He felt no remorse for what he had just done. The frozen hell that had kept them captive had changed Lucas. He had not seen daylight in over ten years; his body was weak and his mind was tortured.
His hands slid over the virtual console that controlled the Spector VI. He held his arms so tightly he could feel them shaking. He was ready—ready for freedom from his captives.
He felt the sudden vibration below his feet as the Spector’s nose burned through the last few inches of ice and entered Tunnel 5. They were directly connecting to the gigantic Gorge that would lead them home.
They braced themselves as the Spector dropped nose-down, into a sixty-two degree angle that pointed into the icy void below. It was still burning the ice as it accelerated downhill.
“Stop the heat!” screamed Rolfe, barely keeping himself in his seat.
Lucas had no clue how to stop the outer skin from heating up. He frantically analyzed the console but had forgotten exactly how Andrew had circumvented the entire system to heat the outer skin.
“I can’t!” he said, his hands wavering uncertainly over the controls. “I can’t!” he said.
“Then turn the whole vessel off!” Rolfe screamed.
Lucas realized it was their only chance. He instantly touched the power icon on the console. Seconds later, the vessel’s lights went dark.
The submersible started screeching and sliding against the icy floor, flinging itself toward the Gorge below. As the treads under the Spector started to cool, the vessel eventually slowed down, friction carving into the icy terrain. Finally it stopped, pointing downward at almost a forty-degree angle, stuck in the massive fissure called the Gorge, absolutely motionless. It ticked and steamed there, exhausted from its impossible journey.
Lucas sighed in relief. He could barely contain himself. “Freedom at last!” he shouted.
The others took a deep breath, all together, and shouted in unison, still holding onto their chairs in the pitch-black vessel.
All the while, Nastasia’s inconspicuous nutrition pack, still sitting in the rear cabin, ticked away, the numbers counting down with each passing second.
2:53…2:52…2:51…
* * *
Max and Simon passed the vehicle bays and entered the next space. What they saw shocked them.
Over thirty soldiers, all solidly built, were moving about the vast room, tending urgently to various tasks. The magnificent cavernous space they had walked into looked almost octagonal, adequately lit with a ceiling that extended over fifty feet. Beyond them, large doors led to what seemed to be quadrants, each one in turn leading into other tunnels and spaces. Each area was numbered, but soon Simon noticed that only one was brightly lit. He had spotted some activity inside it, from the corner of his eye far in the distance.
The entire structure reminded Max of a security facility. He had seen this type of arrangement before. It was the perfect design: a central core and cells leading off in multiple directions to house prisoners. Radiation icons and danger symbols surrounded the structure.
A gigantic hole, the size of a small building, was cut right into the center. The cavity seemed to drop even further down, and a massive crane, unlike anything they had ever seen, was situated over it. A platform was suspended from the crane. Hundreds of wires several inches thick dropped into the massive cavity, tentacles connected to large oxygen canisters that sat immediately to the left of where Simon and Max now stood.
It looks like some kind of a lit tunnel; wonder what the hell is down there? Simon thought.
“Simon,” Max said quietly through his teeth. “Come on.”
He climbed a catwalk that led into the strangely lit tunnel. It took a sharp turn just inside the entrance, then a series of steps moved down, even deeper into the complex.
“Max!” Simon whispered out of the side of his mouth. “This isn’t the way—”
He stopped dead at what he saw in front of him. Max had pulled up short just three paces ahead.
They were on the edge of a vertical shaft that appeared to go down forever, and suspended in the middle of it was what seemed like a semi-transparent needle-like object without any visible means of support, its tapered point aiming straight down to the center of the planet, its surface covered with…shapes…or letters…or symbols. Simon couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t even see it clearly; it hurt his eyes—hurt his mind—to even look at it.
The sound it made was something like a groan, something like a seductive song. The light was impossibly broad—ultraviolet and infrared, blue and black and purple at the same time, throbbing behind his eyes.
This is not human, he said. We did not build this; we couldn’t have.
Max suddenly whirled around and shoved him, square in the chest.
“Go back,” he said brutally, forcing the words out of his mouth. His eyes were huge and haunted. There was blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
When Simon didn’t respond fast enough, he seized him by the shoulders and spun him around, facing away from the massive spike that hung in the air, turning away from the hideous light. “Go back,” he said again and shoved him even harder.
Simon stumbled and moved. He knew that Max was right. He wondered how his friend had even managed to look away at all, to resist the sinister radiation that flowed from that…from that…
They stumbled out of the tunnel entrance, back into the room they had come from. For a moment they stood there, blinking and swaying, trying to remember what it was they had just seen.
“My god,” Max said. “What…?”
For that one moment, they had forgotten where they were. As they stood there, unsteadily recovering, they nearly forgot that they were surrounded by soldiers.
But the soldiers had not forgotten them. Max snapped back to attention as a coterie of Vector5 men approached; he looked off into the distance toward the same opening that Simon had spotted earlier and started moving, stalking straight toward the lit corridor, crossing the thousand-foot space at a swift but businesslike pace, like someone who knew where he was and who he was and was eager to finish an unpleasant job—like a powerful bureaucrat.
Their senses were on high alert; both of them gripped their rifles, ready for a shootout.
As they moved, the coterie of soldiers faded back, distracted by other duties, except for two who kept coming straight for them even as Simon and Max approached the opening.
Max continued to look preoccupied. Simon counted the distance between them and tried not to look out of place. It was the longest thousand feet he had crossed in his life.
Any second now, Max thought. They accelerated their pace; as they approached, the opening revealed itself. It was approximately eight feet high and six feet wide. Perforated floors sat above the ice with cables and focused lighting in the ceiling. They entered.
The corridor was lit adequately and seemed endlessly long. Simon could feel the soldier’s eyes, following them.
Ten feet into the tunnel, off to the left, Max noticed a locking mechanism. I wonder if this is to the exterior door, he thought. Looks like it can be controlled remotely.
He had been trained his entire life to study his surroundings with photographic detail; that training had saved his life many times. This time would be no different.
Twenty steps into the tunnel, the audio enhancement unit in Simon’s headgear twittered to life, picking up a fragment of conversation from somewhere down the corridor. He heard it clearly and without mistake.
It chilled his spine and almost stopped him in his tracks.
“So, Oliver,” said the deep, authoritative voice. “It’s been too long.”
The words were both horrific and hopeful to Simon’s ears. Max heard them as well and turned instantly, realizing that his best friend would not have the patience to calculate their next move alone.
If he acts on impulse, Max thought, he’ll get us killed.
Simon had been holding onto the rifle with both hands. Max turned to him, drew his atte
ntion, and held up two fingers close together. Then he separated them into a “V.”
Simon recognized the signal instantly. It was one they had used in their childhood games.
Why split up? he asked himself. Then he looked down the corridor, as Max already had. Thirty feet ahead, the passageway forked off—continuing straight on and offering a ninety-degree turn to the right. Even before they reached the adjacent passage, they could already sense the ambient light that flowed into their path, coming from that next hallway. They slowed down and carefully looked to their right.
Off in the distance, they spotted an open door. They heard the voices coming from inside, and they saw a huge soldier standing at the opening looking straight inside, not noticing them.
They both took a few steps back, reacting to the situation.
Max knew what his next move would be. He looked up at the hanging ceiling embedded in the ice. It carried an intricate web of cables and equipment mounted below and above the ceiling, a dark open grid.
Both men were in sync. Max immediately pressed his rifle into the side of his suit and jumped upward. He grabbed the steel ceiling and pulled himself into the grid like a spider trying to escape. Simon followed, but before he had pulled his entire body through the network of cables, he felt something detach from his suit. He craned his neck and looked down, just in time to see his rifle fall to the floor with a deafening clatter.
Fuck, he cursed silently, clenching his jaw in anger. We’re discovered. It’s over.
For one long moment, both of them looked down through the ceiling grid at the rifle lying directly in the middle of the hallway, clearly visible on the perforated floor. And they both heard a new and impatient voice from further down the hallway.
“What’s going on back there?” one of the men in Blackburn’s team called out.
They heard footsteps; he was coming in their direction. Max knew they needed to move fast. The tight shaft of the ceiling was barely wide enough for one man to crawl through, much less two. And Simon noticed Max’s hand gesture once again, signaling them to split up, to separate.
Simon wasted no time. He crawled through the adjacent hallway ceiling and in less than twenty seconds, three feet below him, he noticed the soldier’s body pass in the opposite direction.
Max had already disappeared deeper into the main hallway ceiling, now trying carefully and quietly to open one of the airshafts. Simon had passed three feet into the side hallway that led to the open door when he heard the voice again.
“What the fuck is this?”
He noticed it, he thought. The man had spotted the rifle.
But I have to keep going.
It was almost as if he felt no fear, no anxiety. He didn’t care. He knew he was less than thirty yards from the door they had spotted.
“What’s up?” said one of the men in the room, shouting back at the man in the hallway.
“You’ve got to take a look at this,” the other voice said.
Seconds later, Simon stiffened as another man passed below him. For a brief moment, he wondered where Max was—if he could see what was happening. But then, just then, the amplified authoritative sound of the man speaking in the room resonated through the hallway and buzzed directly into his ears through his helmet.
“You’ve been more stubborn than anyone we’ve had down here since the beginning of the operation,” the man said. The voice cut through him like a knife.
“Lucky for you, your fucking ‘society’ knows more about what’s going on down here than I do. Otherwise you would have been utterly useless to us a long time ago.”
Holding his body absolutely still, using all his strength, Simon did nothing but listen—more intently, with more concentration than he ever had in his life. He wanted to push himself twenty more yards into the tight shaft, but he didn’t move. He froze. He waited. He listened.
“Look at this!” the man said. “Look at this gun above your head!”
Simon’s body went cold. He had to move. Adrenaline and fear of what would happen next moved his body forward as Blackburn continued.
“Don’t you see it, you pompous son of a bitch? Don’t you know I have no remorse for you, no compassion, not even concern? My men are coming up the shaft with third degree burns and toxic poisoning, as if they were working in a fucking nuclear power plant. Why should I care about you? Now look into the gun! Look! I won’t repeat myself.”
Simon was moving forward—slowly, slowly. Less than two feet, he told himself. Less than two feet before I can see inside. His body trembled from the vicious anger that threatened to take control of him. It was a rage he never thought he possessed. And still, he listened as he inched forward.
“These are your last moments Oliver,” Blackburn said. “This is your last chance. I can leave you to rot in your own hell, or I can put you out of your own fucking misery with a single bullet. Look at me! You have less than ten seconds. Tell me how to turn off these godforsaken devices. Tell me who I need to find, tell me who gave this knowledge to your pathetic society.”
Simon listened both horrified and confused. Twelve more inches.
“Who put them here?” Blackburn said. “What are they for you, you son of a bitch?”
Simon crawled the last few inches. His head turned toward the room, and he saw the ominous figure of the tall man holding a rifle against the head of a person lying in a hospital bed. He watched as the tall man pressed the rifle into the burned flesh of the sick old man’s head, and the old man closed his eyes, ready to accept the bullet that would enter his skull and take his life.
Simon’s world collapsed. His heart sank as if they had put a hundred knives into his chest. Blackburn’s large image moved to the left, pressing the pistol so hard into Oliver’s head that it made a fleshy crater.
At that very instant Simon saw his father. He saw Oliver’s face through the ceiling grates, and he recognized the expression on his face.
He’s thinking of me, Simon thought. He was sure of it: he’s thinking of me.
Simon’s body froze instantly. He felt completely hollow, as if life itself had been stolen from him.
For a split second, emotion swelled and took over every inch of his body. Simon could not move; he didn’t understand why. He desperately wanted to have a weapon, any weapon. He knew if he jumped down now, unarmed, the tall man would kill them both. Nothing would be accomplished.
He froze once more as Blackburn’s voice spoke again.
“Ten seconds before I pull the fucking trigger!” Blackburn said. “Ten seconds and your hell is over.”
He counted like a vicious killer with no regard for human life. “Nine…eight…seven…six…five…”
* * *
Two miles to the north, the Spector stood frozen. Lucas and the other men tried to find their balance in the tilted vessel as it sat in the pitch black, silent and dark, in shutdown mode.
“Let’s go,” Lucas said as he appeared on the bridge, trying to balance his body. “Grab whatever you can; we leave now. I am walking out of this fucking hell on foot if I have to. I won’t sink down farther into the ice.”
“But…” Rolfe interjected.
“But what?” said Lucas “I’m not turning this thing on and sinking again!”
The faces of the men looked ghostly in the light that emanated from Lucas’ helmet. “Let’s go,” he said, repeating himself. There was fear and apprehension in the eyes of the scientists.
“Pack light,” Rolfe said. “Just rations, no weapons. Take whatever you can that can sustain us for a few days,” he said to the other man.
They started scrambling in the dark and gathering as much as they could in the emergency light of the vessel. Lucas went straight for the hatch; he found the manual crank mechanism and worked relentlessly to pry the door open.
They were minutes away from the Gorge and kilometers from their freedom.
The hatch cracked open. The cold outside air blew in instantly, but the chill was different than the tu
nnels they were used to. There was a draft in the Gorge because of its sheer size and the air that entered was from the top of the ice shelf.
Within moments, the hatch was halfway open into the blackness beyond.
The Spector had spun slightly as it had fallen. The hatch door now faced the thirty-degree pitch in the same direction as the icy Gorge below.
“Give me those,” Lucas said, violently grabbing a few ration packs and quickly throwing them over his shoulder. He was determined to jump. The black void below him represented freedom. Whatever it will take, he thought. The Gorge is just below.
The others huddled close behind him, ready to make the five-foot jump and the slide down toward what they thought would be the Gorge. One of the scientists stood directly behind Rolfe, carrying more than he could, including Nastasia’s med pack. He moved closer behind Rolfe and asked, “Lucas, are you sure the Gorge is just below us?”
Lucas turned back immediately looking past Rolfe through the dark interior of the vessel. “Yes, I’m—what the hell is that?” he asked, noticing the black med pack in the scientist’s hand.
“I don’t know,” the scientist said, shrugging. “They left it behind. I thought maybe instruments? Comm gear? Maybe even money. Figured it might come in handy.”
Lucas almost spat at him. “Give me that,” he demanded. In one swift motion, he lunged at the man and grabbed the bag.
The timer inside the case continued. 1:16…1:15…1:14…
Two seconds later, he was back at the opening. Without another word, he jumped out.
Rolfe was the next man to follow after only a single moment of hesitation. The last scientist followed close behind.
Less than six feet below him, Lucas hit the icy floor. The slippery impact immediately terrified him. He started to slide uncontrollably, even as Rolfe thumped down less than six feet behind.
The ice felt like glass. Lucas couldn’t gain control as he desperately forced himself to gain friction, but it was impossible. He was sliding faster and faster and faster.
Protocol 7 Page 41