Children of the Fifth Sun

by Gareth Worthington

  The tank shook violently, waking Kelly from his trance-like state. The external sounds were muffled through the water and glass, but he could make out the sound of an alarm. The men outside were struggling to stay on their feet, grasping at the consoles for support. The weight of the water around Kelly shifted as the tank moved in synchrony with room. Wherever he was, the structure was moving quickly. Were they under attack?

  He glanced across at K’in, who bobbed up and down in his own compartment. As the water sloshed from side to side, a deep sense of confusion and fear passed from the creature into Kelly.

  Without warning, the tanks twisted beyond their limits, forcing the Plexiglas to warp, bulge, and finally split open. The warm seawater spewed out through the tears, vomiting Kelly and K’in onto the floor of the room.

  Kelly lay naked, sprawled out among the fumbling Chinese men, who appeared much more concerned with the current situation than with their prisoners. He flopped about on the floor and clawed at the mask on his face, but it was no use. The apparatus was strapped tightly to the back of his head, the external tubing running outward from the front and onto the floor. Clearly, it had just been a makeshift snorkel, but he could feel another tube extending downward from inside the mouthpiece into his windpipe. He flipped onto his front and lay low in the freezing water that swirled around the floor. Lifting himself onto his palms, he searched for the other end of the external pipe. He had to pick it up before it filled with water and drowned him.

  In a push-up like motion, Kelly got to his knees and then his feet. Unsteadily, he stood and searched the room. He heard the heavy sound of his own breathing inside the mask and a faint gurgling sound as the other end of the hose lay in a thin pool of water.

  He grabbed at the tubing and yanked it out of the water and over one shoulder in a single, quick movement. It was longer than he had hoped and difficult to manage. He swung around, now searching for K’in. The creature lay flat on the floor, his eyes darting about the room, following the panicked men and ensuing chaos. Kelly stomped with bare feet over to K’in, each step making a large splash. He knelt by the creature and put his hand on his head. K’in lifted his eyes to Kelly’s. With his face covered, Kelly’s eyes became an even greater focal point. They were calm and strong.

  Kelly nodded at K’in—a vague indication not to worry. Be calm. Everything will be okay. He examined the wire protruding from K’in’s head. It was attached, piercing the skin directly. Kelly paused. Should he remove it? Fuck it; what else would he do? He looked once more into K’in’s eyes, trying to communicate that he was sorry, but this was going to hurt. With a sharp tug, he yanked on the wire. It popped upward, spurting blood from the tiny hole onto Kelly’s mask. K’in’s mouth opened wide, but no sound came from within. The creature shook his head, trying to shake off the pain. I know, thought Kelly, but it’s okay for you. I have to do this to myself. He reached above his own head and felt for the wire. He clasped both hands around it, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He yanked on it, ripping it from his scalp. Kelly screamed into the mask as it tore his skin away. Throwing the wire to the floor, he stared at K’in. Okay, he thought, you took that better than I did.

  A man behind Kelly shrieked loudly as a mass of seawater rushed into the room, forcing him from the doorway and crushing him against a bulkhead. Kelly had to get the door closed and cordon off the room. He left K’in on the floor and tramped over to the doorway that funneled the rushing water into the room. A Chinese man was behind the massive metallic door, trying to force it closed against the rushing onslaught. Kelly stood beside him and nodded a silent agreement. They pushed hard, but the foaming seawater pushed back harder. It was no use. There was no way that they were going to be able to close the door. The room tilted backward. Kelly and the Chinese man lost their footing and fell to the floor, sliding backward and crashing into the consoles behind them.

  Where the fuck was he? He had to be deep underwater; the pressure behind that water was immense, and the room was being thrown around like a rag doll. Shit, how the hell was he going to get through this? He needed to find scuba gear. He clambered to his feet and forced a pace through the rapidly rising water swirling around his knees. His eyes fell on a single tank floating in the water, clanging against the far wall. Kelly quickened his step as best he could, wading toward it. The Chinese man, having the same thought, grabbed the tubing attached to Kelly’s mask and yanked. Kelly’s head twisted around as he was jerked backward and off his feet.

  He coughed and spluttered as the tube filled with water. He scrambled to his feet, the spray of seawater in his eyes. He gathered up the tubing and squinted to see the Chinese man at the far wall, attempting to climb into the tank straps. Kelly realized that whatever vessel he was on, it was about to flood—and he had no air supply. He eyed the Chinese man at the end of the room and knew what he had to do. Without further hesitation, Kelly forced his way through the rushing water and grabbed the man around the head. The submariner squirmed and fought pathetically against Kelly’s grip. Kelly maneuvered the man’s head toward the bulkhead and jammed it sharply forward—again and again. Thick red blood spattered the wall as the soldier’s skull was crushed like a hard-boiled egg. His body was limp, but Kelly kept on smashing the man’s cranium against the metal corner. Frustration and anger filled his heart. Tears ran down his cheeks. Chris, his best friend, his only family—the fuckers had taken everything from him. Kelly screamed into the regulator.

  K’in swam up to Kelly and pushed his body between the two men. Kelly frowned, confused and angry, but let his grip on the man go. The soldier slumped into the ever-rising water. K’in slinked backward, allowing his body to stretch outward with only his head above the surface of the water. He stared at Kelly and was understood. Kelly glanced at his defeated opponent and his own blood-covered hands. He closed his eyes, fighting back the tears, the pain. Then he looked at K’in and nodded.

  He scooped up the scuba tank from the broken Chinese man and slipped the straps over his shoulders. He tightened them as best he could and clipped the waist belt together. Kelly stared at the tank’s regulator and then the end of the hose attached to his face. Shit, this wasn’t going to work. He was suddenly aware he was still naked and shivering. The water had risen to his shoulders now. Think! He had to think! Kelly shook his head once as he came to a final decision. Going to have to hold his breath and swim for it. He took a deep breath and tied a knot in the end of the hose as best he could.

  The water was now at his chin—and freezing. Kelly ducked under and opened his eyes. Christ, it was blurry—rushing water, a veil of bubbles, and swirling notebooks. He’d give anything for his mask. Fuck it. He turned around and around, squinting to see K’in. The creature glided up beside him, flexing his body like an alligator.

  K’in slipped underneath Kelly, who instinctively put his arms over the creature’s neck. K’in flicked his tail, propelling them forward. Through the tight corridors, K’in whisked them along, Kelly flapping like a flag above. The creature twirled and ducked under pipes and bulkheads, dodging the floating bodies of dead seamen.

  The lights overhead flickered on and off, and then they went out. It was pitch black. K’in obviously didn’t need light to know where to go—at least, Kelly hoped he didn’t. He imagined this was what death must be like—eerie and unnerving, a constant feeling something horrible from the bowels of hell would come out of the dark to torture you. He closed his eyes. He was cold, so cold and he had no air left. Then, he lost consciousness.

  Location: Chinese submarine, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

  Kelly’s grip on K’in loosened and immediately the creature stopped swimming. Kelly slipped from the creature’s back and floated for a few seconds before sinking toward the corridor floor.

  A dim beam of light pushed its way through the murky water ahead, swinging from left to right, a single eye searching the corridors. A frogman, wearing a completely black, full-length wetsuit and scuba gear, swam into the corridor
. K’in darted to the floor and covered Kelly with his body, protecting him. The frogman turned his head-mounted torch to the source of movement. K’in’s white body lit up in the dark water, his red plumes outstretched. He was on all fours, and his legs formed a cage around Kelly.

  The diver touched a button on the front of his full-face diving mask. “I’ve made contact with the creature and possibly the male. Please advise. Over.” He nodded several times. “Affirmative. Attempting extraction to the surface.”

  The diver swam cautiously toward K’in and stopped. For a few moments, he stared at the creature, partly in awe and partly confused as to how he was meant to extract the animal.

  K’in forced himself off the corridor floor, pushing with all four limbs. Before the marine had time to react, the creature’s hands were clamped around his head. Instantly, the diver’s body went limp, powerless. K’in blinked several times, gazing into the man’s eyes—feeling him.

  As if satisfied the soldier was no threat, K’in let go and moved to one side. The marine treaded water, slightly bewildered, before shaking off the strange feeling and starting toward Kelly on the corridor floor.

  “Affirmative. I have Kelly Graham. He’s alive— but no oxygen supply and is possibly in hypothermic shock. Inform the angel. Will need assistance upon extraction. Over.” The diver struggled to pull Kelly’s body from the floor, the awkward shape of the tank and the makeshift hose impeding his hold. K’in ducked down to the bottom again and grabbed Kelly with all four limbs. K’in held Kelly close to his body and flicked his tail. The diver again shook his head, unsure if any of this was real. He started after the creature, trying his best to keep pace.

  The animal seemed to know exactly where he was going, weaving through the corridors, navigating directly for the lockout trunk. The door to the trunk had been blown outward from inside, completely destroying any ability to form a seal to the outside world. K’in headed straight into the ascending tube that led out to the open water. His slender body, clamped to Kelly, slipped easily out into the ocean.

  The diver followed suit. Looking behind him as he ascended, he saw the Chinese submarine sitting on the ocean floor, a large hole ripped into one side and the hatch opening to the lockout trunk torn away. A few Chinese soldiers had managed to climb into their ascension suits, strange-looking, orange one-piece jumpsuits that zipped completely over the head and filled with air in order to prevent nitrogen narcosis due to rising to the surface too quickly. They would be picked off by the angel overhead.

  The marine contacted the ASDS again. “Be advised, creature and male have exited the submarine and are accelerating to the surface. Male is unable to make scheduled stops—decompression sickness possible. Repeat, decompression sickness possible.” The diver saw the creature squeezing Kelly quite firmly as it sped upward, causing a constant stream of bubbles to escape through the loose knot in the hose.

  K’in broke the surface. A strong wind tore across the water’s surface, pulling large waves along. Overhead, a huge Chinook hovered, its massive rotors holding the giant aircraft approximately twenty feet from the water’s surface. Freya was hanging from the side of the open door to the cargo hold. She shouted over the din of the rotors and howl of the wind to K’in, though she was unsure the creature would understand her even if he was able to hear.

  “Take me closer. We need to get closer!” Freya shouted orders through her headset.

  The Chinook dipped lower, swaying unsteadily as the pilot battled the side wind.

  Freya hooked herself to the winch. “Drop me down. I’ll attach a harness to them, and you can pull us up.”

  “Yes ma’am,” replied the soldier closest to her.

  Freya leaned backward and pushed off the floor with both feet, which were now covered in army boots rather than stilettos. The all-in-one green flight suit protected her from the cold but not the gale that seemed to manhandle her like a badly beaten flag.

  She reached the water’s surface where K’in bobbed along. The frogman had also surfaced and was holding Kelly’s head above the water.

  Freya held out the harness to the marine. “Grab it! Strap K’in and Kelly together into it!”

  The frogman complied, pulling the harness under Kelly’s armpits and then around K’in’s forelimbs. He clipped the harness shut, pulled the strap tight, and gave the okay sign to begin winching. Freya, dangling in mid-air, twisted her body upward and relayed the message. The winch motor groaned into life, slowly pulling the three-person weight from the water.

  Freya was back into the Chinook first. She quickly unclipped herself, turned, and waited with outstretched arms for the winch to finish lifting K’in and Kelly. A soldier knelt beside her and grasped the harness as it crested the floor of the open door. They released the creature first. The soldier lifted K’in and placed him gently into a makeshift plastic tank full of seawater. It was only two feet deep, and K’in rested inside with his head poking out over the lip of the tub.

  Freya frantically unraveled the strap from the naked Kelly, who writhed from oxygen depletion. She drew a knife from the sheath on her left calf and hacked the end of the hose, allowing air to once again fill his lungs. Kelly’s body relaxed. She knelt in front of him and wrapped his shivering body in a wool blanket and then a foil one. “You have hypothermia and most likely nitrogen narcosis. We need to get you to a hyperbaric chamber. But right now, we are going to try and remove this from your head. It seems they fixed it pretty tightly.”

  Freya slashed the straps. This left the hind part of the straps still attached to the back of Kelly’s head but enabled Freya to begin pulling at the regulator. Kelly gagged as the tubing slid out through his throat.

  “Wow, they didn’t want that thing to come off, did they?” Her face was screwed up in empathetic pain.

  Kelly coughed and dry-heaved awake as the remainder of the tube left his windpipe. “Fuck me. How the hell did I get involved in this shit? This is all your fault, Moby.” Kelly was mockingly pointing a finger behind him in K’in’s direction, though he never looked up from his crawling position on the floor of the Chinook cargo hold. He coughed hard again, swept his sodden hair backward. “Where are the others?”

  Freya shook her head slowly. “Tremaine is in a sub below us. It’s how we rescued you. He’s going to stay there and keep in contact through a dedicated satellite link up. Benjamin and the professor were badly hurt. They were taken to a hospital. I haven’t had a report for a few hours though, so I am not sure of their condition.” Her voice trailed off.

  “And Vicky?”

  “I’m sorry, Kelly. We lost Victoria when the truck exploded.” She hesitated, unsure whether she should comfort him.

  “Goddammit.” Kelly’s voice was barely a whisper, hushed in sadness as he stared at the floor. “I’m sorry, Vicky.” He wasn’t sure if he’d said that out loud, but perhaps Victoria could hear him. He composed himself and lifted his head to meet Freya’s gaze. “So where now?”

  Freya showed him the piece of paper with coordinates written on it. “There—wherever there is.”

  “Okay. We need to get there now. No time for a hyperbaric. I’d know if I had NN. Moby must have done something to me on ascent.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just get us to where we need to be.”

  “Okay, but we still need to get this thing off the back of your head.”

  “Fine. Just do it.”

  Location: Peru, South America

  “There it is. There’s no road in. We’ll have to set down about twenty miles from the coordinates you specified. The rest is on foot.” The pilot had to shout over the din of the Chinook’s rotors, even though Freya was wearing a headset.

  “That’s fine!” she yelled back. She slid the headgear off and stepped back through the cockpit door into the cargo hold.

  “Kelly, we are going to have to set down a bit away from the co-ordinates. There are no roads into this place. It means we’ll
have to carry K’in with us—are you okay with that?”

  Kelly appeared to stare blankly through her.

  “Kelly?” she repeated.

  He glanced over at K’in sloshing back and forth in the shallow makeshift tank. “Yeah, sorry. Still have a headache from that marine ripping the strap off the back of my skull.”

  “You told him to do it.” Freya smirked. “Besides, that was thirty-six hours and several refuels ago—are you seriously still whining?”

  “Hey, they’d used some kind of surgical staple. My head still friggin’ hurts. And anyway, it’s nothing compared with how much this is killing me.” He rolled his shoulder slowly, screwing up his face in pain. “Right, so are you gonna tell me where exactly here is? No more conspiracy. Gotta be honest with each other from here on out. Deal?”

  Freya eyed him. He seemed genuine. “Okay, deal.” She shuffled round to his side and pulled out a map from a side pocket in her cargo pants. Unfolding it, she flattened it on the floor of the hold and pointed to Peru. “We are here—near the small gold mining village of Huanchumay. It’s a remote part of the Carabaya province.”

  “I know this village. It was almost wiped out a few years back by a landslide, right?”

  “I don’t know. The General just sent me here. Said K’in would be safe here.”

  “Okay. First things first. I don’t want any of these soldiers coming in with us. I know the tribes and locals around these parts—they won’t be happy with these guerrillas wandering around.”

  “Okay, that’s fine as long as you can carry him.”

  The chopper plummeted, causing everyone on board to reach out instinctively for the nearest object for support. “Hold on, this could get a little bumpy,” the Chopper pilot called back.

  The Chinook banked sharply to the left and circled around before straightening and beginning its vertical decent through the only bald space amongst the thick Peruvian rainforest. It hovered a few feet above the ground, unable to land completely on the rough and uneven jungle floor.