“There's recent coding added into the outdated firmware,” Ashley replied.
“Nothing that took your girl more than a minute to bypass,” Glennay chimed in.
“Just covering up the mess and wrapping a little surprise for anyone that tries to override,” Ashley added as she worked the computer screen. “Okay, open sesame.”
The exterior doors slid apart, revealing a large decontamination room.
“No worries,” Ashley commented, “this room hasn't been activated in years, though I powered it down anyway.”
Tyler, Jessica, Stephanie, and Elizabeth joined the three of them, as did Wispy.
Ashley gave Jessica a bit of a hug saying. “Keep these two out of trouble, alright?”
Jessica kissed her mom and replied. “How about just Tyler? I don't think anyone can keep Wispy out of trouble.”
“That'll have to do,” Ashley agreed.
John gave Jessica a quick hug as he looked in Tyler’s direction.
“Keep those eyes sharp,” he told her. “Even someone that eats more carrots than a kangaroo can miss a clever coyote.”
The two groups separated with Tyler and Jessica boarding the duck while the remainder of the group entered the complex.
“We'll need to get to the ore carriers as quietly as possible,” Elizabeth indicated. “Avoiding an encounter with the miners would be optimum.”
“And why is that?” Ashley asked with more than a hint of emotion in her voice.
“They serve their purpose well enough,” Elizabeth replied, “but these are not the circumstances I'd want to be negotiating under.”
“Do they have a leader?” John asked. “Would it be easier to have them help us get into New China?”
“No, and no,” she replied. Elizabeth clearly did not wish to elaborate. Speaking in a hasty tone she added. “Just reach the carriers. Trust me on this.”
“Pull up your maps,” John directed the group. “I'm not sure of the date on these, but it's better than guessing the right direction. The main tube should be down on level five from what I'm seeing.”
The group took out their Ksyncs and loaded the map John had sent them from the admiral's device.
“Looks like the main control center is here at the end of the hall,” Ashley pointed out. “We'll head back up there and see how much we can get online after we rig your transport.”
“Sounds like a plan,” John concurred.
Midway down the corridor, an old fashioned industrial elevator was the primary means for traveling downward. Glennay looked at the controls and surmised the arrow button would summon a transport. She pressed it. Immediately following, the grating sounds of an elevator rose from below. The doors slid open, and the group entered the dusty elevator.
“Level five,” Tyler said, hitting the lit button on the wall. “Anyone claustrophobic? I guess we'll know soon enough.”
The elevator dropped several dozen feet below ground before coming to a stop. The doors of the car opened revealing a huge tunnel. The symmetrical shape of the tunnel suggested it was one of the lava tubes created ages ago.
Elizabeth pointed along the floor of the tunnel where it met the wall.
“See that metal tube,” she directed. “That tube runs the entire length of the underground mines. It joins and separates as it winds though each room and shaft. A slush of ore runs through it from each drill site to the processing center under New China.”
“What's that smaller tube running across the ceiling?” Glennay pointed out.
“It's for the miners,” Elizabeth answered simply without more explanation.
The group walked down the tunnel until reaching a side area that blasted out from the main tube. Inside the room was a variety of old wheeled vehicles. They lay cold and dirty among a jungle of mechanical parts and machines once used to maintain them.
“Before the pipeline was installed,” Elizabeth explained, “an old-fashioned mine cart system carried the ore to the plant. Some of these carts were for that, other carts were used to transport the miners. None of this has been used in years.”
One by one the group noticed the look on Tyler's face. He stood like a child outside the clear glass window of a candy store. His mouth hung open slightly and one could almost see a twinkle of glee in his eyes.
“I've found the motherlode,” he managed to get out, as he stumbled toward the pile of parts. “Do you have any idea how much these would go for on the antique market?” he asked rhetorically.
Ignoring Tyler's state of amazement, Ashley probed further into Liz's statements.
“You seem to know quite a bit about mining for a politician,” Ashley commented.
Elizabeth ignored her tone and replied. “Mining is the business of New China... making mining my business.”
A reasonably calculated answer left Ashley with little material to continue questioning, so she grudgingly let it go.
The group moved over to the mining carts. Several were clearly beyond reconditioning. Others looked to be in good shape, but were missing major parts. After several minutes of searching, not surprising, Tyler found the gem in the rough.
“There she is!” Tyler gave with a boom of excitement.
“Shhhh!” Elizabeth quickly hushed the tech. “This is a stealth operation, do you understand what that means?”
Tyler tried to reel in his excitement replying. “I'll try to scream a little quieter, sorry.”
“Put us to work, Tyler,” John whispered to the group. “And everyone make sure to use your rubber hammers.” He added with a hint of sarcasm.
Over the next twenty minutes the group hunted and gathered parts throughout the room. John assisted Tyler with the grunt work, tearing out parts of the cart's interior to make room for the passengers.
“Too bad we can't put people in the bed,” Tyler said referring to the back of the cart. “Trying to squeeze three into the space made for one, is a treat.”
“I appreciate the roomier back seat option,” John replied, “but I'd rather not find out the hard way if we could live through the trip.”
“Point taken,” Tyler agreed.
Less than an hour after the group had entered the tunnels, the mine cart was ready to go.
“We'll see you off, then I want to see what we can tap into from the control room upstairs,” Ashley related to John. Before leaving she gave him an uncharacteristic public kiss goodbye. Stephanie hesitated a second, then gave her step-mother a quick hug. Elizabeth stood back by the cart seemingly preoccupied by the vehicle.
Tyler helped the three of them into the tight quarters, making sure Stephanie was able to reach all the cart’s controls.
“Think you can handle her?” Tyler asked Stephanie.
“I could drive this when I was ten,” she replied full of confidence. With a push of a button she ignited the cart's engines.
“Let's go before we have visitors,” Elizabeth reminded them.
With a wave, the cart started its journey. The rest of the group started their way back to ground level.
Chapter 42 Unpleasant Memories
Guided by its lights, the cart trekked down the lava tube. Stephanie steered the cart with ease though a lesser pilot would have long since crashed. John's Ksync was attached to the corner of the windshield. Its screen displayed the generic map of the tubes while showing the current position of the cart as they traveled. At various intervals down the tube a side passage would be uncovered by dim overhead lighting. As Stephanie accelerated down stretches of straight-away, John struggled to see what was passing beside the cart. During an occasional turn though, she would slow down enough for him to get a quick glance.
On one particularly sharp bend, Stephanie was forced to slow down considerably. John let out,“What was that?” as he peered into an adjacent mining station. His unexpected yelp had the unintended effect of shaking up the other riders. Stephanie instinctively swerved nearly hitting the side wall.
“What?” Stephanie demanded.
&n
bsp; “You're fine,” John quickly reassured her. “There was something back in that part of the mine. I could see down a side passage and there were several dozen people working mining equipment. That wasn't what got me. It stepped into the opening, right into the light.”
“What?” Stephanie demanded again sounding more anxious than shocked.
“Heck if I know,” John answered. “It looked like a short person with something long and drooping off his ears and neck. He had short hair and whatever he was dressed in was covered with soot. What made me jump though, was the pair of sharp claws that he brought up as we passed by. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of those.”
“Keep going and don't slow down,” Elizabeth said with more than a hint of concern in her voice. “Don't slow down for anything.”
“It's a little late for me to be asking, but what aren't you telling us?” John stated accusingly.
“Something I didn't want to get into,” Liz replied defensively.
“The last time I heard that,” John started to heat up, “your bags had been packed for five days and we didn't see you again for over a decade.”
Liz was taken aback by John's trip to the past. She recovered and matched his growing level of emotion.
“Okay Mr. MARC Soldier, here's your truth,” Elizabeth started. “That thing back there used to be a person, a “Domer” more accurately. Just like the winged people and that panther man--they all used to be people. That was before your MARC scientists used them as guinea pigs for their own biological experiments.”
“Just what are you talking about?” John struggled to understand what she was saying.
“Haven't you figured it out yet John?” Elizabeth stated, her voice filled with conceit. “These people were left out in the world during the great storms and the biological terraforming that came afterward. They were used to determine the effects of your scientists’ genetic experiments on the planet.”
“That's not possible,” John defended. “The MARC program would have never allowed that.”
“That’s right I forget your leaders would never do anything inhuman,” Liz opened her retort. “Just like your beloved country would never put soldiers in trenches, then detonate a nuclear weapon nearby to see how fallout and people mixed in combat,” Elizabeth shot back. “Oh that's right, I forget, you're from the country that bleeds freedom and democracy. Except… when it's not convenient to deal with those pesky rights. Then you treat your own citizens like enemy combatants and throw away a constitution and your souls while you’re at it.”
“That's enough,” John objected.
“Enough?” Elizabeth threw in one last punch. “Is it enough that you're the next set of guinea pigs? Haven't you noticed John, this planet is about as stable as a duck in a hurricane.”
"A duck in a hurricane?" John chided. "Who's ever heard of a duck in a hurricane?"
Neither one of them had noticed, in the heat of their arguments, the subtle drops of moisture that glided down their daughter's cheek. Catching everyone off-guard, she slammed on the cart's brakes, knocking both of them against the front dash. The vehicle skidded to a stop a few inches away from the nearest wall. While they were dazed with the wind knocked out of them, Stephanie popped the cover of their cockpit and jumped out.
Immediately, the suits they were wearing sounded a low oxygen alarm and automatically covered their heads with a clear helmet. Their visors indicated that dangerous levels of toxins were in the atmosphere, specifically cyanide. He wasn't sure which was causing his splitting headache the poison or the vehicle's dashboard. In his haze he thought they may be under an attack. But why poison? Something in his head clicked as he remembered an obscure fact from his academy days. Cyanide had been used extensively in mining at one point before being universally banned on Earth. But then this wasn't Earth. They were in a crash! He had been so disoriented that his brain was hopping all over the place.
He cringed, turning to check on Stephanie and Liz. Liz was unconscious, but his visor reported her vitals as stable. Stephanie on the other hand, Stephanie was gone!
John ripped the Ksync off the windshield and jumped out the door. He set it to track Stephanie's suit. The Ksync locked onto her signal, yet it was dozens of meters down the tube. A surge of adrenaline pumped though John’s legs as he sprinted in her direction. For a minute he wasn’t sure that he would catch Stephanie. Suddenly his Ksync reported the distance between them was rapidly shrinking. He was quickly closing the distance, meaning she was likely at a standstill. John fought through the pain in his gasping lungs to make a final push. His feet send throbs of pain through his legs a result of boots that were not designed for distance running. All of his physical ailments were ignored, however, as his mind had focused on a single purpose.
As he neared her, the Ksync pulsed and displayed several unknown objects closing in on their position. It was only able to track movement. Vital statistics were listed as unavailable. Had he been open to more stimuli, John would have considered the pounding sounds of vibrations as they reverberated through the caverns. The decibels increased as he ran, but the suit kept the noise within safe parameters. When he was within fifty meters of Stephanie, John caught sight of her. She stood at the corner of an opening that was lit by mining lights. They lights were designed to illuminate their surroundings while preserving a sense of night vision. Relics that benefited John thought the current residents had long ago abandoned their need. As he drew within a few meters of her, John could see a cavern opening leading to an extinct lava tube.
John gingerly touched Stephanie’s shoulder, trying to keep her from jumping or clocking him with a right hook. She jumped anyway, but faced him with a defensive posture instead of taking a swing.
"Stephanie what do you think you’re doing?" John scolded through his suit's comm.
He was about to start into a monologue on the responsibilities of driving down a lava tube on a covert mission, yet instead he froze. His vision caught several drilling machines beyond them in the open area. The engines were stopped as the people operating them became aware of their presence. The miners slowly gathered and moved toward John and Stephanie. Their heads were devoid of ears, at least any that were visible. What was left of a nose was flattened and recessed into their sullen faces. Their hauntingly large pupils seemed to cast a glow from underneath their hooded garments. Reddish mud splattered across their bodies drawing similarity to the blood stained gowns of a surgeon. Pale skin exposed as arms extended into claws from their knuckles. The sight was enough to throw a war veteran into a state of fight or flight. To a seventeen-year-old girl, it was enough to put her into a massive state of shock.
John slowly moved to his daughter while he activated the self-defense charge on his Ksync. He positioned himself between her and the group. Putting his hands up in front of him he signaled for them to hold off.
“It's going to be OK,” John said through his mic to Stephanie. “If you see a bright light, then I want you to run as fast as you can back to the cart. You can do this.”
Hearing her father's voice, Stephanie managed to contain her fright enough to respond.
“Okay,” she managed to get out.
John tapped his suit activating the external speaker.
“We're just traveling through guys,” John tried to communicate. “We had to make a quick stop, and we're back on track now. You all can go back to work - sorry to interrupt.”
The miners didn't pause at his words and continued to walk slowly toward them.
“Okay, they don't seem to get it Steph,” John warned her. “Get ready to run when you see the flash.”
Stephanie couldn't seem to find her voice, but managed an affirmative nod.
John took a step forward, pushed a button on his Ksync, and tossed it in front of the approaching crowd. The device hit the ground and then exploded in a bright flash of electricity. The chain of energy sparked from one miner to the next causing them to shake violently and collapse from muscle spasms.
Stephanie hesitated a second and then turned, running as quickly as she could in the direction she had come. John watched her run off and then re-focused his attention on the few who had escaped the Ksync's charge. He clenched his fists and activated the micro shock guns built into the forearms of his MARC suit. Aiming them at the half-dozen workers who had stopped their advance he warned them off.
“You don't want any of this!” he yelled in their direction as he slowly backed out of the corridor.
The miners, who had apparently been stunned by the sight of their comrades, gave out a piercing shriek and lumbered at John. He fired two quick shots on two separate targets, sending both reeling to the ground much as the Ksync had performed. The rest, however, closed to close quarters.
Though their claws appeared vicious, they were not designed for combat. His suit, having been built to resist such attacks, deflected their slashes. What it couldn't do, however, was resist the crushing weight that was heaped upon him from their new tactic--pile on.
John struggled to breathe as his diaphragm flung into spasms from the weight. In the corner of his eye he caught one of the miners rearing up with a large drill bit in its hands. Rather than wait to see if his suit could resist its puncture, he found enough voice to activate one last command.
“Body blow,” he gasped.
Instantly, his suit sent shocks of electricity shooting outward from all points. It created a globe of energy around him for two seconds. The miner’s pinning him flung themselves away as their muscles spasmed. Before John could leap to his feet and escape, a single miner had fought through the shooting pain to kneel next to him. The light of the cavern cast a glimmer of light off the drill bit still raised by his hands above John’s head. As the miner’s consciousness gave way his body collapsed towards John. The metal tip of the bit sunk into the ground beside him as John’s bulging eyes tracked its near tragic course.
Someone pulled the miner off him and to the side. Looking up, he saw Elizabeth standing over him. At the same time, he noted the power light in his helmet was flashing emergency power.
Curious Sols (The Sol Principle Book 1) Page 29