by A. G. Riddle
and Western Europe have reported a flood of new flu cases, sparking fears that it might be the beginning of an outbreak of a previously unidentified flu strain.
CHAPTER 88
Kate leaned her head against the wooden wall of the alcove and stared at the sun, wishing she could stop it right where it was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw David open his eyes and look up at her. She opened the journal and continued reading before he could say anything.
December 20th, 1917
The Moroccan workers cower as the rock comes down around them. The space fills with smoke and we retreat back into the shaft. And then we wait and listen, ready to pile into the car that straddles the rails, ready to zoom out of the shaft at the first sign of trouble — fire or water in this case.
The first cry of a canary breaks the silence and one by one we all exhale and move back into the massive room to see how far the latest roll of the dice has gotten us.
We are close. But not quite there.
“Told you we should have drilled it deeper,” Rutger says.
I don’t remember him saying anything. In fact, I’m pretty sure he sat indolently, not even inspecting the hole before we packed it with the chemical explosive. He walks to the excavation site for a better look, raking his hand on one of the canary cages as he passes by, sending the bird into a panic.
“Don’t touch the cages,” I say.
“You’d let them choke to death on methane gas to give yourself a few minutes head start, but I can’t even rattle them?”
“Those birds could save every one of our lives. I won’t have you torture them for your own enjoyment.”
Rutger unloads the rage meant for me on the Moroccan foreman. He shouts at the poor man in French, and the dozen workers begin clearing the rubble from the blast.
It’s been almost four months since I first toured the site, since I first set foot in this strange room. In the first few months of digging, it became clear that the part of the structure they had found was an access tunnel at the bottom of the structure. It led to a door that was sealed — with some sort of technology beyond anything we could ever hope to break through. And we tried everything — fire, ice, explosives, chemicals. The Berbers on the work crew even performed some strange tribal ritual, possibly for their own sake. But it soon became clear that we weren’t getting through the door. Our theory is that it’s some sort of drainage tunnel or emergency evacuation route, sealed for who-knows-how-many thousands of years.
After some debate, the Immari Council — that’s Kane, Craig, and Lord Barton, my now father-in-law, decided we should move up the structure, into the area that contains the methane pockets. That’s slowed us down, but in the last several weeks we’ve uncovered signs that we’re reaching some sort of entrance. The smooth surface of the structure, some metal that’s harder than steel and makes almost no noise when you strike it, has begun to slope. A week ago we found steps.
The dust is clearing, and I see more steps. Rutger shouts for the men to work faster, as if this thing is going anywhere.
Beyond the dust behind me, I hear footfalls and see my assistant running. “Mr. Pierce. Your wife is at the office. She’s looking for you.”
“Rutger!” I yell. He turns. “I’m taking the truck. Don’t blast anything until I get back.”
“The hell I won’t! We’re close, Pierce.”
I grab the pack of blast caps and run to the car. “Drive me to the surface,” I say to my assistant.
Behind me, Rutger bellows out a tirade about my cowardice.
At the surface, I change quickly and scrub my hands. Before I can leave for the office, the telephone at the warehouse rings and the manager walks out. “Sorry, Mr. Pierce, she’s done and left.”
“What did they tell her?”
“Sorry sir, I don’t know.”
“Was she sick? Was she going to the hospital?”
The man shrugs apologetically. “I… I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t ask—”
I’m out the door and in the car before he can finish. I rush to the hospital, but she’s not there, and they haven’t seen her. From the hospital, the switchboard operator connects me to the newly installed phone at our residence. It rings ten times. The operator breaks on. “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no answer—”
“Let it ring. I’ll wait.”
Five more rings. The more and our butler, Desmond, comes on. “Pierce residence, Desmond speaking.”
“Desmond, is Mrs. Pierce there?”
“Yes sir.”
I wait. “Well, put her on then,” I say, trying but failing to hide my nervousness.
“Of course, sir!” he says, embarrassed. He’s not used to the phone. It’s probably why it took him so long to answer.
Three minutes pass, and Desmond comes back on the line. “She’s in her room, sir. Shall I have Myrtle go in and see about her—”
“No. I’ll be there directly.” I hang up, run out of the hospital, and hop back in the car.
I order my assistant to drive faster and faster. We zoom recklessly through the streets of Gibraltar, forcing several carriages off the street and scattering shoppers and tourists at each turn.
When we arrive at home, I jump out, race up the stairs, throw open the doors, and storm through the foyer. Pain punches at my leg with every step, and I’m sweating profusely, but I plow on, driven by fear. I climb the grand staircase to the second floor, make a bee line for our bedroom, and enter without knocking.
Helena turns over, clearly surprised to see me. And surprised at the sight of me — sweat dripping from my forehead, the panting, the painful grimace. “Patrick?”
“Are you alright?” I say as I sit on the bed with her and brush the thick blankets back. I run my hand over her swollen stomach.
She sits up in the bed. “I could ask you the same thing. Of course I’m alright; why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you might have come because you, or there was a problem…” I exhale and the worry flows from my body. I scold her with my eyes. “The doctor said you should stay in bed.”
She slumps back into the pillows. “You try staying in bed for months on end—”
I smile at her as she realizes what she’s said.
“Sorry, but as I recall you weren’t all that good at it either.”
“No, you’re right, I wasn’t. I’m sorry I missed you; what is it?”
“What?”
“You came by the office?”
“Oh, yes. I wanted to see if you could slip out for lunch, but they told me you were already out.”
“Yes. A… problem down at the docks.” It’s the 100th time I’ve lied to Helena. It hasn’t gotten any easier, but the alternative is a lot worse.
“The perils of being a shipping magnate.” She smiles. “Well, maybe another day.”
“Maybe in a few weeks, when it will be three for lunch.”
“Three indeed. Or maybe four; I feel that big.”
“You don’t look it.”
“You’re a brilliant liar,” she says.
Brilliant liar isn’t the half of it.
Our revelry is interrupted by the sound of knocking in the next room. I turn my head.
“They’re measuring the drawing room and the parlor below,” Helena says.
We’ve already renovated for a nursery and enlarged three bedrooms for the children. I bought us a massive row house with a separate cottage for the house staff, and I can’t imagine what else we might need now.
“I thought we could build a dancing room, with a parquet floor, like the one in my parent’s house.”
Every man has limits. Helena can do whatever she wants to the house; that’s not the issue. “If we have a son?” I ask.
“Don’t worry.” She pats my hand. “I won’t subject your strong American son to the dull intricacies of English society dance. But we’re having a girl.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You know this?”
“I have a feeling.”
“Then we’ll need a dancing room,” I say, smiling.
“Speaking of dancing, an invitation came by messenger today. The Immari Annual Meeting and Christmas Ball, they’re having it in Gibraltar this year. There’s to be quite a celebration. I rang Mother. She and Father will be there. I’d like to go. I’ll take it easy, I assure you.”
“Sure. It’s a date.”
CHAPTER 89
Kate squinted, trying to read the journal. The sun was setting over the mountains and dread was building in her stomach. She glanced over at David. His expression was almost blank, unreadable. Maybe somber.
As if reading her mind, Milo entered the large wood-floored room with a gas-burning lantern. Kate liked the smell; it somehow put her at ease.
Milo set the lantern on a table by the bed, where the light would reach the journal and said, “Good evening, Dr. Kate—” Upon seeing that David was awake, he brightened. “And hello again, Mr. Ree—”
“It’s David Vale now. It’s nice to see you again, Milo. You’ve gotten a lot taller.”
“And that’s not all, Mr. David. Milo has learned the ancient art of communication you know as… English.”
David laughed. “And learned it well. I wondered at the time if they would toss it out or actually give it to you — the Rosetta Stone.”
“Ah, my mysterious benefactor finally reveals himself!” Milo bowed again. “I thank you for the gift of your language. And now, may I repay the gift, at least partially,” he raised his eyebrows mysteriously, “with the evening meal?”
“Please,” Kate said, laughing.
David gazed out the window. The last sliver of the sun slipped behind the mountain like a pendulum disappearing in the side of a clock. “You should get your rest, Kate. It’s a very long walk.”
“I’ll rest when we finish. I find reading relaxing.” She opened the book again.
December 23rd, 1917
I strain to see as the dust clears. Then I squint, not believing me eyes. We’ve uncovered more stairs, but there’s something else, expanding to the right of the stairs — an opening, like a gash in the metal.
“We’re in!” Rutger screams and rushes forward into the darkness and floating dust.
I grab for him, but he breaks my grasp. My leg has gotten some better, to the point where I only take one pain pill, sometimes two, each day, but I’ll never catch him.
“You want us go after ‘im?” The Moroccan foreman asks.
“No,” I say. I wouldn’t sacrifice one of them to save Rutger. “Hand me one of the birds.” I take the Canary cage, switch my headlamp on and wade into the dark opening.
The jagged portal is clearly the result of a blast or a rip. But we didn’t make it. We merely found it — the metal walls are almost five feet thick. As I cross into this structure the Immari have been digging and diving for going on almost 60 years, I’m finally overcome by awe. The first area is a corridor, ten feet wide by thirty feet long. It opens to a circular room with wonders I can’t begin to describe. The first thing that catches my eye is an indention in the wall with four tubes, like massive oblong capsules or elongated mason jars, standing on their ends, running from the floor to the ceiling. They’re empty except for a faint white light and fog that floats at the bottom. Farther over, there are two more tubes. One is damaged, I think. The glass is cracked and there’s no fog. But the tube beside it… there’s something in it. Rutger sees it just as I do and he’s at the tube, which seems to sense our presence. The fog clears as we approach, like a curtain rolling back to reveal its secret.
It’s a man. No, an ape. Or something in between.
Rutger looks back at me, for the first time with an expression other than arrogance or contempt. He’s confused. Maybe scared. I certainly am.
I put my hand on his shoulder and resume scanning the room. “Don’t touch anything, Rutger.”
CHAPTER 90
December 24th, 1917
Helena glows in the dress. The tailor spent a week taking it out and took me for a small fortune, but it was worth the wait and every last shilling I paid him. She’s radiant. We dance, both ignoring her promise to take it easy. I can’t say no to her. Mostly I stand stationary, but the pain is manageable, and for perhaps once in our lives, we are well-matched on the dance floor. The music slows, she rests her head on my shoulder, and I forget about the ape-man in the tube. The world feels normal again, for the first time since that tunnel exploded on the Western Front.
Then, like the fog in the tube, it all goes away. The music stops and Lord Barton is speaking, raising a glass. He’s toasting me — Immari’s new head of shipping, his daughter’s husband, and a war hero. Heads nod around the room. There’s some joke about a modern day Lazarus man, back from the dead. Laughter. I smile. Helena hugs me closer. Barton’s finally finished, and around the room, revelers are downing champagne and nodding at me. I make a silly little bow and escort Helena back to our table.
At that moment, for some reason I can’t understand, all I can think about is the last time I saw my father — the day before I shipped off to the war. He got drunk as a sailor that night and lost control — the first, last, and only time I ever saw him lose control. He told me about his childhood that night, and I understood him, or so I thought. How much can you ever really understand any man?
We lived in a modest home in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, alongside the homes of people who worked for my father. His peers, the other business owners, merchants, and bankers, lived across town, and my father liked it that way.
He paced in the living room, spitting as he spoke. I sat there in my pristine tan US Army uniform, the single brass bar of a second Lieutenant’s rank hanging on my collar.
“You look as foolish as another man I knew who joined an American army. He was almost giddy as he ran back to the cabin. He waved the letter in the air like the King himself had written it. He read it to us, but I didn’t understand it all then. We were moving down to America — a place called Virginia. The war between the states had broken out about two years earlier. I can’t remember exactly when, but it was getting pretty bloody by this point. And both sides needed more men, fresh bodies for the grinder. But if you were rich enough, you didn’t have to go. You just had to send a substitute. Some rich southern planter had hired your grandfather as his substitute. A substitute. The idea of hiring another man to die in the war in your place, just because you have the money. When they start the conscriptions this go round, I’ll see to it in the Senate that no man can send a replacement.”
“They won’t need conscripts. Brave men are joining by the thousands—”
He laughed and poured another drink. “Brave men by the thousands. Fools by the train car load — joining because they think there’s glory in it, maybe fame and adventure. They don’t know the cost of war. The price you pay.” He shook his head and took another long pull, almost emptying the glass. “Word will get around soon, and then they’ll have to draft, just like the states did during the Civil War. They didn’t at first, this was years after the war started, when people got a taste of it, that’s when they began the conscriptions and rich men started writing to poor men like my father. But the post runs slow in the Canadian frontier, especially if you’re a logger living way out of town. By the time we got down to Virginia, this planter had already hired another substitute, said he hadn’t heard from your grandfather, was scared he’d have to show up himself, heaven forbid. But we were in Virginia, and he was hell bent on fighting for a fortune — up to $1,000 — that’s what the substitutes were paid, and it was a fortune, if you could collect it. Well he didn’t. He found another planter who was up against it, and he wore that wretched gray uniform and died in it. When the South lost, society crumbled, and the huge track of land promised to your grandfather as payment was bought by some northern carpet bagger on the steps of the county courthouse for pennies on the dollar.” He finally sat down, his glass empty.
“But that was the least of the horror of Reconstructi
on. I watched my only brother die of typhoid while the occupying Union soldiers ate us out of house and home, what home there was — a small run-down shack on the plantation. The new owner kicked us out, but my mother made a deal: she’d work the fields if we could stay. And she did. Worked those fields to death. I was twelve when I walked off the plantation and hitched my way to West Virginia. Work in the mines was hard to get, but they needed boys, the smaller the better — to crawl through the narrow spaces. So that’s the cost of war. Now you know. At least you don’t have a family. But that’s what you have to look forward to: death and misery. If you’ve ever wondered why I was so hard on you, so frugal, so demanding — there it is. Life is hard — for everyone — but it’s hell on earth if you’re foolish or weak. You’re neither, I’ve seen to it, and this is how you repay me.”
“This is a different war—”
“It’s always the same war. Only the names of the dead change. It’s always about one thing: which group of rich men get to divvy up the spoils. They call it ‘The Great War’ — clever marketing. It’s a European Civil War, the only question is which kings and queens will divvy up the continent when it’s all over. America’s got no business over there, that’s why I voted against it. The Europeans had the good sense to stay the hell out of our civil war, you’d think we might do the same. Whole affair is practically a family feud between the royal families, they’re all cousins.”
“And they’re our cousins. Our mother country’s back is against the wall. They would come to our aide if we were facing annihilation.”
“We don’t owe them a thing. America is ours. We’ve paid for this land with our blood, sweat, and tears — the only currency that has ever mattered.”
“They need miners desperately. Tunnel warfare could end the war early. You’d have me stay home? I can save lives.”
“You can’t save lives.” He looked disgusted. “You haven’t understood a word I’ve said, have you? Get out of here. And even if you do make it back from the war, don’t come back here. But do me one favor, for all I’ve given you. When you figure out that you’re fighting some other man’s war, walk away. And don’t start a family until you take that uniform off. Don’t be as cruel and greedy as he was. We walked through the devastation of the North to reach that plantation in Virginia. He knew what he was getting into, and he charged on. When you see war, you’ll know. Make better choices than the one you made today.” He walked out of the room, and I never saw him again.
I’m so lost in the memory I barely notice the throngs of people that file past us, introducing themselves and touching Helena’s stomach. We sit there like a royal couple at some state function. There are dozens of scientists, in town no doubt to study the room we recently uncovered. I meet the heads of Immari divisions overseas. The organization is massive. Konrad Kane marches over. His legs and arms are rigid, his back is straight and unbending, as if he were being probed with some unseen instrument. He introduces the woman at his side — his wife. Her smile is warm and she speaks kindly, which catches me off guard. I’m a little embarrassed at my harsh demeanor. A young boy runs from behind her (she must have been holding him), and jumps into Helena’s lap, crushing her stomach. I grab him by the arm, jerking him off of her and back onto the ground. My face is filled with rage, and the boy looks as though he will cry. Konrad locks eyes with me, but the boy’s mother has her arms around him, admonishing, “Be careful, Dieter. Helena is pregnant.”
Helena straightens in the chair and reaches for the boy. “It’s ok, give me your hand, Dieter.” She takes the boy’s arm and pulls him to her, placing the hand on her stomach. “You feel that?” The boy looks up at Helena and nods. Helena smiles at him. “I remember when you were inside your mama’s stomach. I remember the day you were born.”
Lord Barton steps between Konrad and me. “It’s time.” He looks at the woman and the child palming Helena’s swollen belly. “Excuse us, ladies.”
Barton leads us through the hall, to a large conference room.
The other apostles of the apocalypse are here waiting on us: Rutger, Mallory Craig, and a cadre of other men, mostly scientists and researchers. The introductions are hasty. These men are clearly less star-struck with me. There’s another quick round of congratulations and hyperbole like we’ve cured the plague; then they get down to business.
“When will we get through — to the top of the stairwell?” Konrad asks.
I know what I want to say, but the curiosity gets the better of me. “What are the devices in the chamber we found?”
One of the scientists speaks. “We’re still studying them. Some sort of suspension chamber.”