Houjin cleared his throat and suggested, “Let’s go across the bridges. It’s faster that way, and we’d have to wear masks underground anyway, thanks to that cave-in.”

“Right!” Zeke said more brightly. “We can take in some scenery.”

“I’m not sure I’m up to more stairs yet, fellows.” Rector waggled the cane for emphasis.

Zeke slapped his arm again. “Get up to it, Rector. Yaozu isn’t a teacher, or one of them nuns at the orphan’s home. And no matter how big you talk, he won’t excuse you with a sick note.”

Chapter 9

Nine

Rector very badly wanted some water, but he knew better than to ask for it, because since they’d left the serious, sturdy confines of Fort Decatur there’d been nothing to drink but the thick, smoky air. Nobody would remove a mask in this permanent state of terrible weather, and even if there’d been a spot to do so, there was no water topside that didn’t run yellow.

“I don’t know,” he whined. He hated himself for sounding so weak, but there it was. “This is tougher than I’m ready for. I can’t do this, not so fast.”

“We’ll slow down when we get to the third-level bridges,” Houjin promised. “For now, we’re still within grabbing distance.”

“Grabbing distance?”

“Rotters. You know,” Zeke told him, urging him forward, around a corner, and up a ledge—even being so kind as to give him a boost. “Sometimes they pile up on top of each other, and they can get higher than you think. Anything within the first floor is grabbing distance.”

“Still haven’t seen one.” Rector clutched his side, where he felt a sharp, stinging stitch from all the exertion. “I only seen or heard one thing, and Huey tells me it wasn’t a rotter.”

“Come to think of it”—Zeke scratched at the spot where his mask strap wrapped behind his head—“I haven’t seen too many of them myself—not lately. But we’re underground a lot,” he considered, “and we go out of our way to avoid ’em. Come on up, Wreck. We’re almost high enough to dodge ’em.”

Rector took Zeke’s outstretched hand and let himself be hauled atop a carefully placed stack of debris. At the pinnacle, Houjin rummaged under an old fire escape and turned up a hook on a rope. He threw this hook up into the air—once, twice, a third time, before it caught—and it snagged a metal rung. As Houjin coiled the rope around his arm, the rung slid down and brought a rigged set of painted iron stairs with it.

“It’s on a spring,” he explained. “Hold it down, would you, Zeke?”