Isle of Man

by Ryan Winfield

  The professor stops at a steel door. A yellow warning label barely visible beneath the dirt and dust reads:

  DANGER, BIOHAZARD.

  He fumbles his pockets again for his keycard and waves it in front of a panel. The panel opens, exposing a keypad. He punches in a long code—nothing happens.

  “Son of a sheep.” He closes his eyes for a moment then tries again. This time the locks release, and the heavy door pops open with a woosh of pressurized air from inside. A short hallway leads to another door with another keypad. The professor unlocks it, and we enter a cavernous room lit with orange vapor lights, a welcome change from the gray glow of LED. The walls are lined with yellow barrels all marked with three interlocking black circles that I recognize from my lessons as the biohazard sign. It’s a symbol that makes me instantly uncomfortable.

  We cross the room quickly, our footsteps echoing in the quiet chamber, and enter yet another elevator, this one much smaller than the other. As the elevator descends, fear grips me again, and I lean against the wall and close my eyes. I try to calm myself by thinking about Jimmy. I imagine him miles above us, walking free beneath the bright winter sun. I imagine Junior gamboling along beside him, frolicking in the fresh snow. I imagine them making camp on the dry ground beneath a giant pine, huddling together in front of a warm fire. I think I’d give anything to be there with him right now.

  As the elevator drops, the temperature rises, and sweat beads on my brow. Hannah grips my hand in hers, and I can tell by her clammy skin that she’s nervous, too. The professor whistles, seemingly more comfortable the deeper we go.

  After what feels like an eternity, the elevator stops, and the doors open to reveal a circular room humming with the sound of hidden fans.

  “It’s hot in here,” Hannah says, fanning her face.

  The professor nods.

  “Believe it or not, this is cool for this depth. If it weren’t for the fans, we’d be cooked alive.”

  Several tunnels branch off from the room, all radiating in different directions and all with strange symbols etched into the walls above them. The professor stands staring at the tunnels, as if trying to remember the correct path.

  “What language is that?” I ask.

  The professor shakes his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Haven’t you been here before?”

  “Of course I have,” he says, his tone edgy with offense. “But you might remember that Holocene II was a government research facility long before Radcliffe negotiated a private and public partnership for the Foundation to run it.”

  “What did they do down here before?” I ask.

  “I don’t know much,” he answers, with a slight shiver in his voice. “And I what I do know I wish I could forget. I think it’s this third tunnel. Follow me now. Let’s hurry along.”

  We enter the tunnel, and I feel a noticeable and welcome breeze that smells of chemically conditioned air. The tunnel is dim, lined with closed doors on either side. Above each door are symbols in the same alien characters as were above the tunnels themselves. The professor stops at a door and puzzles over the symbol. He reaches for the handle, then hesitates. He changes his mind, pulls his hand back, and moves to the next door, mumbling to himself as we follow. Seemingly sure this time, he opens the door. A blue ceiling light illuminates glass, liquid-filled pods from which shadowed mutant humans stare with unblinking eyes, their grotesque faces pressed to the glass and watching the door with patience possible only to the dead.

  “Verdammte!” the professor says, jerking the door closed.

  He leads us back to the first door, clenching his teeth and opening it quickly, in the manner with which one might pull a bandage. Fortunately, the room is much less spooky. The LED lights come on automatically as the door is opened, revealing a mess of antique computers stored on racks. Cables spill from boxes; a file cabinet stands against a wall with its drawers ajar.

  The professor sighs with relief and leads us into the room. Hannah taps me on the shoulder and points to a bin filled with reading slates. They’re of an earlier generation than the one I had growing up on Level 3, but they appear to be in working condition. I grab the one that looks the least abused.

  We join the professor at the back of the room where he fuddles with a combination lock on an enormous free-standing safe. He spins the dial, stopping on random numbers, then immediately second guesses himself and curses as he spins it again. He continues like this for several minutes before Hannah reaches past him and tries the handle. The safe isn’t locked, and the heavy door swings open. At first, my heart sinks because it appears to be empty. Then I see a small black box tucked into a corner of the bottom shelf. The professor slides the box out and holds it cradled in his hands.

  “Open it,” the professor says.

  I release the seal, and the glass lid jumps in my hand as the vacuum inside is filled with pressurized air. Then I reach in and remove a small solid-state hard drive, less than a third the size of the slate I’m holding in my other hand. It’s hard to believe that such a small and mindless thing containing nothing but ones and zeros holds the mastercode for a software system that has systematically murdered millions of people on its relentless quest to eradicate all human DNA from Earth.

  By the time I realize I’m standing there looking at the hard drive in a trance, I hear Hannah and the professor arguing.

  “But I want to look around some,” Hannah says.

  “No,” is his stern reply. “We’ve got to keep moving. I had to program the train’s return departure from the Foundation before we left. If we miss it, young lady, we’ll all be spending the rest of our lives down here.”

  That’s all I need to hear. I’m at the door in a flash, holding it open and ushering Hannah and the professor into the tunnel. Hannah looks longingly at the countless closed doors we pass as we make our way back toward the elevator.

  Up and out of the biohazard room again, I slip the hard drive in my pocket and clutch the lesson slate to my chest as we walk-jog our way across the sewage pools, retracing our steps. My panic doesn’t subside until we’re back in the freight elevator moving up, safely on our way to the transfer station and the waiting train. Hannah squeezes my hand and shoots me a sexy smile on the sly. Sometimes she can be very cute.

  We stand hand in hand and take in the gas this time like pros. Then the elevator opens, and we step off and hurry in a single file line across the loading platform toward the train. The hydraulic hiss of another opening elevator door catches my ear, but before I can turn my head to look, something slams into me and knocks me to the ground.

  I scramble to my feet and spin around.

  “Red?”

  “Aubrey?”

  Standing before me with a look of panic on his face is Red, my old childhood nemesis from Level 3. He’s shorter than I remember him, his boyish freckles faded and a new patch of red, wispy whiskers on his chin. But otherwise, his enormous head covered with thick, red hair remains unchanged. He looks me up and down.

  “You look different,” he says.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I was fixing to ask you the same thing.”

  “I asked it first.”

  He looks down and kicks at the ground.

  “I was going to see my girl.”

  “On Level 3?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But I thought you were moved down to 5.”

  He holds up a lanyard with a dangling keycard similar to the professor’s.

  “I’m apprenticing in freight.”

  I laugh.

  “Still sneaking around during rest hours, eh? Good to see some things haven’t changed.”

  The professor grabs my arm.

  “We need to keep moving.”

  Red looks at the professor, a confused expression falling over his face.

  “Hey, wait a minute. You’re a senior, aren’t you? A real, live senior. If you’re only thirty-five, I’ll e
at my head.”

  “No small task,” the professor grumbles, sizing up Red’s big head with an irritated glare. “Let’s go, Aubrey.”

  “Are you all older up there?” Red asks. “And what are you doing down here?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, taking a step away. “And don’t tell anyone you saw us here, either.”

  Turning away, I follow the professor toward the train.

  We both stop when I hear Red scream.

  I turn back and see Hannah leading Red along behind us, pulling him by his ear. They pass us by, Red flailing his arms and crying.

  Hannah says: “No way is he staying behind.”

  Before I can protest, we’re all on board the train and the door is closed and locked. Red slumps down in a seat and rubs his ear, already bright red and swelling. Hannah storms to the back of the car and sits with her arms crossed. The professor looks at me and shakes his heads, leaving me to sit down and explain things to Red. No easy task for sure.

  By the time we approach the Foundation, nearly five hours later, I’ve somehow managed to confuse Red more than I’ve managed to enlighten him.

  “So ... ,” he scratches his head, “Eden wasn’t really Eden, but now it’s been destroyed by a flood anyway? And this guy’s how old again?”

  “Don’t get hung up on the details,” I say, not wanting to go over it for the thirteenth time. “Just know you’re taking part in something big up here now. Okay? Something that you’ll be remembered for forever.”

  “You mean freeing the people?”

  “Yes, freeing the people.”

  “And what about these drones again?”

  The train glides to a stop, and Hannah struts to the door and yanks it opens. We follow her onto the Foundation cavern platform.

  Red looks around.

  “So where are we now?”

  When Hannah shoots an annoyed look our way, the professor says: “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you let me show Red here around the Foundation, explain some things to the lad. Might be nice to dust off my old teaching skills, you know. That way you two can go get some rest.”

  “What about the mastercode?” I ask, holding up the hard disk. “Don’t we need to load it?”

  “I’ll start a system backup,” the professor says, taking it from my hand. “But that will take hours. I’ll come and get you when things are ready to be rebooted.” Then he nods to the lesson slate in my other hand. “Would you like me to give that a charge while I’m at it?”

  “Please. Thanks. I miss reading a lot. And I am pretty beat. I think I will go get some rest.”

  “I’m not tired,” Hannah says. “I’m going to go see what’s salvageable in the lab.”

  Hannah takes off toward her lab, the professor leads Red away, and I head for the welcome relief of a submarine bunk.

  I descend the ladder and make my way to the bunkroom, navigating by memory and not bothering to turn on any lights. I crawl halfway into my narrow bunk and freeze. Someone’s in my bed! I have one leg on the mattress, and one leg still on the ground, and all I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest. Then something warm and bristly rubs against my ankle. Still not daring to move, I squint until my eyes adjust to the low light, and I notice Junior lying on the floor by my feet.

  Hope leaps into my heart.

  I turn and look at Jimmy’s shadow next to me, his sleeping face fading into view. He looks peaceful and calm, not a care in the world visible on his features. I’m reminded of those fearful days hidden away in that cave, nursing him back to health, hoping the homemade antibiotics would help. I remember the same innocence on his sleeping face then. And I remember the horrors of what happened in that cove flooding back into his eyes the moment he was awake. As much as I want to, I can’t bring myself to wake him now. Instead, I do something that surprises me. I lean down and kiss his forehead.

  Then I ease myself off the bunk, climb onto the empty one above, close my eyes, and fall fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  Where Man Rises from the Sea

  The professor’s voice echoing down the hatch wakes me.

  I lean over and look down on the bunk below, but Jimmy and Junior are gone.

  “Aubrey!” the professor calls again.

  “Coming!”

  I jump from the bunk and rinse my face with cold water in the tiny submarine sink and run my wet fingers through my hair. A faceless outline of my head is dimly reflected in the small mirror. I wish I knew who I was supposed to be.

  The professor lends me a hand out onto the deck of the submarine and presents me my lesson slate.

  “Does it work?”

  “Quite well,” he says. “And it’s loaded with our entire library now, even the books that were banned in Holocene II.”

  “That’s great! I was sad to see Radcliffe’s library washed away in that wave. There was so much I wanted to read.”

  The professor smiles approvingly.

  “We do have a problem, however. Come with me.”

  “Where’s Jimmy?”

  “Oh, no,” he says, “Jimmy’s fine. He’s in the supply room trying to find something for that fox of his to eat. We have a problem with the mastercode.”

  “What is it?”

  “Come. I’ll show you.”

  Following the professor toward the command center, I look around at the Foundation, wondering what the problem could be. It’s remarkable how little evidence there is of the flood. You’d never know how many people drowned here if you didn’t have to dredge them up and dispose of them like Jimmy and I did. I remember Dr. Radcliffe leading Hannah and me down here for the first time, taking us through the sintering plant on our way to the hanger to board that drone and tour the park. I remember seeing Eden and having doubts about its promises, but I pushed the doubts away. Never again. From now on, I trust my instincts.

  We enter the command center and find Hannah and Red watching random lines of code scroll across the wall of black screens. Red’s head bobbles up and down as he tries to follow individual lines of code, moving far too fast to read even if they weren’t gibberish. Hannah has her balled fists on opposing hips and a frustrated look in her eyes. The professor waves at the passing characters as if presenting the problem.

  I shrug.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means,” the professor sighs, “the code is encrypted.”

  “Encrypted?”

  “Impossibly so,” he says.

  “There’s no way to unlock it?” I ask.

  “Not unless you have the key.”

  “Well, where’s the key?”

  He tosses up his hands.

  “Probably at the bottom of the lake trapped inside Radcliffe’s thick skull.”

  Hannah shoots the professor an angry look.

  “There must be some way to crack it,” she says.

  “We were using 14 rounds of 256-bit keys when this was designed,” the professor frowns. “I’m afraid there’s no way to decrypt it with brute force.”

  Red shakes his head.

  “I should’ve studied more in school.”

  I step closer and watch the code roll down the screens—lines of random letters and symbols marching like armies across two-dimensional space. Could we possibly be doomed to die down here because of a missing key? A simple string of thought buried with Dr. Radcliffe and never to be exhumed?

  “There is this,” the professor says, stepping past me and tapping a command into the keyboard.

  The code disappears in a flash, replaced by a static page of header text that reads:

  THE HUMAN EXTINCTION PROJECT

  ENCRYPTION KEY _________________

  “WHERE MAN RISES FROM THE SEA, IN THE RIGHT HAND OF DAVID YOU SHALL FIND YOUR KEY”

  I read the strange clue aloud: “Where man rises from the sea, in the right hand of David you shall find your key.”

  “I’m not sure of its meaning,” the professor says. “It appears to be some kind of clue to f
inding the encryption key.”

  Hannah casts a distrustful glance at the professor.

  “You must have some idea what it means,” she says. “You were here when my father wrote it.”

  “I was indeed,” he replies. “But there were many more of us back in those days, and I truly was very low on the pole for this kind of thing.”

  I turn to Hannah.

  “What are we going to do?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I wish I knew.”

  The professor taps the keyboard again, killing the screen. “Let me dig around a little and see what I can turn up,” he says. “Why don’t you all try and take your minds off of things? Play some games or something.”

  “Games?” I ask.

  “Well,” he says, “whatever it is you young people are into.”

  “I like games,” Red says.

  Hannah rolls her eyes.

  “Of course you do.”

  “Come on, Red,” I say, “I’ll introduce you to Jimmy.”

  Hannah looks surprised.

  “Jimmy’s back?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No, I’ve been in the lab this whole time trying to make some sense of the mess there.”

  “Well, let’s go welcome him back,” I suggest.

  “You go ahead,” she says, waving Red and me toward the door. “I’m going to stay here for a bit and help the professor.”

  We find Jimmy near the docks. He’s dragging a rabbit fur along the ground by a long string as Junior stalks after it. Every time Junior crouches to pounce, Jimmy jerks the string and pulls the rabbit from his reach. As we approach, Jimmy stops teasing the poor pup and lets him seize the rabbit in his mouth. Junior shakes the fur from side to side and algaecrisps spill out from inside. Excited, he laps them up and chews them with an audible crunching.

  “Teachin’ him to eat this awful food ya’ll got down here ain’t an easy thin’,” Jimmy says.

  I smile.

  “You get used to it.”

  “I sure as shit hope I never do,” he says. “Who’s this?”

  Red sticks out his hand.

  “They call me Red.”

  “I can see why,” Jimmy says, pumping his hand. “Where’d ya come from?”