by Nick Thacker
“Weird,” Nelson said. His tone conveyed nothing. If he was surprised that the soldier had a piece of jewelry embedded in his skull, Jen couldn’t tell. She watched as Nelson unsheathed his own knife—a monstrous KA-BAR military blade—and pointed it down toward the soldier’s ear.
“Don’t!” Jen said. She and Dr. Pavan stood up.
“What?” Nelson asked. “Aren’t you a little curious?”
She didn’t say anything, but Dr. Pavan gave a slight nod toward Nelson. Nelson grinned and then poked gently with his knife.
Blood oozed out around the blade, but there was only a little, and it didn’t seem to bother him. He made a few incisions, and then pushed on the skin just below the lump. Wriggling it around for a moment, he eventually freed the object from the soldier’s head and caught it in his bare hand.
Nelson wiped off his hand and the object with a section of the fallen soldier’s shirt, then stood.
Jen and Dr. Pavan instinctively stepped forward, curious as to what the object really was.
It was shiny, made of metal, and a perfectly round disk. It looked just like a miniature hockey puck except for a small glass bubble on one side of the disk. Jen couldn’t see any marks, features, or noteworthy characteristics on it otherwise.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nelson said. “What do you think it is?”
Dr. Pavan scrutinized the object carefully a few seconds before shrugging. “Beats me,” he said, and looked up at the other two.
Nelson shrugged as well and then placed the small object in one of his vest pockets. “Maybe we’ll hold on to it awhile; see if anything comes of it.”
Jen was about to ask to see it when a high-pitched whine emanated from out of nowhere. She grabbed her ears and spun, trying to locate the source. “What is that noise?” she asked.
Nelson squinted in pain, clearly hearing it as well, though not able to cover his ears with full hands. “No idea, but it ain’t pretty. Let’s keep moving.”
They started walking alongside the buildings, moving slower now in case they came across more bodies. Jen reached the end of the row of fish-smelling buildings first and turned around to wait for the others.
Her eyes widened.
“What?” Nelson asked, still squinting from the painfully high-pitched noise.
She didn’t speak, but she felt her mouth moving to form words. “I—I…”
Nelson and Pavan realized that her eyes weren’t on them, but behind them. They turned to see what had caught her attention.
“Holy mother of—” Nelson muttered under his breath. Dr. Pavan began walking backwards, not speaking.
Approaching them from the first of the buildings was a group of people, most wearing white lab coats. They were walking, but not all were standing upright. Their faces were obscured, but Jen could see their heads lolling around, not quite looking at them, but not quite looking away.
“Keep moving, guys,” Nelson said softly. “Let’s get to those three silos out there before we do anything else.”
The group, about ten strong, kept up with them, but Jen continuously looked over her shoulder as they jogged. They reached the silos in another minute and turned to see that the swarm of scientists had in fact kept pace with them, the distance between the two groups remaining constant.
Nelson turned to Jen and Pavan. “Should I…should I shoot them?” he asked.
“No!” Jen responded. “We don’t know who they are, or if they’re hurt.” She thought for a moment, then called out to them. “Hey! Who are you? Don’t get any closer!”
“Jen,” Dr. Pavan whispered, “maybe we shouldn’t call attention to ourselves?”
“Big deal,” Jen said. “They already know we’re here. What harm could it do?”
The swarm kept coming. The man in the front of the group—in his sixties, with grayish hair, and huge glasses—began walking a bit faster. He reached the opening between the buildings and the silos and started closing the distance. Jen backed away from the clearing as Nelson raised his rifle.
“Just say the word, Jen, and I’ll blow his brains out,” Nelson muttered.
“Stop it. He might be able to help us.”
The man was about fifteen feet away when he broke into a run. He wasn’t fast, nor was he efficient—the “running” was really a combination of stumbling, tripping, and falling forward. But he was going to reach them in a few seconds nonetheless.
“Go!” Nelson shouted, turning and running between the three silos. Jen and Dr. Pavan followed. They rounded the edge of the second silo and stopped again, waiting to see what the newcomer might do.
“Did you hear that?” Jen asked.
She cocked her head toward the noise, and soon heard it again—a groan.
A man’s groan. She felt her heart flutter as she stepped out from the silo’s edge and ran toward the third and final silo in the group. On the other side of the silo she saw him.
Laying on the ground, blood pooling around his head, was Carter.
She called back for help and knelt down beside him.
“Carter. Carter, it’s Jen. Are you okay?”
His eyelids fluttered, then opened slightly. He let out a deep moan.
Jen checked his vitals and tried to see what had caused the bleeding. She found a gash on the side of the man’s head—large, but not deep. He’d been hit with something.
“Carter, can you talk? What happened?”
He looked up at her as the other two in the group arrived. Nelson immediately reached for a small first aid kit on his belt and began rifling through the objects inside. He found a roll of gauze and began to unwrap it.
Dr. Pavan reached for the canteen that was hanging on Carter’s side, tore off a sleeve of his own shirt, and then doused the cloth in some water. “This won’t be completely sanitary, but we might be able to get it clean enough.”
Nelson nodded, now beginning to wrap the gauze bandage around his commanding officer’s head. “What happened to you, boss?” he asked.
Carter looked up at them, breathed in heavily, then spoke. “They—they took…” his voice trailed off, but he kept looking up at them.
“Is he alright?” Jen asked.
“He’s fine. Probably a minor concussion, but if we can keep him awake and functioning, he’ll just walk away with a helluva headache. Here, help me with this.” He lifted Carter’s head a few inches and slid the gauze underneath. Jen grabbed it and finished the wrapping, tucking the end into one of the strands.
“Carter, who are they? And who did they take?” Jen asked. She felt she knew the answer to both questions already, but she needed to get him talking and thinking coherently.
The man tried again. “They took… they took Mark…”
Jen’s heart sank. Hearing the words made it true. But there was pinprick of hope, a suspicion that if they took him, that meant he was probably still alive.
Nelson and Dr. Pavan lifted Carter to a sitting position. As they did, Jen remembered the prior predicament they were in. She turned around.
The man was standing a foot behind her, just in the shadow of the silo. He’d somehow crept up on all of them silently and had been standing there—how long?
She gasped, startling the three men.
“Holy…” Nelson said, reaching for his gun.
Dr. Pavan used his free hand and placed it on Nelson’s arm. “Jen’s right, Nelson, we don’t know who he is or what he wants. Let’s just keep moving and try to lose them in the caves.”
The caves, Jen thought. She looked up and beyond the three men and saw a large, dark opening in the distance. They’d made it to the other Level Four opening.
She reached down and helped move Carter to his feet, grabbing him by his belt. The other two men carried him under his arms, but after a few shaky moments they found Carter was capable of mostly holding his own weight.
They walked on, the weird scientist following them.
“Uh, Jen,” Nelson asked as he shifted Carter’s weight to his oth
er arm, “what if these guys don’t actually leave us alone?”
She’d been thinking about the same thing, but she didn’t yet have a satisfactory answer. “We’ll just hope they do. Keep that gun loaded, soldier.”
They made it to the cave opening and stepped inside. It was similarly dark and as cramped as the tunnel they’d entered and exited in the housing district, and they knew from the map that these openings were part of the cave system. The smell of magnesium and a recent explosion filled their nostrils, but there were no fires burning.
But they hadn’t been inside this part of it, and they all wondered if, by entering, they were putting themselves—literally—between a rock and a hard place.
28
“Reese, will you please talk to me?”
The woman had been pleading with him for an hour. He had barely spoken, but she wouldn’t let him be.
Reese was still in the room, still sitting on the bed. He’d realized after almost a day that this was, essentially, a jail cell. But they hadn’t hurt him. The woman—Sylvia, she’d said—just kept coming in every few hours, sometimes giving him food, and always trying to get him to talk more.
“Can you tell me about your dad?”
He didn’t want to talk to her or anyone. He’d cried, and now he felt like he couldn’t cry anymore. He still missed his family, of course, but he was smart enough to realize that they weren’t trying to hurt him.They just needed him for something.
“What does your dad do for a living, Reese?”
She already knew the answer. He was sure of it. That was just it. She was treating him like he was a child. He was twelve.
She obviously had no idea how to talk to kids, and so she took the approach of trying to trick him into thinking she was gentle, on his side.
He wasn’t an idiot.
He’d answered a few questions Sylvia asked him during the three previous visits, but he mainly just stared up at the ceiling until she left him alone.
Something about it all was weird, though. He’d seen some movies and TV shows and knew how people in this role were usually treated. He knew they were kept somewhere no one could find them until the people got what they wanted, and he knew they would quickly lose patience.
Maybe it was because this wasn’t a movie, but Sylvia hadn’t lost her patience yet. She just kept going on and on in that high-pitched annoying voice, and when she finally would realize that he didn’t want to talk to her, she’d just sit there for a few minutes and then leave.
It was almost humorous to him. The lady wasn’t very good at this prisoner stuff.
He was getting annoyed with her and her voice and her constant questions. He wanted her to leave. He wanted to see his mom.
“Sylvia,” he said. He glanced over quickly to see the reaction on her face. It was first time he’d used her name, and the first time he’d addressed her directly rather than just answer her question. He thought her eyes were going to fall out of her head they were so big. “Why am I here?”
She shifted in the chair, but didn’t answer.
“Why did you take me?”
“Now, Reese, I didn’t take—”
“I know. But you haven’t let me leave. So you basically took me,” he said.
“No, I just want to help you.”
“Then let me leave.” He considered getting up and walking to the locked door. What would she do? Did she even know what she’d do?
He decided to wait. “Sylvia, how come you won’t let me leave? Is someone telling you what to do?”
He watched her face. Her expression hardened just barely, then slackened again. “No,” she said. He waited for her to speak again to explain more, but she asked another question instead.
“Reese, I do want to help you, but you need to help me. What does your dad do? Where does he work? Do you know?”
Again, treating him like a child. “Yes, I know. You know too.”
She nodded. “Can you tell me about what he does?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t tell me why I’m here.”
“Do you remember what happened…when they took you?”
Good. She was talking now, telling him things instead of just asking stupid questions.
“Yes. They came and took me from my dad’s apartment. They broke a lot of stuff, but it was just a show. They didn’t hit me or anything, just told me to get in the car with them.”
He looked again at Sylvia. Did she not know this?
“And then what happened?”
“I—I fell asleep. I guess they gave me drugs or something, but I woke up here. Why?”
“Reese, I just want—“
“To help me,” Reese said, curtly.
“Right. To help you.”
“Okay, help me. I answer your questions, and you help me? Is that how it works?”
“Yes. Exactly, Reese.”
“You’ll let me go then? Will you find my mom and bring her?” He thought for a moment, realizing something. “Where’s my dad? Did they hurt him?”
“Mark, your father is fine. Your mother is as well.”
“So you do know who he is. Where is he?”
Sylvia stood up. I guess the conversation’s over, he thought. So much for that.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Do you know someone who does know?”
“No.”
He began to feel frustrated. He choked back more tears, knowing that she was lying to him.
“Please, why can’t you tell me anything? I’ve been good. I’ve answered your questions,” he said, his voice getting shaky.
Sylvia walked toward the door. “I’m sorry, Reese. I want to help you, I really do. But I have no control. I don’t make the decisions. I don’t know where your father—”
“Stop lying to me!” his voice came louder than he’d expected. He burst into tears, and he curled up on the bed. He waited, crying, but the door never opened.
Slowly, he turned around and saw Sylvia looking directly at him.
“Reese, if you promise not to tell, I can see where your father is.”
He waited.
“I can tell him you miss him.”
“You don’t know where he is,” Reese said.
She sighed. “I do. I’m sorry.”
Finally, she turned and walked toward the door. She knocked on it, and it opened from the outside. She briskly stepped through, but turned back toward him. “I know where he is because I just saw him. He’s here, Reese, and I’ll tell him you miss him.”
29
They jogged in silence for a few minutes, their way lit by Nelson’s powerful flashlight beam sweeping left to right in steady rhythm. They passed yard after yard of flat, ocean-formed wall, each step looking exactly like the last.
From the map, Jen remembered that this tunnel system had just three sections—the openings on Level Four in the housing district and behind the silos, and a split that descended and emptied onto a lower level. She couldn’t remember seeing any indication of whether or not the tunnel was just these three main stretches, or if there were other, smaller, dead-end tunnels that split off from the mains. It could be that the map’s creator was trying to simplify things, but since it was meant for use inside a research station full of scientists, she could imagine that everything identified on the map was precise and to scale.
Either way, they hadn’t seen a single fork or offshoot of the tunnel in the few minutes they’d been running. Their path was descending, slowly falling deeper into the crust from which the tunnel was formed. Nelson and Dr. Pavan were sharing the burden of Carter’s weight between them, though he had all but began jogging on his own. He had, through short, stuttered speech between breaths, quickly explained what had happened back at the silos. Shortly after Saunders and Erik left them, he and Mark were ambushed by the Russian soldiers.
He was knocked out, but he saw one of the soldiers talking to Mark before he dri
fted away completely. When he woke up, he was bleeding, his head was throbbing in pain, and Jen was there with Nelson and Dr. Pavan.
Not much to go on, but it was better than nothing. Mark’s not dead, Jen thought again, trying to convince herself. If we can find Saunders and Erik, we can regroup and figure things out from a lower level. If Saunders and Erik are still alive… She remembered the explosion they’d heard from this opening in the cave.
She knew the answers must lie here in the station. Why was there so much mystery surrounding this place, and why was Nouvelle Terre caught up in it? Why were they being hunted? And, of course, the question that started it all: What is Nouvelle Terre looking for, and why do they need me?
The questions burned through her mind, though each was similarly impossible to answer. A lifetime of thinking scientifically forced her to race through hypotheses and not settle for any without further evidence. It all gave her a headache.
The path cut to the left, traveling away from the circular research station, and cut deeper still. They slowed, and Carter spoke from behind her.
“Who were those people behind us?”
They hadn’t talked again about the scientists since they found Carter at the silos, but Nelson responded immediately. “Bunch of crazies, boss. Just following us in that cluster. Probably still are.”
“We are not sure, Sergeant,” Dr. Pavan added. “Most were wearing lab coats, and I guess they fit the stereotype of ‘scientist.’”
“They did seem rather curious,” Nelson said.
“But they didn’t overtake us,” Carter said. “Why?”
“No idea. They wouldn’t get any closer to us than about thirty feet, except for that one guy. They seemed interested but not hostile,” Nelson said.
Yet, Jen thought. She thought it would be a good time as any to let the others know what she was really thinking. “I think they were the group that attacked Dr. Richards,” she said.
She stopped, catching her breath, and turned around. The three men behind her stopped in unison, and each stared blankly at her.