"What'd he say?" Ira asked.
"You're in luck, they haven't left yet," Eddy said.
"He'll bring the plasma cutter?"
Eddy nodded. "So we gotta hold tight."
Ira reached down to where she had dropped her pack and dragged it closer to the door. She plopped down on top of it and picked up a protein bar.
"Good idea," Eddy said. "We should eat some rations, drink some water."
Ira glared through the gate. She hoped that whatever lay beyond those doors, that it was (firstly) food, and (secondly) was better than the protein bars she'd been forced to endure for the last couple years. She'd give anything for a nice piping hot bowl of ramen. For now, though, she would wait for her brother and the others.
That momentary fear of what might lie beyond those doors that she’d felt earlier had completely subsided, but, someplace deep inside of her, she was deeply afraid to turn around and look into the darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Looks like you were telling the truth," Nico said. "Impressive."
"Yeah, okay—" Ira crossed her arms and stood up. "—less wonderment, more cracking the damn thing open."
Nico stood there for a moment, his weight shifted onto his good leg, considering the door with one hand on his chin. Ira hated when he zoned out like that. She bent down and scooped up the makings of a snowball; but before she could finish packing it together, Eddy grabbed her forearm and shook his head at her.
"Can you open it?" Eddy asked, coaxing Ira to drop the snowball.
He stood there a moment longer, then turned back to them, nodding lazily. "Yeah. I think so. Grab me the plasma cutter."
"Didn't I just suggest that?" Ira asked.
He ignored her, took the plasma cutter from Eddy, and turned to his task. She sighed and sat back down on her pack. She considered her brother while he worked; how he'd grown, evolved, since they were kids. Back then, he was always leaving her in the dust, and now...it seemed like he was carrying them all.
In the early days of the ice age, before the world had figured out what was really going on, people had just tried to go about their lives—trudging through four feet of snow, fighting their stupid civil war, adjusting to new norms, and going to work, despite the prevailing fear that things wouldn't be going back to normal. The ugly truth was, those that didn't prepare died.
Like everything in her life, Ira had found herself caught in the middle of things, unable to commit to a decision. She felt that she should have been one of those casualties.
If it weren't for Nico, she would have been.
"Got it!" Nico gave the doors a hefty push, and they crashed against a concrete ramp that trailed into an abyss. Ira shielded her face from the dust and ice particles kicked up by the falling doors.
"It's lucky that they've been sitting here surrounded by ice for so long," Eddy said. "Otherwise we'd be going home empty-handed."
Nico nodded.
Ira got to her feet, gathered up the contents of her pack, and stuffed it back up. "What are we waiting for? Let's see what's inside!"
"Eddy," Nico said. "Go get the others, they'll want to see this."
Eddy nodded and headed back out the way they’d come. When his footsteps stopped echoing through the tunnel, Nico and Ira lit their flashlights and shined them into the darkness.
From outside the tunnel, she could see a guard station and inactive red lights on either side of the ramp leading into the chamber. So far, Eddy's theory was holding water.
There was something else. For a moment, she thought she saw movement inside. She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck, like someone had just walked over her grave.
"Ira?" Nico nudged her.
"W-what?" She blinked, rubbed at her eyes.
"I've been trying to get your attention."
"I'm sorry, I must have zoned out."
"Right, well, let's focus and check the place out."
Nico gave her a lazy nod. She forced her shaky legs forward and entered first. The air was stale, not much of a surprise. The ramps and tables were all covered in a thick layer of dust.
"Looks like nobody's been home in a while," she said.
Nico looked back at the door. "No...I don't think that's it."
"What do you mean?"
"That door's been sitting there for a while, untouched, unopened." He gestured at the abandoned guard station several feet from the doors. "This was clearly a military installation. No one's called this place home in years."
"Okay, so, like the ones you were stationed in?"
"No. I was a grunt. I've never seen anything like this." Nico approached a console along the far wall and tried flipping a few switches. "Power's out."
"I detected a power source somewhere earlier, though."
"Yeah, but it's not getting to the main systems. Just atmospherics... We'll have to connect it manually."
"Should we be here...?"
He didn't bother answering.
Ira froze in place. What if this place had been some kind of top-secret research base for Measure 86? She felt like microscopic particles had gotten beneath the protective layer of her suit, crawling up the length of her arms and legs and sinking their insidious poison into her body. In and out she breathed, closing her eyes and centering herself—calming her nerves.
It's all in your head, dummy, Ira thought. You're just being paranoid.
She opened her eyes. She scanned her flashlight across the room. There were several doors that led out of the entrance area they were in. Without power, they'd have to pry them open.
Nico approached one of the doors and sized it up.
Good, he read my mind, Ira thought.
Nico stabbed his combat knife into the crevice inside the door, using his crowbar to pry the door open. The door gave a loud creek, a pop, and slid back into the wall. He sandwiched himself inside the doorway to keep it from slamming shut and gestured toward her. "Bring me something to prop this open."
She nodded, snatched up a metal chair, and handed it to him. With the chair holding the door open, he slipped into the next room and pointed his flashlight forward. Ira cautiously crawled through the opening after him. She chased after him down the hallway. Even in his caution, he still walked with a slight limp.
And then Nico's body just vanished into the darkness, like it'd swallowed him whole.
"Nico?"
Ira’s voice echoed through the darkness. There was no answer. The dark swam in front of her, clawing at her. For a moment, she thought she saw a gray, dead sky and leathery hills.
She closed her eyes and counted to ten.
It's okay, Ira thought. You had a nightmare, and you're just freaking out.
She needed to get her bearings, that was all. She shined her flashlight around; the "hallway" looked more like a large concrete tunnel. Like pictures of underground government bases she'd seen of sites devoted to UFOs and conspiracies.
"Hurry up," Nico said. "Found an elevator."
"Thank God," Ira said. "Why the hell didn't you answer me before?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nico said. "I didn't hear anything."
She found her way to him in the dark. "Whatever."
"Put on those binoculars, will you? We need to see where that power source is located."
"Right."
She fetched the binoculars, turned them on, and raised them to her eyes.
"See it?" Nico asked.
"Yeah." She lowered the binoculars to her side and eyed her brother. "It's a ways down... How are we gonna get down there?"
"We could just reppel down the elevator shaft," Nico said, completely serious.
"Or, we could use the emergency staircase like normal people," Ira said.
"Where's your sense of adventure?" Nico said. She couldn't tell if that was one of his rare jokes, or if this was his honest attempt to motivate her.
Ira shined her light around the tunnel-hallway for any sign of an emergency staircase. "The last time we climbed
down an elevator shaft, I almost died. It wasn't fun."
"You didn't, though."
"Now you sound like Papa." She stopped. There was a picture of a staircase and a stick-figure running away from a fire above a single locked door. "I think we found it."
"Move aside, then."
He grabbed his plasma torch and worked at melting the locking mechanism. After a time, the door swung inward, inviting them further into the mouth of hades.
"You know," Ira said. "I'd almost rather take my chances outside."
"You're welcome to." Nico stood up, put the torch back in his pack, and marched down the stairs. "But you'll forgo your share of the loot."
She glared at him, watching him make his way down the stairs. Just moments ago she could have sworn she'd seen him vanish into the dark. She didn't want that to happen again. She darted down the stairs, following him.
"You're an ass, you know that?"
“This was your idea, remember?”
“I’m allowed to freak out a little. Even you have to admit, it’s a little spooky down here.”
“I’ll give you that,” he said quietly.
Maybe he’s scared too? she thought. That thought definitely didn’t make her feel any better. Please let this just be my nerves. Please.
Now, she could see the shadows dancing behind her brother. The flashlight was in his teeth, and he was holding his sidearm at the ready.
They both stopped several floors down. Nico's light shined up at her, and he said something unintelligible.
Ira pointed to his mouth. "Take the light out of your mouth, dummy!"
"Use the binoculars, Ira, see how much further we need to go."
Ira nodded, retrieved the binoculars from her pack, stared down at the heat source. "Just a few more floors to go."
She heard him bite back down on his flashlight, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls.
Nico stopped again. They’d reached their target floor, and Ira barely avoided stumbling into him. She could almost feel him glare at her.
"You should warn me when you're gonna stop," she said.
He didn't answer. Her eyes followed his flashlight while he checked out the door to this floor, grabbing his bag and retrieving the plasma torch again. Neon sparks flew, the door handle turned a bright orange and fell off, and the door swung inward.
"Binoculars," Nico said.
This time, the heat source Ira was reading was only a few hundred feet away from their location. Nico proceeded ahead, and Ira kept the binoculars handy to guide them to the source.
Nico paused and stared at one of the rooms in the corridor, where the door had failed to close all the way.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Wait here," he said.
Nico vanished into the room. Out of boredom, she pointed her flashlight at the sign above the doorway. It read EXPERIMENT 12C at the top.
"Ira." Nico’s voice sounded small. "Come look at this."
She followed his voice into the room...and pointed her light at Nico, who was standing there, stoic, peering into what looked like an interrogation room from one of those old crime movies—two-way mirror and all. He removed his goggles and set them on what looked like a control panel.
"What is it...?" She moved closer. Her eyes followed his flashlight to its focal point. Her heart dropped through her chest; she felt like her protein bar was about to make a return trip.
It was a corpse, strapped to some sort of medical table, which rested inside a glass pyramid. The pyramid itself rested inside a large metallic ring, which seemed to protrude from the walls of the chamber... Her eyes found the corpse's face, peering at her with blackened pits from beneath dome shaped helmet apparatus. Its eyes were gone, but the expression on its face could only be described as abject terror. Its flesh was rotting off its limbs, which were twisted in tight leather restraints on the table. At the top of the medical table, the corpse’s helmeted apparatus had wires which snaked their way into the darkness.
She fell back into a chair she hadn’t known existed and stared at her brother. Maybe they had descended into the mouth of hades after all?
"This was an observation chamber," Nico said.
He shined his flashlight around the room, scanning over consoles and dead readout screens. Some life crept back into Ira when she couldn't see the corpse. She watched her brother scan through the room like he had in a hundred other buildings, looking for threats, exits, clues, assessing danger.
"Go wait in the hallway," he said. "Get Eddy on the comm and tell him to meet us down here. Keep your mask on until I say otherwise."
Ira nodded, stiff, and stood up. She couldn't shake the awful writhing in the pit of her gut. What had happened here? Were her initial fears correct? Was this the birthplace of Measure 86? No. She didn't want to know. The best thing for everyone, for her, was to leave this place and never return.
She almost felt ashamed for how she’d behaved earlier, how foolishly excited she was for having found this place.
What the hell was I thinking? she thought.
Her feet carried her out into the hallway, her free hand comforting her stomach.
2
"I don't know if they got the doors open," Eddy said.
Eddy had guided Lena, Hugo, and Mathias halfway back through the ice tunnel. It'd taken time to locate the path they'd taken. Nico had found a detour earlier, a ramp of snow that led to the top of the cliff. Hugo and Lena were waiting at the snow mobile.
Hugo claimed Lena didn’t want to go back inside the tunnel. That she was scared.
They’d all stood around deliberating far longer than Eddy would have liked. Getting Lena to snap out of it had been like twisting her arm.
Even now, she was taking baby steps, deliberately slowing their pace down.
"Oh, man, I just hope they have something other than those garbage-ass protein bars we've been eating," Hugo said.
"Eddy," Ira's voice rang over his CB.
He held the CB to his mouth and angled away from the others. "Ira! What did you guys find?"
"Nico needs you down here..."
"We're on the way. Everything all right?"
"Just get down here."
Her voice cut out.
"That don't sound good, yo," Hugo said.
"What do you mean?" Eddy said.
"You don't wanna know what goes on in places like this—" Hugo eyed the entrance to the facility. "The government had, like, underground bases and stuff where they worked with aliens, man."
"Aliens," Eddy said, rolling his eyes and quickening his pace. "I'm sure we'll find Elvis down here too."
"Who the fuck is Elvis?" Hugo asked.
Eddy sighed. "Come on, man, you don't know who Elvis was?"
"Dawg, I'm talkin' real shit here, they probably had, like, alien-human hybrids down there or something, I'd bet—"
Lena smacked Hugo. "Stop it, you're scaring me."
"Don't worry, there's no such thing as aliens..." Eddy found himself staring into the looming darkness. "At least, not here."
"Naw, dawg, that's what they want you to think," Hugo said.
"Hugo, give it a damn rest," Eddy said.
Hugo nodded, muttering something under his breath, and they all marched into the darkness. Lena, of course, trailed behind them. Hugo’d probably scared the pants off her.
3
They traced Nico and Ira's path through the abandoned check-in station, the long, dark corridor leading to the elevator doors, and the emergency staircase.
Lena and Hugo's banter stopped at once as they made their way down the staircase, floor after floor.
For a moment, and maybe it was just his imagination, Eddy felt as though the staircase vanished from beneath his feet.
He stumbled forward and braced himself with the railing.
"What is it, B?" Hugo asked.
Eddy looked at him for a second, tempted to say what was on his mind, but shook his head. "It's nothing."
They came u
pon an open door, where the handle had been melted off.
"Looks like this is our stop," Eddy said.
"Oh, joy," Lena said. "Are you all just going to keep ignoring how stupid this is?"
"You could have said something before we descended however many floors," Eddy said.
"I did!" Lena shouted. "I said it over and over again."
"No, you didn't," Eddy said. "Stop lying."
"Yeah, I didn't hear shit neither," Hugo said.
"No—" There was a strange look in her eyes as she looked at both of them. "—I did, I swear, I was complaining the whole way down."
"Right." Eddy rolled his eyes and stepped into the corridor. She was probably just looking for attention.
"I didn't want to say nothing," Hugo said, "but I'm gettin' weird vibes down here."
"Hugo, what did we tell you about the conspiracy talk?" Eddy said.
"Not to..."
Eddy paused to fetch his flashlight, clicked it on, and shined the light in the dark. His eyes landed on Ira's back slumped against the concrete wall, head in hands. She was still wearing her ash-black fur coat, sitting on the floor, holding her knees close to her chest. He couldn't help but think of a Greek goddess when he looked at her. Even in her weakness, there was a strength. Instinctively, he ran his hands through her soft black hair, caressed her back.
"Ira," Eddy said. "You okay?"
She stirred, and stared at him, like the life had been sucked right out of her. Even through her goggles, he could tell that those beautiful green eyes had been leaking.
"The hell's wrong with her now?" Lena asked.
"Nico's inside..." Ira pointed to a room directly adjacent to him. "We found a body."
He could hear the quiver in her voice. That was something, because they saw corpses all the time out in that frozen wasteland they used to call home, and Ira wasn't what one might call squeamish.
"I'll go check on him," Eddy said. "You guys look after Ira."
"I'm coming too," Mathias said. Eddy almost forgot that Mathias was even there with them. As if he had vanished in the dark.
Eddy slipped into the room Ira had pointed out to him and Mathias followed closely behind.
"What's going on, Nico?" Eddy asked.
Mind's Horizon Page 6