Submantle- The Alpha Key

by Patrick Lane

  As the rusty-haired dog trotted closer, Richard couldn’t help but smile when he noticed the trophy he was carrying back from his patrol.

  Well, here we go, Richard thought, hoping Roly wouldn’t spend all day dangling that thing in his mouth like he usually did when he found something interesting.

  In the past He’d encouraged Roly to leave behind the things he’d found in the forest, but the dog insisted on bringing souvenirs home for the family’s approval. Even now, his white-tipped tail began wagging furiously as soon as he saw Richard waiting for him at the doors, obviously looking forward to the show and tell.

  As the hound approached, Richard saw that the trophy was a large hawk of some kind. He wondered if he could wrestle it away from the dog before his coffee got cold.

  He’s brought home a hawk before, so it can’t be that interesting anymore. He tried to remember if he saw any gloves on the workbenches, or if he needed to go in the back to get a pair so he could dispose of the bird.

  A broken wing fluttered along with Roly’s gait, and it caught Richard’s attention. His heart skipped a beat when he noticed something odd, and he squinted to get a better look at the creature.

  That’s no hawk!

  The wings were all wrong. He could feel his adrenalin surge as Roly drew near and the details of the trophy became clearer.

  His thoughts exploded in a thousand directions, before collapsing back in to a single thought. They’re back! His mind thundered, as Roly dumped a duster at his feet.

  The earthquakes, the volcanoes it all started to make sense. They needed to find him, although he couldn't think why.

  The dog’s intelligent gaze looked proudly between Richard and the winged creature before dropping his nose and nudging it closer to his master’s feet.

  Richard stared at the foreign creature, dumbfounded. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that it had been sent out to search for him. He scanned the farm yard to make sure no one else had seen the duster, and he scooped it up to get it out of sight.

  “Roly, follow me,” he said, a little harsher than he had intended. Turning on his heel he hurried to the keypad to tap in an infrequently used code. The doors around the shop began closing, and the electronic locks at the windows and entrances snapped into place.

  Nearly half a century he’d waited. Half a century.

  And today of all days!

  He carried the duster to a bench for closer inspection. He laid the creature gently on the counter and splayed it on its back. It was roughly the size of a falcon, but could hardly be mistaken for one. If anything, it looked like a distant cousin of a praying mantis, albeit an incredibly robust one.

  The four wings were large and leathery, and Richard knew they’d be an iridescent green and brown had the creature still been alive. As it was, they were a dull grey and contrasted with the sleek, segmented, lightly furred body. Around the thorax was a pouch, sewn with invisible seams that contained a three inch cylindrical object.

  Richard squeezed one of the delicate antennae on its ridged head to confirm the poor creature was dead. Their sensitivity would surely cause some reaction if the duster was still alive. As expected, it didn’t move, and when he spun the creature to get a closer look at its other side, he found several burn marks that were clearly the reason for its demise. The wounds were still seeping a viscous fluid and Richard surmised that the creature may have died landed on one of the hydro lines running across Grimson montain, shortly before Roly had found it.

  He checked his watch and tried to remember what he could of duster deployment to the surface. His best guess was that he had less than forty eight hours before its owner made an appearance. He considered whether or not he should lock down the farm. In addition to Dwight and Davis, he’d had over a dozen men running perimeter security on Grimson for years, posing as farmers and hikers, all secretly keeping watch on the towering mountain, never knowing it was an entrance to Submantle. He would need to send an alert out for them to mobilize, but he would wait for their reports first before panicking the family and sending for his sons.

  With the decision made, he considered all he’d done over the years to prepare for this very day. It had been the driving force that had guided his decision to build his research facility in such an unorthodox location. It was the same farm he’d grown up on—a stone’s throw from Grimson Mountain, where he’d first met a Submantler. He hoped it would finally be worth it, he’d almost given up on ever seeing one again.

  He thought of Caitlyn and Thomas, his grandchildren, meeting one of the subterranean folk for the first time after all his fantastical tales. The idea brought a smile to his lips. They never made any attempts to disguise their skepticism and no doubt thought his stories were just flights of fancy.

  A troublesome thought suddenly struck him and he turned to consider the mantis once more. He could see no identifying marks that he recognized as being from Rocktower, and this gave him pause for concern. From what he could recollect, the creatures were almost exclusively deployed by the Ranger Corps, but a lot could have changed in fifty years.

  He placed a gentle hand on the three-inch pouch and felt the warmth of the item inside. Looking across to Roly, he considered his options. The farm would need a protector if the duster didn’t belong to a friend, and in his current state Roly would be no match for any number of things that may be following after the dead creature.

  Pursing his lips, Richard made an uncharacteristically snap decision. He’d trained Roly for exactly this kind of situation, treating him with a special concoction of fungus and minerals called lichendose he’d taken from an abandoned genetics lab in Submantle many years ago. It had allowed the dog to increase his size, intelligence and lifespan. But, on its own it and without a charger, it only scratched the surface of his potential. Richard was fairly certain that once he explained the dusters’ origins as best he could to Roly, and the potential danger involved, his large friend would be eager to assume the Flux charger contained in the duster’s harness.

  Not for the first time, Richard couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at how long he’d made the dog wait. “It’s settled then,” he said out loud. “First things first.”

  Crossing to the walkie talkie charging station, he picked up one of the spares. “Dwight, are you there?”

  After a couple of failed attempts, Dwight finally picked up. “What can I do you for Richard?” he replied in his casual drawl.

  “Can you bring ten grown sheep to the barn?” He turned to look at Roly and quickly reconsidered. “Actually, make that fifteen.”

  “Ahh, sure boss, what do you need them for?”

  Richard thought furiously for a second, the question forcing him to bring long forgotten plans into focus. “I will let you know once you’ve penned them by the shop.”

  “Will do, we should be back with them in a few. Sound good?”

  “Perfect. See you in a few minutes. Oh, and Dwight?” Richard paused for a moment, considering his next words carefully, his heart beating heavily in his chest. “Code seventy-one. Call Evan and his boys and relay the orders. This isn’t a drill.”

  As Richard anticipated, Dwight had a long pause of his own. “Code seventy-one? Copy, boss.”

  Richard picked up the duster and headed to the back of the shop with Roly lumbering behind. Three locks secured heavy doors, but after activating another keypad all three deadbolts snapped open. Inside, organized chaos reigned, the large space had a drafting table on one side, surrounded by dozens of drawings, either rolled up or pinned to the walls. A cross between a chemistry lab and a tool shop lay at the far end where two large microscopes were set up on either side of a long workbench. Between them a large glass flask was bubbling away over a low flame, brewing a glowing yellow-green liquid.

  A bookcase dominated the third wall of the room. Among the stacks were countless ore samples and some of Richard’s abandoned projects. These silly inventions, as Loretta teasingly called them, had a different look than those that
appeared regularly around the farm. It always made him smile to think of what people would do if they actually knew what they were.

  Tucked away in the corner, next to a computer station, was a mannequin wearing his old spelunking outfit. He’d modified it over the years, so in addition to its reinforced elbows and knees it now sported two side arm holsters and a bandoleer across the chest.

  In the middle of the room, surrounded by rails, was a cage-less freight elevator—not something that most would expect to find in his shop. It was well-used and designed to carry a significant amount of weight. Richard signaled Roly to stand on the platform, before closing the rails and pushing the down button.

  The elevator glided to a halt on sub level three and the motion sensors turned on the lights. They passed through an outer work shop that would make a rocket scientist envious and entered a large sterile, stainless steel room with a drain hole in the center of the floor. On one wall were industrial sinks with a wash station, while two others had heavy shelving, laden with dozens of large plastic crates labeled with symbols from the periodic table.

  He walked over to the fourth wall and peeled back a plastic drop cloth to reveal fifteen video screens. He set the duster on one of the crates, opened another, and pulled out a metal and leather collar large enough to fit a horse, a very large horse. On its inner side was a slot shaped to hold a three inch Flux cylinder. Snapping open its clasp he turned to consider Roly who sat there wagging his massive tail. Somehow the dog instinctively knew the room, the sheep Dwight was bringing, and the collar were for him.

  “Roly, you have a decision to make…”