddy, coming to stand beside him. "Have you seen how there's these other threads – gold ones – as well?"

Kendrick nodded, and reached out to one stretching along a wall. As soon as he touched it, he felt again that strong sensation of being watched. But, although it seemed deeply irrational, the gold threads felt somehow friendlier.

He turned, suddenly half-expecting to see Peter McCowan standing there just behind him. He almost imagined he could smell the man's warm, beery breath – but he saw only Buddy.

"Okay," said Buddy. "What now?"

"Might as well keep moving," Kendrick replied, and they set off.

Several minutes later, Kendrick noticed that Buddy was behaving oddly.

The shield door was now far behind them, but with their augmentations they could see well enough. The sense of being watched only grew more intense the deeper into the tu

"I remember when they tried to cordon off this whole area," said Buddy. Kendrick knew that he was referring to the nanotech infestation.