2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (76 page)

Aching to take a closer look, Sarah had to force herself to focus on the task at hand and ignore the incredibly ancient and fantastical relic sitting close enough to touch.

Knowing the clock was ticking, an intense urgency reasserted itself as she hunted for a way down into the disused service elevator; the place Riley had let slip lurked below. Her vision accentuated by her visor, she allowed her eyes to scan over the scene, but saw nothing useful. Apart from the enthroned mummy, the only other objects in the room were a functional set of cupboards, drawers and worktops. On and around these, placed in groups in trays and on trolleys, were various containers and a variety of implements and bottles Sarah knew well; the tools of a restorer’s and archaeologist’s trade. But where was the entrance she sought? The floor and walls appeared seamless. With nowhere else to look, she switched the image on her visor to another spectrum and then another, scanning for signs of a hidden entrance. Nothing. She looked at her wrist, her phone telling her she had no more time to waste. Getting desperate, her attention returned to the Ageless King.

‘Any bright ideas?’ she asked, glancing at the Anakim warrior.

He stared back at her in mute disinterest.

And then something struck her. Perhaps the entrance wasn’t just beneath the room with the Ageless King in, but beneath the Ageless King himself! Crouching down, she peered under the platform on which the throne rested. She could see a distinct line in the floor. Without further thought she grasped the edge of the raised dais and heaved. The treads on her shoes gripped the floor well and the mummy, throne and platform moved aside.

Breathing hard inside her mask, Sarah stood up to see that a single square panel sat inset into the floor. She ran to the worktop, plucked out a trowel from amongst its fellows and hurried back to the centre of the room. Planting the blade into the seam, she prised the panel up, lifted it free and threw it to one side. A similar cover lay underneath, a handle in its centre. Sarah lifted it up and out, its density far greater than the floor covering she’d just removed, and dropped it down with a dull metallic clang. A deep hole presented itself, a ladder on one side. Without hesitating, she adjusted her visor’s settings, powered up her helmet’s twin torches and climbed down into the pit.

Looking around, Sarah could see the abandoned lift shaft widening out below. She continued down some way before a small rectangular opening came into view to her right. This had to be the passageway Riley had told her about, as it headed off as straight as a die towards the military vaults. Stepping off the ladder, Sarah manoeuvred herself into the tiny concrete tunnel. Marvelling at how Riley had squeezed into such a small space, Sarah half crawled, half pulled herself forwards.

A few minutes passed and her slow progress was beginning to really concern her.
I have to tackle this all again on the way back
, she realised,
but if I’m pursued after attaining the pendant they’ll soon have me pinned down; this place definitely doesn’t lend itself to a quick getaway
. Opening her mask to suck air more freely into her lungs, she picked up the pace. 

With her knuckles bruised and raw, Sarah found the way ahead splitting off into eleven separate tunnels. Secured over each of these foreboding entrances squatted a sturdy metal grating which prevented anything from passing through; all except one. This must be the route Riley had forced open, she presumed, noticing the cover hanging off the front and the number one painted on one of its interior walls.

Logically, she reasoned that if the open passage, which was located on the far left of the eleven went to military vault one, then it stood to reason the tunnel two places along from it went to vault three and, subsequently, her pendant. Positioning herself in front of the third entrance, Sarah pulled at the metal grate. The metal groaned in protest but failed to give way. She tried again from a different angle. The frame bowed out as she used her legs and a straight back to exert the maximum possible force upon it. Sweat trickled down her neck as she continued to prise the cover loose. While working around the rim, one of the four retaining pins snapped and the metal sagged away from the wall. Spurred on by this advance, she kept up her efforts and the second pin broke soon after. Wrenching the grate out of the way, noticing the number three painted on the wall as she passed inside, she worked her way along this new tunnel.

With yet more valuable time ebbing away, Sarah came out into another shaft. Unlike the one back in the Smithsonian vault, this area was fully functional. In front of her rested the top of an elevator car suspended by a cabling system.
This is it
, she thought,
I’m inside the military vault
. Stepping onto the roof of the lift, she unbolted a hatch and then dropped down into the area below. Now inside a lift much like any other, Sarah turned off her helmet’s lights and pressed the ‘G’ button for the ground floor. Seconds later she walked out into the vault’s interior.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the inside of the military vault mirrored the Smithsonian ones in layout and design. A dimly lit walkway ran down the centre of the structure and on either side stood rooms with frosted panels, the only main difference being the area she’d just entered, where instead of a room there was a foyer outside the elevator.

Sarah checked the time on her phone. She’d left the SED just over an hour ago. Reasoning that going back would be far quicker, she estimated she had a maximum of twenty-five minutes before having to return. An image of Trish and Jason popped into her mind making her speculate as to how they were faring, thoughts of the numerous ways the plan could go wrong distracting her.

Snapping back to reality and remembering how Riley had located the whereabouts of her confiscated possessions, Sarah looked around for a computer system. There didn’t appear to be a matching console here, but there was a large wallscreen in the foyer.
I hope using this won’t alert anyone to my presence
, she mused, pressing a button to bring the display to life. Illuminated by the screen’s powerful glow, she was pleasantly surprised to see the system didn’t require any username or password to access.
And why would it?
she thought, it was inside a highly secure military vault and anyone using it would presumably have clearance.

Using the touchscreen menu system, which also confirmed she was indeed in vault three, Sarah navigated to a database archive. Selecting the search function she entered a description of her pendant and almost instantaneously a result displayed. Riley had been correct, all her possessions were there and on the vault’s fourth level! Keen to be reunited with her artefacts, Sarah took note of a code next to the results,
D88
, and moved onto the walkway. Using a simple control panel attached to a handrail she sent the platform upwards. Lights above her stuttered to life as the she came to a stop on the fourth floor.

Sarah looked around in surprise at the dimly lit open planned area on either side of the walkway. No rooms or frosted panels here, just one large circular room lined with row upon row of shelving.

‘D eighty-eight,’ she said to herself, moving through the orderly corridors with purpose.

The number in the code, she deduced, indicated the row number and the letter, the shelving unit within it. Jogging across to the other side she found row eighty-eight and came to a stop in front of a cabinet labelled with a
D
. Seven shelves rested within this depository, each enclosed behind a tinted shutter. Sarah yanked up the middle one. Inside, lined up side by side, small black plastic trays held various and disappointingly innocuous objects; none of which were her pendant. She opened the remaining shutters two at time, the second from last revealing a sight that made her catch her breath. Her pendant! Reaching in, she withdrew the metallic pentagonal disc, still on the chain she’d had round her neck on first entering the USSB. With no time to savour the moment Sarah welcomed it home with a kiss before eagerly extracting her other items, which all rested on the same shelf, the first being the smaller, yet similarly shaped, pendant, the next, three Anakim parchments and lastly, the chunky metal Mayan tablet.

Noting each object had been tagged with a plastic label, Sarah slid the small pendant onto the chain alongside its fellow before securing them both around her neck. Tucking them inside her Deep Reach coveralls the two metallic discs rested against the skin of her chest, the sensation familiar and deeply satisfying. The parchments, contained within a plastic wallet, folded neatly into her breast pocket while the tablet slid into a large Velcro pouch on her thigh, weighing her down on one side.

Reunited with her artefacts, Sarah checked the time again. She had fifteen minutes before she absolutely had to return. A thought worked its way to the forefront of her mind; she had an opportunity here, the possibility of getting her hands on more Anakim wonders, to steal from the military like they’d stolen from the rest of humanity. It was an appealing idea and such poetic justice, by her reckoning, was a rarity not to be passed up.

Getting back on the walkway, she descended to the first floor. Now surrounded by rooms, she moved to one and turned the frosted panel transparent. Inside, arranged on a large single bench, lay an array of large and intriguing objects. She recognised one as being the shield she’d seen brought to the SED back by the archaeology team, before the military had swooped in and expelled them all from the shuttle bay. The massive object glittered in the dim lighting, its dark blue and purple hue setting off the gems set into its surface.

Knowing she had no hope of stealing anything so big, she moved to the next room, again turning the glass see-through. At first there appeared to be nothing in this room, but as she moved away a shimmering effect in the air drew her back. Something was in there, but it could only be glimpsed if you moved and even then only an indistinct outline could be seen. It looked like a large oblong box with a statue on top. A little perturbed by this veiled spectre, she moved to the next room. Inside this she saw a veritable library of what must be Anakim parchments, stacked in furled rolls on a twenty foot high rack which spanned the whole side of the room. In the rest of the space stood columns of tall, flat, free-standing cabinets, their black monolithic frames reaching up towards the ceiling. Within each of these, on both sides, were more parchments, their ancient texts splayed out for analysis.

Unlocking the room via the control pad Sarah entered, a vacuum sucking at the door as it opened. Snatching some scrolls from the rack, their super fine and durable material folding with ease, she placed them in her pocket alongside her others. Drawn to some red coloured parchments further along, Sarah saw they were some sort of animal hide, not the high-tech type like hers or the ones she’d just filched. Deciding to leave these alone, something else grabbed her attention like a slap to the face.

Almost in a daze, Sarah walked between the upright displays to stand looking up at a parchment on show just above her eye level. ‘No,’ she said out loud, shaking her head, ‘it can’t be.’

But it was. There was no mistaking the design. The image had been a part of her nightmares for months now, permanently seared into her mind for all eternity. Sarah outstretched a hand to caress the parchment before her, the desire for physical contact thwarted by a protective Perspex sheet. It had been many years since she’d last lain eyes on it. The detail was exquisite and the depiction of the Antarctic land mass, perfection.

The precarious nature of her mission forgotten, Sarah stared at one of the maps she’d previously believed to have been lost in the fire that had taken her mother’s life. There was no doubt in her mind that it had been one of her discoveries, she’d spent enough hours poring over it – she knew every inch. The fact that she was looking at it now, however, shattered her theory as to who was responsible for murdering her mother.

And to think I’d been happy here at the SED with Riley.
The thought now tasted acrid and vile in her mouth.
I even considered staying in Sanctuary and surrendering my freedom to these people!
The sickening betrayal and her pathetic naivety broke something within her. Gritting her teeth, she fought to release the map from its locked case. As she failed to make any impact her frustration skyrocketed and with an incandescent scream of rage Sarah launched herself into the cabinets around her, heaving them over. The heavy display cases slammed into one another, creating a domino effect and causing the entire vertical collection to fall crashing to the floor; the thunderous noise ending when the final ones to topple smashed into the special glass frontage, shattering it into a thousand tiny shards.

Her fury at the deception of those she’d trusted – of Riley – incinerated any restraint left to her. Returning to the first room she’d approached, Sarah unlocked the door and barged in. Moving to the monstrous shield suffused with priceless jewels, Sarah grasped its edges and hauled it upright. Turning it round she placed her hands on the thick handle, attempting to lift it. A foot taller than her, the artefact was incredibly light for its size and she managed to hold it off the floor for a number of seconds before it dropped back down with a clunk. Seeing the futility of her efforts, her anger subsiding, Sarah made to rest the shield back down, but before she could do so she felt a sensation of heat spread over her hands. The pendant on her neck grew hot and a curious oscillating vibration pulsed through the handle and up her arms. A wave of purple energy rippled across the shield’s surface and burst out into the room in a sphere of blinding light. Streams of blue lightning flowed across the floor and walls and out into the vault. Sparks flew from the walkway’s control panel and spotlights as they shorted out, the surge of electricity destroying every circuit in its path.

Letting the shield drop, its surface still glowing brightly, Sarah rushed from the room in time to see the last remnants of the expulsion of power flickering up the inside of the entire vault, hot metal embers showering down around her. Plunged into total darkness, the shield’s light ebbing away behind, Sarah activated her helmet’s systems which had somehow avoided ruin. Her torches ablaze, visor down and senses recovered, the reality of her situation came flooding back.
I have to get out of here!
she thought, desperation upon her. Running to the lift she pressed the call button which failed to light up. Realising the mechanism was fried, she tried to open the doors to get back into the shaft. They held fast. She was trapped!