by James Phelan
Sam spun around in a circle to get his bearings. Already the ground beneath him, hundreds of metres of solid ice, was tilting toward the ocean. He turned inland and broke into a sprint.
As he fled, a noise reverberated through the air and Sam’s fear choked him—it was the sound of millions of tonnes of ice shearing off from the mainland, destined to hit the freezing water, where it would break up to form thousands of icebergs that would drift out to sea.
Ahead of Sam, the ground tilted further and further into an incline, so it felt as though he was running up a drawbridge as it was being raised.
Gotta make it! Gotta hustle!
Sam hustled.
When the edge was just in front—he jumped.
And he nearly made it.
Sam swung the ice axe out and it bit into the hard snow. Both hands on the axe, he looked through his dangling feet.
Sam was hanging on for his life.
And beneath his feet was a three-hundred metre drop into the freezing sea. Waves pounded the ice. Car-sized pieces of the cliff face were tearing off with great creaks and cracks, smashing into the churning sea below.
Don’t fall, don’t fall …
22
EVA
Going outside might have been a bad idea.
The wind was the worst thing about being outside. It blew with such force, and at such an angle, that Eva had to walk into it headfirst, leaning forward with all her weight.
The snowsuit she’d taken from the airlock belonged to a staffer about three sizes bigger than her. That hadn’t mattered when she had put it on, but it now meant that it was acting like a sail. Every two steps forward she was pushed one step back toward the base. And those steps were slow, slow going.
Even Mother Nature thinks this is a bad idea.
But Eva persisted. She walked toward one of the large buildings she’d seen on her way in, next to where they’d touched down.
It took ten minutes to get there, ten minutes to walk what would have taken her two minutes in good weather.
Briony will probably be doing her fifteen-minute visit about now.
Eva stopped at the wall of the structure and stood there to catch her breath, shielded from most of the wind by the building.
Where’s the door?
With the snow whipping through the air, she felt around the building with her hands, fumbling around as if in the dark. That took her another two minutes.
Useless.
The door was locked with a big, shiny padlock on the door. The radio in her hand crackled—something about a “check-in” but she couldn’t be sure. Eva nearly completed a full circuit of the building when she stopped at a frosted-over window that was fogged up on the inside. She wiped off the snow and could just make out another snowcat inside.
I could use that radio to contact Lora.
The handheld radio crackled again but against the wind it was too noisy to hear anything. Eva looked at the radio in her hands.
Why not.
She stood side on, took a big swing and used the handset to smash the window.
Eva cleared the glass off with the radio and tossed that through first, then hauled herself through the opening, landing with a thump.
She got to her feet and looked around. Inside, there were two snowcats and a large snow plough.
And there was something else.
People.
The first thing Eva did was to untie her friends, Arianna and Gabriella.
They were panicked and pleased at the same time, and told a rapid-fire version of how they had been trapped out there by two of the men at the base.
“Quickly!” Gabriella said. “They’ll be back any minute!”
“No, they won’t,” Eva said, thinking of the men she’d left unconscious and trapped in the pantry. “Help me untie the others.”
All around them sat a dozen other people, all tied and gagged—the real Crawley Station crew. The three of them began untying the prisoners as quickly as they could.
“It was Briony,” Gabriella said. “She and the two guys forced us in here at gunpoint.” She hesitated, her eyes filling with tears. “I think they killed Harry and Larry.”
“Oh my …” Eva was lost for words. She felt overwhelmed at the thought of more brave Guardians losing their lives. She felt the colour drain from her face as she looked at Gabriella and Arianna.
“Eva?” Arianna said gently. “We need you now. You must stay strong.”
“Who are these people?” Gabriella asked.
“Stella’s guys,” Eva said, standing up and watching as the rest of the crew untied each other. “Gotta be, they’re the only others at play now—Mac’s gone, and Hans and his guys were, or are, with Alex.”
A small man with thick glasses came up to Eva.
“Thank you,” he said to her. “I’m Dr. Roberts. We’ve been tied up in here since last night. They only left a small gas heater for us. I thought … another night in here, and I thought we were done for.”
“You’re welcome, it’s the least we could do,” Eva replied. “I’m so sorry you’ve been caught up in this. But tell me, do the radios in the ’cats work?”
Dr. Roberts shook his head. “They wrecked them,” he replied.
“We have to leave,” Eva said. “We have to warn our friends.”
“The Chilean and Chinese stations are about fifty kilometres southeast of here. They’ll have radios.”
“Can you take us?”
“One of us can drive you there,” he said. “But what are—”
CLONG!
There was a loud bang on the door. Eva ran over. She used her sleeve to clear the frosted condensation from the glass porthole in the steel door. Outside the tiny window she spotted Briony, along with three of her guys, all armed. She pointed left and right and the guys fanned out.
“What are they doing?” Dr. Roberts asked, joining her.
“Surrounding us,” Eva said.
“What do we do?” Gabriella asked. “What can we do?”
“We have to help Sam,” Eva said. “No matter what. Get a warning to him.”
“But he’s already two hours away.”
“Then we’ve got no time to lose.”
“Maybe they’ve already told Stella that they’ve got us all trapped in here.”
“I don’t think so,” Eva said, leaving the door and walking around, checking out the equipment that was wrapped up against the cold. “Briony will try to deal with this herself first. I don’t think anyone working for Stella wants to give her anything but good news.”
“OK, but what can we do?” Arianna said.
“Sir, can we assist?”
They turned to find four men standing in a group.
“These men are military scientists,” Dr. Roberts said. “They’re a bit more used to this than the rest of us.”
Looking around, Eva could see most of the crew looked incredibly frightened.
I don’t blame them.
Fortunately, the real Dr. Roberts was a born leader. “Right, we can’t leave anyone here with these thugs outside. Kyle,” he said to the closest man, “I want one of your men to drive these girls to the Chilean base in one ’cat, and we’ll take the rest of the crew in the other.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle said, his men snapping into action, ushering the scared crew into a vehicle.
“We’re going to need to create a diversion,” Kyle said, looking to the equipment in the garage. “I can blast out the door with the snow plough. We can improvise some weapons—Bob, rig that gas tank to toss and blow.”
“You got it, chief,” Bob replied. Eva watched a huge guy start to disassemble the heater and turn it into a makeshift bomb.
OK, loving having scientists and soldiers on our side.
“Follow the compass on the snowcat,” Dr. Roberts told them. “Due southeast, fifty kilometres, you’ll see the small Chinese station first, try there. If there’s no one there now and it’s locked up, the Chilean base is about five more
kilometres east of it and is manned all year round. Got it? Pete here will drive you and he’s a good guy.”
“Thank you,” Eva said, shaking the man’s hand.
“No problem, miss,” Pete said, “Let’s get out of here.”
The rest of the Crawley Station crew were now all in the other snowcat, trying to lie low for safety.
“Good luck,” Dr. Roberts said and closed the snowcat’s door.
Eva turned to her friends. “Time to buckle up.”
23
XAVIER
There was silence in the group. Xavier looked at his father. They all looked at him, waiting for further explanation. But none came.
“Funny,” Cody said, breaking that silence and laughing nervously. “I thought you said under the pyramids—like right underneath them. Hehe.”
“That’s right,” Dr. Dark said, “I did.”
The others had joined them at the steel door.
“What did you find through there?” Xavier asked, pointing to the door. “Is it that maze?”
“I want to show you,” Dr. Dark said, “you’re all here … and every moment counts. This is a race—we should press on, get ahead while we can.”
Xavier tried to read his father’s eyes, to see if he had really cracked under the pressure. His expression was unfamiliar to Xavier, he didn’t know what to make of it.
“Wait a sec—you really mean ‘under the pyramids’?” Xavier said. “Like deep underground?”
Dr. Dark nodded.
“OK …” Xavier said.
That’s it—my dad has completely lost it. There’s nothing under the pyramids. The world would have known by now if there was.
“Herodotus, the Greek historian,” Phoebe said, trying to calm the group, “he visited Egypt in the fifth century BCE. He told a story about vaults under the pyramids, built on an island.”
“That was my first thought too,” Dr. Dark said. “So I had to look.”
“Let’s do it, then,” Phoebe said to Dr. Dark. “Show us what you’ve found.”
Xavier looked back at the open steel door, now only a tiny dot of light behind them. They found their way by their flashlights and a couple of old oil lanterns that Dr. Dark had lit.
Under Dr. Kader’s building, a cavern with stairs carved into the limestone led to a water source.
“So Ahmed was telling me the truth,” Xavier said, standing by the edge of the water and putting his hand in. It was cold and fast moving, a little underground river. “This was a water supply for the old city.”
“Probably one of many,” Phoebe said. “Deserts are only dry on the surface. There’s always water—if you go deep enough.”
“This is neat,” Cody said, tasting the water. “I mean—kinda awesome. It’s so fresh, drinkable. But I don’t get it.” He stood up, shining his light overhead. “An underground water table is cool but it’s not that big a deal. I didn’t see anything else on our way down here. Just a few doors—other basements, I guess.”
“No,” Dr. Dark said. “That’s not true. If you care to look, if you are patient, you will find a way.”
Cody did another sweep with his light and shrugged.
“The water,” Xavier said, looking from it to his father, “does it flow into the Nile?”
“Some of it,” his father said. “Some to a big aqueduct. I believe it is also channelled off to other areas.”
“Channelled off?” Xavier said.
“This is like an ancient plumbing system,” Phoebe called over from a section of wall with small tunnels carved into it. “This isn’t just a naturally occurring water supply. It’s been fashioned to provide water elsewhere.”
Dr. Dark nodded.
“I followed them,” he said. “All those tunnels that they made. See?”
He led them over to where Phoebe stood. The arched tunnels, next to each other, were almost big enough to stand up in—and were clearly man-made. The water running into them was ankle-deep and clear.
“See?”
He shone his flashlight at one particular tunnel, staring at it. At first there didn’t seem to be anything special about it until they looked at a marking above the arch. It was an engraving, thirteen in Roman numerals.
Dr. Dark went into the tunnel.
“The Roman Empire conquered Ancient Egypt,” Phoebe said, following in a crouch behind Xavier who was behind his father. The others walked in single file through the tunnel. “They must have built these tunnels to carry the water, just like the aqueducts they built in all their territories.”
“The Romans just fixed it up,” Dr. Dark said over his shoulder. “It’s older than Rome.”
Xavier knew not to question his father’s knowledge—he must have looked at the construction and made his assessment based on that. He knew Ancient Egypt better than most.
“How far are we going?” Xavier asked after they’d travelled for twenty minutes through the single, straight tunnel, not a maze in sight.
“Just up here,” Dr. Dark said. “A little further.”
24
SAM
Sam’s arms screamed in agony as he clung to the axe. He tried to pull himself up further, but his arms were too stiff from the cold. Gingerly, he prised one hand from the axe, using the free hand to cling to the ground that was now a wall of ice.
I can’t hold on much longer. How can I climb up?
There was a thunderous crack below him and suddenly the wall of ice started tipping back, righting itself horizontal once more.
The ice must have split in half!
With renewed strength, Sam crouched in, ready to sprint. As soon as the ground came back to a lower angle, he sprang forward, flinging himself over to reach safer ground. Just before him, he saw the edge of the broken land, the chasm widening as the ice pulled away from the mainland.
Sam threw himself across, not daring to glance down, and tumbled head over heels as he cleared the gap and landed on solid earth. But he did not stop there, picking himself up to run at a quick jog, putting distance between him and the falling ice sheet.
Man!
Finally he risked stopping, doubling over with his hands on his knees, sucking in breath as his heart rate struggled to slow. He looked out to the sea behind him, already swallowing up the broken ice.
“Wrong … place … to make camp.”
Sam straightened up to get his bearings, catching sight of the mountains to the east. He took a deep breath and set off, running into the ever-increasing wind.
Sam was starting to really worry.
He only had one ration pack left. He remembered the survival briefing from Jabari on the flight there.
I’d need like a lot, a million calories to survive in the elements. A billion calories if I was doing physical work, like traversing the frozen ground.
His stomach rumbled. He packed up the little chemical heater that had thawed out a thermos of water, to which he’d added coffee and sweetened milk, had a gulp, leaving it about half full, then tucked the warm flask under his snowsuit at the front to keep his chest warm. He packed away his equipment and strapped the pack on tight over his shoulders.
Then there was the weather. But it was clear now and the wind had died down.
Too quiet.
Sunlight hit the mountains and fingers of clouds stretched over them, as though reaching for him. The sun was low to the west. It would still be hours before it set. And it was only gone for a few hours at the most at this time of year.
“C’mon, Sam, you can make it another hour,” he said, goading himself on as he trudged, his boots biting into the ice, the sun warming his face. “Another hour, you’ll find … something. I hope.”
The hour to make camp never came.
Sam stopped to listen.
There was a noise, in the distance.
He turned around and around, looking for its source.
Am I really hearing that?
Sounds like a … machine? A truck?
The wind had picked up
. It brought more clouds with it, and worse, the ice crystals from the frozen ground blasted against his face. He had the Stealth Suit inside his snowsuit and had it formed as a full-face balaclava, his goggles protecting his eyes. But the ice still stung. And the wind still blew, stronger than ever, so that for every five steps forward he felt he was being swept a step back. His legs burned and his stomach grumbled.
But the noise …
Sam crouched into a ball, his back to the wind, and listened.
Is it just the wind?
The sky darkened.
WHOOSH!
A shape blasted overhead—large and warm.
Sam stood and waved. It was a jet. It passed over him, without ever seeing him. But as he watched, he tripped and fell. His head smashed into the ground as the plane passed out of sight.
SAM’S NIGHTMARE
“You won’t burn me,” I say.
“No?”
“You’ve taken so many shots and done nothing but singe my Stealth Suit. You wouldn’t kill me.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But you’re afraid of fire. And you should be.”
“But you won’t kill me.”
“No. But there are things worse than death.”
“Who were you?” I ask. “Before you put that suit on—who were you?”
“Sam, you’re about to learn why thirteen is an unlucky number—”
SAM
Sam’s watch alarm bleeped and he came to with a start.
Oh no!
He looked at the little screen.
00:00:00
Countdown over.
But no storm.
Maybe they were wrong about the weather? Maybe it passed around us, or dissipated?
He looked around. The day seemed fine. Clear skies as far as he could see in all directions.
The mountains to the east … are disappearing!
What the …?
A wall of white was moving across the mountains and rushing over the ice. It was like all the snow in the world was being drawn into that storm.
Sam jumped up and ran.
The Chilean station, that’s the closest. Find it, Sam, find it!