by Nick Thacker
Then, when the slit became nothing more than the tiniest razor cut against the cruel dark, he stopped falling.
CHAPTER eighteen
I’m alive.
Julie said the words over and over in her head, still unsure if they were true or not. She didn’t dare speak them aloud, for fear that they might change if uttered in real time, with real sounds.
I’m alive.
Then, as she silently said the words a final time, she recognized them to be true. She opened her mouth and formed the words on her lips.
“I’m alive…” she whispered.
“Damn right you’re alive,” Hendricks said from somewhere behind her. “Lucky thing, too. We landed on a huge snow bank, probably thirty feet deep. Buried up to your arms, but at least your head was poking out. I had to go dig for Ben.”
“H — how long was I out?” she asked.
Hendricks didn’t appear, and she assumed he was still behind her somewhere, possibly working on something. His voice confirmed that, his words staccato and abrupt. “About ten, fifteen minutes,” he said. “I landed flat, so I didn’t get stuck. Spent some time first though checking myself out and making sure it’s all in working order.”
“And?”
He chuckled. “As much as can be desired. As Alexander Hamilton said, ‘nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of 50.’”
“You’re 50?”
“56, actually,” Hendricks said. Still got it, too. Mostly.”
Julie tried to shake her head in disbelief, but a massive headache slammed into her temples and warned her away from that idea.
“Take a minute to get acquainted with yourself again,” Hendricks said. “But then I could use a hand over here.”
She took a few labored breaths, then swam upward and sat up. It was pitch black, but she caught the traces of a flashlight beam dancing around behind her. Her eyes adjusted a bit after another thirty seconds, and the glow of the beam was enough to get a sense of her surroundings.
As Hendricks had explained, they had been sprinkled onto the top of a massive dome of snow, each of them landing in whatever position their bodies had been in at the end of the fall. She searched a few seconds for Ben, finally finding him lying at the bottom of a shallow pit, the obvious digging marks from Hendricks’ gloved hands spreading upward from Ben’s position. She could see his chest rising and falling, but she didn’t disturb him, instead allowing him the few precious moments of rest.
God knows we’re not out of the woods yet.
“You guys okay?”
Julie turned around and saw Joshua Jefferson trudging over, Mrs. E following behind him. He fell backwards as he reached Julie, his rear end plopping into the thick snow. Mrs. E remained standing.
“We’re alive,” she said. “Thanks to Hendricks.”
Joshua’s face flashed red, a muted darker shaded that Julie caught even in the dim light. “Yeah, well, if he’d have packed longer ropes in the first place…”
“If I’d have packed longer ropes,” Hendricks said, “I guarantee you this would have been an even taller cliff.”
Mrs. E smiled, and Joshua’s face darkened into a scowl.
“Cut him some slack, Jefferson,” Reggie said. “If it were me, I’m not sure I’d have dug you out of the snow.” Reggie appeared behind Hendricks, his smile the first thing she noticed. Julie saw that both men were carefully rolling the rope and ice axes back into bundles. Hendricks was zipping one of the bundles into his pack, and Reggie had his own pack open as well, ready to receive an axe and rope bundle.
“Hey, where’s that other guy?” Reggie asked. “Kyle?”
Hendricks frowned, then jerked his pack upright and tossed it over his shoulder. “Didn’t make it.”
“What?” Joshua said. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is there something you’re not —“
“I said he didn’t make it, son,” Hendricks snapped. He had covered the short distance between Reggie and the rope bundles and Joshua’s position with lightning speed, and was now inches from Joshua’s face. The older, weathered man leaned down, his grasshopper-like thinness exaggerated by his loose-fitting parka and snow attire.
Julie saw Joshua’s jaw clenching and she waited for one of the men to strike out at the other. Instead, Hendricks straightened up, turned around, and pointed his flashlight to an area at the edge the giant snow dome.
“The snow bank ends there,” Hendricks said. “At the edge of another drop-off.”
Julie’s eyes widened.
“He didn’t make it onto the snow bank, like the rest of us. He was too far over.”
He yanked the flashlight beam down and around, then twisted the tip of the flashlight to widen the aperture and cast a lower, wider glow over the area. “Any other questions?”
Joshua shook his head, and Julie dropped hers. She hadn’t ever spoken to the man, and she barely knew him, yet his last moments in life had been spent protecting her and the rest of the group.
What a loss, she thought.
“Take a few minutes to rest, and drink some water. There’s a bottle in your packs, if it’s not already frozen. Fill it up with snow when you’re finished, then grab your axe and rope and get ready to move out.”
“Where you planning on going?” Reggie asked.
“We’ll scout the area a bit, see if there’s a ledge or anything on the other side of this pile that gets us up and out of here, or maybe an opening into a cave.”
“Seems like a long shot.”
“No,” Hendricks replied. “A long shot is surviving an explosion while being hunted by miniature attack helicopters, then dodging bullets while rappelling down a cliff, then falling to our deaths and somehow still being alive at the end of it. That’s a long shot. Finding a nice, pre-cut exit from this frozen hell? That’s an impossibility. You got a better idea, though?”
“No, I’m with you, boss. Sounds fun.”
Ben stirred, and then sat up, rubbing his eyes. He saw Julie, and she rushed to his side.
“You’re awake!”
He nodded, slowly, then groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We lived through that?”
She smiled. “And you’re just in time for the next leg of our adventure,” she said. “I’m calling it ‘trudge through Antarctica until we die or find the bad guys.’”
He stood up and brushed the snow off his pant legs. She handed him her water bottle, and waited for him to take a long, slow sip. “Yeah, I had a feeling that would be next. With a rock-solid plan like that, it’s no wonder we’re still alive.”
Julie laughed, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a man’s voice, yelling. It was muffled, and she couldn’t make out what it was saying. She ran to the edge of the snow bank, where Hendricks and the others were already standing. Reggie and Joshua had fished the lights out of their packs and all three men were pointing them down over the edge of the snow bank.
Combined, the three lights were just strong enough to barely illuminate another ledge about twenty feet down, also covered in thick snow, and the small shape protruding from it.
A face.
Specifically, the face of Ryan Kyle, who had dug his way out of the heavy snowfall enough to get his mouth out into the open.
“Anyone hear me? Hendricks? Report.”
Julie was impressed with the young man’s ability to continue playing soldier, even as he sat covered in snow heavy enough to solidify him in place. He had obviously been trained well, and the effects of isolation, cold, and fear didn’t seem to faze him.
“We’re up here, Kyle,” Hendricks said. He passed his beam quickly over the man’s face, a visible signal to him that help was on the way.
“I can’t dig the rest of the way out,” Kyle said. “Too tired. I estimate half an hour before hypothermia starts to set in.”
“Well, stop talking and rest, then,” Hendricks said. “And don’t give yourself too much credit, son, you’ll be dead in fifteen minutes without help.” Hendric
ks grinned, then handed his axe and rope to Reggie. “You think you can manage to not lose this in the snow?”
“You think you’ve got enough rope to get all the way down, this time?” Reggie shot back.
Hendricks stared at him a moment, then grinned again. “You’re all right, Red, you know that?”
“I disagree sir, but I’ve been called worse.” He finished tying the rope around his waist. “Belay on.”
Hendricks disappeared over the edge, and it was only a few seconds before he was on his feet again at the bottom and walking toward Kyle. He immediately began digging the young man out of the snow, Kyle helping as he could when he got an arm free.
Hendricks filled him in on the fall, how he had dug out the rest of the team, and how they were lucky to be alive, then he added that he was proud of him for his performance in the truck. Kyle accepted the praise well, nodding as they worked him out of the snow.
“So that’s where we are,” Hendricks said. “Stuck at the bottom, cliffs on both sides, and nowhere to go.”
Kyle frowned, then pointed behind Hendricks. “Why not start there?” he asked.
CHAPTER nineteen
Jonathan Colson knew as soon as the elevator door shut and the slow-moving module began its descent that they weren’t headed for Level 7.
Well, they were headed toward Level 7, but he knew they wouldn’t stop there.
He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t decide if he was angry or terrified. Or both. The man, his boss’ boss, whom he still couldn’t name, wasn’t speaking either. Colson stared silently forward, looking out the metal grate that formed the front of the elevator and watched as the levels passed by.
5, 6, 7. The elevator didn’t slow, confirming Colson’s worst fears.
There was a Support Level on 8, essentially an open warehouse with piles of crates, boxes, and any industrial tools or equipment needed for station repairs and maintenance. They rode past it, and Colson could see lines of small automated forklifts busy organizing a set of heavy crates that had just been dropped off.
9. Colson saw the light flash on the elevator’s interior panel, then dim again as they descended yet another level. He saw the rows of blinking computer consoles, the server farm stretching clear across the entire floor.
He started breathing heavier as they neared Level 10. The bottom of the base, they called it. Many didn’t even know there was a Level 10, and those who did thought it was just another server farm or support floor. Colson, however, did know there was a tenth level. And thanks to his pseudo-friendship with Angela Stokes, he knew the floor had two nicknames: Cryo and Uplink.
That, unfortunately, was the extent of Colson’s knowledge regarding the level and its purpose. As the elevator neared the bottom, he wondered about the two words and how they related to one another and the rest of the station.
The air dropped another few degrees, and there was a noticeable change in the pressure as they reached the bottom level. The elevator hit the hard surface of the slab of concrete beneath it, not employing any slowing mechanisms before the jolt. Jonathan Colson jumped, both from the sudden stop as well as the feeling of foreboding that was passing over him.
This is it, he thought. We’re here. He looked around at the empty floor of the elevator. What am I doing? Am I actually looking for a weapon? Could I even —
He wasn’t able to finish the thought before he was pushed out of the open door of the elevator and out onto Level 10’s ice-cold floor. The door slammed shut behind him. There was no breeze, but the refrigerated level’s atmosphere seemed to be completely different from the rest of the base, and Colson shivered.
Two men, dressed in the uniforms of the station’s security guards, grabbed Colson’s arms and shoved him along down the first narrow row of metal stacks. He did his best to observe his surroundings, trying to piece together any information that might help him understand more about what they intended to do with him. That he was done working for the company was abundantly clear. His fear now shifted to another thought: he might be done doing anything.
They entered the first row, and he felt like he was in a massive warehouse of filing cabinets. Metal drawers were stacked on top of one another, floor to ceiling, on both sides of the narrow hallway. There was just enough light high above to see, but it made observing any minute details impossible. All he could gather at this point was that the filing cabinets were all closed, a simple metal handle stuck out from the fronts of each one, and the effect was an endless sea of dark gray. There was a single blinking light, red or orange, on some of the boxes.
The two security guards tightened their grip on him and shuffled him to the right, down another hallway that cut the room in half perpendicular to the row they were walking down previously. This hallway was wider, but not by much. He saw each row lined up in front of and behind him now, stretching toward the end of the room a thousand feet away. Each row was capped off by a flat metal wall, and enormous wraps of cabling jutted out from holes that had been cut every foot or so, one above the other.
They continued walking, and Colson saw that the cables terminated into the concrete floor, and could only assume that the cables provided some sort of power or interconnectivity throughout the massive room.
He’d often considered this station a prison, albeit one with perks like energy drinks and a decent cafeteria, as well as the freedom to move about throughout the station mostly unimpeded. But walking down this frozen hallway, eyeing row after row of enlarged filing cabinets, he had to wonder if his premonition was even more true than he’d initially thought.
The security guards stopped when they reached the end of the hallway, then turned left. Colson tried his best to keep track of where they were. They’d left the elevator, walked to the central hallway and turned right, and were now heading down toward the far wall of this level. It was a relatively simple floor plan, but the endless rows of metal stacks made it seem more dizzying and maze-like than any other level.
Finally, right near the corner of the room, they stopped. He hadn’t seen any other people on this level, and Stokes’ boss hadn’t even stepped out of the elevator when Colson was pushed out onto this level, but the security guards took a moment to observe their surroundings. They looked down both stretches of hallway, then finally turned back to their task.
Colson was physically shaking now, barely able to hide his trembling lip. One of the security guards bent down and pulled open one of the filing cabinets. Gleaming white light shone back up at them, and Colson found himself blinking away the brightness. After his eyes adjusted, he looked back down at the open cabinet.
The drawer was about six feet long, and padded inside with white cloth and fabric. A small strap of cables pushed through the fabric near the back side of the drawer and connected to another piece of fabric, this one blue and shaped like a swim cap.
“Let’s make this easy on all of us,” one of the guards said. His voice was high-pitched, like an adolescent boy’s, and in any other situation Colson would have started laughing. The taser, pistol, and man’s cold, dead eyes, as well as the fact that Colson was beginning to understand what was about to happen, kept him silent.
Colson gulped, not caring anymore to try to hide his emotions. He looked from one man to the other, each still holding one of his arms.
Can I get free? If I could, could I even get away?
He thought about his middle-aged, doughy body, and wondered what his chances were that the security force here in the station would be equally out of shape. Doubtful. At the very least, they would have to have a basic level of physical fitness to even qualify for this assignment, and if the company had chosen anything better than a bare-bones mall security-style private security team, Colson was sure they were fit enough to take him down.
Okay, then what else?
He was running out of time. They would allow a brief moment of hesitation, fear, possibly even insubordination, but eventually they would continue doing their job.
In this
case, their job was to force Colson into a box, slam it shut, and lock it.
What would happen after that Colson didn’t have the faintest idea.
Last chance. What’s your move?
His inner dialogue was yelling back at him, screaming for him to take action. He felt a drop of spittle at the corner of his mouth and his eyes stared down at the gleaming white open cabinet. He remained motionless, a statue of a man who used to be alive and was now sculpted in stone, silently watching his own fate spooling out in front of him.
It was a surreal experience, not moving to even fight for his own life, all the while screaming silently to himself to take action, and yet knowing it would be in vain.
The men shifted, and he felt his legs leave the floor. The brief sense of vertigo passed quickly and was replaced by the same hollow, rock-hard emptiness he was feeling a moment ago. His legs were now at eye-level, and they were lifting him, parallel to the floor, higher and higher. Soon he was at the height of the box, and then a few inches higher.
The men smoothly slid him forward, his head now resting on the cool, soft surface of the inside of the box. They pushed his lower body, and he slid farther forward. The space became cramped, and the alarm klaxons in his head tore through his psyche.
Still, he didn’t move a muscle.
One of the men reached over his head and began to secure the swim cap to his skull. He had a flash of insight — he could bite the man’s arm, then kick the other man, then wriggle free and escape. Maybe if he attacked quickly and solidly enough, he could leave them stunned, giving him a head start back to the elevator.
The feeling passed, and he took no action.
The swim cap seemed to suck the remainder of his wispy, graying hair up and toward the top of his head, and the guard struggled to get the latex cap tightly pressed down over his temples. Finally the guard snapped the stretchy cap out of his grasp and onto Colson’s head, then stepped back to admire his work.