Clark Kent's Arc

Chapter 23 of 4

The floor was sealed. The crowd was dying. Clark watched a woman slump lower against the wall. A child's breath came too fast. The welded cover trapped the dead below, but it also trapped the stale air above. No vent meant no fresh air. He needed a new source of clean air, one that did not open a path for the wraiths. He looked at the sealed room and found no answer in the walls. Peter Parker knelt by the floor again, his black suit dark against the metal. He spoke without softening it. "The air down there is bad. Below the seal is worse. You can't pull from there." He pressed his gloved palm flat. "You need a clean source. Something that moves air on its own." A big man pushed through the crowd. Winston Graves wore a wrestling singlet marked with a flag, his thick mustache damp with sweat. He had carried two fainting fans to the wall minutes ago without being asked. "The ring," he said, breathing hard. "Below the fight ring. There's a fan unit. Big one. Blew cold air on us during matches." He gripped Clark's shoulder. "It runs off its own line. Nothing to do with these shafts." Clark's chest loosened. A fan on a separate line meant air with no door to the dead. "Can you move it here?" Winston nodded once. "Me and Jake. We'll haul it." He waved a hand. A lean man with a coiled rope on his belt stepped up beside him. Jake the Snake said nothing. He cracked his knuckles and headed for the gate. They came back dragging the fan unit on a bent cart. It was the size of a barrel, caked in grease. Orion ran his hands over the housing. "Motor's good. Needs a line run to that dead outlet." He traced a cable along the wall and clamped the leads. The fan sat silent. Animal dropped flat by the sealed floor, palms spread, keeping watch for cold that meant a crack. "Still warm," he said. "Still good." Nothing scraped below. Orion struck the switch. The motor coughed, caught, and roared. Air pushed out cold and clean across the packed room. The woman on the floor lifted her head. The child's breathing slowed. People turned their faces into the stream and pulled it deep. "It holds," Peter said. He checked the fan's intake. "Pulling from the ring side. Not from below. You did it right." Clark leaned against the wall and breathed with the rest of them. The floor held. The air flowed. For the first time the room could stay sealed and still live. Then Orion frowned at the motor. "It draws hard. This cell won't feed it long." He tapped the battery clamp. "Few days. Maybe less." Clark looked at the fan, loud and alive, and knew it was now the only thing keeping the crowd breathing. If it died, so did they.