The Unknown

by Brett Battles

  She had never had a close friend like him before. She hoped she was behaving the way a friend would with him, but she was never sure. Normal human interactions were a struggle enough. Thinking about not ruining her and Nate’s friendship often consumed far too much of her time. Every once in a while, she wondered if she should back off. Not leave Quinn’s team, of course, just return to her more isolated ways, doing what was asked of her while investing as little of her confusing emotional side as possible. But simply contemplating this was enough to get her stomach churning.

  The duct continued at the same approximately thirty-degree angle for as far as Jar’s light could reach. Building this must have been torturous.

  Claustrophobics need not apply, she thought, then snickered. She was pretty sure that was a good joke. She’d have to ask Nate about it later.

  All in all, though, the tube was not as confining as Nate had presumed. Though it would have been a bit of a squeeze for him at the start, she thought he could have made the descent without much trouble.

  She passed a spot where brackets were attached to the sides and guessed they had once held another fan. From the rust and scars, she guessed it had been a long time since they had been used.

  Soon after she passed it, Nate asked, “How you doing in there?”

  She clicked on her mic. “All good so far.”

  “Might be a good idea to plant one of the relays.”

  The devices’ specs indicated it was a bit early, but she decided not to argue with him. “Copy.”

  She pulled one of the small cubes out of the cloth bag, and placed the sticky side against the duct. The backing was more than strong enough to adhere to almost any surface. When the relay was secure, she resumed her progress.

  Three minutes later, the view changed. “Looks like I am about to go straight down again,” she said.

  “Copy,” Nate said. “FYI, there’s only about thirty meters of rope left.”

  “Copy.”

  She continued slowly sliding toward the black hole ahead. About five meters out, she turned off the light and proceeded in the dark, in case someone was down there. When her foot tapped on the edge of the hole, she applied the brakes.

  “I am at the new shaft,” she whispered.

  “Down to eighteen meters. If it’s longer than that, you’ll have to come back.”

  “Copy.”

  The duct was wide enough here that she could, with a bit of effort, turn around. Once she was facing the other way, she leaned out over the opening.

  This new section was lined with metal, not concrete. At the other end was light, filtered through wired grating stretched across what she assumed was the bottom of the duct. It was just bright enough for her to see a floor beyond it.

  She tried to estimate the distance. It might be within the rope’s eighteen-meter limit, but it would be a close call.

  She pulled back so that she wasn’t directly over the hole and turned on her mic again. “I believe I am near the end.” She described what she found.

  “Can you make it there?”

  “I…think so.”

  “Jar, if it’s too far—”

  “I am here. I should at least try to see if the rope is long enough.”

  A long pause, then, “Okay. But be extra careful. There’s a much better chance someone might hear you now.”

  “Of course there is. That is obvious.”

  Nate had the habit of telling her things she already knew. It was the one thing about him that annoyed her. To be fair, though, nearly every other person she knew had this same habit.

  She placed another relay directly above the hole, then turned back around and slipped over the edge feet first.

  To slow herself, she pressed her back against one side and her feet against the other. It was awkward to say the least, but it did the job. Her biggest worry was that her shoes might screech against the metal, but she carefully placed each step and eliminated all but a couple of barely audible chirps.

  The light below her grew closer and closer.

  She glanced back up, and estimated she’d come almost fifteen meters already. If Nate was right, she could go only three more. Her goal was close, but not that close. She went on, hoping he’d gotten the remaining length wrong.

  She’d made it within two meters of the screen covering the bottom of the shaft when Nate said, “That’s it. That’s as far as you go. What’s your position?”

  “I am just above a vent,” she whispered. “It is over a room, or maybe a walkway. I cannot tell. There is light but it is not so bright. Hold on.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Repositioning to get a better look.”

  She expected him to say be careful again but he remained silent.

  She shimmied a half meter back up the shaft to give her a little play in the rope.

  “What’s going on?” Nate said. “I don’t feel the same tension anymore.”

  She explained what she’d done, telling him she wanted to give herself room to look around.

  “All right, but don’t waste too much time. We’re going to have to find another way in.”

  “Copy.”

  She twisted around so that she was hanging headfirst, but realized that had only bought her a half meter at most.

  She frowned at the opening below her. She was so close.

  She cocked her head and listened for sounds from below.

  “Jar?” Nate said.

  “Just a minute.”

  The only thing she could hear was a distant hum. An air recycler, perhaps. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

  This was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to learn anything useful where she was, and if she crawled back out now, her entire trip would have been a huge waste of time.

  Her current mission was to obtain intel, and that meant taking risks. Nate might be well meaning in his attempts to protect her, but putting limits on her based on the amount of rope was wrong. If Orlando had come down, would she have faced the same restrictions?

  No, she would not have.

  Jar released the looped end of the rope from the carabiner holding it, and laid her lifeline against the duct.

  Since she’d created some slack ahead of time, she figured she had at most three minutes before Nate figured out what she had done, so she moved as quickly as she could to the end of the shaft, and braced herself directly above the vent screen.

  All quiet below. Dead quiet.

  Even the hum was gone.

  A concrete floor sat about three meters beneath the vent. The room was dim, as if the light she had seen was coming from a distance.

  She studied the screen. It was solidly built, as if designed to withstand more than just air blowing through it. But like elsewhere in the duct, it also showed signs of age. Most likely it was original material and had been in use for decades.

  There were two clips on either side, holding it in place. She obviously couldn’t see the other side, but knew levers had to be there so someone in the room could disengage the clips. Apparently, no one had considered that someone might try to release the cover from the duct side, because no measures had been taken to protect the clip mechanisms.

  Jar pondered her next move, but really, there was only one appropriate choice.

  Sorry, Nate, she mouthed.

  She placed another relay right above the housing for the cover, then pulled a small carabiner off her harness. As she’d hoped, it was tiny enough to slip through a hole in the grating on the vent. She attached it so that it encircled one of the wires that made up the grating. Next she worked free one of her shoelaces. She tied one end to the carabiner on the vent, and the other to a carabiner on her harness.

  “Jar, you’ve got to get moving,” Nate said.

  “I’m almost finished.”

  Lying by omission is what he would have called that. She preferred to look at it as an accurate description of her current state.

  She released the left clip and then the right. As the screen
dropped toward the floor, the shoelace yanked at Jar’s harness but the knots held.

  She froze, listening for any reactions below to the screen now hanging from the ceiling. Again, there was nothing. She inched downward until her head poked through the opening.

  Not a room. A corridor, wide enough for a car to drive through.

  It went off in both directions as far as she could see.

  She’d been right about the lights. Though fixtures were spread evenly along the hallway, only every fourth one was on.

  There were doors on either side, and outside most of them, piles of boxes or equipment or both were piled against the walls. Some of the piles were covered by tarps, but a lot of them were exposed. It was as if the rooms had been emptied, and their contents left outside to be picked up.

  The fine layer of dust over everything told her no one had been down here in a long time.

  Apparently, this was a part of the base its current occupants didn’t need at the moment.

  She took a longer look at the closest piles of junk. She felt confident she could arrange some of the stuff under the vent and effectively make a ladder so she could get back up in a hurry. And since no one seemed to come down here on a regular basis, who would even notice?

  She pulled back into the duct, twisted around to get her feet under her, and moved down as far as she could without losing control.

  “Do not get mad at me,” she said into her mic.

  “What are you talking about?” Nate asked, instantly concerned. “Did something happen?”

  “It is about to.”

  One handed, she reeled in the vent cover. Then she released her hold on the duct and dropped into the corridor, tucking the cover against her chest. She bent her knees as she hit the floor and rolled down the center to dissipate her excess energy. Her landing had been relatively quiet, but the vent cover slipped out of her grasp during one of her somersaults and clattered against the concrete. She scrambled behind an old electric cart, and stared down the corridor for signs someone was coming to investigate.

  “Jar! Answer me!”

  Nate had said something as she plummeted through the air, but she’d been too busy to pay attention.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I am all right.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “There is a corridor below the vent. I am in it now.”

  “You’re what?” There was a pause. “You unhooked yourself from the rope!”

  “You sent me down here to see what I could find out. That is what I am doing.”

  “That is not what we talked—”

  “I am here now. It does not matter what we talked about. Do you want to know what I found or not?”

  Another pause, then instead of Nate’s voice, Orlando’s came over the comm. “What do you see?”

  Jar described her surroundings.

  “No one’s showed up yet?” Orlando asked.

  “No. I don’t think anyone has been down here for years.”

  “Good work, Jar. Can you hold for second?”

  “Of course.”

  The comm went quiet.

  Jar used the delay to lace up her shoe and start building the tower back to the vent. She was sure Nate was arguing for her return, and thought there was a good chance he would win.

  When Orlando finally came back on, however, she said, “How do you feel about doing a little exploring?”

  “She should not be down there alone,” Nate said.

  Orlando said, “You want to squeeze through the duct and join her, be my guest.”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  “Nate, she knows what she’s doing.”

  “She’s only twenty-one!”

  “If I recall, you weren’t much older when you started with Quinn.”

  “Which is my point exactly. I didn’t know crap then and would have gotten myself killed a dozen times if he hadn’t been around.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not as stupid as you were at her age. And she’s got a lot more experience. Is there another reason you might be upset?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Another reason?”

  “Look, I know she’s important to you.”

  “Of course she’s important. She’s my friend.”

  “It’s a little more than that, I think.”

  “She’s my friend,” he said more forcibly. “Like a little sister. So, yeah, maybe that makes me overprotective.”

  “Exactly. And it’s starting to get in the way of the job.”

  He looked like he was going to explode in anger, but after a few deep breaths, he said, “All right, all right. I know she’s doing what needs to be done. I still don’t like it.”

  Orlando reached over and patted him on the cheek. “It’s okay. You don’t have to. Now tie the rope off so she can climb back up when she’s ready. We need to go.”

  The one thing Orlando knew for sure was that the ventilation shaft was not the way everyone was getting inside the base, so they needed to continue searching for a better entrance. Based on her cursory look through the facilities’ computer system, she already had a good idea of where they should check next.

  Nate didn’t look happy to be leaving Jar’s exit unattended, but Orlando’s message about the job seemed to have gotten through to him. He tied the rope to the crossbars. Orlando set up a signal booster next to the hatch. It was considerably more powerful than the relays Jar had, and as long as Jar continued to disperse those relays, the booster should allow the rest of the team to stay in contact with her no matter where they were around the valley.

  When Orlando and Nate were ready, they snuck back up the dry creek bed and rejoined the others, then returned to the Land Cruiser and climbed in.

  “So,” Quinn said, from behind the wheel, “suggestions on where to now?”

  “Lonely Rock,” Orlando said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Working on a solution to Brunner’s condition allowed Tiana to put off thinking too much about what she was going to do to Grigory. He may have become less of an asset lately, but she didn’t think he was a liability. Guilty of disinterest? Yes. But she would have hoped that could be dealt with by reprimand, not termination.

  This was about more than the permanent removal of Grigory. The general was testing her. Killing her colleague would prove to Nesterov where her loyalties stood.

  She also had no doubt that if she failed the test, having her new promotion revoked would be the least of her troubles.

  Damn Grigory for putting her in this position.

  She shook her head and reminded herself she was trying not to think about this right now. She picked up her pace and soon arrived at Lonely Rock’s infirmary.

  Like pretty much everything else on the base, the medical wing was considerably larger than Nesterov’s organization needed. Dr. Yusupov and his nurse used only three of the available rooms, leaving two long corridors of additional space in semidarkness.

  Tiana found the doctor in his office, and after explaining the problem, he gave her a syringe filled with a dose of something with a long name that she didn’t pay attention to.

  “How long will it take to work?” she asked.

  The doctor shrugged. “Everyone is different. But most see some improvement within an hour.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Hold on.” He opened a cabinet and hunted through several bottles of pills, finally pulling out a small, white one. He shook out two tablets and handed them to Tiana. “I know you said he’s not nauseous, but in case that changes, give him these.”

  The detention area was built close to the medical wing so that prisoners would not need to be transported far if health issues arose. A solitary guard stood outside the door to the cell wing. Brunner was the only prisoner at this time, and even the one man on duty was probably overkill. The soldier led Tiana inside and down to Brunner’s cell door. They were keeping him toward the back so that it would be difficult for him to hear anything coming from the
main hallway.

  The guard unlocked the door, and Tiana entered.

  Brunner was on his cot, lying on his back, eyes closed. He showed no reaction to Tiana’s presence until she crouched beside his bed and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing his bicep.

  He jerked to the side, popped open his eyes, then almost immediately shut them again as a wave of pain washed over his face.

  “Relax,” she said. “This will help you.”

  “What is it?” he asked, as if she was offering him poison.

  “Something for your headache.”

  “I’ll-I’ll be fine. I just need to…” A wince as more pain passed through him. “I just need to rest.”

  “Unfortunately, there is no time for that.”

  She stuck the needle in his arm and pressed the plunger before he could react.

  After she pulled the needle out, he said, “What did you put into me? What is that?”

  She held up the two tablets then set them on the bed, next to Brunner’s waist. “In case you want to throw up, take those.”

  “Whatever you gave me, it’s not going to work,” he said. “I’ve tried everything. Naratriptan is the only thing that helps me.”

  Tiana smiled, recognizing the name. “Then you are in luck. That’s exactly what I just gave you. Rest while you can. We’ll be back soon for our chat.”

  Brunner stared at Snetkov as she left.

  His hopes of delaying the inevitable had just evaporated.

  He’d hold out for as long as he could, but he was under no delusion that his captors wouldn’t soon know everything.

  About Danara.

  He dropped his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes.

  Maybe the naratriptan wouldn’t work this time. Maybe the migraine would prevail. Or maybe he’d have to pretend.

  Yeah, and maybe this is all a dream and I’m just falling asleep at my desk, and when I wake, everything will be all right.

  A tear ran down his cheek.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jar moved from one discarded pile of junk to the next, working her way down the corridor.

  So far, she had found no signs of anyone having come this way in months at least.