2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) (62 page)

Walker leant down to inspect the enormous globe’s bronzed surface. ‘Perhaps it’s not what the director thinks it is.’

‘It’s exactly what I think it is,’ Goodwin said, pushing Walker aside. ‘Here,’ – he wiped away more dirt – ‘there’s the Americas, North and South, or at least their western edge.’

‘So what?’ Walker said. ‘It’s a globe, how does it help us get to the surface?’

Goodwin didn’t know. ‘There must be more underneath.’ He looked around. ‘This whole area needs to be excavated.’

‘That could take weeks,’ Priest said, ‘we don’t have weeks.’

‘I can’t help that,’ Goodwin said, not noticing the dangerous tone in Priest’s voice. ‘Whatever we need is here, I can feel it in my bones. God brought me here for a reason; I was destined to find this place. It was written in the stars.’

‘Richard,’ Rebecca touched his arm, ‘I don’t think God’s speaking to you. It’s not how it works.’

He gave her a strange look. ‘I thought you went to church? You of all people should believe. God speaks to us all, we just have to listen for the messages, see the signs he sends us.’

‘I know, but God never intervenes directly. It’s up to us to find the right path.’

‘How do you know he doesn’t intervene? You have no idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt!’

‘I’m not trying to belittle your achievements,’ Rebecca said, ‘I just—’

Goodwin glared at her. ‘Just what?’

Rebecca opened her mouth and then closed it again.

‘Does anyone else want to criticise me?’ Goodwin said, his eyes manic. ‘I led you here, to the Temple of the Gods. I solved the riddle of the Sphinx. I found a place lost for millennia and all I get is looks of pity and anger. And from the likes of you.’ Goodwin thrust a finger at Priest. ‘You judge me, a man who wouldn’t think twice about violating another or killing in the name of God?’

Manaus stepped forward. ‘Sir, perhaps you should calm down.’

‘No, let him finish,’ Priest said. ‘I always knew he thought he was better than the rest of us, I just never thought I’d hear him say it.’

‘Well, get used to it,’ Goodwin said fronting up to him, ‘because I am better than you. You make me sick! A man who carries the word of God, but who has the morals of a slopsucking pig!’

Priest’s face turned white with anger.

Goodwin leaned in towards him. ‘I know what you are; you’re the basest denominator, the lowest ebb, a bottom feeder of bottom feeders. God sees you and it turns his stomach.’

Priest let out a roar of fury and surged forward.

Lieutenant Manaus jumped to Goodwin’s defence, deflected the blow aimed at his head and threw Priest to the ground.

The burly soldier scrambled for his weapon, but Walker grabbed it first. ‘Not a wise move,’ he said, ‘the director’s all we’ve got.’

Priest stood up, his expression fearful, before relaxing back to relative calm as his men surrounded the corporal with guns raised.

Walker dropped the weapon while Manaus remained guarding Goodwin. ‘Sir,’ she said, keeping her voice low, ‘don’t antagonise them, they’re on the edge.’

Goodwin blinked as if seeing her for the first time.

‘It’s this place,’ Rebecca said, ‘it’s messing with his mind.’

‘My mind’s fine.’ Goodwin pushed past the lieutenant and glared at Priest, who stooped down to retrieve his rifle.

Before Goodwin could form another thought, a vibration rumbled through the ground and a screech of metal forced him to put his hands over his ears. The giant globe shuddered, and further away another mound shook free eons of sediment. The movement petered out to silence, leaving a stone megalith unearthed at the basin’s edge.

Goodwin approached the structure, with a curious Joseph close behind. Standing six feet in height and thrice that in length, a layer of ice covered its grey surface which was adorned with a strange configuration of sunken runes and pictograms.

Before Goodwin could stop him, Joseph stepped forward and touched it. A chunk of ice fell to the ground and the symbol beneath rotated out to stop flush with the surface.

Rebecca went to pull Joseph away, but Goodwin put his hand out to stop her. ‘Wait, I want to see what happens.’

Joseph continued pressing sections seemingly at random, then he stopped and a ripple of electricity flowed over the monolith’s surface in a wave. The remaining slabs of ice splintered and cracked to drop to the ground with dull thuds and Goodwin stepped closer, his eyes alight with the purple glow that pulsed from the strange stone. He reached out to touch the surface and tiny tendrils of electricity bent around his hand, prickling his skin.

Joseph ran his fingers over the megalith in a sequence of arcs and another section of stone shifted.

‘How’s he doing that?’ Walker said.

Priest pushed Walker aside. ‘The boy sees something we can’t.’

Goodwin looked at Joseph and his blank expression.
Does the lad’s mental deficiency enable him to see beyond the obvious?
he wondered. A movement of the young man’s arm made Goodwin look down to see his other hand was bunched tight in a fist. Goodwin lent down and lifted Joseph’s unresisting arm and prised open his fingers. A cluster of bright blue stones shone bright in the half-light.

Rebecca gasped. ‘They’re the same as the stones Susan found. The ones that Commander Hilt said attracted that thing, the light.’

‘They’re similar,’ Goodwin said, as he removed the pulsating objects from Joseph’s palm. The stones felt hot and he couldn’t help but notice the dark red welt on Joseph’s skin where the stones had been. The rash on Goodwin’s wrist peeked out from beneath the sleeve of his shirt, reminding him of his own experience with the strange phenomena. However, his bracelet, made by Susan, had only glowed in the absence of light; these stones pulsed strong under the glare of their torches.

As if reading his mind, their power waned and the luminescence faded, leaving the stones translucent like crystal clear glass.

‘Where did he find them?’ Rebecca said, but Goodwin was too enrapt in the mysterious Anakim relic to pay her any heed, as was everyone else, their hushed silence speaking volumes.

What does this thing do? How can I use it to find a way to the surface?
Goodwin glanced at Joseph, wishing he could tell him what he wanted to know, wondering if he even knew anything at all.

Rebecca drew Joseph to her and hugged him close. The young man met Goodwin’s gaze over her shoulder and he raised his hand to point at a plate-sized circular indent at the far end of the megalith. Goodwin glanced back to see Joseph had snuggled down in Rebecca’s embrace, his interest apparently at an end. But unlike Joseph, Goodwin’s fascination had only just begun. He moved to the end of the stone façade and touched his fingers to the circle. The electricity here was less than at the centre, where Joseph had worked his magic, and perhaps that was why nothing happened.
Or only the boy’s touch has an effect
, Goodwin thought. Then he remembered the stones and Rebecca’s words came back to him,
where did he find them?

Where indeed
.

Goodwin looked around the crater.
He must have found them here, surely? There’s no other explanation
. Leaving the others to gawp at the spectacle, Goodwin roamed the basin in search of more blue stones.

When he didn’t find any he grew frustrated and was just about to give up when he passed by the pool of water that cascaded into the narrow fissure. Beneath its surface he glimpsed the shimmer of blue amongst a sea of brown. He bent down and scooped out a handful of mud and separated out a shining blue stone from the sediment. Excited, he washed off the remaining dirt to reveal a handful of Joseph’s stones.
But how did they get there?
His eyes moved up to the glowing crystals above.
Of course!
He mentally slapped his forehead. Water erosion, the stones weren’t stones at all, but the crystals that surrounded them now, the same crystals he’d seen in the lake after he survived his ordeal with the black ooze.

He looked around at the glowing arena and a disturbing thought wormed its way into his mind. If the stones attracted the creature, as Commander Hilt had theorised, then they were standing in the beast’s all you could eat buffet. Suppressing the urge to run, Goodwin made his way back to the megalith’s circular indent, where the others remained arguing over God knows what. Goodwin, however, only had eyes for the job in hand. He reached out and pressed his palm flat to the surface. The stones grew hot in his other hand and electricity converged on his touch, plunging the rest of the megalith into darkness. Everyone turned towards him just as an almighty groan set the ground shaking. Stumbling sideways, Goodwin found his hand held fast to the stone and his arm wrenched round in pain as he tried to keep his feet.

The monolith shuddered and lurched to the right, dragging Goodwin along with it. The ground cracked and split, like a frozen sea buckling under the prow of an icebreaker, as the massive slab ploughed up soil before it to form a growing mound of earth.

‘Sir!’ Lieutenant Manaus rushed to pull him free.

‘Let go, Richard!’ Rebecca said.

‘I can’t!’ He tried to open his other hand, which held the stones, but his fingers wouldn’t move. The muscles in his arm went into spasm.

The lieutenant heaved on his hand, but it held fast.

Goodwin glanced behind to see the massive stone tracked a path around the rim of the basin with the top of the giant globe at its heart.

Manaus and Rebecca continued in their efforts to free him.

‘It’s no use,’ Goodwin said over the noise, ‘let it take its course!’

The megalith kept up its advance for another thirty feet before it slowed and then jarred to a halt.

A rush of energy swept up Goodwin’s arm and he fell to his knees and grasped his head in agony. A flash of light sent him slumping to the ground and Rebecca rushed to his side, but Goodwin’s eyes had already rolled up into his head, his body caught in a violent fit.

♦

‘Help him!’ Rebecca screamed.

Manaus grabbed Goodwin’s arm and a blast of electricity blew her from her feet. The Darklight officer slid to a halt ten yards away, unmoving, her armour smoking from the discharge of energy.

Horrified and helpless, Rebecca stared into Goodwin’s contorted features while Priest and his crew looked on with dispassionate eyes.

‘Fight, Richard!’ Rebecca hovered beside his writhing form. ‘Fight it!’

‘So long, Director,’ Walker said. ‘I’ll see you in the land of the Gods.’

Chapter Seventy Nine

‘How many?’

‘Nineteen, all armed. Some of them have Darklight kit.’

‘Did they see you?’

The woman shook her head.

‘The director?’

‘No sign of him, the two civilians or the lieutenant.’

‘Corporal Walker?’

‘No, sir.’

Captain Winter frowned. ‘Nineteen; there should be twenty-eight, where are the other nine?’

‘I overheard them talking, sounds like one of them died somehow, which leaves eight other tangos unaccounted for.’

‘With the director, no doubt.’ Winter pondered their options. ‘What’s their formation?’

‘Twenty yard spread, alert, but undisciplined.’

‘Thoughts?’

‘We could take most of them alive with minimal casualties.’

‘Negative; they could warn Walker, which might jeopardise Goodwin.’ Winter made a decision and signalled for his unit to gather round.

He pressed a com button on his helmet. ‘Use the mist and standing stones as cover; silencers and camouflage active. Full auto after primary contact on my signal. We are a go for engagement, I say again, we are a go.’

Winter activated his armour and moved into the dark. His team followed, their forms shimmering out of existence as they slipped into the mists of night.

♦

‘If they’re not back in ten minutes I say we take our chances with Offiah.’

Another soldier snorted up some phlegm and swallowed it down. ‘Make it five; this place gives me the creeps.’

‘Priest told us to wait here,’ said another.

‘Priest can go fuck himself. He had plenty of opportunity to give us Goodwin’s bit on the side and he kept her for himself.’

‘There’s always that Darklight whore, Manaus.’

The first soldier who’d spoken grinned. ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s under that armour. Although I think she’s too good for you; you can have that disabled woman, what’s her name? The one that bastard Hilt went to find.’

The man made a face. ‘Simple Susan?’

The soldier laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s the one, although I think you’d do well to get her. Perhaps Walker’s more your type? Or Priest?’ He reached out a hand and stroked the man’s neck. ‘What do you say, pretty boy?’

The other men laughed as the man tried to push him away.

‘In fact,’ the soldier said, ‘we could pass you round instead; what do you say?’

His friend glared at him and the soldier laughed at his discomfort before something whizzed past his head, splashing liquid into his eyes.

Blinking it away, he wiped the back of his hand across his face and looked at it under torchlight. It was covered in blood. The man before him toppled to the ground and then everything turned to chaos.

♦

Captain Winter joined his team at the scene of carnage. ‘Report.’

‘Zero Darklight casualties. All targets nullified.’

A groan nearby made Winter turn in its direction. Walking over, he nudged the body of a man with his foot.

The soldier opened his eyes. ‘Please, I need help.’ He coughed and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.

‘Where’s Director Goodwin?’

The man gave a small shake of his head. ‘I don’t know, gone. Please … help me.’

‘I recognise you,’ Winter said, crouching down by his side.

‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ The man grabbed Winter’s leg and tried to smile.

Winter looked at his wounds. ‘I think you need a medic.’

‘Yes,’ the man said in relief, ‘yes, thank you.’

‘You’re the joker, the funny man, aren’t you?’