3

by James Phelan

  “And a—sarcophagus?” Sam made his way down to where he saw what looked like a gilded coffin. Up close it was indeed that, covered in crystals that shone as he wiped off the dust and grime.

  “What on earth is this place?”

  A sound started up, like a whistling of the wind, and he followed it. The stone stairs led down to another antechamber, and he found himself in another space, similar to one he’d seen before in Japan. Sam’s flashlight picked out the crystals in the rock of the granite chamber, a bench-like pedestal presiding in the centre.

  Sam realized then what Malcolm had meant about seeing what he needed to.

  This cave isn’t just a place for precious treasure. It’s like the room in Japan—this is a conduit to the Dreamscape.

  Sam sat on the carved granite seat, the surface smooth and solid. He settled into as comfortable a position as he could, closed his eyes and relaxed, willing himself to sleep.

  The room lit up.

  SAM’S NIGHTMARE

  I am in that land of red dirt again. I am looking directly at the space station, some way off in the distance.

  Not Mars—Australia.

  I startle as I see Henk, the helicopter pilot, next to me. The rotor blades kick up the dust as the helicopter sits on the hard ground.

  “Do you know what this place is?” I ask.

  “I know it’s a government facility,” Henk says, “and this is as close as I can take you. They warned me over the radio to stay out of the immediate airspace or they’d shoot me down.”

  Shoot us down? What kind of top secret stuff is going on here that they’d take such serious action?

  “Yeah, thanks for getting me this close,” I say, looking back to the massive compound.

  “I think my friend Eva is in there.”

  “Then you’d better go help her,” Henk says. “You get out, give me a holler. I’ll be right here, waiting.”

  “Thanks.”

  I walk down to a dirt road and start the long trek in.

  Near the gatehouse, where a security beam blocks the road, a dog starts barking. A big dog, by the sound of it.

  Great, more dogs.

  A uniformed guard comes out and eyes me suspiciously.

  “Hey,” I call out. “I’m lost.”

  “Sorry, kid,” he replies as I near. “We got nothing for you here. Nearest town is somewhere out that way.” He waves in a vague direction behind me.

  I nod.

  “Say,” the guard says, walking closer, then looking over my shoulder and down the road, “how’d you get out here—you walk?”

  I see the dog is chained up. It’s another German shepherd. I smile at him, and he almost seems to smile back, like he’s obeying my wish to be nice.

  I’m in a dream, I can control what’s happening.

  “Yeah, I walked,” I say to the guy. “And I’m going to walk in now, and you’re going to show me to my friend.”

  The guard looks at me, puzzled for a moment, then says, “Ah, yeah, no worries, I’ll show you around.”

  “I’m going to want to see where you keep the really secret stuff.”

  “Yeah, of course, follow me,” he says. “I’ll show you to the vault.”

  “The vault,” I say, walking around the barrier and giving the now placid dog a scratch behind the ear. It looks like it’s ready to roll over and beg. “Does it have a code or key or something to unlock it?”

  “A code.”

  “Can you tell me the code?”

  “I’m not cleared to know it. Right this way.”

  I follow the guard to a low building, practically no bigger than my old bedroom, but made of concrete. There are no windows, just a single heavy steel door. The guard swipes his ID pass through a scanner and we enter.

  Inside is another wall with another set of doors and a call button, which the guard presses.

  The elevator opens.

  He presses 3B.

  We descend and the doors open onto a world of shiny metal and bright lights, of endless expanses of computer equipment and screens.

  “This is the operation’s nerve centre,” the guard says. “The vault is just down here.”

  We walk along a steel mesh gangway over the servers and computers and through another door. Beyond is a platform that looks like a small subway station and I see that it is in fact a monorail link, similar to one I’ve seen in Seattle. But this one is underground.

  “Where does this go?” I ask as we climb aboard a bullet-shaped carriage that looks like it came right out of a theme park, complete with the padded metal bar that locks down over our shoulders. I rap on the window, marvelling at the thick, reinforced glass.

  We’re not going into outer space, surely …

  “This takes us to the vault site,” the guard replies. He points over his shoulder. “Go the other way, you get all the way to the North West Cape submarine station on the coast.”

  “But—isn’t that a huge distance away from here?”

  “About thirteen hundred kilometres,” he says. He presses the “canopy close” button, then pushes the throttle forward.

  I feel like I have left my body at the platform, shocked, as we travel faster than I have travelled on land.

  Maybe in the air too.

  I gasp at the sheer velocity we are moving at, my brain struggling to catch up to my body as it hurtles underground.

  The headlights of the maglev monorail light the way on the round concrete tunnel and we flash along at simply phenomenal speed. It seems like seconds but it takes maybe five minutes when a chime sounds and the guard eases off the accelerator.

  I feel myself getting dizzy, and the world around me shifts a little and grows brighter.

  I’m starting to wake up.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  No, I’m not ready, stay in the dream longer …

  “We’re here,” the guard says.

  We step out onto a platform the size of a basketball court, and beyond that is a lit-up gangway that we walk across, a vast lake beneath us, the water sparkling in the light. But there is also a deafening sound—more water, rushing fast. We’re in the biggest cave that I’ve ever seen. The roof is out of sight above us, the far side is nothing more than a pinprick of light at the other end of the suspended bridge. Below us is a lake and leading somewhere from it, a raging river.

  “Where are we?”

  “Under the Rock,” he says.

  “The Rock?”

  “Uluru.”

  “What is this place?”

  “A communications station—they found the cavern, and the water, by accident when they began drilling to put in the antenna.”

  “Why would you put an antenna underground?”

  “To communicate across large distances. We run power from the moving water down here—it’s like an underground hydro plant.”

  “And why’s this vault located here?”

  “Because that’s where we found it. When they were drilling test cores and they discovered the chamber—”

  The world around me starts to crack and shafts of light pierce the cavern’s darkness.

  I’m waking up!

  “The vault?” I ask quickly.

  “He’s the guy,” the guard says, pointing. “Looks like he’s opening the vault for someone now.”

  We jog across the final stretch of the platform, skidding to a stop as the people standing there turn to us.

  But this man is not alone. There are two people next to him.

  One is Eva.

  The other is Stella, holding a gun to Eva’s head.

  25

  ALEX

  Alex pressed his nose up to the screens and was surprised at what he saw. It was huge, unmistakable, incredible. The powerful floodlights of the Osiris lit up their objective like a movie star on the red carpet.

  It was another submarine.

  Alex watched the footage as more and more of the wreck was revealed by the cameras. They were looking at an old submarine,
and it was big—easily ten times as long as the Osiris. It must have been wrecked long ago, now covered in barnacles and full of sea life. As the Osiris swept along the wreck’s length, it became clear that it was settled on a ridge, where the edge of the island chain disappeared underwater and tapered off into a seemingly bottomless abyss of dark ocean.

  “What is this wreck?” Ahmed asked. “Why are we here?”

  Alex was surprised that the Egyptologist had been left out of the information loop too.

  “This is a German U-boat from the Second World War,” Hans said, his voice full of reverence as he saw the ghostly wreck emerging from the gloom of the deep cold sea. “My grandfather served on this vessel on its final mission.”

  Alex watched the screen in front of him.

  Is this a sightseeing trip to honour his grandfather’s watery grave? Can’t be—Hans said this was a “recovery mission.” What could be on this old wreck that is so important that Hans would interrupt our journey to Antarctica?

  “This is no test dive,” Dr. Kader said. “Far from it.”

  “That’s right,” Hans replied. “This is a retrieval mission.” He spoke to the pilots, who took the craft slowly to a point just forward of the tower. Alex’s monitor showed the side mechanical arm was outstretched, running the length of the vessel, and a beeping sounded in the cabin.

  “That’s it,” Hans said to the pilots, the Geiger counter lighting up and making a contact crackle over the Osiris’ speaker system.

  “You are looking for radioactivity?” Dr. Kader asked, pointing at the gauge.

  Hans nodded. “Take us forward one metre, Karl, then keep us steady while I cut into the hull.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t worry,” Hans said, feathering the controls of the outstretched arm. “We are simply looking for a radioactive marker.”

  “Marker for what?” Alex asked. He jumped back from the screen as a huge eel flashed by the camera’s lens. “On what?”

  “Near the end of the war,” Hans said as he selected new equipment at the end of the claw, “this U-boat was converted into a transport craft. They used it and others like it to take a large shipment of priceless artifacts and relics to Antarctica. And, importantly for us, they mapped where they took it, including the dangers they encountered along the way. That map is stored in the captain’s safe.”

  Hans stopped talking while the Osiris drifted down the hull of the U-boat.

  “Adjusting for currents,” Karl called out. “This area has unpredictable water flows. We should try to be as quick as possible down here.”

  Alex saw Ahmed swallow hard, sweat starting to drip from the tip of his nose.

  “Keep us steady,” Hans said. “Give me ten minutes, in close and as steady as you can.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re getting a current coming up the abyss wall and hitting the warmer water. Doing our best. You can try using the extra claws at the seaward side to keep us steady, they at least have a propeller.”

  “What—you’re talking to me?” Alex said, seeing the pilot nodding at him. “All right!”

  Alex took the twin joystick controls and got a quick rundown from the co-pilot as to how to operate them.

  “Just keep her steady as you can.” Hans returned to his controls once the craft settled. “No one knows,” he said, picking up his story, “where the final resting place of that Antarctic drop-off was, as it was recorded only on a map within the captain’s log which was left on the ship. It carries a radioactive marker so that in an event such as this, it might be found. All hands were lost on the submarine.”

  “You’re trying to get a captain’s log that’s been underwater for decades?” Alex said, squeezing the triggers on the thrusters to fight the current.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Alex said. “Do you think your grandfather shipped something to Antarctica that we need?”

  “Perhaps,” Hans said, working the blowtorch’s bright blue flame in the water. Bubbles erupted from the red scar of molten steel hull as he cut into the side of the old submarine. “But the last communication, before they set off, was that the place had ancient ruins. And to find it, we need that log.”

  Ancient ruins—in Antarctica?

  Alex stole a glance at Dr. Kader, who was still stressed at the prospect of being so deep underwater.

  “My grandfather was a smart man …” Hans paused as he wrestled with the controls, the sub fighting to remain still against the current. “If we can retrieve his log book, it will make our trip to the end of the world that much easier.”

  Hans started up the blowtorch once more. Alex watched the screens in front of him, hypnotized by the bright torch blazing away at the thick steel.

  26

  EVA

  “They’re gaining on us,” Jabari said and stopped running.

  “What are you doing?” Eva gasped. She could see their pursuers now—there were angry-looking guards in a small jeep, another one coming up behind them. The front guards were yelling, one of them waving what looked like a gun.

  “I’ll hold them off,” Jabari said, “you go get the Gear!”

  “No, I can’t!” Eva said.

  Jabari looked at her with a stare that would make a grown man tremble.

  “I don’t want to leave you behind …”

  “Eva,” Jabari said, “this is my destiny—it’s been written in the stars long before you and I were ever dreamed of.” He gave her a gentle push. “You must go now, otherwise all will be lost.”

  Eva gripped Jabari’s arm tightly, forcing herself to nod.

  Then she turned and ran.

  The lights of the corridor flickered on, but she was ahead of them, constantly running into darkness, leaving the light behind.

  She risked a quick glance back and was relieved to see one of the cars had somehow stalled, the occupants still on the ground.

  Jabari.

  Eva smiled. She didn’t know if Jabari was still in the game, but he’d whittled the odds down to even money, the second car still in pursuit.

  One against one, I’ll take that!

  Then Eva paused and nearly tripped.

  The second car got close enough for Eva to recognize the driver.

  No … it’s Stella!

  Eva ran on, willing herself toward the door that she could see just up ahead.

  Eva jumped from the bullet train carriage, silently thanking her dream. She used it to outrun Stella and she smirked when she thought how angry that would have made her.

  Now I’ve just got to get to the vault.

  She slunk quietly in the shadows, but there was no one around.

  Guess they figure they don’t need guards around here.

  Eva hurried across the steel bridge. She moved in a low crouch, wary of someone seeing her progress. The sound of her feet moving fast across the steel mesh was drowned out by the water gushing into the underground river.

  And here I am.

  Eva stared at the vault door, forcing herself to slow her breathing and concentrate.

  Just like in the dream, just like I knew it then. The answer is “thirteen.”

  She slowly spun the dial, counting to herself, “If X is one, then T is twenty-three, H is eleven, I is twelve …” her fingers found their way, clicking through each number.

  “And last is … seventeen …” Eva held her breath as she waited for the door to open.

  Nothing.

  She looked at the large handle next to the dial.

  Right, of course.

  She pulled it down, setting off the mechanism, gears crunching within as the door heaved open gently on its massive hinges.

  She stepped into the vault.

  The ancient red rock walls were in stark contrast to the sleek modern shelves that filled the vault. Numbered steel drawers rose up before her as she spun around the room seeking inspiration.

  “OK, last 13 dream,” Eva sighed to herself, “where do I look?”

  She closed her eyes and conc
entrated, letting her mind drift back to her memory of standing right there. A minute passed, feeling like an eternity, but when she opened her eyes, she was smiling.

  Passing all the shelves and drawers, she went to the back of the vault, searching for what she knew she needed. A ladder.

  Perched on the top step and trying not to look down, Eva let her fingers gently sweep across the roof of the vault, ochre dust gathering on her fingertips.

  “I know you’re here,” she murmured, “don’t hide from me.”

  And then she found it. The smallest of lines, a crack in the rock face. Next to it, a carving in the stone—III.

  Number three. And here I am, centuries later, ready to take what has waited for me all this time.

  As she pressed on the carving, a narrow slit opened above her head and she pushed her open hands underneath it, deftly catching the small cloth package that dropped straight out.

  Yes!

  27

  ALEX

  A cascade of bubbles erupted on the screens in front of Alex and the Osiris rocked in the water.

  “Hold it steady!”

  “We are steady!” Karl said, some panic in his voice. “It’s the U-boat—it’s shifting!”

  “What?” Hans said and stopped work to change the images on the screens. The cameras now showed the long U-boat rocking and twitching where it had laid still for so long.

  “Cutting out that panel has disturbed whatever balance it had on the ridge,” Hans said.

  “We’re going to lose her!” Karl said. “It’s listing toward the abyss, you have two minutes, max!”

  “Then we have to act quickly,” Hans said, his voice calm. “Alex, come over here!”

  Alex unbuckled his harness and moved up to the seat next to Hans.

  “Take the controls for the forward arm and follow my lead,” Hans said.

  Alex did as instructed. It took him a few seconds to work out the movements of the arm, and soon he had it next to Hans’, the pair of them moving inside the old sub.

  On the mechanical wrist joint of each arm, a piercing light and camera system showed the inside of the vessel.

  “It’s moving again,” Karl announced. “You have a minute twenty.”