by Andrew Dorn
The tubule made its way downwards and implanted itself between the others. It curled around the bundle of conduits hugging the upper wall, twisting itself into a knot, before coming to rest at Simon’s feet. He stared, dumbfounded, to the wondrous apparition. He must be dreaming, but the tubule was his way out! All he had to do was use it to climb out of his prison.
“Did you do this?” He asked, mind whirling at the implications.
(Yes)
“But how?”
(Explain later)
Fair enough, Simon thought. The pseudo hose waited for him to act, like the ropes used by aerial artists in Cirque du Soleil shows. Contrary to the hanging veins, the tubule wasn’t lit from within, didn’t pulse with energy. It dangled in front of him as if planted for his convenience.
“You said I shouldn’t touch the tubules. Is this one safe?”
(Yes)
He nodded to himself, unconvinced.
Come on, get a grip!
He clutched the tubule with both hands. The denseness of the appendage was thicker than it looked but it made his ascension easier. He placed his right foot on the wall, struggling to maintain balance. This is way harder than it looks. His arms were strong, but he was a big man and he had to admit that climbing a rope using only your arms was hard. Sweat dripped into his eyes as he gripped the tubule with every ounce of strength. The muscles in his arms burned, untrained for this kind of punishing effort. The opening was a good 6 meters away, about half the height of a common utility pole, but he had only reached the midway point.
There was still a long ways to go.
I won’t make it.
He had to let go. His arms were in agony, he was out of breath and low in energy.
Emmeline, I’m sorry!
To his complete surprise, the tubule retracted.
Like a hose snapping back into its station, the tubule lurched up the opening, carrying him to safety. He held on as it picked up speed, a big smile on his face. He felt elated, transported, as he zoomed upward inside the narrow tunnel, feeling like he had been giving a second chance, a chance fuelled by a magic he didn’t understand.
The tunnel was pitch black save for a tiny circle of light further ahead.
Is it the exit?
A way out of the tunnel?
A minute later, he had his answer. The tunnel was changing its orientation from vertical to horizontal. The tubule turned limp in his hands and he let go. It fell to the ground, inert and lifeless. He found himself in a cramped crawlspace with no way out but a circular hole a short distance away.
Chin to the ground, he squirmed his way inside the narrow confine. He hated it at once. Keeping a lid on his claustrophobia was easier said than done. Elbows and knees scraping the rough surface, he pressed on. At least he wasn’t stumbling in utter darkness. It seemed everywhere he went, a pale yellowish glow trailed, a comforting presence in the darkness. Fifteen minutes passed by, followed by fifteen more. The crawlspace was akin to an infinity mirror, creating the illusion of a tunnel without an end.
There was no other way but to go on, no matter what.
The glow brightened as time went by, or perhaps he had gotten accustomed to the gloom. In any case, he breathed easier when he saw the crawlspace come to an end. Taking a moment to gather his wits, he realized the crawlspace led out to a sharp drop. Inching his way forward, he made his way to the edge of the opening and stared down into the pit.
It was very much a chasm... another one.
There was at least, to his estimation, 30 meters of empty space between his position and the bottom of the chasm.
How do I get down?
(Simon!)
Emmeline’s voice rang out in his head, clear as a bell, and much closer. There was an intimacy to the contact that had been missing before. A proximity which could only mean one thing.
Peering down to the ground, far below, he spotted the source of the glow which had shepherded him out of the antechamber. It was coming from a formation of towering spires, at least 2 meters high, aligned in a half-hazard formation the length of the wall.
The spires, similar to those erected by African termites, bathed the pit in an eerie glow across the open expanse. There was a play of light in the translucent spires, enhancing their peculiar appearance. He had never seen anything like it. It was fascinating and alarming at the same time. The spires radiated an energy identical to the veins from the chamber. Perhaps, he thought, they were the source of power, or at least part of the process.
There was something else in the spires.
A shape.
Recognizably human.
Emmeline!
With disbelief, he realized she was encased among the spires, like an insect trapped in amber. She was trapped, motionless, as the strange light played across her form, multiplying the eeriness of the vision.
He had to find a way to get her out.
But first, he needed a way down. He scanned the pit’s walls. There were some asperities but they offered little in the way of handholds. It was going to be an arduous descent, especially with no gear whatsoever and with his hands already sore from all the digging around.
Still, I have no other choices. Emmeline is trapped down there!
He stared at the spires. There were all kinds of geological oddities and rarities one could find underground. They run the gamut from spherical boulders, to orbicular granites, to great crystals and mineral accretions. But the spires were quite singular in appearance. It was their translucency which he found remarkable. They shone light as if they harnessed an energy from beneath the ground, tapping a hidden source.
What should I do now?
He would die if he missed a foothold and fell.
But there was no other way.
Taking position near the edge of the pit, he played out in his mind what he needed to do. He would have to sense his way downward, use each single asperity as if it was a godsend... and climb down.
Easy enough.
All he needed was the nerve to do it.
For a full minute, he teetered on the edge. He had never done anything as dangerous as what he was preparing to do. If he lost his grip, he would die, plain and simple.
And with that final thought, he began to climb down.
30 Blink of an Eye
SIMON FELT THE air rush past his ears.
He had made it down to the half-way point.
For the last 45 minutes, he had been in agony. His descent had been one long exercise in pain. His entire body was suffering, from his bleeding fingers to his desensitized toes.
And it had taken one second of careless inattention, one tiny miscalculation, to find himself in free fall.
He was a blink of an eye away from impact.
I should have thought of a better way to end it all.
Milliseconds before impact, he braced himself for the pain that was sure to follow.
There was a stir in his conscience and he felt a soothing presence engulf him.
It was Emmeline.
For the first time, he could sense her presence in his mind. It went beyond the voice he had been hearing. It was an intimate sensation, as if they had shared a lifelong link between them, comparable to the ones, he guessed, old couples shared after fifty years of living together.
Like an actor watching his performance on a screen, he recorded the fact his body was smashing into the spires with tremendous force. He could sense them disintegrate around him as he fell through the length of their delicate skeletons. Unbeknownst to him, the spires were breaking his fall as they collapsed under his weight.
Time slowed down in his mind. His rate of descent seemed to drop off as he came near the ground. Every moment was distinct from the next, his mind disengaged from his body. He felt as if he was dropping into a pool of jello, or better still, a great container stuffed with feather pillows. Time snapped back to reality and he realized he was still alive... and in one piece.
“Simon!”
He turned to the
voice. It had not popped into his mind like before but travelled through his auditory canal.
There was a hand sticking out from the rubble of the spires.
Emmeline’s hand.
She had managed to extirpate her upper torso from the mass of shards and splinters, but her lower body remained trapped.
“Emmeline! Oh My God!”
He scrambled to his feet and made his way to her, stepping over the fragments of spires littering the ground. With relief, he saw she appeared unharmed. Even though her eyes were shut and she had minor cuts on her face, there were no outside signs of trauma.
“Emmeline, are you hurt?”
Her eyes fluttered open.
Simon stared in astonishment.
Her eyes had lost the characteristic ice green hue he had found so alluring. They had turned a dark yellow hue tinged with gold streaks, terrible and alien in the pit’s gloom.
She blinked, once, and the yellowish coloration receded, replaced by her eye’s natural color. He let out a breath of relief and smiled down at her. It must have simply been a weird trick of light.
“You scared me.”
“Hello stranger,” Emmeline said, her voice scarcely above a whisper.
“Hello yourself.”
He bowed his head and kissed her. The sensation on his lips was intense, a rush of emotions to his already frazzled nervous system. She returned the kiss and the embrace turned into a passionate exchange of pent up desires and fears.
“Ouch,” she said with a wince. “Just a minute.”
Raising her left shoulder up, she pulled out a shard from her skin.
“That’s better.”
Simon gripped her hand and helped her up. She reeled for a few seconds, putting a hand to her forehead.
“Oooh, my head is spinning,” she grumbled, massaging her temples.
“Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes.”
She took a step forward and kissed him again, this time with a more measured but still passionate intention. After a long kiss that Simon never wanted to end, he saw her smile up at him.
“I missed you.”
“Me, too,” Simon said, “... even though, you were in my head.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“Not your idea?”
“Let’s just say the situation dictated it.”
He traced a line on her jaw. She had a beautiful smile. He had missed her more than he realized. Had it been hours or had it been days? He wasn’t sure anymore and he didn’t care. She was with him now.
And that’s what all he hoped for.
31 Measured Recklessness
CAPTAIN BALLARD’S GRIN was as large as those of the two young people engaged in a celebratory discussion next to him. Declan and Anna were alternating between excitement and exhaustion but they were too pumped up to notice. They were alive, and that was cause enough for celebration. Patterson and Vazquez, standing behind the trio at the back of the cramped cockpit, were likewise boisterous, guzzling down with joyful abandon the last of Gerry’s special reserve.
The sludge had washed over broad swaths of the land in the last hour as the great sinkhole turned into a mushy reservoir of grayish goo. The muck had gobbled up the mooring ropes, but both the SmartDozer and pickup truck had withstood the overrun. Ballard kept a steady eye out to an area which had escaped the sludge’s rampage. It was a small patch of plain shrubs amid a sea of tortured landscape but it was an oasis nonetheless, the only one remaining.
The airship’s engines were fighting the wind currents, which had picked up speed as the day went on. The batteries were being depleted but there wasn’t much Ballard could do about it.
He needed to find a way to anchor the Starwind.
The SmartDozer was bogged down in sludge, its track half-submerged, but its roll-cage was 4 meters off the ground, and now that the goo had begun to congeal into place, it was the perfect target. All they had to do was drop a line to it. It meant someone would have to attach the line by hand... but it was manageable.
“Captain Ballard, thank you again for saving us,” Anna said with a large smile, her eyes flicking from Declan to the pilot and over again.
Ballard turned. She was a sweet girl, full of life. She reminded him of his ex-wife, they had the same ingrained spiritedness, a kind of indomitable way of looking at things. It was particularly striking in Anna’s case. Not only had she gone through quite an adventure, her resilience was remarkable, but it was her steadfast drive to find her dad which resonated within him. Ballard wasn’t a parent, but if he had been, he would have been proud to call her his daughter.
“Don’t thank me, Anna. It’s part of my job to make sure everyone’s safe, either aboard my ship, or in the middle of a river of goo.”
She laughed out loud, her voice a crystalline delight amid the chorus of male voices.
“Well next time, I’ll try to make it easier for you!”
It was the captain’s turn to chuckle.
“That’s a great idea. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.”
And it was true enough.
His days as a commercial pilot were numbered. It was Charlotte Bohler, the CEO of Aerios and a childhood friend of his ex-wife, which had given him command of the Starwind. If it hadn’t been for her direct involvement, he would never have ben selected. He had learned afterwards of the board of director’s opposition. They were aware of his trademarked Air Force influenced recklessness. They thought he posed a risk, preferring to hire someone from the air cargo industry instead, someone who would program the automated systems and sit in the cockpit, like a passenger. What they didn’t need was another hotshot pilot at the controls. It was much preferable to have a technician, an operator on board. Bohler, however, was convinced they still needed humans at the controls and in the end had wielded her considerable power to rule over the board’s recommendation.
He glanced at Declan.
His co-pilot had a good life ahead of him. He was bright, socially adept and of good company. He had to admit he envied him, envied his youth.
Time flies way too fast... especially for a pilot.
He had lived a good life, filled with a host of adventures, with the high and lows, which made it piquant and interesting. But now, he spoke of it in past tense while Declan’s was still forthcoming.
It made a big difference.
But he wasn’t ready to retire.
Not yet.
He still could make a difference. The rescue of Anna and Declan was proof his skills were as sharp as they had always been. Despite what everyone said about technology, no automated system, programmed or whatnot, could compare to having a real person take command. Bohler had known it all along. The decisions reached by humans differed from those selected by a machine. There always was a human element involved. Perhaps it was because he was pushing seventy, but Phil Ballard believed it was still the most important.
And sometimes also, unfortunately, its most dangerous one.
“Captain Ballard, this is Major Jim Redding, do you hear?”
The voice bursting loud and clear in the cockpit pulled the captain back to reality.
“Yes, Major. You are coming in loud and clear,” Ballard said, with a side glance to Declan. The young man turned his head and made a shushing gesture to the two men behind him. They acknowledged his request with a show of making zipping motions across their mouths. Declan shook his head in mock gravitas. It was obvious both Gerry and Arturo were drunk, though he expected that after downing a few cups of strong coffee, they’d be back to their usual professional selves.
“We need to talk. Is this a good time?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“We have come across a situation here. Our attempts at clearing a way across the woods by burning through were unsuccessful.”
“Did he say burning through?” Declan said in a whisper to Anna, standing at his side.
She nodded in affirmation.
“I repeat Ca
ptain, the sludge reacts in a violent manner when ignited. Do not attempt to burn it! If there is a risk of fire, pull out of the area at once. Do you copy?”
“Yes Major, understood,” Ballard said. “Fire equals danger, we get it.”
“This is no laughing matter Captain, we’ve lost people to this damn sludge.”
“I understand Major, sorry if I sounded flippant. We will heed your warning,” Ballard said, realizing his previous answer could be misinterpreted.
“Good to know,” Redding said, reassured by Ballard’s statement. “We have had better success using water to curb the sludge’s advance but we won’t be able to reach you before nightfall. We will attempt to find a way in the morning. Do you copy?”
Ballard glanced at the others in the cabin. They were absorbing the news with pensive stares and big question marks in their eyes.
“We copy Major. Note that some of the mining crew are still unaccounted for. We are doing everything we can to rescue them.”
Anna put a hand to Ballard’s shoulder.
“We will resume searching for them in the morning,” Ballard said, nodding to Anna’s silent plea. “Be aware however, we are getting low on power. I have the responsibility,” he looked at the others, “to evacuate those onboard before it’s too late. I will contact you if I’m forced by events to do that. It would be great if we could rendezvous. Do you have the equipment to charge our bird, Major?”
“We have a few generators around, Captain. I’m sure we can work something out. Good luck with your search but don’t take unnecessary risks or expose yourselves to further contamination. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
There was an awkward silence as both men pondered what to say next. When it became obvious the conversation was at an end, they both piped up in unison.
“Good luck, Captain.”
“Good luck, Major.”
Anna squeezed the Captain’s shoulder. “Thank you, Captain for your cooperation. We are demanding a lot from you.”
“Nonsense, Anna. I speak for myself but I believe Declan will agree, we’ll do what we have to do to make sure everyone is safe.” Ballard pointed down to the sinkhole. “What is taking place down there might appear overwhelming but sometimes the actions of a few individuals, or even a single one, can make a big difference.”