2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (28 page)

Riley held the soldier’s gaze. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

Jefferson and Cora stood up behind Riley and Sarah did likewise from across the table.

‘You think you could take me, Orton?’ the officer said to Riley, more as a statement than a question, a smile playing across his lips. ‘You may have been in the corp but I’m out of your league. I think you know that too, don’t you? No, you’re going on the false assumption that your father can protect you if you break the rules.’ He took a step closer, getting right up into Riley’s face. ‘Don’t bet on it; Ellwood is lucky to still have a job.’

Taking a look around at the rest of the Deep Reach team the officer caught sight of Sarah. ‘And you,’ he said, pointing at her, ‘I’ve got my eye on you.’ Giving Riley one last threatening stare he strode back out of the tent.

‘Fucking hell, Riley, what have you been up to this time?’ Jefferson said.

Riley glanced at the outcast of Alpha Six. The army lieutenant met his gaze, perhaps waiting for him to disclose his actions.

‘Not now,’ Riley told Jefferson.

The bearded archaeologist looked at the lieutenant and understood his leader’s reticence to speak his mind.

Later, after everyone had gone off to fulfil other duties, Sarah found Riley sitting alone outside his tent.

‘Room for one more?’ She gestured at the floor next to him.

He nodded and she settled down as Riley stayed silent, lost in contemplation.

After a while, when it appeared he wasn’t about to instigate a conversation anytime soon, she asked, ‘Is your father someone important?’

‘He’s a Brigadier General here at Sanctuary.’

‘The Special Forces guy called him “Ellwood”.’ Sarah was confused as Riley’s surname was Orton.

‘Orton is my mother’s name; I took it when I entered the army, I didn’t want any special treatment as my father was a well-known colonel at the base.’

Sarah nodded. ‘Has your father done something wrong?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He sounded troubled. ‘If he has, he hasn’t spoken of it to me. I suppose you think I’m a fraud, now, getting to where I am because of my father; taking risks as I know a safety net awaits my fall?’

Sarah placed a hand on his. ‘Of course not, you’re great at your job. The others respect you, I respect you. You said it yourself, you trust in your own abilities and judgement, not anyone else’s. You’ve got to where you are because
you
made it happen, not your father.’

Riley put his other hand on top of Sarah’s and smiled at her in gratitude. As his eyes held hers his expression grew serious; leaning forwards, giving her time to withdraw if she wanted, he kissed her on the lips. Sarah’s heartbeat fluttered as she kissed him back. His right arm encircled her shoulder as they enjoyed a lingering embrace. After a few more hedonistic moments he pulled away, leaving Sarah feeling elated and yet, for some reason, equally troubled. Getting to her feet she walked away without a word, leaving Riley looking confused and alone.

He called out after her. ‘Sarah, I’m sorry.’ But it was too late, she’d gone.

Chapter Fifteen

The rest of Sarah’s first Deep Reach mission passed off without significant incident. After the first day they avoided treading on the toes of the military and relocated to uncharted territory; scouting out new points of interest, mapping and taking structural readings. They had been allowed to return to the building and document the interior, although she’d noticed they were kept away from the room where they’d seen the scientists. It had also been obvious that whatever had been displaying some kind of power output had been extracted from the site, as a large squarish hole had been cut into the roof and a tripod hoist erected over it.

After she’d embarrassed herself with Riley, Sarah had kept her distance from him, making excuses to be elsewhere when he did find her alone. She still questioned her reasons for retreating from him that day. It had felt right, the kiss, but she’d been through the wringer before, with Mark, amongst others. She was sure this did seem different somehow, she felt safe and happy when she was with him;
so why am I so worried about it then?
she wondered for the umpteenth time. Perhaps because she knew deep down she wanted to escape Sanctuary and expose it; she couldn’t afford to get tied down, not now.

Spending much of her remaining time with Jefferson, carrying out preliminary archaeological surveys, Sarah had taken the opportunity to quiz him about the lift systems to the surface. Apparently the giant elevator they’d passed by on the air-shuttle was the furthest one from the USSB, acting as an emergency back-up if any of the others failed. Access to it could only be achieved by taking a roundabout route on foot, and it took many days to reach from another air-shuttle termination point located elsewhere in Sanctuary. The worrying aspect was that the heavy protection allocated to each lift shaft wasn’t just limited to the one she’d seen. Jefferson told her security had been intensified around the time she’d entered the base. Sarah found it hard to believe she could have caused such a large scale reaction from the military commanders, but it made sense as to why she’d been held for so long in their custody; they feared further breaches of the base.

The news that the elevators also required various access codes to operate further put paid to the three friends utilising them to get out of Sanctuary; another plan had to be devised. Realising she needed to swing things back in their favour, Sarah had taken the bold choice of ridding herself of the tracking bracelet that had been imposed upon her on release from military custody the first time around. The strap on the device hadn’t been difficult to cut through, a pair of small shears in her climbing kit making light work of the task. Ensuring no one observed her, she’d chucked the bracelet into a deep crevasse, the small object falling end over end until it had vanished from sight. The device, she knew, didn’t work outside the USSB. With this in mind, she reasoned, if the army detected it had been removed when she returned to the USSB, she’d say it had fallen off somewhere, which wouldn’t be a lie as it had fallen off – just with a bit of help. If, on the other hand, they didn’t pull her up on it then she’d have dealt with one obstacle to their escape. It was a gamble, but considering the information she’d gleaned from Jefferson regarding the lift system, it was one she had to take.

The return journey to the USSB had been as, if not more, frightening than the outward trip, the cylindrical machine threatening to shake her very bones to pieces as it propelled the Deep Reach crew back from whence they’d come. Exiting the shuttle, once more with unsteady legs, Sarah had stowed her kit and then proceeded to write up her first preliminary report; she’d then endured the mission debrief and departed for some much needed R&R at her apartment. Appreciating the soft duvet covered bed, Sarah awoke the next day, fresh and ready to meet up with Trish and Jason as they’d planned before she’d left the USSB three weeks before.

Once more the three friends met up in the New Park district, this time opting for an opulent outdoor restaurant; all three deciding that Sarah’s new salary might as well be enjoyed rather than saved for what would hopefully be a short stay in Sanctuary. Savouring a delicious first course of battered mushrooms with an accompanying sour cream sauce, Trish broke a silence that had begun to feel uncomfortable after Sarah had finished regaling them with tales of her SED trip outside the base.

‘The mission went well then?’ Trish said.

Sarah nodded. ‘Yes, but we have a big problem; the elevators that lead out of this place are so locked down it’s unbelievable. We’d have a better chance getting into Fort Knox with a toothpick.’

Jason grunted. ‘So we need to find another way out.’

‘It looks that way.’

‘You don’t seem that concerned,’ Trish said.

Sarah grew cross. ‘Of course I’m concerned, why wouldn’t I be?’

‘We haven’t seen much of you lately,’ Jason said.

‘Err, hello? I’ve been on a Deep Reach mission.’

Jason waved away her comment. ‘Before that, you’ve been spending a hell of a lot of time with Riley.’

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Sarah looked at Jason and Trish in turn. ‘I had to get on that team, we all agreed, didn’t we, or am I missing something?’

‘You’ve just seemed more interested in the SED than you have in us, that’s all,’ Trish said.

Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Oh, so we’re stupid, are we?’ Jason said, getting angry in return. ‘You’re gallivanting around, having a whale of a time, by the sound of it, and we’re stuck here like lemons.’

‘Okay, so I enjoyed the mission, so what? You two would have, too, if you’d gone on it. It was an amazing experience; but while I was there I got rid of my tracking device, which, by the way, seems to have gone unnoticed—’

‘For now,’ Jason grumbled.

‘I’ve ascertained we can’t use the lift system,’ Sarah continued, ignoring him, ‘and that the army has an inside man on every team that goes out of the base, keeping tabs on everything that goes on; making it impossible to sneak off without being noticed within a matter of hours.’

Despite her obvious successes, something still aggravated her two friends. Trish appeared to be apologetically annoyed with Sarah, while Jason simmered about some perceived slight.

‘What gives, guys? Something else is bothering you.’

Silence.

‘I’m not a bloody mind reader, for God’s sake somebody tell me!’

‘We want to know why you couldn’t get us on the team,’ Jason said at last, ‘or at the very least into the SED.’

‘Is that what this is all about, you think I didn’t get you on the team on purpose, is that it?’

‘Jason suggested you might want to have Riley all to yourself,’ Trish told her.

Jason’s eyes widened. ‘What!? Don’t just blame it on me, you agreed with me!’

Sarah sighed. ‘You really think I’d do that to you both, screw you over for some guy I’ve only just met?’

Trish couldn’t look Sarah in the eye and even Jason looked a little sheepish.

Thankfully she’d not informed them about the kiss she’d shared with Riley or their noses might have been even further out of joint. ‘I tried my best to get you both into the SED, you know that. So I might like Riley a bit, but it isn’t going anywhere, is it? We have to get out of here, so we need to stop bickering amongst ourselves and start putting our heads together.’

‘I may have found a way out,’ Jason told them.

‘You have?’ Trish said, amazed but dubious.

Sarah gestured for him to continue. ‘Spill then.’

‘Well, like we decided a few weeks back, me and Trish would carry on documenting the museum and the USSB while you were—’

‘Gallivanting?’ Sarah arched a brow.

‘Err, yeah,’ he said, aware she was having a dig at him for his previous comment. ‘So when we were ferreting about I took lots of video and stills and I found this—’ He rummaged in his trouser pocket and pulled out a crumpled photograph, which he handed to Trish.

‘What am I looking at here?’ Trish said as Sarah leaned over to take a look. It was an image of Jason taking a selfie in front of a reconstruction of an Anakim warrior; Jason had on an idiotic grin as he pulled a stupid face to the camera.

‘All I can see are two dummies,’ Sarah said, unable to help herself and making Trish giggle.

‘What? Give me that.’ He swiped the photo back. ‘Wrong one,’ he said, embarrassed. Taking out another photo, he checked it and passed it back to the two women.

Trish studied it. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘You bet your life it is,’ he said.

Sarah was amazed. ‘It’s an Anakim transportation device.’

‘With a circle to activate it,’ he told her, sounding proud.

Sarah stared at the photo. It depicted an oblong metal plinth sitting next to a stone monolith, upon which sat a small, square metallic plaque with an indented circle within its borders. ‘Why does it look – odd?’ she asked.

‘It’s a print of a small section of a larger photo,’ he said. ‘It looks weird as what you’re looking at isn’t real, it’s part of a scale model of a particular monument uncovered a few years ago by one of the museum’s tethered search robots. Although knowing what we do, it was probably your Exploration Division that found it. According to the museum guide, the structure it’s contained within is massive and located at one of the deepest points ever surveyed. The site designation, Temple #887, is in a really hot location. Apparently temperatures soar to fifty degrees plus, the further down you get; they theorise there’s a breach in Sanctuary Proper’s lower levels and magma from the Earth’s core has leaked inside.’

‘This could be our way out,’ Sarah said, ‘excellent spot.’

Jason beamed at the praise, but he didn’t stop there, whipping out yet another photograph – this time on an A4 sheet. He unfolded it and pushed it across the table for them both to look at. ‘This is the same shot, but zoomed out.’

This image showed not one, but five, Anakim transportation platforms, four surrounding one in the centre.

Sarah couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘Five devices, this is incredible!’

Trish looked at him anew. ‘I have to say I’m impressed, but why didn’t you tell me you’d found this before?’

‘Don’t get angry,’ he said sensing Trish’s mood had darkened, ‘I only found it yesterday—’

Trish glared at him.

‘Well – last week,’ he admitted, under further unwavering scrutiny, ‘but I wanted to tell you both together.’

‘Why?’ Trish said, still annoyed by his secrecy.

‘Because it’s more dramatic that way, and besides, I couldn’t be bothered repeating myself, telling you and then telling Sarah all over again.’

Trish sighed, looking exasperated.

‘There are two big problems with it,’ Sarah said to them both. ‘One, we don’t know where they might take us if we got them to work and two, we don’t have the pendant to power them up.’

Trish passed the image back to Jason. ‘And three, how do we find them?’

‘And four, how do we get to them when we find out where they are?’ Jason said.