Absolute Knowledge Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Drew Cordell

  18 THE DEPTHS

  “We’re sending you right away,” Edgar said.

  “Seriously? I don’t have to sell it?” I asked in disbelief. I told them there was more information for the Guild, but didn’t mention the part about how it was only meant for me.

  Marwin shrugged. “I wish you would have told us sooner. Look, we’re on your side, Jake. We’ve got to deal with more political garbage with the Scavenger Guild, and we’re sending a few squads over to River’s Port to make sure they comply. We’ve already confirmed all their thought collection tech has been shut down. The Rail is offline now as well. They’re claiming only citizens in River’s Port were working, and they didn’t sell us out.”

  “Do we have gear for four?” I asked.

  “We have gear for your whole squad. I want all of Knight Squad to go, and I want you taking full gear. That means full EPX and rifles,” Edgar said.

  Caeldra opened her mouth to complain, but Marwin interrupted her. “If you’ve got a full squad with armor and survival gear, you’ll be able to face any challenge you might meet down there. All of you are well trained at this point, but the Depths are dangerous, and you need to be very careful. We’ve only sent teams down there a few times, and it’s almost completely unmapped. If something happens, work together and get everyone out. We can’t help you, and you won’t be able to contact us during your mission.”

  “Are you going to run this by the Council?” I asked.

  “No. We have to deal with the Scavenger Guild, but we are going to insist you take a good scanner down there to check for traps, just in case. Jake, we’ll want to see what you find,” Edgar said.

  I nodded, not sure if I’d show them or not. The robot’s words repeated in my mind. “This is for you, and you alone, Jake. Wait until things settle down and don’t involve the Guild officially. They can’t find the real box or everyone will die. You need to trust me.”

  “We’ll leave tonight,” Caeldra said.

  “Great. Be careful down there and stick together. Go see Martinez and he’ll load your systems with what we have on the Depths. Take the standard route down to 406 then the western ventilation shaft on that level will take you down to the start of the Depths. From there you’ll be on your own.”

  “Got it,” Caeldra said.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said to Marwin and Edgar. They both nodded.

  “Good luck. Hopefully you’ll find something useful,” Edgar said.

  Marwin clapped me on the back. “We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

  Caeldra and I walked back over to our squad where Martinez stood with his computer on a table, updating everyone’s Artemis links with information about the Depths for offline use.

  Everyone was already wearing their power armor suits, the pressurized, nuclear-powered suits that would protect us from the harsh conditions of the Depths. The EPX suits were bulky and painted matte black. Several hardpoints on the armor held slots for sensors, lights, and other gadgets which Martinez was rigging to each suit. Our backpacks, which locked onto the back of the armor, weighed close to eighty pounds when fully loaded with food, water, and everything else we’d need, including the O2 tanks that attached to a metal frame on the side of the backpack.

  Martinez updated our Artemis firmware to be compatible with the EPX suits and checked all the connections, sensors, and mechanical components before helping us into our external harnesses. We twisted our helmets into place and tested the Artemis neural links, opening the blast shields on the helmet visors to let air in through the filters. Weighing in at well over one hundred pounds of equipment each, we’d have a hard time moving if the power failed. With the powered suit, the excessive weight of all the gear was barely noticeable, and we were much nimbler than I expected.

  I grabbed my rifle and clicked it on the side of my backpack, securing it to one of the magnetic anchor points on the frame before holstering my CZR-7 on my hip. I wanted to bring my Hellfire Blade, but my range of motion was restricted and I didn’t want to accidentally hit my armor. Besides, in the compact tunnels and unknown operating conditions, I’d rather have a gun.

  “We good to go?” I asked as Martinez completed the last of his calibrations.

  “Yeah, you’re all good to go. Just remember what you’ve been told. Stick together and be careful. Even if you pushed those suits to max capacity, they’d run for six weeks straight. Don’t worry about the reactors, just get back so you don’t die of thirst. You’ve got a few days of water each and it can be stretched if needed, but don’t linger down there and try to limit what you bring back,” Martinez said. “If you find anything too big to carry, mark it on your map and we can always go back for it later. There’s no telling what you’ll find down there, so if anything feels off, pack it up and get the hell back here.”

  “Sure,” Caeldra said. “We’ll be careful and will be back in a couple of days. I don’t plan on being down there longer than needed.”

  “Yeah, it gives me the creeps,” Adam said.

  “We’ll be quick,” I told Adam as Caeldra led us toward the nearest Undercity entrance.

  I punched a button on the control panel of my arm and the lights on my helmet and shoulders illuminated, piercing the darkness of the Undercity tunnel and the dense clouds of stagnant gasses. Caeldra led us through the entrance, sealing the blast door behind us. The EPX suits we wore had one thousand feet of cabling for rappelling that was coiled on a mechanical winch attached to our backs. The harnesses also had self-actuating carabiners. We had extra lines to use just in case, but the suits were designed for rapid descent down seemingly impossible distances.

  After a few minutes of walking, we reached one of the main ventilation shafts. By simply thinking about it, my suit launched the carabiner from my main line and latched it to one of the hard points on the wall. Everyone else did the same, and we jumped out toward the wall of the circular vent, kicking off the side with our heavy boots and stabilizing ourselves before starting the descent to 406. With the advanced scanners and systems on the suits, we were able to descend rapidly, accelerating to a speed that made my stomach knot.

  Finally the system slowed us, and we helped each other onto the platform of the door painted with ‘406’. Our lines dropped down into the depths below, and the motor on our suits coiled the cabling back into place, fishing it back up. With everyone on the platform, we pulled open the door. Caeldra and I led with our rifles raised. Our lights pierced the clouds of gas and overpowered the dim, yellow lights caked with dirt and grime through the ages.

  “Nothing on Artemis,” I said over the radio.

  “Copy. Let’s get ventilation shaft on this level. It will take us to the Depths, but we’re going to need to make a few stops on the way because we’ll run out of cabling,” Caeldra said.

  “How far down is this?” Bailey asked.

  “A few miles, that’s why we have the suits. The air is no good in a lot of the tunnels and it gets hot,” Caeldra said as we continued forward.

  “What purpose could a tunnel this deep serve?” Adam asked.

  “If you believe the old legends, the survivors of New York lived underground until the city was no longer underwater,” Caeldra replied.

  I didn’t know if I believed it, but then again, aside from the massive reactors and whatever else was hiding in the Undercity and Depths, the entire underground tier of New York was impossibly complex and barren.

  We cleared more of the empty tunnels before coming to another ventilation shaft. This one was unlit and dropped down into darkness that consumed our flashlight beams. We repeated the same drill as before, attaching our carabiners and descending the shaft, slower this time, but still too quickly for my comfort.

  When we were almost out of cabling, we stopped and attached a secondary line around large pipes that shot below into the darkness. We couldn’t see anything above or below us, and it was terrifying to drop out lines into the darkness below before pulling them up and resetting them on o
ur harnesses. It was irrational, but I was terrified someone or something was going to grab our lines and pull us down into the abyss.

  “Same drill. We’ve got to repeat this a few times,” Caeldra said as the motors on our suits revved and pulled our cables up.

  Resetting the lines, we repeated the process four more times, and I was beginning to think the darkness would go on forever. My system had already registered a fifteen degree increase in temperature since we’d started down from the vent in 406.

  “You’re sure the fans aren’t working anymore?” Adam asked, continuing to watch the darkness below.

  “They haven’t worked for years. We’re tethered, and the EPX suits would protect us; no need to worry,” Caeldra said.

  “There’s no way they’d come on,” Leroy added.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Adam said, apparently trying to dismiss his fear.

  “Six hundred feet from the end of the tunnel,” Caeldra called as we continued to fall.

  I peered down, thinking my light was reflecting off something, but it didn’t look like concrete. It was too shiny, and it was getting closer. I tried to crane my neck further, but the suit was restricting my vision.

  Cursing, I flipped over in my harness, squeezing my feet on the line above me and holding my head so it was falling first. We weren’t approaching concrete.

  “Stop!” I yelled, but it was already too late. Just as the Artemis system warned us, we hit the surface of water and started sinking. Warm, acrid water began seeping in through my filters, splashing my face and settling around my neck before my suit was able to close the filters and switch to pumping my helmet full of fresh, breathable air. The air bubbled from the small pool of water in the base of my helmet, counteracting some of the water’s stench.

  Bailey, Mary, and Adam were yelling, but they calmed when they realized we weren’t in immediate danger.

  “Everyone okay?” Caeldra asked.

  “I’m good,” Leroy said.

  Everyone else in the group responded—they had all sealed their suits.

  The weight of our equipment was causing us to sink into the murky, gray waters, still sliding down our attached cables.

  “Pipes must have broken down here,” Caeldra said. “Flush your suit. We’re still a few hundred feet away from our tunnel.”

  I raised my wrist and punched a button on the screen. My helmet hissed, and the water in my helmet was shot out in a burst of bubbles.

  I could see the others as we sunk downward, but the water was too murky to see more than ten feet in any direction.

  “How long will our oxygen tanks last?” Mary asked.

  “Six hours, but they’ll refill automatically when we’re out of the water,” Adam said.

  “Jake, how far?” Caeldra asked.

  I pulled up the mostly empty map. “We need to head east, but I can’t get an exact read on the distance,” I said, pulling up the coordinates and opening them in my overlay. I moved my head to the east and looked down. A bright red light burned in my vision, but it was still impossibly distant. Using my neural link, I sent the coordinates to everyone else.

  “Here’s a tunnel that will take us east,” Caeldra said, stopping her descent and swinging herself through the water over to the platform. When she made it and managed to grab one of the handles on the side, she connected herself and attached another line to the handles by the door. She attached her rifle to her pack. The energy rifle wouldn’t do well underwater.

  “Caeldra, wait,” I said just as she was about to pull the door open.

  “What?”

  “If it’s not full of water, then you won’t be able to open it. If we have to force it, then it’s going to flood and it might pull us in if we’re not careful,” I said.

  Caeldra fastened herself and grabbed the handles. “Lock your lines,” she said, bracing herself and wrapping both hands around the door handle. “Here we go.”

  As she pulled, the door scratched against the surface of the concrete. It was a horrible sound, audible even through the EPX suit. There were a few bubbles that escaped from inside the tunnel, but it was clearly flooded as well.

  “How are we going to manage this?” Mary asked.

  “Get in the tunnel first, and we’ll tether a line to each one of us. With the weight of our gear, we should be able to walk like normal. It will be a bit slower, but we’ve got to find tunnels that aren't flooded,” Caeldra said.

  With the help of Caeldra and multiple short tethers, we managed to get everyone in the tunnel within a few minutes and recover our main cable lines. As a precaution, we shut the tunnel door before trudging forward. Our movements were awkward and resembled something between floating, swimming, and walking.

  The tunnel continued straight for a few feet until we came across another ventilation shaft. This one was unmapped, but Artemis was recording our movements so we’d be able to retrace our steps.

  “It’s worth a shot,” I said. “We do need to go deeper, and I don’t see anything farther down this tunnel.”

  “Yeah, but if there’s still water in this tunnel that means this ventilation shaft is flooded all the way down,” Mary said.

  “But the other tunnels might not be. We’ll seal off the doors as we go; it can’t all be flooded,” Caeldra said.

  “What could have caused it to flood like this?” I wondered.

  “A main line probably broke. I’m surprised the system didn’t shut it off automatically, but this is most likely the reason for the water outages on the surface of the Slums. It’s probably mechanical failure.”

  I fastened my carabiner to one of the rusted pipes and jumped down—it was too narrow for all of us to go at once. I let myself sink, rotating my body to check for tunnels. I passed a few, but we needed to get as deep as possible before finding a tunnel. I looked up and could see the outlines of the others through my Artemis display, but the water was too murky to see more than a few feet with my flashlight. As I neared the bottom, I braced myself on a platform that headed east, calling for the others to stop. The door was open, and it looked like our best bet. I helped the others in and we closed the door behind us, creeping closer to the red dot burning on my display.

  “This is a maintenance level,” Adam said, walking over to a waterlogged control panel and slamming on it with his armored glove.

  “So?” Bailey asked.

  “So, maybe we can flip a valve and drain the water.”

  “He’s not wrong. If we can find one, we may be able to open the fan shields on the bottom of the ventilation shafts. There’s no telling how long it would take, but they should let us drain the tunnels,” Caeldra said.

  “What if that makes the problem worse and floods the tunnels where we need to go?” I asked.

  “It might, but we’ve already burned half an hour of air.”

  “There’s no way we’ll get these consoles working. They’re meant to handle a little water, but these have probably been underwater for years,” Adam said.

  “Nothing mechanical; it’s all electronic,” Bailey said, moving around the control panels before returning to the group.

  “There,” I said, peering forward and barely making out the outline of a hatch on the floor sealed by a circular lid.

  “There we go,” Mary said, walking over to the vent and inspecting it. The lid had rusted, but looked airtight.

  “Adam, fasten a line to the lid so you can close it when we’re through. It’s going to flood, and we need to get it closed if we’re going to get out of the water. If this section isn’t flooded, we may be able to travel without water the rest of the way,” Caeldra said.

  Adam fastened his line, and we positioned ourselves around the lid. Using the combined strength of our EPX power membranes, we lifted the hatch into its upright position. Water flooded through the hatch and pulled us downward.

  “Go!” Adam yelled over the rushing water. He had positioned himself at the back of the hatch and was holding it open as the water tried to for
ce it closed.

  I flashed my beam down the hatch; the surface was only about ten feet down. I jumped, landing with a hard thud and sliding along the floor with the flooding water that was already knee deep. The others landed in the water and began to slide. Adam somehow managed to slide down, but was thrown headfirst into the shallow water below as the overhead hatch slammed shut.

  “Adam!” I yelled, gaining my feet and running over to him. He wasn’t moving, but when I lifted him from the water, his suit looked intact. His eyes were open, and he was scanning the surroundings as if trying to make sense of everything.

  “Huh?” he asked, still looking around. Blood was dripping down his forehead, but the wound didn’t look bad. Just a minor cut.

  “Move,” Caeldra said, pushing me out of the way and running some scans on his suit with her wrist link. “Adam, you’re lucky. You’re going to be fine. You just hit your head.”

  “Help,” Bailey croaked.

  I turned toward her and couldn’t see her face through the thick layer of moisture and fog that had formed on the inside of her face visor. She collapsed into the water, splashing and sinking below the shallow surface.

  19 DELVE

  I frantically fished Bailey from below the surface of the water, propping her up on my leg and wedging my arms under hers.

  “Check her O2 valve!” Caeldra shouted, wading through the water toward us.

  “It’s open,” I said. “Tank’s empty.”

  “The air in here is no good, barely any oxygen and the toxins are too strong for the filters,” Mary said, scanning the air in the tunnel.

  Caeldra cursed, pulling her backpack off and fishing inside for something. She pulled out a coil of plastic tubing and drew her knife. She sliced a hole in her airline and wedged the smaller tube inside the slit. Pinching her airline closed around the splice, Caeldra cut a slit in Bailey’s airline. She jammed the other end of the tube through and pinched that one shut as well. Caeldra’s visor started to fog up as the tank struggled to provide air for both of them. I slammed my fist on Bailey’s suit, right on her chest, hitting it hard to try to jostle her awake from her unconsciousness. With the closed suit, there wasn’t much I could do but hope Caeldra’s fast action worked.