‘She better or we’ll die down here.’
‘When has she let us down before?’
She looked at him and considered the question. ‘There was that time in Pakistan, and then on Easter Island when she—’
‘Recently,’ he said.
‘Oi, you two!’ A voice echoed in their helmets, making them look back towards the person they’d been discussing.
‘Stop your yakking and give me a hand.’
‘Keep your hair on!’ Jason said, through his headset’s microphone.
‘What do you want us to do?’ Trish asked, also using her inbuilt communication system.
‘Grab this rope and pull, but make sure you’re out of the way.’ She threw a rope down to them, its coils unfurling on the long descent.
‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ Jason said, walking forward to collect the line.
‘I hope so,’ her voice crackled over the radio, ‘or we’re going to have to find another way through.’
‘This doesn’t look very safe,’ Trish said to Jason. ‘You’re sure she knows what she’s doing?’
‘Of course I know what I’m doing,’ the voice said through her helmet’s earpiece. ‘I’ve had Deep Reach training, haven’t I?’
‘We’re not in the SED now, though, are we?’ Trish said.
Her friend failed to comment; instead she finished tying her end of the rope around a boulder and moved back the way she’d come, once more jumping over the knee trembling drop. She gave them a thumbs up signal. ‘Good to go!’
Jason and Trish grasped the rope with their climbing gloves and took the strain.
Jason looked back at her. ‘You ready?’
Trish grimaced. ‘I suppose.’
‘On three. One – two – three!’
Trish lent back and pulled as hard as she could. The rope creaked under tension while the dirt underfoot formed tiny mounds as their climbing boots dug into it. With her lungs fit to burst, Trish let go. ‘There’s no way we’re budging that.’
‘Hang on,’ Jason said, and moved off.
A moment later light blazed forth as he returned with the Centipede, their multi-wheeled, remote controlled, all-terrain supply vehicle. Manoeuvring the fifteen foot long, yellow-clad, insect-like machine into position, Jason proceeded to attach the rope to one end.
He gave Trish a grin. ‘No point breaking our backs when Bob can do it for us.’
Trish shook her head. ‘If you had to give it a name couldn’t you have chosen something better than Bob?’
He waved her out of the way. ‘What’s wrong with Bob?’
‘What’s right with it?’
‘You’ve got no imagination.’
‘Says the man who came up with Bob.’
Jason peered at a button on the supply vehicle’s control console that read: auxiliary engine. He glanced up. ‘Shall I use the—’
‘No.’ His friend’s voice echoed in his ear. ‘Do not use the power boost, if the rope snapped it’d be out of control. How more times?’
‘Spoilsport. Okay,’ – he pulled back on the joystick – ‘let’s see what he’s got.’
The Centipede, aka Bob, gained speed before jolting to a halt as the rope snapped tight. Wheels spinning, dirt flying, the low slung vehicle weaved from side to side as it sought purchase.
Trish waved to Jason as the vehicle’s motor whined and its wheels slipped and spun. ‘It’s not working!’
Jason ceased its movement.
‘Try pulling at the same time,’ their friend’s voice said, via their helmets.
‘Try pulling at the same time,’ Jason said in mimicry. ‘It’d help if she came down and helped.’
‘I heard that,’ came the reply.
Trish chuckled and grabbed hold of the rope, with Jason just in front of her.
Locking the Centipede’s joystick into position, the sound of the machine’s propulsion filled the air once more and Bob, Trish and Jason heaved back on the rope in unison.
‘Keep going!’ came the command over their com system. ‘It’s moving!’
Jason grunted in exertion and Trish felt her grip failing before the rope went slack. She fell to the ground and Jason landed on top of her, knocking her helmet into the dirt with a clonk and sending her visor image to a momentary fuzz of pixels.
A scream of warning caused the two of them to scramble back to their feet. Behind, Bob careered off into the immense blackness of Sanctuary Proper, straight towards a yawning crevasse. Jason made a dive for the control device and knocked the joystick back to neutral. The Centipede slid to a stop inches from the edge.
Jason looked at Trish. ‘Jesus,’ he said in shock, ‘that was close.’
She nodded and heaved a sigh of relief.
‘Good work,’ said their friend’s voice. ‘I think I can see a way through now.’
‘Is it safe?’ Trish looked back up to see the tail end of a pair of legs disappear inside the entrance they’d just created. Before she could voice her concern at the obvious lack of caution, a deep rumbling shook the earth beneath their feet and great cracks zigzagged out from the hole.
The shaking continued and the sweeping cliff face crumbled. Huge swathes of rock toppled free and the shape of a woman moving at high speed, burst back into view to leap out into midair, a hundred feet up, limbs flailing. A scream rang out over the thunderous noise of the landslide and Trish watched in horror as her friend fell to certain death, before the rope they’d been pulling twanged tight, shooting up between them and dragging a beleaguered Bob back the way he’d come.
The woman, holding on for dear life, slid down the arc of rope at speed, chased by a mass of falling debris. The giant cavern gave a final groan before the whole side came crashing down. The deafening noise engulfed them and a wall of dust swallowed the fleeing climber in its heaving midst.
The ground lurched and Trish and Jason staggered backwards towards the yawning abyss behind. Teetering on the brink, Trish grabbed Jason’s arm as death approached. A whoosh of air swept over them and a cloud of debris filled their vision. Trish shut her eyes and braced for impact. The rumbling grew louder still and then faded away. She cracked open an eye as the sound of small stones and pebbles trickling down signalled an end to the calamity. The dust cleared and, feet from the wall of collapsed rock, where Trish and Jason were huddled, their friend stood in stupendous victory, a victory of survival and indefensible fortune.
♦
Sarah Morgan threw aside the frayed end of the rope that had, without doubt, just saved her life. Sending a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of chance and fate, she removed her helmet and shook out her long blonde locks under the floodlit glare of the Centipede’s headlights.
She approached her two friends, her dazzling blue eyes bright with life. ‘You two okay?’ she said, her East London accent resonating with concerned confidence.
Trish removed her own headgear. ‘Are you out of your damn mind?!’
Sarah frowned. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘You may not give a shit if you live or die, but when you risk your life, you risk ours; without you we’re as good as dead. What were you thinking, going in there without checking its stability?’
‘Of course I care if I live or die!’ Sarah looked to Jason for support. ‘I’m doing everything I can to get us to the surface, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘I noticed you didn’t answer my question,’ Trish said.
Sarah huffed and walked away to check the Centipede for damage. ‘Of course I checked for stability. The visor highlights areas of structural weaknesses automatically.’
‘Does it?’ Trish asked Jason.
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘Even if it did,’ Trish said, ‘you couldn’t have checked it properly,’ – she waved an arm indicating the huge landslip behind her – ‘or it’d have picked up that.’
Sarah swung round, her expression fierce. ‘Will you stop lecturing me! I’m doing all I can, but we’ve lost hal
f our water supply and we’re too far from the shuttle station to return!’
Livid, Trish strode forward. ‘Lecturing you? Lecturing you?!’
Jason stepped between the two women and raised his hands. ‘Ladies, come on, this isn’t helping anyone.’
‘Shut up, Jason!’ they said in unison, their eyes locked.
He bowed his head and stepped back again.
‘You’re losing it,’ Trish said, her gaze unwavering. ‘You could have just killed us all and for what? There’s no way through, we’ll have to retrace our steps anyway.’
‘If there’s no way through, then what’s that?’ Sarah pointed up to the newly created mound of rock.
Trish turned. Before her, near where the cave wall had once stood, the final particles of pulverized stone had settled to reveal a new tunnel system beyond.
Trish faced her friend again. ‘Just because it paid off this time doesn’t mean jack, we’re still screwed.’
Sarah couldn’t take much more of this. ‘Perhaps if you weren’t whining all the time, distracting everyone, we wouldn’t be.’
‘What!’ Trish lunged for her, but Jason intervened to hold her back as she tried to get at the object of her fury.
‘Calm down!’ he said, struggling to restrain her as Sarah primed for a fight.
‘Calm down? Did you hear what she said?! She nearly killed us, AND BLAMED ME!!’
Continuing to vent her anger, near hysterical, arms flailing, she caught Jason in the mouth, drawing blood, and he slapped her round the face.
Trish stopped as shock registered. Tears welled and she turned and clambered away over the fallen debris, holding her cheek.
Jason followed. ‘Trish, wait! I’m sorry!’
‘Let her go,’ Sarah said and returned to her inspection of their lifeline, the battle worn yellow supply vehicle. Crouching down, she ran a critical eye over it. It seemed to have avoided the rock fall unharmed, its intricate internal and external mechanisms showing no signs of damage. Their remaining water canisters, secured to one of its cargo plates, had also made it through unscathed.
Sarah glanced up to see Jason conversing with Trish some way away, arms gesticulating and voices raised. It wasn’t long, however, before tensions calmed and the two shared a reconciling embrace.
Jason turned to pick his way back across the rock strewn landscape and Sarah looked back down to continue her inspection.
‘You need to make up with her,’ Jason said, coming to stand by her side.
‘She needed to let off some steam. It’ll do her good.’ Sarah stood up, her long legs straightening. At nearly six foot she could look Jason squarely in the eye.
‘None of this is helping.’ He looked worried and glanced over at Trish, who remained where she was, sixty yards away with her back to them. ‘You need to make this right.’
‘I’ll speak to her,’ Sarah said, not feeling like speaking to Trish at all, but knowing it was what he wanted to hear.
Jason, reassured by her words, carried on yabbering, his Welsh trill musical to the ear, but something that Sarah zoned out as she double-checked the rest of their equipment was secure on the snake-like machine.
It had been over a week since they’d fled the U.S. Army enclave known as USSB Sanctuary. Deep underground, the massive subterranean city had been a revelation when they’d initially stumbled upon it the previous year; however, success had been marred by capture as they’d been thrown in a military prison quicker than they could blink. Many weeks passed and interrogations were endured before they’d been released and, through a series of miraculous breaks, Sarah had found herself working at the SED, Sanctuary’s amazing Exploration Division.
The job had suited Sarah down to the ground and she’d revelled in the opportunity to explore outside the base and far into Sanctuary Proper as a member of an elite Deep Reach team, the pinnacle of SED operations for any ambitious archaeologist such as herself. She’d excelled at the work and lapped up the incredible scientific and archaeological discoveries she’d been privileged to witness. At the time it had seemed like everything in her life had led her towards those moments, an experience carved out by destiny and one unlike any other – an experience that she’d cherish until the end of her days.
The SED, of course, had been fantastic, as had the glory of the United States Subterranean Base itself, and the Anakim treasures contained within and without, but there had been something else that Sarah had found deep down in the Earth’s crust, and that thing was love, or at least the blossoming beginnings of it. The man in question, Riley Orton, her Deep Reach SED team leader, had grown close to her during her stay and one thing had inevitably led to another. Responsible for her induction into the SED and for the intensive training regime that enabled her to pass the tests to qualify for Deep Reach duties, Riley had proven to be an amusing and uplifting companion in a foreign world; a world that she had, at first, striven with every fibre to escape from.
Sarah, wary of trusting her own judgement when it came to men, her track record poor, had deliberated long and hard about leaving behind the man she’d grown to care for. But leave him behind she had; her quest to expose the existence of the Anakim and their creation, Sanctuary itself, had proved too great a pull. It was her life’s ambition to prove Homo gigantis – or Homo giganthropsis as they were also known – existed, and one that she could not put aside for anyone or anything.
The wrench of separation had been great and she still felt the loss like a knife in her heart, despite what she’d found out afterwards. However, there had been another motivating factor to her leaving the base and setting off for the surface. The death of her mother years before had left a blight on her life, a blight that she couldn’t shake. The shadow of her parent’s demise followed her wherever she went, an apparition at the edge of vision that refused to leave her be. Her life had now taken on dual purpose; expose the Anakim to the world and bring her mother’s murderers to justice.
Combined with the fact that to stay in the U.S. Subterranean Base Sarah would have had to relinquish the notion of ever returning to the surface, she had decided to leave a dream job and the potential of a lifelong partner for ambition, freedom and justice; powerful ideals individually, but undeniable in union.
For years Sarah had believed the fire that had stolen her mother’s life to be an accident, but events the year before in 2040 had transformed her perception from that of a horrific tragedy into one of deception and murder. The Anakim maps Sarah had unearthed and then stored in her mother’s house for safekeeping had been an act of targeted destruction by agents of the Catholic Church – or at least, that’s what she’d thought until she’d found one of the very same maps on display in Sanctuary’s secret vaults.
The sad fact was the whole operation, the USSB, the SED, Deep Reach and Riley himself, had turned out to be a lie. They weren’t the champions of archaeology and humanity as they proclaimed, but the users of it, abusing their roles for the good of the military and personal gain with no thought for the significance of history and everything that entailed. They even stooped to murdering the innocent to acquire the artefacts they desired.
When Sarah had voiced such reasoning to Trish and Jason, her friends had been quick to voice their opinions.
‘How do you know they were responsible for stealing your maps?’ Trish had said. ‘They could have bought them from the Vatican’s agents, or somewhere else.’
‘And even if they did,’ Jason added, ‘you can’t blame Riley, he’s just some poor sap taking orders like everyone else.’
‘Jas is right,’ Trish had said, ‘and I don’t think Riley was a manipulator, either, he’s not that type.’
Sarah didn’t care for such thoughts; they made too much sense and fed her anger. She also refused to believe no one could have known where or how those Anakim parchments had been acquired. And that made those complicit in their retrieval and use as much to blame for her mother’s death as those who had set the fire, and as much to blame as Sarah h
erself for hiding such precious artefacts in her mother’s home in the first place. Not a day went by when she didn’t curse her selfish stupidity for chasing a dream that had ultimately resulted in her worst nightmare. Except now that her mum was gone, that dream was the only thing she had left, that and the resulting quest for justice born from the ashes of her own guilt for her leading role in the whole sordid tale. The taste of it physically manifested like a pus-riddled boil on her tongue. Sometimes she even retched when the thoughts came, such was the intensity of the emotions involved. When she found herself in such a moment, her mood turned foul and a vicious side reared its ugly head, a side of her that she disliked, but one she seemed unable to control. It didn’t help, though, when Trish and Jason tried to console her or alter her perspective on matters. In fact it was like a red rag to a bull and down in the depths of the Earth where tensions were already fraught, relations tended to sour, as she’d just witnessed.
While Sarah dwelt on such things a memory of Riley’s smile sprang to mind, catching her unawares. Angry at the reminder of his betrayal she willed the image into oblivion, but if anything the thought grew stronger. Handsome features, the touch of his embrace and a familiar sense of safety filled her soul. Shutting her eyes, she grasped the pendants that hung round her neck, wishing the heartache away.
‘You okay, Saz?’ Jason said.
Sarah looked up and shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’
Bemused by her conflicting signals, Jason scratched his head. ‘You gonna speak to her then?’
‘Who?’
‘Err, Trish?’
‘Yeah – yes – I’ll do it now.’ Sarah rose, put her helmet back on and made her way over the boulder strewn landscape to her friend. The grey silhouette produced by Sarah’s Deep Reach helmet visor highlighted Trish’s frizzy afro, a gift from her mother’s side of the family. Slightly shorter than Sarah, and a fellow Londoner, Trish had also chosen a career in archaeology, which was how the two had met. Sarah could still remember their first encounter like it was yesterday.
Sarah had been late – no surprise there – for her very first university seminar and had rushed headlong into the lecture hall. Unfortunately for her, she’d misjudged the top step and had fallen, head over heels, down thirty more, ending up in a heap at the bottom in front of the whole class. Sporadic tittering had added to Sarah’s physical pain, which had consumed her whole body. It was at that point a face had appeared above her. Sharp features framing kind eyes, Trish’s expression had been one of deep concern. Helping her to her feet with the assistance of the lecturer, Trish had taken a bruised Sarah to the university nurse, where she was prescribed painkillers and plenty of rest. Without hesitation, Trish decided to skip her classes for the rest of the day to take care of her and they’d been firm friends ever since.
2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) Page 7