“Thank you, Anna,” Ivan said. His creators hadn’t given him a face that allowed any kind of expression, but even Jack thought he could hear a hint of something more in the robot’s voice.
“How about the next time you decide to tinker with his subroutine, you check with me first?” Yuri scolded Anna. “He’s exactly the way we wanted him to be, a trained killer.”
“My apologies, Mr. Volkov,” Anna said, dejected.
“Go easy on her,” Jack told him. “She’s smart as a whip, but inside she’s still a kid.”
Yuri left without saying a word, his team and Ivan following close behind.
Stark’s voice came over the OHMD radio. “Jack, the Delta team is inside the pyramid’s chamber room, raring to go. I need you and the rest of your people here on the double.”
“On our way,” Jack replied. They were about to head through Base Camp Zulu and up into the pyramid when a shuttle arrived from the elevator. A female in a biosuit jumped off and ran toward them.
“Thank goodness, I thought you might have left without me,” Mia said, holding her helmet by the seal.
“I thought you were busy running tests on the twins?” Jack said, confused.
“The first batch is done and I wanted to give Dr. Jansson a chance to review the data on her own. It’s pretty wild stuff, let me tell you.”
Dag threw his helmet on, the inner light illuminating his face. “I’ll bet not nearly as wild as where we’re headed.”
Chapter 17
50 hours, 01 minutes, 25 seconds
By the time Jack and the others arrived the briefing was already underway. To one side stood Yuri, Ivan and the robot’s technicians. On the other was the six-man Delta team, each decked out in strange-looking biocammies.
“Geez, they look like something out of a Van Gogh painting,” Mia whispered to Jack.
No doubt about it, they were a strange sight. Jack was used to seeing these guys in desert or forest fatigues, but if the point was to blend in to their surroundings on the other side, then the colors they were wearing would do the trick.
Admiral Stark motioned to a muscular-looking soldier next to him. He was at least three inches shorter than Stark, which meant he was about five foot eight and a hundred eighty pounds. Tufts of dark, wavy hair poked out from beneath the bandana he wore on his head. His lips were full and contoured by a dark, handlebar mustache which disappeared beneath his strong chin. The soldier glared back at them with alert and hardened eyes.
“Staff Sergeant Stokes here is in charge of getting you in and out in one piece. If he tells you to jump, your only response should be, ‘How high?’ I hope I’m understood. We don’t have the time to replace you folks if things go sideways. Nonmilitary personnel will be issued sidearms and rifles for emergency purposes only. You need to find a way out of that jungle and attempt to make contact with any intelligent species you encounter.”
Jack remembered the mummified Atean bodies they had found on the ship in the Gulf and what he would give to meet one of them in real life.
“Any questions?”
“Can I have a rifle with a grenade launcher?” Dag asked, as one of Admiral Stark’s men outfitted him.
“No,” he snapped. “Any other questions?”
Yuri raised his hand. “I will be joining the mission to help support Ivan and insure his optimal performance.”
Jack leaned toward Mia. “If they want optimal performance, they should let Anna have another look at him.”
She snickered. “Be careful what you wish for.”
Sergeant Stokes came forward. “By now, each of you has been instructed on the hand signals you might see when we’re on the other side. Our helmets are sealed, so there are no worries about being overheard, but there may be periods where we need to maintain radio silence.”
He then introduced the other members of the Delta team. Stokes pointed to each of the men one by one. “This is Corporal Kerr, Peterson, Diaz, Bates and Conroy.” Each of them looked serious and incredibly professional. “These men are like brothers. We’ve been on missions around the world. A thought doesn’t pass through their heads without me knowing about it first.”
Jack elbowed Mia playfully. “Maybe you should include Stokes in your research.”
She let out a skittish, nervous little laugh.
He put an arm around her. “It’s not every day you get to travel from one planet to another.”
Mia nodded. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Minutes later, they entered the decontamination chamber. Then one by one they stepped through the portal. Jack and Mia were the last to go and just before they went through he said, “Just stay close and whatever you do, don’t wander off.”
•••
The buzzing in Mia’s ears was so intense she wondered if she was about to go deaf. Pinpoints of light assaulted her eyes even after she snapped her lids shut. She willed herself to put one foot in front of the other, if for no other reason than to escape the tortured feeling of straddling two vastly different worlds. Jack caught her as she came out the other side, her breathing heavy and ragged.
The spectacular sight that greeted her was like nothing she could have imagined. Of course, she had seen the images and videos Jack and Anna had brought back, but no digital rendering could compare to the real thing. She felt like Dorothy leaving the black and white world of Kansas and entering the land of Oz.
“It’s a lot to take in the first time,” Jack said, watching her with a smile.
Dag was beside her and must have said the words ‘far out’ a dozen times.
Stokes and the other Delta operators formed a loose perimeter around them.
“Whatever planet this is,” Mia said, her voice sounding distant even to her own ears, “we found one with a blue sky just like our own.”
Jack glanced up through a small opening in the thick, multicolored canopy overhead and noticed for the first time that she was right. The sun had been directly overhead the first time he’d been here, washing out the sky with blinding light.
“The incoming blue light waves interact with the air molecules in the atmosphere,” Anna explained. “As a result, they tend to scatter more than red light waves. This is why blue is more visible than red. Technically speaking, it is what is called the Rayleigh effect.”
Nearby, Yuri was running a quick diagnostic on Ivan.
“Would you like some help?” Anna offered.
“Buzz off,” he barked, his fingers scrolling down a tablet with lines of code.
Anna looked around, confused by Yuri’s reaction, before moving away. A case on her back contained three drones. Jack and Dag came over and removed them one by one, tossing the objects into the air. The tiny propeller engines started at once, revving up to a high-pitched whine as the drones momentarily dipped and then lifted into the air.
“Let’s start by mapping the immediate area,” Jack suggested. “That way we’ll have an idea of what’s around us.”
“I still don’t get why a supposedly intelligent alien race would lay a doorway down in the middle of a jungle,” Dag said, the pessimism practically oozing off his every word. “You ask me, whoever lived here is long gone, man. I mean we dig down deep enough and we’re sure to find the foundations of ancient skyscrapers or something.” He kicked at the loose soil before him as if to drive home the point. “The world’s about to end and here we are on a wild goose―”
“Hey, what is that?” Mia asked, staring at the dirt Dag had just kicked up. She bent down and grabbed hold of a rounded white lever. She moved it back and forth until the lever broke free. As she held the object in the air, it immediately became clear she was holding an arm bone. But who did it belong to? The bone’s dark color and porous quality made it clear it had been there a while.
Mia snapped a shot with her glasses and then ran it against everything they had on file. Soon enough, they found a match. She forwarded the findings to the others.
“It’s from the Mesonyx peo
ple,” Dag said, amazed.
Yuri glanced up from his work. “The who?”
“The long-lost civilization that built the city under the Greenland ice sheet,” Jack told him. “The one you travelled through on your way to Base Camp Zulu. Or maybe you were on your phone.”
Yuri scoffed.
“Anyway, this proves that at some stage, they travelled through the portal. But why?”
Dag shifted uncomfortably. “For all we know the guy was a sacrifice, sent here to appease the alien gods who were busy destroying their world.”
“Yuri,” Stokes said, still eyeing the perimeter. “You nearly done over there? We need to make our way off the LZ ASAP. No telling how much daylight we got left and I don’t intend to be caught here after dark.”
Some topographical data had already started coming back via the drones. “A hill with a clearing at the top lies a hundred meters in that direction,” Anna said, pointing. “The gap in the canopy should enable us to send the drones even higher.”
The group headed in that direction with Ivan in the lead, cutting a path through the vibrant undergrowth with his powerful tank-like treads.
Mia pulled up the atmospheric readings. “I suggest everyone fight the urge to remove your helmets. The air here is barely over ten percent oxygen.”
“That bad?” Kerr asked. He was a short but handsome Southerner with a compact frame and a distinct Tennessee twang.
“Only if you enjoy breathing,” Jack told him, not bothering to sugarcoat the reality of the situation. The terrain inclined and Jack began breathing more heavily.
Kerr must have seen him sucking wind and said, “Lucky for me, I used to run along the Blue Ridge Mountains as a kid, hunting rabbits and squirrels. Felt like my own backyard.”
“This remind you of home?” Jack said, aware that all the exertion was elevating the temperature inside his biosuit.
“A wee bit,” Kerr admitted. “Except for the funky psychedelic colors. I’ve already snapped a bunch of pics with these glasses. Otherwise, the folks back home would never believe me.”
“Let’s hope when all is said and done you have folks to go back to,” Jack said, not aiming to sound like a downer, but eager to keep it clear that this wasn’t a simulation. This was the real deal and the game clock was ticking down.
All of the sudden, Ivan hit a steep jungle berm. The robot’s treads rolled on, churning up the ground and flinging it behind him.
“Ivan, stop,” Yuri snapped.
“Understood,” Ivan replied and stopped moving.
“At least he’s obedient,” Mia said with a wry smile.
“Ivan’s terrain-mapping program is rather primitive,” Anna said, innocently. “I believe the undergrowth and certain shades of foliage are not being recognized by his laser sensors.”
Mia caught the scowl on Yuri’s face as he noted down Anna’s observations in his tablet. She understood some of the annoyance the Russian was surely experiencing. Anna could be infuriatingly frank and frustratingly thorough at times.
Mia turned her attention back to the ledge Ivan had driven into and noticed two things. The first was the way the blueish vines snaked up the uniform surface. The second was how unnatural it looked. From here, the outcropping of earth appeared to rise up at a perfect right angle at least fifteen feet into the air.
“You caught that too,” Jack said, standing next to her and eyeing the slightly camouflaged obstruction.
“Could it be a structure of some kind?” she wondered.
“Anna,” Jack called out. “Have the drones do a quick pass over this location and trace the extent of this outcropping.”
“Of course, Dr. Greer.”
Seconds later came the whiz of the three drones as they flew overhead, moving in a widening array of circles.
They watched the feed as the scan took place in real time.
“Right there,” Jack said with excitement as he projected a 3D rendition before him and used his outstretched hands to rotate it. “See the shadow on the other side?”
“It does sorta look like a doorway,” Dag admitted, tilting his head and growing more convinced.
The opening Jack had found meant a fifty-meter detour from their current location. If it provided any clues about who might have once inhabited this place, then it would be well worth the time to investigate. Cutting through the jungle, the group clambered over uneven terrain to reach the possible entryway. Now practiced with climbing ladders and stairs, Anna made short work of the obstacles. Ivan on the other hand was struggling, in spite of his impressive treads.
“I suggest you go around,” Anna said, waving her hand around in a half circle. “The ground is not as steep over there.”
“He can make it,” Yuri insisted, ordering Ivan on.
By the time Jack and the others arrived they could still hear Ivan working himself through the dense brush.
“If that damn robot gets any louder,” Stokes said, banging the light on his helmet until it turned on, “he’s gonna announce our presence to every damn thing within a five-mile radius.” Stokes ordered his men to fan out while Jack, Mia and the others tried to make sense of what they were seeing.
They stood for a moment, eyeing the clean vertical and horizontal lines of a doorway. “It clearly used to be a structure,” Jack said, in the process of brushing away some of the thin overhanging vines when something flew out at him from inside. Jack reeled back and lost his balance and began to fall, only to be caught by one of Ivan’s outstretched arms. The other arm followed whatever had flown past Jack’s head and downed it with a single shot from one of its imbedded weapons.
The bird or whatever it was tumbled out of the air, landing directly at Stokes’ feet. Dag ran over to enclose it in a sample bag.
The Delta team was on edge, scanning the perimeter from the ground to the treetops.
Diaz, a Latino with dark skin and a pencil-thin mustache, jerked his rifle around. “I got a red dot, flying around my position.”
“They’re harmless,” Jack shouted, still rattled.
“Are you all right, Dr. Greer?” the stout robot asked in his metallic twang, setting Jack back on his feet.
“That was some impressive shooting,” Jack admitted, noticing the wisp of smoke rising from Ivan’s barrel. “If only your wall-detecting skills were as strong.”
Yuri fought off a grin. “Let’s just say we wanted to get the important things right first.”
Jack spun to find Mia ducking past the low-hanging vines and through the opening. He drew his pistol and followed after her. Thick tree roots snaked along the floor. Branches and thick fronds lined every inch of the walls and ceiling. Jack turned on his helmet light as the two of them descended what had once been a long set of stairs.
“Hold the vines as you go,” he told her, holstering his pistol so he could do the same.
An arched opening sat at the base of the staircase.
Jack studied it as he went by, estimating the archway’s height at nine feet. “We’re not in munchkin land, I can tell you that much.”
The chamber beyond the archway was enormous and filled with its own forest. The amount of ancient-looking undergrowth was staggering. Massive orange tree trunks hugged the walls, as wide as the support struts on the Golden Gate Bridge. As they rose, Mia noticed how their branches coursed across the high ceiling toward the entrance as though searching for a way out.
Already they had spotted several new species of plant life that had taken up residence in this sunless environment. A row of long magenta tubes emerged from a nearby ledge, puffing out spore rings like patrons in a cigar lounge.
Mia followed as a dot of red light danced through the air before settling on the petal of a yellow flower.
“That’s a wisp,” Jack said, moving closer. “Anna and I spotted them on our first visit. She named it after a will-o’-the-wisp.”
They drew closer and saw the insect was no longer glowing. Then, in a blur of motion, a long fibrous tongue lashed
out from the flower’s center, wrapped around the wisp and pulled it in.
Mia recoiled. “Oh, goodness.”
“Consider that a reminder not to go touching anything.”
Anna and Stokes appeared, looking around in awe.
“Sweet Jesus, this place is bigger than I thought,” Stokes said, panning his light into the ceiling’s dark crevasses.
Mia called out, waving them over. “Come take a look at this.”
Along the back wall were a series of broken transparent enclosures. It reminded Jack of the pod farm they’d found on the ship in the Gulf, only each of them was much smaller. Could this have been where the beings who inhabited this planet created the specimens for their ships?
“There are more of ’em over here,” Stokes said, nudging a broken shard with the barrel of his rifle.
The longer they looked, the more obvious it became. The chamber was filled with hundreds if not thousands of small glass canisters. Weirder still, each and every one of them appeared to be broken. It was hard not to wonder what they had once contained. Or whether whoever had broken them was still here.
Chapter 18
Kay’s instructions were simple. McPherson Square Station at the end of the westbound platform. That was where she had agreed to meet the Aussie who claimed to have information on her parents’ whereabouts. Could it be a trick? In the past, she had allowed her thirst for the truth to blind her to possible danger. Now, her desire to locate her parents was a much stronger motivation.
She was reassured knowing that if the people she had come here to meet didn’t look right she had two cards up her sleeve. The first was the silver revolver sitting in her purse. The second was the subway tracks by the platform, which might offer an escape route through the tunnels. Neither of those were ideal, but Kay’s desperation for answers was quickly pushing her from cautious and calculated to reckless.
She was about to enter the main metro terminal when her phone pinged.
It was a text message from Ron Lewis. “Looks like our little gamble failed,” he wrote cryptically.
Kay stopped, leaned up against a wall out of sight and dialed him. Whether she was chasing down a story or not, Kay knew a reporter lived on their phone. It was one of the things Derek had always scolded her for. “Put that thing away, will you?” he would chant whenever he’d had enough. The memory seared a painful line down the center of her heart. But it was an occupational hazard. Or better yet, a double-edged sword.
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