Intulo: The Lost World

by JE Gurley

  Bullet holes riddled the Cerberus monitor control panel. The damage was irreparable without the spare parts they had neglected to bring with them. They had considered the likelihood of needing them only a remote possibility. The bullets that had ripped holes through both Bill and Vince’s laptops had also severed the connections to the control panel. He checked the filing cabinet and was pleased to find his laptop intact. Duchamps had not had time to search the Shack thoroughly. With luck, he could jury rig a control system.

  He stood and stared at the depressing sight of the desk covered in Bill’s blood. Fighting to maintain his emotional control, he took a handful of paper towels, wiped the desk off as best he could, and tossed them in the garbage can. He laid several layers of paper towels over the remaining bloodstain. In spite of his concentration at the task, he felt his eyes growing moist. He sighed, took a deep breath, and continued. Bill would have understood. Grieving could come later. The important thing now was to reseal the shaft.

  He set his laptop on the paper towels and chose the only chair unsullied by blood. He felt decidedly awkward and uncomfortable, as if he were defiling a grave. He connected his laptop to the Cerberus video feeds and powered up his computer, relieved to find they still functioned. Switching on the floodlights, he saw the lava tube was empty. The drilling rig now rested several meters away from the opening. Trace ran the machine through the diagnostics program. Everything checked out, but when he tried to move it back into position, he discovered the joystick was broken. Without it, he couldn’t move the Cerberus.

  He thought furiously. What would Vince have done? He choked up for a moment thinking about Vince, so young and naïve, believing in his beloved underground world of Pellucidar. If he were alive, he would have had the last laugh. The creatures in the lava tube proved that life, and not just extremophiles or insects, could survive deep underground. Now, people would begin to wonder what else might lie beneath their feet.

  Deciding on a course of action, he began dismantling the tether box, the terminal connection for the fiber optic cable linking the Cerberus to the control panel. Cannibalizing parts from the tether box, he began the tedious task of connecting the cable directly to his laptop. In less than an hour, he had the tread controls operating again. He cranked the Cerberus and slowly moved the massive machine into the hole, turning it sideways at the last minute to wedge it against both walls to ensure no more of the creatures could enter the mines. Now, they just had to eliminate the ones already there.

  Most of the Cerberus functions still needed repair. Hours of work yet remained. He focused on his job. Later, glancing up from his work to wipe sweat from his brow, he witnessed scores of frightened miners pour from of the main elevator and scatter across the grounds into the darkness. After a while, the mass exodus became a dribble, and then stopped altogether. He didn’t know how many miners remained below, but he feared they were either trapped or dead. He had witnessed firsthand how fast and deadly the creatures were. Unarmed miners had no chance. Even armed security guards would have a difficult time if confronted by large numbers of the creatures.

  He couldn’t decide what to do. The hole was sealed. The job of restoring the Cerberus controls was taking longer than he had anticipated. He wanted to go below and find Alan, but the thought of descending into the hell he knew awaited below ground frightened him more than he cared to admit to himself. He had never considered himself a coward. He had survived a few bar brawls, even instigated a couple. A few bumps and bruises, a cut or two, and the cost of a few beers to make amends had been the extent of them. He had never once feared for his life. Even the two auto accidents he had survived had happened too fast for fear to become a factor; however, when he watched the creatures in action outside the Shack window, his flesh crawled.

  His quandary became a moot point when five, three-meter-long millipedes scampered from an elevator shaft. They scurried across the parking lot like multi-legged surfboards, pursued by a dozen gun-wielding security guards. Two of the creatures died in a blaze of gunfire. The others retreated to a small metal building marked Explosives. Trace watched in awe, as one of the guards lit a road flare, crept close to the building, and tossed it through the open door. He quickly retreated for cover, but the blast caught him midstride, tossing him end-over-end like a ragdoll. He landed ten meters away and didn’t move.

  Trace fell off his chair as the concussion of the tremendous explosion swept across the parking lot and struck the trailer, lifting the wheels on one side off the ground. It canted precariously for several gravity-defying moments before resettling with a thud and bouncing a few times. The refrigerator door opened, spilling ice, cans of soda, bottles of water, and containers of old food across the floor. The explosion chewed a tremendous crater ten meters in diameter, obliterating the explosives building and any creatures it had harbored.

  Men rushed to the stunned man. Amazingly, he slowly got to his feet and shook his head. Trace was astonished the man had survived such a blast. Unfortunately, the link to the Cerberus had not. His screen was dead, as were all the connections he had so painstakingly soldered. He sighed, picked up the soldering gun, and went back to work.

  He tried to ignore the distractions as he worked feverishly, but the sight of several giant spiders climbing out of a ventilator shaft and attacking four soldiers diverted his attention. The spiders didn’t get far, as two SAPS Special Tactical Force members wielding flame throwers moved in and incinerated the escapees. The South African Police Service equivalent of SWAT teams had arrived earlier in two Casspir armored personnel carriers. Each member of the team carried a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun and displayed a practical knowledge of its use. He felt a little more confident now that they were on the scene.

  Movement on the video feed attracted his attention. He hoped it was Alan, but was disappointed to see it was Verkhoen. The Van Gotts’ CEO beat on the camera lens and screamed something inaudible, but his wild eyes expressed his panic. He wanted out of the lava tube.

  Trace pressed the control to start the electric motors operating the Cerberus’ tracks. A sizzle of electricity and the ozone smell of a short circuit filled the room.

  “Damn,” he swore. One of his hastily soldered connections had failed.

  Verkhoen continued pounding on the camera. His men stood around him, staring at him. More people appeared upslope of the Cerberus. He panned the camera. This time, it was Alan, along with Eve Means, and two others. Alan spoke into the camera microphone, but Trace had no way to reply. Even the motor controlling the camera was out. He watched Alan connect his laptop to Cerberus’ outboard USB port.

  “He’s trying to access remote control,” he mumbled to himself.

  He pulled up the computer’s diagnostics screen. The trouble-shooting program continued searching the system for problems. He had no way to shut it down or bypass until it completed the cycle. He registered Alan’s disappointment as he discovered the same thing. Alan pointed downslope.

  Unable to do anything to help them, he flashed the floodlights off and then back on to indicate he understood. Disheartened by his inability to do more, he watched Alan and the others leave. He sighed, picked up his soldering gun, and went back to work.

  17

  July 6, 2016, 4:30 a.m. Ngomo Mine, the Lava Tube –

  Klaus Verkhoen had lost control of the situation, something contrary to every fiber of his being. He had been raised his father’s son – ruthless, decisive, and motivated. The elder Verkhoen had built a global corporation from his shares of a barely profitable mining concern by cornering the gold market, and he had done it by using men, black or white, to his advantage without apology or regret. He had been one of the first Rand Barons, the white social elitists of South Africa, and had built an empire. Klaus Verkhoen was struggling to hold on to it.

  The increased cost of labor, the drop in world gold prices, and the need to dig ever deeper for gold-bearing ore threatened to break the company. The mine produced over 12,000 kilograms of gold
last year, valued at 5.6 billion ZAR, worth 456 million US dollars, and yet had shown a profit of less than 800 million ZAR. His efforts to find more gold by following the seam deeper than anyone had ever tried had ended in failure. If the stockholders had learned of the strange condition of the bodies of the two miners, the company would have gone bankrupt. He had bided his time, and four years later tried again with a second tunnel against his chief engineer, Frederick Means’, advice. When Means threatened to report his analysis of the dangers involved to the Board, he had turned to his chief of security, who in Duchamps’ inimical style, had blasted the tunnel and killed everyone involved.

  Now, Duchamps had double-crossed him. He should have seen it coming. He had ridden Duchamps like an unruly stepchild, cowed him into submission, channeled his propensity for violence into a Van Gotts tool, but he had failed to break him. Duchamps had patiently waited years for his chance for revenge. The discovery of the diamonds had provided the impetus, and the insects had provided the means. The theft of the diamonds was secondary to the revenge. Though Verkhoen loathed admitting it, Duchamps was like him in many ways.

  When security advised him of the Hoffman engineer’s death, he immediately knew Duchamps was behind it. Releasing the creatures while he made good his escape with the diamonds would be Duchamps’ ultimate act of revenge. Even meek, quiet Evelyn Means had betrayed him by contacting the World Heritage Foundation and posting a video of the creatures on YouTube. Now, he stood to lose his diamonds and his mine. At least Means and her cronies were trapped in the mine with the creatures she so wanted to preserve. He hoped they dined on her luscious little body, as they had her husbands’.

  Verkhoen knew he had to chance entering the mine. Duchamps could not have taken all the diamonds. He needed to remove them before the opportunity passed. At the same time, he would see Means and the others did not live to interfere with him again. This time he would take matters into his own hands.

  Accompanying him were six security guards, each with a packet of twenty, two-hundred-rand notes in their pockets, about seventeen-hundred American dollars, a month’s wages. He was acutely aware this would leave the trapped miners unprotected, but he needed the guards’ firepower to retrieve the diamonds and escape alive. He had seen the video of the creatures attacking the hapless miners, but their deaths did not move him. He left the remaining security personnel on the surface to prevent any of the creatures from escaping. The last thing he needed was the SADF to take charge.

  Before descending into the mine, he locked all the elevators. Now, they would only travel down unless he entered the proper code. He and the guards passed numerous mutilated corpses on the way to the new shaft, but encountered no insects until they neared the pit. Seeing the abhorrent creatures close up was unsettling, his childhood revulsion at bugs magnified a thousand times. He was pleased they weren’t immune to automatic rifle bullets.

  He reached the lava tube without incident and located the diamond seam. His eyes grew large when he saw the priceless crystals embedded in the walls, as well as nodes of nearly pure metals – gold, copper, and palladium. He glared at the empty pockets where Duchamps had pried his precious stones from the rock. His quickly realized his estimate to Hoffman of their value had been extremely pessimistic. He saw ten times the number of diamonds he had imagined. Given their color, clarity, and size, the wealth they represented was inestimable.

  As four of the guards chipped raw diamonds from the walls, some as large as five-hundred carats, the remaining two guards filled large Samsonite travel cases. Over the loud echoes of the hammering, another noise caught his attention, a mechanical one.

  “You,” he yelled, pointing to one of the guards, “go see what that noise is.”

  The guard glanced at his compatriots for support, but they avoided his gaze. He licked his lips and shuffled his feet. “Me, Mister Verkhoen? Alone?”

  “You’ve got your rifle. Now go.”

  With the choice of facing monsters or Verkhoen’s anger, he chose the monsters. He trotted back up the tube.

  Verkhoen turned to the other guards, who had stopped working and looked around nervously. “Hurry,” he yelled. “We don’t have all day.”

  Like them, the eerie silence of the lava tube was getting to him. He knew the rifles were effective against the insects, but his mind conjured imaginary creatures from childhood fairy tales told to him by his black nanny lurking in the darkness.

  Five minutes later, the guard ran back, yelling, “The machine is back in the hole. We are trapped.”

  “Trapped? That is impossible,” he replied, shoving the man aside.

  Feeling the first tingling grip of dread, he went to investigate himself. His fears magnified when he saw the Cerberus was indeed once again blocking the tunnel, sealing him inside the lava tube with the giant insects. His entomophobia seized him fully, expunging any thoughts of the diamonds or of saving his company. The idea of insects, of any size, touching his flesh or crawling over his body, sent him into a panic. Someone had moved the machine to seal them in, to seal him in. Furious, he beat on the camera with his fists, yelling at the top of his lungs to attract their attention, but nothing happened.

  “What do we do, boss?” one of the guards asked.

  Everyone had abandoned the diamonds and followed him to the tunnel. Now, they stared at Verkhoen’s bizarre behavior, growing more frightened by the second. He knew he had to regain control of his emotions, or they would leave him and fend for themselves. He considered his options, which were few. Unless someone moved the Cerberus, he had no way out of the lava tube.

  A guard yelled, “Look!” and pointed up the tube.

  The faint glow of a light grew brighter as its source neared. Someone else was in the lava tube. They had come to rescue them. He sighed in relief.

  “Hello. Who are you?” he cried out.

  “Alan Hoffman.”

  Verkhoen chuckled at the cruel twist of fate that had thrown the two men back together. He waited until Alan, Eve Means, and two other men arrived. One of them, the eldest, was on his last legs, breathing hard and barely limping along with the help of the younger man. When they stopped, the old man studied Verkhoen with the steady gaze of a careful observer. In spite of his age and deplorable physical state, the old man appeared relaxed and more at home in the lava tube than he did. He looked at Eve, noted her chilly stare, and then addressed the older man.

  “I take it you are Doctor Tells.”

  Tells nodded. “I am. You need not introduce yourself. Your decision to wear your expensive business attire instead of a coverall or jumpsuit announces you as Klaus Verkhoen. Your infamy precedes you.”

  Verkhoen frowned at the mention of his suit. While it was true he always wanted to look his best, he wore the suit because he hadn’t had time to change. It was filthy from mine dust, and the creases in his pants had gone limp because of the humidity, but what was one custom-tailored suit compared to the wealth of diamonds they had salvaged; however, he did take umbrage at Tells’ last remark. He cocked his head to one side and asked, “Infamy?”

  “We have seen evidence of your handiwork, Mister Verkhoen.”

  “Not mine. I had no hand in this. How did you get here?” he asked.

  Eve approached until she stood directly in front of him. She glared at him with undisguised hatred. Her hands jerked uncontrollably, as if she wanted to strike out. He waited for her to slap him, but she surprised him by taking a deep breath and stepping back. Her voice trembled with rage, as she replied, “We came through the tunnel you swore was flooded when Frederick was trapped. We found Frederick’s remains.” She leaned forward, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You lied to me.”

  “No, I did not,” he countered. “The water must have drained away. I regret the death of your husband. It was an unfortunate accident.”

  “Was it an accident?” Alan asked.

  Verkhoen looked Alan in the eye. The American’s cold tone left no doubt his seemingly innocuous question was
more of an accusation. “What are you implying?”

  Alan shook his head. “I’m not sure. Frederick Means’ death looks suspicious. I found blasting wire in the tunnel he was digging.”

  Verkhoen tried to hide his relief. Hoffman had no proof, only vague suspicions. “Then your problem is with Duchamps, not me. He is the one who betrayed all of us by releasing the creatures.”

  Alan glanced at the cases Verkhoen’s men carried. “I see you risked everything for the diamonds. Weren’t you at all concerned with the miners?”

  “These stones can save my company, Hoffman. The mine provides jobs for hundreds of men. The mine is more important than a few workers.” He offered Eve a defiant scowl. “I will let no one take them from me. No, the miners do not concern me. Their blood is not on my hands. Duchamps released the creatures, not I.”

  “He’s your dog. You let him off the leash.”

  Verkhoen grinned at Alan’s fitting metaphor. “He has proven to be somewhat of a problem dog.”

  “We have bigger problems, Verkhoen,” Alan said. “We came from farther up the lava tube through your sealed and flooded mine shaft. We can’t get out that way. We need to find a way out of here. Now.”

  Verkhoen waved his hand at the Cerberus. “Your man blocked the hole, but he will not answer. It is the only way out.” He looked at Alan more closely and realized the American looked frightened. “What did you find? More giant insects?” he shuddered at the thought of more giant insects.

  “No, the upper level of the lava tube was completely empty.”

  Verkhoen grew frustrated by Alan’s cryptic tone. “Why? Is there a problem? I do not understand.”

  “Think, Verkhoen. These creatures have been sealed in this lava tube system for eons. It’s been their home since the Cambrian Period. They have developed an ecosystem that works. Now, suddenly, they abandon it. Why? I think there’s something in here they wish to escape, something higher up the feeding chain.”