The tunnel went straight back for at least a hundred meters before it reached a steep stairwell heading downward. After several minutes descending it, Jake could feel the pressure in his ears building. The weight of what must be millions of tons of stone above him made him feel small and insignificant. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and allowed the others to gather in another narrow tunnel. This tunnel was very short, and at the end was a metallic wall with a door set in the middle.
“That’s the torus wall,” Vee said. “After a day spent next to it, I’d recognize that material anywhere.”
“Why did my brother have us looking up on the surface for a way in?” Jessie asked. “If he knew about this entrance, why didn’t he tell us?”
Jake realized that his acoustics officer still wasn’t getting it. She had been through so much already, with her brother dying, then coming back to life, then her being told he was just a simulation, then alive again. It would be too much for most people. “I think it’s safe to assume that Ash isn’t telling us everything,” he said, trying to break the truth to her gently. “However, we don’t actually have any proof that he, or my father, are doing anything that would be detrimental to us.”
“They lied to us,” AJ reminded him, “about everything.”
“Yes, they did, but—”
“No buts, Jake. We have to be prepared for a worst-case scenario. We’re on our own down here, and they have the advantage.” She looked at Jessie. “We need everyone on their toes. Do you understand what that means, Jessie?”
She nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m on your side if...if it comes to that.”
“Good girl. All right, everyone get their knives ready.” She turned to Jake. “You go first, and I’ll follow.”
Before he had the chance to protest, she pushed open the door. Inside, it looked like a narrow room, but when he stepped through the opening, he saw that it was actually a hallway running left and right as far as he could see.
“Which way?” Vee asked.
“Should we split up?” Raines asked.
Jake looked at AJ. “Normally, I would say yes, but not this time.”
“I agree,” she said. “I think that under the circumstances, we need to stick together.”
“Then left or right?” Vee repeated.
Jake looked down to see if there were any wear patterns or anything suggesting which way his father and Ash had gone, but he didn’t see anything. The floor seemed to be made of the same material as the wall, smooth and very hard.
“This follows the inner wall of the torus,” he said, pointing down the walkway. “I’m willing to bet we could get lost in here really easily, so let’s find a way to mark this door. We’ll go left for a half hour or so, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll come back to this spot and try the other way. Either way, we don’t want to lose our only way out of here.”
AJ patted him on the shoulder. “Nice thinking, Captain.”
Vee pulled a sweater out of her backpack and handed it to Jake. “Will this do? It’s pretty warm in here, so I don’t think I’ll be needing it.”
“Perfect,” he said then walked over and shoved a sleeve into the grating in an air duct near the door. It hung there, looking like a creature trying to climb the walls.
“Too noticeable,” Dr. Wood said from the doorway. He was the only one who hadn’t yet stepped through it.
“That’s the idea, Doctor,” AJ said. “So that we don’t get lost.”
He walked through the group and pulled down the sweater then pulled out his knife and cut off a small piece of the fabric. He handed the sweater back to Vee and shoved the cut piece into the grate. “There,” he said. “Now, we can see it, but hopefully no one else will notice it.” He looked directly as AJ. “You did say we should be cautious, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Doctor, I did.”
Wood nodded then look at Jake. “Very well, then. Lead on, Captain.”
They walked for about fifteen minutes, passing unmarked doors about every three minutes, but each one was locked. When it seemed like thirty minutes had passed, they checked one more door and then returned to their starting point. Wood’s small marker was still there, but it was easy to spot the door because it was the only one leading away from the center of the torus. After another thirty minutes walking in the opposite direction, they were just about to turn back, when they found one door that wasn’t locked.
“Do we trust this?” Dr. Wood whispered.
“We’ve come this far, Doctor,” Jake said as he cautiously pulled the door open a crack and peered inside. No lights. He opened the door a bit wider, and the room lights flicked on, startling everyone. Jake opened the door wider so that everyone could see. It was a large storage room of some sort, easily twice as big as their living space, and filled with dust-covered objects of all shapes and sizes.
AJ pointed to the floor. “No footprints in the dust,” she observed. “No one’s been in here in a very long time.”
Raines squatted down and touched the dusty floor. “I’d say many decades, at least.”
“Can we go in and look around?” Jessie asked. Before either Jake or AJ could respond, she grabbed Jane by the hand and pushed past everyone to go explore.
Vee looked at her grandfather. “Have fun,” he said. “Just don’t push anything that looks like a button.”
“We didn’t come all the way down here just to look through other people’s junk, did we?” Wood asked.
“We came down here for answers, Doctor,” AJ said as she went in.
Jake looked at Wood and added, “Besides, it’s the only unlocked door we’ve found, so why not look around?” He started to follow AJ but then had an idea. “Hey, Doctor, I don’t imagine there will be any medical equipment inside, but I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
The doctor pushed past him, saying, “I’ll check for myself, thank you.” Jake just smiled and followed him in.
Since most of his crew fanned out to the central part of the room, Jake decided to check out the objects off to one side. Some were recognizable, like a bridge control unit similar to what was used in the Wave. There was also something that looked like an old-style food processor. Other pieces were unrecognizable.
“Look at this,” Raines called from the opposite corner. When Jake arrived, he saw his engineer standing next to the unmistakable shape of a Mind Ship.
“How did that get here?” Jake asked as he took a cautious step backward.
Raines smiled. “I don’t think it’s the same one,” he said.
“But it’s dangerous,” AJ warned. “We all nearly died because of that thing.”
“I think this one is harmless,” Raines said.
“Why would you think that?” Jake asked.
“Because someone took it all apart,” Vee said as she climbed out of the body of the ship. She held a black tube up in front of her. “I think this is it, Grandfather.”
Raines reached out and took the object. “You might be correct,” he said.
“What is that?” Jessie asked.
Raines held it up for all to see. “I believe this is the heart of the ship; the transmitter.”
“Where have you seen this technology before?” Dr. Wood asked, once again surprising Jake with his sudden, and almost random, interest in things.
“We stumbled upon a ship like this several months before you came on board,” Jake said, being careful to avoid any details. After all, the reality was that they had actually stolen the so-called “Mind Ship,” and then were nearly arrested when they dumped it in the Rift to keep it out of the military’s hands.
“I seriously doubt that,” Wood said, reaching out and snatching the tube from Raines’s hand.
“Hey,” Vee yelled. “That’s ours.”
“No, it is not,” he fired back.
Jake walked over and grabbed the tube from Wood. “I’ll hold on to this if you don’t mind.”
Before Wood could complain, AJ
stepped between them. “And if you do mind, you can take it up with me.”
Wood backed off. “That device is more valuable than you can imagine.”
“Oh, I think we can imagine quite a bit,” Jake said.
“You don’t even know what it is used for.”
“How about planting suggestions in people’s minds without them knowing it?”
“Exactly,” Wood said. “It could be a valuable tool in treating many forms of schizophrenia.”
“It could also be used to control a population, make them less likely to rebel,” Raines said.
“You don’t seriously—”
“Enough,” Jake yelled then calmed his voice. “We can talk about this later. Right now we’re here to find out what’s going on in this place and, if at all possible, find out where our ship is docked.” He handed the transmitter to Raines, who put it in his backpack. “You’re sure it’s safe to carry around like that?”
Vee nodded. “It has to be powered to work. As long as it’s not juiced up, then it’s safe.”
Jake looked at the doctor. “I appreciate your dedication to your craft, Doctor, but—”
Wood put his hand up. “Spare me your platitudes, Captain. If we were not trapped in this so-called, ‘paradise’ and bound together for survival, I would have had you all arrested for possessing such a device and for admitting to having destroyed one like it in the past.”
AJ reached over and grabbed Wood’s knife from his pocket. “You’re on your own from here on,” she said. “You will never be a part of this crew.” With that, she turned and headed out the door. “Let’s go, people,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve wasted enough time digging through bilge.”
At some point during the next half hour, there was an unspoken group decision to continue their search of the torus interior. There was no reason to go back to the cave. They had food and water, and now that they knew most of their living space had been simulated, it could no longer be called their home. Their home was a seventy-meter, Proteus-class cargo hauler called the Rogue Wave, and they were all determined to find it, no matter how long it took. At least, that was how Jake imagined it. One other person imagined it differently.
“I won’t go on any farther,” Dr. Wood said as he dropped to his knees then collapsed against the wall.
AJ sighed. “I suppose we can afford to take a short break.”
“I’m not interested in a short break,” Wood said, not bothering to look at anyone. “I don’t plan on leaving this spot. Please, feel free to go on without me. It’s what you all want to do anyway.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Jessie said, startling everyone.
Wood looked up, obviously surprised by her reply. “Now listen here, young lady, I—”
“No, you listen, Doctor,” Jessie yelled. “We’ve been nothing but nice to you, even welcomed you into our family, and I thought you were changing. But now all you do is complain.” She pulled out her knife and approached him. “Well, I for one have had enough.”
“Jessie!” Vee yelled as AJ spun around and lunged for the knife. Her hand struck Jessie’s forearm, knocking the knife loose but accidentally hurling it directly at the doctor. He screamed, Jessie screamed, and then he was suddenly nothing but a cloud of dust.
“What the bilge?” Jake yelled as a now-familiar metallic power supply fell to the floor with a clank.
“He’s a simulation!” Vee yelled. As before when the copy of Ash disintegrated, a small bug-like object rose from the dust and flew down the hallway in the direction they had been heading.
“I’m sorry,” Jessie screamed. “I only wanted to scare him.”
“That’s okay, sweetie,” Vee said, trying to calm her.
“When did he become—” AJ started to say, but Raines cut her off.
“Quick, follow that thing,” he yelled as he ran down the hallway after it.
“What was it?” Vee yelled as everyone ran to catch up with him.
“The brain,” Raines called back. “The controller.”
“Where do you think it’s going?” Jake asked. Both he and AJ were at the rear, making sure everyone stayed up with Raines.
“No idea, but I would guess it’s someplace important.”
AJ looked at Jake as they ran. “When do you think they swapped Wood out?”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe last night.” He looked over his shoulder at the hallway behind him. “Do you get the feeling that we have been led here? Like someone, or something, has been guiding us here?”
“Like your vision of the Wave?” she replied. “I guess that could have been some sort of holographic projection. The technology here is off the scale, so I guess we can’t rule anything out.”
“Maybe this is just another trap,” he said. “Maybe we were meant to find these tunnels. Maybe Wood’s assistant was sent along to keep an eye on us.”
“Well, that plan failed.”
Jake leaned in close as they ran and whispered back, “Unless there’s another imposter in our group.” She just shook her head and continued to run.
They didn’t have to run far, because at the next door, the bug stopped and hung in midair. A second later, the door slid open a few centimeters, and the bug flew towards it. Jake ran past everyone and lunged for the opening with his knife. He hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs, but managed to shove the blade into the opening just as it closed.
“I’ve got it,” Jessie said as she grabbed the handle of the knife as the door fought to close. Jake rolled on the floor, wheezing, trying to catch his breath.
“We need something to pry it open with,” Jessie said. Raines reached in his backpack and pulled out the pipe-shaped, Mind Ship transmitter. He shoved it in the door crack and pushed it hard to the side. The door eventually gave up and slid open for them.
“Everyone inside,” AJ said, grabbing Jake by the arm and pulling him across the floor through the opening. When they were through, the door resealed itself.
“Block it,” Jake tried to say, but his chest still hurt too much.
“Too late,” AJ said then looked at something ahead of her. “Anyway, I’m not worried about being trapped in here.”
He looked up at her. “Why?” Thankfully, his voice was returning.
Her eyes were wide, and there was a weird shimmering light on her face. “Because of that,” she said.
Jake forced himself to stand, but what he saw when he turned around, made his chest pain disappear. In front of him was a floor-to-ceiling window looking into a huge, water-filled sphere. Swimming inside were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of sea creatures, both large and small.
“Those are...Pre-Fall species,” Raines said. “I see dolphins, and...I think they called them blue whales.”
“Those are humpbacks,” Vee corrected him. “I memorized them all from your books.” She looked at Jake. “Still think this isn’t Earth Colony?”
“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “Once again, I have more questions than answers.”
The glass window suddenly turned black, and a deep voice asked, “Do you have a question?”
Jake and Raines looked at each other. “Who am I addressing?” Raines called out.
“You are addressing the Hall of Records. Please state your request.”
Raines looked at Jake and then at AJ. “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to say.”
“Who are you?” Vee asked.
“You are addressing the Hall of Records,” the voice repeated. “Please state your request.”
“I mean, are you a machine, or a person?”
“Irrelevant question. Please ask another.”
Jessie spoke up this time. “How is that irrelevant? Are you alive or not?”
“Irrelevant question. Please ask another.”
“What is your purpose?” Raines asked.
“The Hall of Records was created to record and store all harvest and conception events.
”
Now it was Jake’s turn. “What is a harvest event?”
“Harvesting is a procedure whereby an object is scanned at the molecular level, recorded in permanent storage, and then disassembled into basic elements for conception process.”
“What is a conception process?” AJ asked.
“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “I didn’t even understand what—”
“Conception is the antithesis of harvesting,” the voice continued. “Basic elements are combined following one or more stored patterns to create a new physical object.”
“So you break things apart and put them back together,” Raines said.
“A simplistic summary, but essentially correct,” the voice said.
“I think you were just insulted.” Vee laughed.
“Does any of this matter to us?” Jake asked Raines.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. To the wall, he asked, “Can you show us an example of how you harvest?”
The black wall suddenly turned clear again, but instead of the sea creatures they had seen before, it showed a group of isopods swimming along the sea floor, almost as if someone with a camera were swimming along with them. In the distance, a small ship came into view. At least it was small as compared to the huge isopods.
As it became larger in the image, Raines said, “That looks like one of ours.”
AJ stepped closer to the wall. “That’s a Nereus-class personnel carrier.” She looked at Raines. “Didn’t a personnel carrier go missing near the western border of Civica a few years back?”
As the image became clearer, Jake noticed a tall tower in the distance. “I think you’re right,” he said. “That looks like a border tower.”
They watched as the isopods moved over the ship and then picked it up with their long arms. The image cut back to somewhere inside the torus as the ship was placed on a platform. Light beams then began moving back and forth over the hull, whose damage was now quite visible. After a few minutes, the isopods returned and picked the ship up again.
“What happens now?” Jessie asked.
“The final step in harvesting,” the voice said. Everyone watched as the ship was placed on another platform. Then the entire thing began to glow, as though it was getting very hot. The glow became too bright to see but then quickly subsided. When it darkened enough to see, the ship was gone.
Novum Chronicles: A Dystopian Undersea Saga Page 33