by Amy DuBoff
“I’d suggest powered armor,” Ava said. “Air recirc sounds a lot better than whatever particulates might be floating around down there.”
“Agreed,” Widmore confirmed. “Prep your team. We’ll arrange a pod drop as soon as we have a target.”
* * *
As if there weren’t already enough red flags, Karen had become convinced that the secret Nezaran facility was trouble once she learned that the transit system didn’t service the location. Though it was positioned almost in line with the city and the capitol building, it was at the base of a bizarre valley, which meant it was only accessible by shuttle.
True to Fiona’s statement, the facility didn’t look like more than a small house on the surface. Karen would have missed it if she wasn’t looking for a structure in the valley. It was surrounded by rock formations unlike anything she’d seen elsewhere on the world—almost like dark waves arching from the red soil. The steep cliffs ringing the valley rose one hundred meters, making the place appear even more isolated.
“What were they doing out here?” she muttered to herself while staring out the shuttle window as they approached the landing site.
Trisha was seated in the row in front of her, and Fiona was across the aisle. The two other women had their eyes glued to the windows next to their seats, as well.
“It has to be connected,” Fiona replied.
“What do you mean?” Trisha asked.
Fiona didn’t take her gaze off the window. “There’s no way this place was only serviced by shuttle. There has to be another way in.”
Karen was inclined to agree, but she didn’t like the implications. An out-of-the-way facility was one thing, but kilometers of underground tunnels took that to a whole other level. Still, it was the most likely scenario, and she couldn’t ignore evidence just because she didn’t like what it indicated.
She knew from experience that there were multiple sublevels to the main government building. It was possible one of those contained a tunnel that spanned the six kilometers to the valley.
But why would they do that? So many other secrets had been kept in plain sight that it was odd that they’d have gone to the trouble of creating underground tunnels, when a road or rail line would have increased the connection.
Because they didn’t want others to know that the facility was there, let alone that it was connected to the government, she answered her own question. Whatever is in there can’t be good.
The shuttle descended into a clearing between the wave-like rocks, and the side door opened. A wave of heat swept through the cabin.
Trisha scowled. “I hope they have air conditioning in this place.”
“It’s underground. We won’t need it,” Karen replied. She rose from her seat and smoothed her pencil dress, which was paired with lightweight leggings and flat boots that were her most practical footwear for walking.
The three women walked down the ramp from the shuttle.
Dry air burned Karen’s lungs as she took a deep breath. She coughed. “Let’s get inside.”
Hewn of dark stone similar to the material of the rock waves, the facility’s exterior façade rose one story and had a roof that angled down from a massive boulder next to it. There appeared to be no openings in the walls, aside from a single door.
Karen picked up her pace to reach the door first. A control panel was enclosed inside a hinged protective cover next to the door, complete with a biometric scanner. She placed her hand on the device.
The screen flashed red, accompanied by ‘Access Denied’.
“Let me try,” Fiona offered, and Karen moved out of her way.
When Fiona placed her hand on the screen, it changed to green. The adjacent door hissed open.
“Good to know you’re in their system,” Karen said to her.
“Not sure that’s a system I want to be in.”
Behind them, Trisha took a shaky breath. “I don’t like this place.”
Karen stepped inside. “That makes all of us.”
The five-by-five meter room looked more like an NTech lab than something found inside a stone shack at the bottom of a remote valley. Primarily finished in white, and well lit, the room was everything Karen would envision for a sophisticated control room. Monitors lined the walls at three distinct workstations, and a sealed door was set into the wall that butted up to the boulder Karen had observed from the outside.
“This is really weird,” she said.
“I’ve heard others describe it, but this isn’t what I imagined.” Fiona looked around the room. “We need to get through that door.”
Trisha held up her hand. “First, we need to gather any data we can from these computers.”
“Agreed, there may be records here that we can’t access elsewhere,” Karen said. “Fiona, you might need to do the honors, since you seem to be recognized in the system.”
“I’ll try.” She stepped over to the closest workstation.
“Trisha, let’s take a look at this door.” Karen walked over to it.
There was no handle, which indicated the door either swung inward or was controlled exclusively through an electronic panel. A shove against it confirmed that they wouldn’t be able to open it manually.
“Where would you put controls?” Karen scanned the vicinity until she spotted a scanner at waist level to the left side of the door. She extended her hand toward it.
“Wait!” Fiona called out.
Karen paused. “Find something?”
“Yes. Shit, this is bad. We need to get out of here.” Fiona raced toward the exit door.
“What is it?” Karen stepped back from the side door, but she’d need more than vague statements to make her abandon their research expedition before it’d begun.
Fiona held up a portable data drive. “I downloaded the summary data. I don’t think Reya was just inside the chancellor—I think it’s still here.”
CHAPTER NINE
Karen ran with Fiona and Trisha to the waiting shuttle. “What makes you think Reya is here?” she asked.
“The login records,” she explained while they climbed inside. “Not just for the network, but for the facility here. There’s a prefix code from each government office. I know the ones for the office in the city and the main one near here, so that leaves the third to be this. I noticed that the chancellor’s old login access stopped when it should have, at the time of her death, but that account has been active from this facility within the past two days.”
“Oh, shit,” Trisha whispered.
Karen swallowed. “And if I was a power-hungry alien megalomaniac like Reya, I’d be pissed that my plans were upset, and looking to either reclaim what was lost or get revenge.”
“Hence the ‘let’s get the fuck out now’ stance,” Fiona said, accompanied by a hand flourish.
“Which now makes complete sense,” Karen acknowledged. I’d really hoped Luke was wrong.
“Great, so these beings don’t die in the sense we’re used to.” Fiona shook her head.
Karen looked over at the terrified faces of the two women. She needed to offer reassurance that they would get assistance in the upcoming fight.
“Right now, the FDG is investigating the place that they think is the aliens’ home,” Karen revealed.
“They do exist in a specific place, then?” Hope returned to Fiona’s eyes.
“We’ll know soon.” Karen looked at the data drive still clutched in the other woman’s hands. “In the meantime, let’s see what else we can find out about what these aliens were up to.”
* * *
Ava took slow, steady breaths inside her powered armor suit, while the stealthed pod descended into the atmosphere of the alien world.
It went against her training to go in without a set plan, but this mission was also unlike the challenges her team typically faced. An unknown enemy, ambiguous motives, and a mishmash of tech. They could find anything on the world below.
“Stick together. Don’t do anything stupid,”
Ava told her team over the comm. It didn’t need to be said, but her role as the team leader dictated she say something.
“We’re on high alert,” Samantha replied. She patted her sidearm.
“I’m patched into the comms and visual feeds, so reach out to me if you need assistance,” Ruby added.
The pod bumped as it touched down on the surface. The artificial gravity disengaged as the craft powered down, and Ava rose easily from her seat. Scans had shown the gravity to be at approximately 0.6g, so they wouldn’t be able to get too crazy, but they’d certainly be able to cover distance much faster than normal.
When the back hatch opened, Ava got her first glimpse of the alien landscape. Everything was perfectly still.
This does come off as creepily artificial, Ava commented to her AI.
>>The suit isn’t picking up any distinct heat signatures, though there is a trace of the same ambient radiation we observed throughout this system in space.<<
So, that’s a ‘no’ on probable life signs?
>>Correct.<<
What about that vegetation stuff?
>>You’ll need to inspect it more closely to be sure.<<
Ava gathered her gear and activated the stealth on her powered armor; her team did likewise. “All right, let’s see what we’re working with.”
Edwin took a cautious step toward the rear ramp. “I have absolutely no basis for this remark, but I feel the need to warn against robotic tentacle monsters.”
Samantha peered outside. “Normally, I’d tell you you’re full of it and need to get a life. This time, that warning seems oddly appropriate.”
Nick laughed behind his opaque faceplate. “I’m so playing back this clip the next time one of you rags on me for saying something dumb.”
Edwin bristled. “Hey, robotic tentacle monsters can be a real menace.”
“I’ll be on the lookout.” Nick patted his teammate on the shoulder as he passed by.
Ava followed them down the ramp and onto the alien soil. The orange sky created an amber glow to the world around her, as though the world was in constant sunset.
“I don’t like it,” she said to her team.
Samantha looked around. “It doesn’t feel right. It’s…” she faded out.
“It’s that it’s not alive,” Edwin completed for her.
“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “Just… sterile.”
Ava surveyed the surroundings. “No flowers, no birds, no bugs. I know we saw that from space, but it’s weird to see in person.”
“But there’s the forest.” Samantha pointed at the strange trees along the neighboring ridge.
Ava nodded. “Let’s check it out.” She set a brisk pace toward the trees.
The groundcover was unlike anything Ava had set foot on before. Though it appeared to be moss-covered dirt from a distance, it didn’t compress like natural materials. After walking several paces, Ava bent down to inspect it.
She zoomed in and analyzed the dull green material with the sensors on her powered armor. The view on her HUD displayed a mesh of interwoven artificial fibers.
“This just keeps getting weirder,” she muttered.
Nick crouched down next to her. “Was all of this manufactured?”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “But I’m not excited to meet whoever or whatever could construct an artificial landscape on this scale.”
Samantha frowned. “Think the entire planet is like this?”
“It all looked the same on scan,” Ava said with a shrug. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be, but I guess we have no way to be sure.”
“Does it matter?” Edwin continued forward. “We’re going after the source of the signal you identified.”
Ava nodded. “Right.”
Following their initial discovery, Aleya and Rod had been able to narrow the source of the signal to a valley, adjacent to the landing site where the pod had touched down. They had considered traveling to the exact location, but thick tree cover made the possibility of landing difficult, and they also didn’t know what they’d find. For caution’s sake, it seemed worthwhile to take a longer walk.
It was easy-going over the terrain, between the light gravity and the powered armor. Ava had to rein in her movements to avoid lunging ahead at an unsafe pace, in case they encountered any hostiles.
At the top of the ridge, she held up her fist, signaling her team to pause. They each took up position behind a tree that afforded a view of the valley beyond.
The aerial view hadn’t done the location justice. Rather than a continuous, thick forest, the landscape on the other side of the ridge was interrupted by an odd outcropping of rocks. The dark stones jutted from the ground in a grooved half-arch that tapered to a narrow tip.
“It’s like an ocean storm froze,” Samantha murmured into her comm.
“That’s definitely stone,” Ava observed, looking at the density reading displayed on her HUD.
“What would make rock take that kind of shape?” Edwin asked.
“Was it grown?” Nick posited.
“That would fit with the rest of the place,” Ava realized.
The trees, the groundcover, the dirt—they all had the same markers of a manufactured substance. More likely than having created each of those elements and arranging them was the idea of forming the materials in the right location. It would take an extreme mastermind to design the operations before such a large-scale project, but the Dyons may very well have been up to that challenge.
There was just one very big question.
“Where did the raw materials come from for this?” Ava asked her team.
“The Gidyon System does not appear to have the necessary elements in the natural composition to supply a build of this scale,” Ruby stated over the shared comm band.
“Nezar and Alucia, maybe?” Samantha speculated.
“It would explain why Reya had infiltrated so many organizations,” Ava agreed. “Let’s take some samples and see if we can get a match. Really, though, it doesn’t matter so much where it came from. It’s here now.”
“Good point.” Nick bent down to gather some material from the ground.
Ava scraped off a sample of the artificial bark from the tree she was braced behind.
When the samples had been gathered, Ava and her team stored the canisters in slots within their armor. Ava then motioned them forward through the trees. She felt a little ridiculous darting from tree to tree while they were already in stealth gear, but there was no knowing if weapons fire was going to take them out at any moment, and avoiding an opportune enemy shot if their stealth was ineffective was always the priority.
When they were halfway down the hillside, Ava signaled for her team to stop. “Do you see a building up there?” She enhanced the view on her HUD and sent the image to her teammates.
The three warriors evaluated it.
“That does look more squared off than the other rocks,” Nick concurred.
“In all fairness, the forest is laid out on a grid,” Ava added. “Still, the color and texture of this is different than everything around it.”
“Huh,” Nick said cryptically.
Ava looked in his direction. “What?”
“Look at the aerial of this valley with an overlay of the on-the-ground details.” Nick sent the team the composite image. “Look like anything familiar?”
Ava’s brow knit. “A transmission dish.”
The strange, curved rocks in the center were positioned at the focal point, and trees filled the main body of the dish. Rock walls ringed the outer lip.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see that before.” Ava’s stomach knotted. This is the source of their control.
“How do we blow it up?” Edwin asked.
“This is a recon mission,” she reiterated, though she didn’t disagree with the sentiment.
“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Nick cut in. “We’re totally going to end up blowing this thing to bits. We may as well find its inevitable weakness
on this go-around to save ourselves trouble in the future.”
“Planning ahead, and all,” Samantha added.
“You bring up a valid point.” Ava sighed. “Let’s get a closer look.”
They continued down the hillside until they reached the perimeter of the rock formation. Smaller trees were scattered amid the rocks, which explained how they had missed the now-obvious formation when they’d initially looked at it. Ava had learned long before that patterns often didn’t emerge until there was some idea of what to look for.
“Whoa, radiation spike,” Samantha said, breaking the comm silence that had dominated the second half of their walk.
“The signal is definitely stronger here, too,” Nick commented.
Ava sensed a pressure in her head. Any explanation for that? she asked Ruby.
>>There seems to be a resonance with the neural structure Luke’s team dubbed the ‘TR’. It’s not connected to the signal, but the operating frequencies are similar enough that you’re getting feedback, of sorts.<<
This would activate me, though, if I had that other version of the TR?
>>Yes, I think so,<< Ruby confirmed. >>You aren’t in any danger. Let me see if I can compensate for the feedback.<<
The pressure in her head diminished.
>>Is that better?<<
Much, thank you. Ava smiled. It’s nice having you along, Ruby.
>>Happy to be of service.<<
The team approached the apparent structure at the center of the rock ring.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a door,” Edwin observed.
Sure enough, a door standing a little over three meters tall and one meter wide was positioned in the center of the near side of the structure. There was no obvious way to open the door, but an access panel was positioned next to it.
“Want me to get us inside?” Nick asked.
“Hold for a minute. I need to check in with Widmore,” Ava replied. “We’re going a little beyond our scope, if we head inside.”