Countdown Zero

by Chris Rylander

  A crack was followed by the sudden glow of a neon green stick.

  “Ah!” I shouted as Jake’s glowing green face appeared just six inches from my own.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know I was that close,” he said, backing away.

  “It’s okay, just startled me,” I said. “Let’s get moving. We’re running out of time.” I glanced down at my watch to check the countdown. But the numbers were no longer glowing. The EMP must have taken that out as well.

  There was no choice but to keep moving as quickly as possible.

  AFTER I BOOSTED JAKE BACK UP INTO THE AIR DUCT, HE reached down and helped me up. He went back and retrieved the red laser sight, just in case, while I continued on in the vent. It was a straight shot to the end of the air duct, which was sealed off with another metal grate. Jake had caught up by the time I was able to knock it out with a few good kicks.

  I leaned out of the opening and held out the glow stick, then gasped and almost lost my balance. Which would have resulted in me falling into a vast abyss. The chasm was a narrow crevice with no top or bottom in sight. It could have gone all the way down to the earth’s core for all I knew. In the rock wall directly across the fifteen-foot gap and slightly above us was another vent cover.

  “Wow,” Jake said, leaning over my shoulder. “How are we gonna get across?”

  “I have a grappling hook, but I only have one harness,” I said. “I think I should cross, then shoot the grappling hook back to this side. Then you can attach the bag to that end and I’ll tow it up. I don’t want to risk dropping anything by taking it across with me.”

  “What about me?” Jake asked.

  “You should head back,” I said. “This might get even more dangerous, and I’ve already asked too much of you.”

  He hesitated, but then nodded. There was really no easy way to get us both across, not without wasting valuable time. “I’ll make sure you get across safely, at least.”

  I took out the grappling hook, which was very similar to the one the Agency had given me earlier that year, except this one wasn’t disguised as a set of keys. It was just a small hook that could be fired from a gun-like device, which could then be attached to a nylon harness.

  After strapping the harness to my shoulders and waist, I took careful aim and fired the grappling hook a few feet above the vent cover on the other side of the deep crevice. It lodged into the rock wall more or less where I’d intended.

  So far, I hadn’t seen one automated defense laser or turret gun, which I was hoping meant that we had successfully taken out the power grid. The grappling hook had a motorized lift so I wouldn’t have to climb the wire, but I’d still have to swing across before activating it since there would be some slack in the line until I was on the other side. I didn’t know what kind of rock the mountain was made of or whether the hook would hold under the pressure of my weight hitting it all at once, but there was no other option.

  I handed the bag to Jake and then clamped the glow stick in my teeth. Even partially in my mouth, it was just bright enough to allow me to see the other side of the fifteen-foot abyss between where I was crouched and the ventilation shaft leading to the base interior.

  “Good luck,” Jake said as I clipped the grappling-hook device to my harness.

  I nodded at him, took a deep breath, and then let myself fall from the vent. I swung across more smoothly than expected, dropping as the line went taut. I put out my legs in front of me and then let my knees bend as my feet connected with the rock wall on the other side of the chasm.

  The impact was less violent than I anticipated. It was just like hopping down from a short fence. Still, I was dangling above a bottomless cavern with nothing but a thin wire holding me up. I stood on the rock wall, holding the grappling hook wire to steady myself. I hit the switch on the device and slowly walked up the wall, allowing the powerful motorized pulley system to do most of the heavy lifting.

  Once I got to the vent I hit the switch again to stop the pulley. I tentatively touched the vent cover, half expecting it to have some sort of defense mechanism. It just felt like normal cold metal. I grabbed it and pulled. It didn’t budge. There was no sign of any screws. The vent cover was firmly embedded into the rock wall just like the first one.

  “What’s wrong?” Jake called out.

  I took the glow stick from my mouth and called back, “I can’t get the cover off.”

  “Do you have any more of those fruit roll-up things?” he asked.

  It was a good idea; I’d give him that. Except, how would I detonate it safely while dangling here? Not that I had much choice. The clock was ticking.

  “There should be two left, can you find them and toss me one?” I said.

  “I’m gonna need to crack open the second glow stick. I can’t see anything,” Jake said.

  “Okay,” I called back. I didn’t know how long these things lasted, but I hoped that I wouldn’t really need them much after this phase in the mission anyway.

  Jake opened a glow stick and then located the two fruit-roll-up explosives. I spun myself around so I was facing him.

  “Okay, toss it up,” I said, putting the glow stick back in my mouth.

  Jake threw the fruit roll-up underhand. It floated toward me, but fell way short of my extended hand. It tumbled down into the darkness of the abyss below. Jake hadn’t even come close.

  I raised my head, trying not to look too annoyed.

  “Sorry, I’m nervous,” he said. “Plus, it’s hard to judge the distance with only this neon green light. And I’ve never had very good aim anyway.”

  It was true. He’d played basketball with us several times and he was by far the worst shot in our whole group of friends. He always made up for it in pure effort and tenacity, grabbing rebounds and such, but remembering that didn’t give me much confidence for the second attempt.

  “Well, this is our last one, so make it count.”

  He nodded and took several deep breaths. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. Then he looked up at me again.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded.

  He swung his arm outside of the vent and tossed the last fruit roll-up. He threw it much harder this time, but his aim was no better and the fruit roll-up sailed over my head and to the left. The throw was so bad that I knew right away I’d have no chance to catch it. Which actually was for the better, because it gave me time to spin around and kick left in hopes of catching it on the rebound after it hit the wall. Had the throw been slightly better I’d probably have wasted precious seconds trying to grab it and then had no chance at all. But, as it turned out, sometimes if you were going to miss, it was better to miss by a mile.

  The fruit roll-up bounced off the wall several feet above me, and because I’d had those extra seconds to turn around and move left, I was there waiting for it as it fell. It landed right in my lap and I cupped my hands and caught it, breathing out as I clutched it tightly.

  “Oh, man!” Jake said, pumping his fist. “What a catch!”

  Now the real question was how to do this without blowing off one of my arms or legs. I started by unrolling the fruit explosive and stretching it around the vent cover like I had done to get inside the mountain just fifteen minutes before.

  I looked at the rock walls on either side of the vent. Several feet down and to the right was a small outcropping. It definitely wasn’t big enough to stand on, but if I could lower myself enough and swing over to it, I might be able to grab it and hold on just long enough to safely detonate the explosive.

  “Take cover,” I yelled as I hit the switch on the grappling hook to lower myself down several feet.

  Holding the detonator in my left hand, I kicked away from the wall and tried to swing right toward the outcropping. I ended up just short. I tried again and got a little closer. On the third try, I managed to get a weak grip on the rock with my free hand. It was now or never. I quickly pressed the detonator.

  The small explosion sounded like a nuclear blast ins
ide the narrow crevice. The force of it caused me to lose my grip and I immediately started swinging back toward the vent. Just as I was getting back to the opening, which no longer had a metal cover, I heard a snap above me. The wire had broken.

  SOMEHOW, I WAS JUST ABLE TO GET MY HANDS UP TO THE jagged vent opening and catch myself before falling into the abyss below. I knew my fingers wouldn’t be able to hold the hard edge for long so I immediately started pulling myself up. Using my last ounce of energy, I kicked up my leg and got my knee onto the edge of the vent.

  From there, I pulled myself the rest of the way up. I fell on my back inside the air duct, which was slightly larger than the one across the chasm, and tried to get my heart beating again. I could hear Jake freaking out.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” I called out, once I could breathe again.

  I pulled up the wire to find nothing but a severed, frayed end. The force of the blast, or maybe shrapnel rock from the seam, must have damaged it.

  “How are we going to get the bag across now?” Jake asked.

  I shook my head slowly. The obvious answer was for him to toss it across. But given how that had gone with the fruit roll-up, I didn’t really like that option. Plus, I had been a much bigger target when I was dangling in front of the vent. Now, the target was basically just the size of the small, rectangular opening itself. And the bag was a lot heavier and more awkward than the fruit roll-ups. Plus the antidote was still in there. It was too much of a risk to have him try to throw.

  I held up the glow stick, which now had deep teeth marks in it, and looked around inside the air duct. For as far as I could see ahead of me, it was a straight shot going deeper inside the mountain. Perfectly straight.

  Which gave me an idea.

  “Jake, find the laser sight and the cutting tool,” I called down to him.

  He looked at me, both of our faces glowing green in the light of two glow sticks.

  “Hurry!” I said, knowing we likely only had a handful of minutes left before Agent Nineteen’s time was up.

  His head disappeared into the vent as he searched inside the bag. It reappeared a few moments later, looking determined.

  “Which one first?” he asked.

  “The laser sight,” I said, holding out my cupped hands.

  He took a few deep breaths and then tossed it toward me. It was his best attempt yet, but it still wasn’t great. It flew just to the right of the opening and although I was able to get a hand on it, it was just the tips of my fingers. The device slipped through them, hit the wall, and then bounced down into the darkness.

  If Gollum was living somewhere down there, he was getting a bunch of precious treasures today. Happy birthday, Gollum.

  Jake cursed loudly. The word echoed several times up and down the enclosed crevasse.

  “It’s okay—that was a good practice throw,” I said. I knew scolding him would only make him more nervous. I needed to try to ease his mind a little, get him to relax. “That one wasn’t the important one anyway.”

  He nodded.

  “Try again. Second time’s the charm, right?”

  He nodded and extended the laser cutter out of the vent. I held out my hands, trying to give him a good target.

  “If you’re going to miss, miss too long, not too short,” I said. “At least give me a chance.”

  He nodded one last time and then let it fly. The laser cutter flew right at me, at my face to be precise, much faster than I expected. That, coupled with the weird depth perception the green lighting provided, caused me to flinch. I missed the laser cutter and didn’t catch it. Instead, it hit me right in the face as I ducked back into the vent. Thankfully, it was a glancing blow that didn’t hurt too badly. It bounced off my face and then slid back into the air duct behind me.

  I pounced on it and gripped it as if I would never let go.

  “What a throw!” I yelled out toward Jake. I crawled over and gave him a thumbs-up.

  He grinned back. “Just call me Joe Blanton.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Never mind, just get to work.”

  I nodded and turned back into the vent. It was hard to know just how long of a section to cut without the laser sight, but I figured cutting too much could be remedied, too little could not. So when I started cutting out the ceiling of the air duct, I went down what I thought was at least twenty feet. Once again, the laser cut through the metal like a lightsaber.

  In less than a minute, I had in my hands a long strip of the air duct’s ceiling. I was a little concerned about the solid rock behind the vent caving in on me, but to my surprise there was not solid rock behind the strip but a series of pipes and wires running the length of the air duct encased within a larger concrete housing.

  I shifted the long strip of air duct metal so it was under me and then began pushing it toward the edge of the vent. I shoved it out into the chasm, careful to keep all my weight on the end so it wouldn’t fall. Jake must have figured out right away what I was up to, because when I got near enough to the edge to see him, he was reaching out to receive the other end of the metal strip.

  It bowed and bent as more of it was pushed out over the gap. But that actually helped, as it dipped down toward Jake’s hands. Finally, he was able to grab the end and then pull it into his vent. There was still a decent length of it left inside my air duct and so I pushed it out a few more feet, then sat on the end to anchor it. It was more difficult to keep it down as the metal strained under the pressure of being bent across a fifteen-foot gap.

  “Do you think it will hold?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve got this end anchored. Are there at least five or six feet in there on your end?”

  He nodded. “It feels flimsy.”

  I knew it was a lot to ask him to test it. And more than that, even if it did hold him, it was still just a few feet wide at most, so it would likely be a terrifying crawl across the space. That said, the sheet metal was actually thicker than I’d imagined and I didn’t think it was possible for it to break, even with one hundred pounds of middle schooler crawling across it.

  “If you don’t want to try . . . ,” I started.

  “No, no, we have to get this across.” He held up the bag. “I’ll do it.”

  I had to hand it to him. I had done stuff like this before, so even though I was terrified, I knew how to deal with my fright. This was his first time.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder and then took a few seconds, clearly trying to psych himself up. He started with a very tentative first hand, pressing down on the metal with his upper body weight. It hardly budged, which was a good sign. I think it gave him confidence as well, because before I knew it, Jake was crawling across and up the thin metal strip on his hands and knees. After a few feet the metal did bow a little bit and it almost lifted me up, but I shifted so that more of my weight was on the end.

  He started slow, but then moved faster once he hit the halfway point. He was almost moving too fast, clearly motivated by terror. But then he was suddenly close enough for me to reach out and grab his hand. I leaned back and pulled him the rest of the way.

  Once inside the vent, he sat down with his eyes wide and breathed hard.

  “That. Was. Horrifying,” he said slowly.

  “You’re a hero, man,” I said, genuinely meaning it.

  “It was your idea.”

  “What can I say,” I said with a grin. “I guess we just make a good team.”

  A SHORT TIME LATER, AIDED BY THE BLUEPRINTS AND OUR fading glow sticks, we arrived at a five-way junction in the air duct, which I knew meant we were getting close to where the duct emptied into the base.

  I shined my green light on the map. It took me a little while to get my bearings. But once I figured out where we were on the map, the next challenge was figuring out which branch to take.

  I could almost feel the time ticking away, like some sort of creepy finger tapping on my shoulder in rhythm with my pounding heart. I just needed to calm down and focus. Jake h
overing over my shoulder wasn’t helping any.

  “Do you mind backing off a little bit?” I said, sounding more irritated than I intended, especially considering what we’d already been through together.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “We need to go this way.” I pointed to my left.

  “Are you sure?” he said. “I’m pretty sure we need to take the right one.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “Because, look, it connects to this vent section which goes right into this hallway. Which leads to this room with the red X on it. I’m assuming that’s where we’re going, right?”

  I tried to follow his finger as he talked, wiping at the sweat dripping into my eyes, frustrated with my own stupidity.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Lives depend on this.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he said, pushing past me. “Come on.”

  He crawled through the right vent branch. I took one last look at the blueprints. Jake was right. Agent Nineteen was one stupid mistake away from dying, and I almost made that mistake, while Jake had just saved his life for possibly the seventeenth time that day.

  I followed him down the vent. A short time later, he held his glow stick over a vent cover under us. We checked the schematic again.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  This vent cover had screws on the inside. I used a small screwdriver that Agent Blue had included in my supplies to remove them. The slatted metal clattered to the floor below us. Whatever room we were about to enter was completely dark.

  Jake got in position to jump down, but I stopped him. I remembered the small gas mask inside the bag. There was only one of them. It might be kind of awkward to put it on and expect Jake to go without one. Then again, I certainly didn’t want to get infected with the fatal Romero Virus, which would cause my brain to literally eat itself.