Countdown Zero

by Chris Rylander

  “In about five seconds, I’m going to show you that it is,” I said, finally starting to relax a bit. I still wasn’t sure that telling Jake was the right move, but now that I’d done it, I was feeling a million times better about the task at hand. “Here, look at this,” I said, handing the detailed, complex base blueprint to Jake.

  His eyes went wide, and his jaw hung open. “What is this?” he said, trying to collect himself. “If this is a prank or joke, then it’s the most elaborate prank in history!”

  “It’s crazy,” I said, nodding. “But true.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And the craziest part is that I think I’m actually starting to believe you.”

  He seemed surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth. Then he shrugged and nodded with a grin, as if to tell himself it was okay to believe me. And as he did so, I finally found what I was looking for. It didn’t look like much until you were basically right on top of it. I wouldn’t have even seen it at all if I hadn’t taken out the flashlight my mom had bought for me at Wal-Mart. But the crevice was there, just like it was supposed to be. A vertical, narrow crack in the rock, maybe seven feet tall and ten inches to a foot wide.

  An adult would never be able to squeeze into it. But a lanky seventh grader just might. Or so I hoped. The whole mission hinged on it.

  “You’re going in there?” Jake asked, peering into the depths of the crevice.

  “Yup,” I said. “We are.”

  He gulped.

  I checked my countdown watch: 00:42:39.

  My flashlight beam wasn’t strong enough to see what was beyond the first seven feet or so of the crevice. After putting the flashlight in my mouth, I took off my backpack and turned sideways, holding it next to my body. Then I squeezed myself into the crack. My butt scraped against the side of the rock and I hit my head a few times, but I was just barely able to fit if I kept my head turned to the side. I took short, choppy side steps as I inched farther and farther in. Slobber dripped out of the corners of my open mouth as I kept the flashlight gripped between my teeth.

  Jake grunted behind me, struggling to squeeze himself into the crevice. We were about the same size, but he was a little taller and apparently a little thicker as well.

  We inched our way deeper and deeper into the mountain. It was dark, cold, and tight. For a short time I was convinced I couldn’t breathe and dropped the flashlight. The crevice was thrust into darkness, and there was no chance I could bend over far enough to retrieve the flashlight. Several times, I was convinced I felt spiders crawling across my face. It was enough to make me almost have a panic attack and just give up.

  But Jake kept urging me to keep going.

  “It has to end, it has to end,” he kept saying, although it sounded as though he could barely breathe himself.

  But he was right. Eventually it did end. I took another few steps and then I was once again out in the open. It was still pitch-black, but at least I was free from the clutches of the crevice that I had been convinced would become my stone coffin.

  Jake stumbled into whatever room we were in and crashed into me. We both went sprawling to the solid rock floor. It was darker than dark. I mean, the insides of eyelids were more colorful and bright than what I was seeing just then.

  “Sorry,” Jake said from the ground next to me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, scared to move, not knowing what was around me.

  “What now?” Jake asked. “Got another flashlight?”

  “Nope,” I said, realizing that without a light the mission was once again on the brink of failure.

  WE JUST SAT THERE FOR A FEW MINUTES. WITHOUT A LIGHT I couldn’t read my instructions, or the map, or see where the heck we were supposed to go next. I remembered from the mission briefing earlier that morning that I was now at phase one of the base infiltration, which meant there was an exhaust vent that we needed to find. But it might take hours to find without being able to see. We didn’t have hours. We had minutes.

  “What about your phone?” Jake asked.

  Duh.

  I took my phone from my pocket and pressed the home button. A pale blue glow lit up our faces. Jake’s was completely coated in dirt and dust. I could only imagine that mine was as well.

  A glance at my countdown watch told me we had just thirty-nine minutes left.

  I switched my phone to flashlight mode and pointed the light up. It was powerful enough to illuminate the little entryway we had fallen into. It was about the size of Mr. Gomez’s small office.

  As I moved the light beam around the cave, it didn’t take long to find the exhaust vent that Agent Blue had written about in my instructions. It was a grate about a foot and a half tall and two feet wide near the base of the cave wall opposite the crevice opening.

  I flashed the light inside the vent. It was made of metal and full of dust and dirt particles. But it was definitely wide enough for us to squeeze through. The problem was that there were no screws or any visible seams.

  I handed my phone to Jake and grabbed the vent cover. I pulled, but it didn’t budge. It felt as if it were welded into the stone around it.

  “How do we get in?” Jake asked.

  “Shine that over here,” I said, unzipping my backpack.

  I dug around through the supplies Agent Blue had included there. I thought I remembered seeing several fruit roll-ups earlier. I didn’t need to be told what those were, not after my last stint with the Agency. It didn’t take long to find one near the bottom.

  “Isn’t it an odd time for a snack?” Jake asked.

  “Bring the light over here,” I instructed.

  After unwrapping the roll-up, I stretched it out until it tore in the middle. I kept pulling at the sides until I eventually had a flimsy hoop of fake fruit. I began stuffing it into the spaces where the sides of the vent met the rock until it formed a kind of red frame around the vent cover.

  “Uhh, okay,” Jake said, clearly confused.

  I located the detonator and then scooted to the opposite side of the cave.

  “You might want to join me over here,” I said.

  Jake followed my lead and ducked as I covered my head with my arms, plugging one ear with my left index finger. With my right hand I pressed the detonator button.

  The fruit-roll-up explosive was normally not very loud, but inside the small cave, it was almost deafening. For a second after it went off, I thought for sure that the cave might collapse. But the haze cleared out through the small crevice, and it became clear that the walls were still intact.

  Fortunately, the same could not be said for the vent cover. It had blown completely off the side of the rock wall. In fact, it was now in several pieces scattered about the cave. I supposed we were probably lucky that neither of us had been hit by ventilation shrapnel.

  I checked the time on my countdown watch again.

  00:32:54

  “Come on, we have to hurry,” I said, and then dived into the open vent without even waiting for a reply.

  Once inside, I searched through my bag for the laser sight Agent Blue had included. It was a small black tube barely as large as a battery with a magnetic strip attached to the side. It hadn’t taken long earlier that morning in the campground bathroom to figure out how to use it.

  I turned a small dial on top of the tube until the tiny digital display read 114. Then I stuck it on the lip of the air-duct opening. A laser illuminated the floor of the air duct with a red line, marking off the feet with little notches.

  “Whoa!” Jake said. “What is that?”

  “Just a little gadget they provided to help,” I said, trying to play it off casually, even though I also thought the device was incredibly cool.

  Jake followed me through the metal vent. It felt wide enough to fit a train compared to the tight death trap that had been the mountain crevice. We crawled for a few minutes until we got to where the red laser notches stopped. It was marked with a little symbol next to a red digital readout: 114 ft.

&n
bsp; “This is it,” I said.

  “What now?”

  Instead of answering, I took my bag of supplies off my shoulder and located another small device using my phone light.

  The laser cutter had been fairly simple to figure out that morning. I did feel a little guilty about the wallet-size chunk of the fourth stall in the campground bathroom that was now missing. I hadn’t realized just how easily the cutter could slice through metal until I tested it out.

  The device looked like a cordless power drill, except a lot smaller. And instead of spinning when I pressed the trigger, the end emitted a glowing green beam of who-knows-what about half an inch long. It wasn’t like welding, either; when it contacted the metal of the air-duct shaft, it didn’t give off a blinding light or even create sparks. It simply passed right through it with ease, as if I were cutting a wet napkin with a razor blade.

  I sliced out a rough four-foot circle around the spot the red laser sight indicated was 114 feet. Once I finished cutting, the circle of air duct fell away and I heard a loud clatter just below. The room I’d cut into was completely dark.

  The duct crinkled and dented under my weight as I swung my legs into the hole so I was basically sitting on the edge.

  “How far down is it?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. It sounded like it wasn’t too far when the chunk fell,” I said. “I’m going to jump.”

  “Wait!” Jake said. “What about that laser-distance thing—do we leave it there?”

  “We’re coming back up after we do this,” I said. “We can grab it then if there’s time.”

  “How will we get back up?”

  “I’ve got a device that can help us,” I said, patting my backpack.

  Jake nodded.

  “Okay, here goes nothing,” I said, and lowered myself into the black abyss.

  I HELD ON TO THE LIP OF THE AIR DUCT VENT UNTIL I WAS dangling from the hole. I closed my eyes—not that it mattered since I couldn’t see anything—and let go. I knew that when falling, the key was to stay limp, don’t tense up. Keep your knees and legs loose and try to roll on landing.

  The ground came a lot sooner than I expected, which caught me off guard, and instead of rolling while falling to the ground, I landed on my feet and stumbled forward right into a solid, hard surface. I bounced off it face-first and landed on my butt.

  “Oh, man!” Jake said from above me. “Are you okay? That didn’t sound good. What happened? I’m coming down.”

  “Wait,” I said, thankful that I hadn’t hurt my brain too badly to speak despite the pounding headache. “Hang on, I’ll help. It’s not that far of a drop.”

  I climbed to my feet and felt my aching forehead. There was already a small lump forming above my eyebrow. As a prankster, I’d had my fair share of bumps and scrapes over the years. This was far from the worst injury I’d suffered. Not that it didn’t still hurt.

  “Okay, lower yourself down,” I said as I switched on my phone flashlight again.

  The air duct was only a few feet above my head, attached to a low concrete ceiling. Jake’s legs poked through the hole a few moments later and he lowered himself. I grabbed his ankles and eased him down.

  “Thanks,” he said. We both checked out the surroundings. We were in a room a bit larger than the cave entrance. It was empty aside from the air duct running along the ceiling and a few smaller tubes connected to it from the far wall. Three of the four walls were concrete and one was made of metal. There were two small keypads on the ends of the metal wall.

  “Well, looks like we’re right where we need to be,” I said.

  I rummaged inside my bag and found the sheet with the two security codes written on it. I tore it in half and handed the side labeled left pad (facing door) to Jake. I took the right pad. The codes were each eleven digits long.

  “Okay,” I said as we each walked over to face our own keypads. “According to the instructions, each number needs to be pressed within half a second of the other, including the last number. And the whole thing needs to be input in less than eleven seconds total, so we can’t go very slow. Let’s do a dry test run on the wall next to the pad, okay?”

  Jake nodded.

  “Ready, steady, go.”

  We each air pressed our codes into the wall next to the keypads. He finished a full two seconds ahead of me. This was still going to be a lot harder than I expected, even with help. I couldn’t imagine trying to do this alone with just a long metal rod.

  We practiced it two more times, and on the last try we finished pretty much simultaneously.

  “What happens if we’re off?” Jake asked.

  I shook my head. “Let’s just not be. Ready for real now?”

  Jake nodded.

  “Ready, steady, go,” I said again.

  We entered the codes just as we had practiced. Nothing happened for several seconds, and then an automated voice filled the small room.

  “Unauthorized access attempt detected,” the voice said. “Only one attempt remains before automated security enforcement commences.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  As soon as the words left my mouth, several dozen panels in the concrete walls, floor, and ceiling slid open all around us. The openings were small, maybe the size of a playing card, and we couldn’t see what was in them. They just looked like little menacing black eyes staring us down from all sides. I knew that they were not there to cheer us on. Or tell us tough luck if we messed up a second time. I was fairly certain that if we messed up again, these little black holes would be the last things either of us ever saw. Jake’s expression told me he had a similar suspicion.

  “What went wrong?” he asked.

  “We must have been off. Or maybe one of us missed a number,” I said. “We need to work out a better system.”

  We spent the next few minutes working out a timing rhythm where we actually counted out a steady beat. Which is harder than it sounds, counting out a beat while pressing different numbers than the ones you’re counting in your head at the same time. But after a dozen dry runs on the blank wall next to the keypads, the beat was coming naturally and we didn’t need to count it out loud anymore.

  We were down to twenty-three minutes. We couldn’t risk delaying any further; we had to try it now. I took a deep breath and looked at Jake.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I said. “I won’t blame you if you want to back out now. Really.”

  “You said if we don’t do this a deadly virus could get out, right?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Good enough for me,” he said. “On your count.”

  We took our positions and started tapping out the beat on the wall next to the pad. My nerves flared and my hand shook. One missed button and we were likely toast. I forced myself to calm down as we tapped the wall in unison.

  “Okay, after three, go!” I said.

  We typed in our numbers to a steady rhythm, which was slightly different than merely pretending on a blank wall. However, we’d practiced enough times and enough was on the line that I think we both just got into a zone. We finished at exactly the same time and then both instinctively ducked.

  But no hail of bullets or streams of flame or plumes of deadly vapor released from the holes in the wall. Instead, there was a loud clank, followed by the sound of hydraulics within the walls working to open a metal door that probably weighed a gazillion tons. The metal door parted, sliding into the walls, revealing a huge computerized control panel the size of four classroom Smart Boards put together. There were switches, blinking lights, dials, knobs, and more. But none of that mattered since I was there to disable it, not operate it.

  “Wow,” Jake said. “What now?”

  “Well,” I said, digging through my bag, “according to the mission documents, an EMP should be able to disable this thing without causing a cave-in.”

  “EMP?”

  “Electromagnetic pulse.” I pulled the small device from the bag. It looked like
a slightly oversize harmonica with a few switches and backlit buttons. “Supposedly this thing takes out any electrical device nearby when activated.”

  “Cool,” Jake said.

  I held it up toward the center of the large transformer control panel and it flew from my hand and attached itself to the metal surface as the powerful magnet backing kicked in. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to remove it even if I wanted to. I held up the small wireless detonator.

  “How far away do we need to be?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. The instructions didn’t say,” I said nervously. “Let’s go stand in the corner. I think the force is entirely electromagnetic, though, so we should be fine anywhere.”

  Jake joined me in the far corner of the small concrete room. We looked at each other anxiously. I checked my countdown watch. Nineteen minutes left. There wasn’t any time to waste wondering if this was a bad idea or not.

  “Okay, on three,” I said.

  Jake covered his ears as I counted down and then pressed the button. The “blast” was almost instantaneous. It started with a pop like a huge lightbulb going out. That was followed by a wave of nausea, coupled with an odd feeling that something bad was about to happen. A high-pitched ringing pierced my head, and then the room was pitch-black as my cell phone flashlight and the lights on the huge control panel went out all at once.

  “I think I just fried my cell phone,” I said, futilely pressing the On button.

  “At least we know it worked,” Jake said. “Though, I don’t feel very well all of a sudden.”

  “Me, either,” I said, still feeling like I wanted to puke. “I think it might have something to do with the energy field that thing generated. Or maybe we’re just imagining it.”

  “Either way, let’s get out of here,” Jake said.

  I nodded. Then realized he couldn’t see me in the pitch-black. Not to mention I was out of flashlights.

  “Help me find the bag,” I said, crouching down on the concrete floor.

  I heard Jake do the same and it took only a few minutes to locate the bag inside the tiny room, even without being able to see anything. I thought I remembered seeing a few plastic green tubes when I took inventory in the bathroom earlier that morning. My hands closed around one of them in the bag. I removed it and bent it hard at the middle.