by Nick Thacker
“What? The possibility of what?” Nelson asked.
Jen responded. “Hog, you know what celestial means, right?”
“Yeah, space and stuff.”
“Right. Well, it means he’s interested in studying ‘space oceans.’”
“Really?” Nelson said. “That’s a thing?”
“Well,” Erik replied, “it is, though admittedly not as popular a field as I would hope. It tends to be a bit, um, less respected than other fields.”
Jen couldn’t see Nelson in front of Erik, but she sensed he was still confused. “Erik, I know what it means to have a passion, but if I may—isn’t that field considered to be wildly speculative?”
“And improbable. The thought that celestial oceanography could lead to our understanding of our own planet’s life cycles is certainly far-fetched, but it is my calling.”
Nelson stopped and turned around. “So, you’re telling me you study space oceans hoping to find…what? Aliens?”
“Well, yes, that is part of it. I believe that there is an extraterrestrial body somewhere out there that can teach us much about our own planet’s formation, development, and possibly creation of life.”
“Well, to each his own, I guess,” Nelson said, content with the man’s answer.
Jen was impressed with Nelson’s faithful acceptance of Erik’s field of study, but similarly satisfied with the young man’s integrity and determination to follow his own dream. She let the silence fill the space again and followed silently behind.
The group walked another few minutes, and soon they heard the gentle hum of faraway machinery. The sound rose to fill the pathway and eventually began to shake the ground.
“Wow, pretty heavy stuff,” Nelson said. Light trickled now from somewhere up ahead. Jen couldn’t see the opening, but sensed they were near.
Within seconds, the orange arch of the tunnel’s end came into view, and she saw Saunders and Carter standing just inside the cave.
Nelson and Erik reached them next, and Jen turned to wait for Dr. Pavan to show up.
There was no one behind her.
“Dr. Pavan?” She called into the darkness. “Sanjay?”
Erik and the others turned as well, and Erik stepped next to her. “When did you last hear him?” he asked.
“I—I don’t know,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. Calm down, she told herself. He’s just a few paces behind.
They waited a full minute, but Dr. Pavan didn’t show.
Jen stepped back into the tunnel, but Carter’s commanding voice stopped her. “Wait,” he said. “You can’t just run back in there.”
She thought for a moment, then stepped forward again, this time taking off into a brisk walk.
“Jen!” Carter shouted. His voice a mix of surprise and annoyance.
Jen broke into a run, fighting back tears. Am I really this emotionally compromised? A part of hear screamed to stop; another part of her told her she was personally responsible if something happened to Sanjay.
She heard footsteps behind her. Erik was keeping pace with her, and she thought she heard Nelson grumbling, but following as well.
Good, she thought. As irrational as this was, she was still glad the others were with her.
She ran a few minutes, then slowed to a jog, following the bouncing beam of her flashlight. After another two minutes, Erik grabbed her arm.
“What?” she snapped, whipping around to face the younger man. She had made this far; she wasn’t about to be convinced to give it up.
Erik just pointed with his flashlight. She’d passed it without noticing.
It was a split in the tunnel system, a simple fork in the road. They’d descended via the tunnel on the left, but the right section clearly headed down and away from them.
Nelson caught up and stopped, placing his hands on his knees. He sucked air for a moment, then frowned at Jen. “Really? You just gonna take off like that from now on?”
He was about to continue, but then saw what Jen and Erik were looking at. “Aw, hell.”
Carter and Saunders found them, and they quickly agreed to search a few minutes down the right passageway.
“Listen,” Carter said. “Dr. Pavan is here somewhere, and these caves aren’t that big. They’re also completely contained. We know there are only a few ways in and out.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know where those other…things are,” Nelson said.
“And we don’t know if he’ll pop out on Level Four again,” Carter added. “If the Russians are up there, he’ll need to lay low for a while until we can find him. Let’s move in. Stay together, keep a light on in the front and back, and move slow.”
Saunders and Nelson entered the right passageway without hesitation, followed by Erik. Jen walked toward the opening, but Carter pulled her aside. “Listen, Jen,” he started. Jen could tell from his tone that he was trying especially hard to sound serious, in charge. “This is a recovery operation. Ten minutes—fifteen max—and we’re turning around.”
She frowned.
“We don’t have time to exhaustively search these caves, and you and I both know that Dr. Pavan is not critical to the mission—”
“Critical?” Jen said, her voice seething.
“Jen, stop. Your mission is to find out what Nouvelle Terre wants so you can find Reese. And now we need to find Mark, remember?”
The mention of her son’s name made her blood run cold. Of course I remember. “But we can’t just leave him here,” she said.
“We’re not. We search awhile, get back to the lower levels, and continue the primary mission. This is a research station under five miles of seawater, Jen. He’s not going anywhere.”
Jen nodded.
“We’re wasting time. Let’s keep moving.”
He waited for Jen to pass, and then flicked on his light and followed close behind her.
Jen’s mind was racing as they descending down the path. Where was Mark? Where was Reese, for that matter? And why was Carter so apathetic about it all? It certainly wasn’t just his profession.
She thought about Nelson, and how the man seemed genuinely concerned for Jen’s well-being, and that of the rest of the team. He was a good man, but so was Carter.
Right?
She thought about Saunders. The woman was cold, that was certain. But was there more to her? Why hadn’t she spoken since she and Erik found them in the cavern?
Saunders and Nelson stopped just ahead of Jen. She stepped forward, trying to peer around Erik.
“Oh, wow…” Nelson whispered.
For the first time in over an hour, Saunders spoke. “Bloody hell.”
Jen followed their gaze downward and saw what had caused the reaction.
Erik gripped Jen’s arm tightly as he saw what they were looking at.
Jen and the others were standing on the edge of a massive cliff. The flashlight beams, all combined, barely illuminated the cavern floor below. The path they were on ended in a drop of over three hundred feet, and sprawled at the bottom was a single body.
Dr. Pavan’s.
His white shirt was hanging loosely outside of his pressed khaki pants, and he was missing a shoe. It looked like his leg had been bent completely backward, and one of his arms lay underneath the rest of his body.
“Oh my God,” Jen said. I’m sorry, she thought. She heard Carter breathe in sharply beside her.
Erik stepped back and turned away from the cliff.
“He must have had his light off,” Saunders said. “It would have been completely dark, and he was probably trying to find us by our light.”
Carter nodded, but Jen could see Nelson shaking his head ever so slightly. “What?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, I, uh, was just thinking. That fall would kill anyone, for sure, but I don’t think he fell.”
“What are you talking about, Hog?” Saunders asked. “Look at the poor devil.”
“No, I mean, look where he is.”
Saunders didn’t respond,
but Jen knew immediately what Nelson was implying.
“He’s laying out there, what—fifteen, twenty meters?”
“So?” Saunders said. “He probably rolled a ways before he stopped.”
“No,” Carter said. “You’re right, Nelson. That’s too far.”
“I thought so. It’s unnatural. You fall—even at a run—and you’re pretty much going to go only as far out as a human can jump, within reason. And I don’t think our buddy here was much of a long-jumper.”
“Don’t be crass, Nelson,” Jen said. “We get it.”
She paused, and said a silent prayer for Dr. Pavan. “You think he was pushed off this cliff.”
“Actually, no,” he said. “It’s still too far.”
Jen looked at him.
“I think he was thrown.”
35
Jen was in a rage.
She couldn’t feel much, yet she could feel everything. It was a confused blur of activity in her mind; a whirlwind of splashing colors.
No one said anything as they walked back to the fork in the paths and to the lower levels. They didn’t slow down as they approached the opening to Level Nine: Rue Verte.
Again, Jen heard the hum of machinery and felt the gentle shake as they they emerged onto the floor of Level Nine. She followed the others from the cave’s exit to a building that sat nearby.
The level was seemingly bare, with only a few buildings sprinkled throughout the surface area, so they assumed that the hum and shaking must be coming from an even lower level. At the center of the level, a large rock formation extended from the floor straight upwards, where it seemed to taper to a point just before meeting the ceiling.
They didn’t stop to look around.
When Jen wondered how they’d get from one level to the next, Nelson pointed across the floor to a lit balcony and two sets of metal stairs. The stairs went down as well as up to adjacent levels.
“Listen up,” Carter said. “We can’t mull over this right now; there’s no time. Mark Adams is somewhere in the station, and there are now two fully hostile groups after us.”
“Carter, what does that mean? That they would throw him off the cliff?” Erik asked.
“I don’t know, but we must assume it means they’re capable of rational thought. It’s unlikely they were provoked—Dr. Pavan wouldn’t have tried anything on his own. But it still means that we’re on a ‘shoot to kill’ basis with all of them.”
“There’s nothing here, boss,” Saunders said. Jen hadn’t even noticed her missing, but the fit woman was returning around the far edge of the building, apparently having scoped out the level.
“Okay, but we need to keep our eyes open as we get across the floor. Saunders, watch our six, and Nelson, keep an eye out for our flanks. I’ll take point.”
They moved quickly, and Jen and Erik had to run to keep up. They made it across the level—the diameter was about half as long as Level Four—in less than a minute, and stopped at the stairs.
“Take the stairs down, but go slow.” Their boots clanged on the stairs, and Jen tried to move delicately over the aluminum grating. Their sneaking was worthless, as her ears were soon overwhelmed by the same hum that had entered the caves earlier. It was much louder now and almost deafening.
The hum was a dull roar, and the shake that accompanied it chattered her teeth.
“What is that?” she yelled. She could barely hear the sound of her own voice over the din.
“No idea,” Carter shouted back.
Jen followed them down and came to a set of metal doors that were closed, locked from the inside, and labeled “QUARANTINE.” The red letters, chipped and beginning to fade, had been painted on at an angle, stretching almost completely across the two doors.
Below the painted letters, barely visible, was a small placard fixed to the right-hand door. It too was fading, and it looked like the sign’s designation had been scratched out. Erik read the small sign aloud. “Level Ten: Rue Or.”
Jen frowned, remembering the name from the map on the main level. It was French, meaning “Gold Road,” but the sign wasn’t correct. Jen recognized what the sign signified, but wondered why it didn’t read “Level Ten: Rue d’Or,” as proper French would have required. Who made these signs? It was an oddity, but it apparently wasn’t worth pondering. Carter spoke from behind Jen.
“Keep moving. We’re not getting inside these doors. They’ve been sealed shut from the outside.”
Their eyes looked at the edges of the doors, and Jen could see a line of melted and hardened metal between the door and the frame, where a crack should have been. It stretched completely around the doors, floor to ceiling. Someone had welded the doors shut, literally making them a solid metal wall connected to the surrounding architecture.
They descended the final flight of stairs and exited onto Level Eleven’s main floor. Jen stepped onto the concrete in front of the stairs, looked up, and her jaw dropped.
36
“Level Eleven: Rue Marron” was painted in stenciled letters on the open metal doors. Jen saw it as they passed through. Level Eleven: Brown Road.
Her eyes were drawn quickly to the clustered machines and small buildings huddled around the center of the circular level.
The level’s main floor seemed massive, though it was in fact much smaller than the expansive Level Four and the other upper levels. It had the appearance of an abandoned warehouse, where years of abandoned machinery and equipment lay strewn about and caused ceiling-high clutter. The level was abandoned, but clearly still active—the hum they’d heard earlier had escalated to a roar, and the vibration was now almost to earthquake proportions.
The buildings were situated haphazardly along a circular road that ran around the circumference of the level, and all were placed according to their use: “Geothermal Desalination” and “DOW Condensation” and a huge water tank were grouped together to their left, and “Geothermal Intake” and three other buildings right behind it were to the right.
But it was the massive structure the other buildings encircled that caught their attention most.
Situated dead-center in the middle of the level was an inverted cone-shaped machine that dwarfed the buildings around it. It stretched from the ceiling—possibly even through the ceiling—and down into the ground. Jen realized the cone must continue down through the bottom two levels as well, as there was no point where the cone reached the floor, but continued its plunge downwards.
The sides of the machine were made up of a mess of swirling pipes, cables, and computer equipment, and hydraulic lifts and components were rotating, pumping, and churning at different speeds. Steam shot from vents and pipes at random intervals up and down the main shaft.
Erik couldn’t hide his excitement. He ran toward the first building in the water and desalination sector, and Jen and the others couldn’t help but follow.
“Look at this place!” he shouted over the noise. “It’s a self-contained power plant and desalination station. This level must provide power and fresh water to the entire base!”
Jen caught up with him and started in with the scientific discourse. “How do you think it’s operated?”
“I believe it’s a perpetual system, tapping into the deep ocean water for a super chilled condensation catalyst.”
By now, Nelson and the other two soldiers had joined them. Nelson posed the first question, and snapped Jen and Erik out of their academic banter. “How’s it work? Deep ocean water, I mean. What’s so special about it?”
“It’s colder—usually only a few tenths of a degree above freezing, and it’s much saltier,” Erik said. “Applications are mainly theoretical for most institutions, but it looks like they’ve figured out how to use it here.”
“And how exactly is it used here?” Saunders asked.
“Well, for starters,” Jen replied, “it’s useful to keep this place air conditioned. This power plant,” she said as she pointed to the giant metallic stalactite in the center of the room,
“generates a lot of heat. The water can help cool it.”
“And don’t forget the condensation,” Erik said.
“Right. By funneling the near-freezing water through pipes into one of these levels, you’re creating a natural condensation engine. The hot air hits the cooled pipes, and condensation forms—pure, fresh water.”
“Wow. So they’ve figured out how to get fresh water from the surrounding ocean,” Nelson said. He spun slowly around, trying to fathom the enormity of the research project surrounding him.
“They’ve also got a building here labeled Electrolysis,” Erik said, “so chances are they were experimenting with more than one method. Still, it’s pretty amazing how each system feeds into and out of one another, with such a low energy waste to production ratio.”
Carter looked at Erik, then Jen. “What’s it all for? What were they trying to do here?”
“What do you mean?” Erik asked. “What more do they need to do?”
Jen looked at Erik as well as he answered Carter’s question. “Look at this place—it’s self-contained, perpetual, and completely isolated from the rest of the world. It’s existed here for God knows how long, completely unknown, and it’s been operated by no more than a skeleton crew.”
“Probably not even that,” Nelson said. “We’ve met that skeleton crew, remember? Didn’t seem like they were doing a whole lot of operating.”
Jen was still suspicious. “Erik, you’ve got more hands-on experience than I do with this, but that machine in the center of the room doesn’t look like a geothermal plant.”
“It is, clearly, but you’re right in that it is of a much more revolutionary design.”
“Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No, but I have studied a few theoretical models that postulate such an intriguing concept.”
“Why intriguing?” Saunders asked.
“Well, it’s probably able to power much more than a traditionally operated geothermal station. Jen, you know how a geothermal plant usually works.”