Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3) (32 page)

70

Where Chris?

Alison stared blankly at Sally, her mind returning to her friend.  She could still see him, lying unconscious in the ship’s sick bay.

“He’s resting.”

Sally did not reply.  For a moment, Alison could have sworn a look of doubt passed over the dolphin’s face.  She cleared her throat and answered Lightfoot’s question.

“We originally thought this was a breeding ground, since dolphins tend to seek out protected areas for birthing.  But this is different.  This,” she said, “is literally off the scale.”

She turned to Dirk and Sally, still watching her and strangely quiet.

“Sally.  Dirk.  We’ve come to see the plants.”

Sally surprised Alison with her response.

We know.

Alison began to speak before Sally interrupted.

Follow now.

The abruptness felt strange as she watched the dolphins turn and move smoothly downward with a single thrust of their tails.  The motion was clear and Alison turned to the others while letting more air out of her BCD.  “Stay close.”

The three followed the dolphins in a gradual descent, below the endless field of dolphins and into the darkness, with only a few meters before them lit by their headlamps.  They continued until nothing could be seen above them, lacking even the slightest hint of moonlight.  One by one, they cleared the pressure from their ears and continued downward until it appeared.

The darkness below them gradually began to lighten, first into a field of gray, and then followed by a subtle, strange green glow of phosphorescence.  Finally, the plants began to appear, waving rhythmically in the gentle ocean currents.

“Wow,” Neely whispered.  “It’s beautiful.”

For as far as they could see, beyond even their lamps, the faint green glow continued until finally disappearing again into the blackness. 

Dirk and Sally slowed, watching as Alison stopped kicking and let her momentum carry her forward. She was now within an arm’s reach of a large sea whip, sweeping back and forth in slow motion.  The bright light from Alison’s lamp washed over the plant, displaying its branches of polyps in a darker green.

She reached out and touched one of the tubes lightly with her fingertips, rubbing it carefully between her thumb and index finger.

Neely and Lightfoot both slowed beside her.  “This is incredible.”

“How far does it go?”

“Far,” answered Alison.  “Over a square mile.”

“Good God.”

Neely propelled herself forward, gliding horizontally over the vegetation and studying it.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I don’t think anyone has.”

She reached down and brushed her hand over another large plant as it passed silently beneath her.  Awash in the bright light, its streaming tendrils resembling long ribbons and changing colors into translucent oranges and pinks.

“Amazing,” she whispered.

Behind her, Alison turned back to Dirk and Sally, both still floating effortlessly.  “Sally, is something wrong?”

No Alison.  No wrong.

“Then what are you doing?”

We wait.

“Waiting?  For what?”  Alison studied them, waiting for a reply but not getting one.  Instead she got an answer, when three shapes emerged from the darkness.

It was three dolphins.  Larger and older.  The same three she’d met before.  Three “heads” as Sally called them.  Elders.

As the trio neared, Dirk and Sally faded back slightly.

Alison smiled behind her mask.  Perhaps for the first time in all of this, it was exactly what she was expecting.

“Lee, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Ali.  I’m here.”

“I think it’s time to test your new program.”

Topside, Lee squinted at his screen, enlarging the smaller video picture from Alison’s vest.

“Yes,” he replied slowly.  “I think you’re right.”

He switched back to the IMIS control window and typed out a long command.  “Cross your fingers.”  With that, he held his breath and hit the enter key. 

His worst fear was realized.  The new software didn’t work.

Below him, Alison’s earplugs screeched with a jumble of high-pitched noise as IMIS listened and tried unsuccessfully to translate hundreds of conversations at once.  Sound carried further in water, which meant everything from any dolphin within earshot of Alison was easily picked up by the vest’s microphone.  All without the video feed, an essential element needed for identifiable translation.  The sheer deluge of noise completely overwhelmed both the processors on Alison’s vest and those in Lee’s small servers.

Alison cringed in pain and immediately yanked the buds out of her ears.  “Lee!  It’s too loud!”

“I know, I know!”  He scrambled to lower the sound.  “Is that better?”  There was no response.  “Ali?  Ali, can you hear me?”

With one headphone back in, she nodded.  “Yes, barely.  But I can still hear all the noise.  Turn it off!”

A moment later, the background noise was gone and Lee’s voice rose again in volume.  “Sorry.  How’s that?”

“Better.  What happened?”

“The software doesn’t work.”

“Crap.  Okay, just turn Dirk and Sally back on.”

“I can’t.  The process is hung on the server.  I can’t stop it without stopping
everything
.”

“You mean permanently?”

“No, just until I can reboot the system.  Maybe ten minutes.”

Alison looked at the dive watch strapped to her left arm.  “That doesn’t leave much time.  We have to surface soon.”

“I know, I know.  I’m sorry.  But we have no choice.  The only thing that isn’t hung is our radios.”

Alison shook her head and peered at Neely and Lightfoot, who were both watching her.

“Fine.  Reboot.”

71

From their viewpoint, Sally and Dirk were both watching Alison, puzzled.  They didn’t understand why she was not speaking.

“Why are they no speak?” one of the elders asked.

Dirk peered at Alison.  “They talked much before.”  He drifted in closer and could see Alison’s mouth moving inside the glass.  He examined the machine on her chest.  The small light was on.  Dirk circled back toward the other two.  Their mouths were also moving.  “I don’t know.”

The three elders continued floating, waiting.

After a long wait, the silence was broken by Alison’s translated mechanical voice.

-ally Dirk can hear me?

“Yes, Alison.  We hear you now.  You are not talking before.”

Metal broken.  Work now.  Sorry.

Sally watched as the three older dolphins glided in closer.  “You hear us?”

There was no answer.

“Alison, you are hearing?” repeated Dirk.

Metal broken.  Hear Dirk and Sally.  No heads.

One elder seemed to understand and spoke through Dirk instead.  “Ask her why plants.”

“Why do you come back, Alison?  For plants?”

Yes.  Plants important.

“Yes.  You take plants, Alison.  We want to talk.”

Alison turned and nodded at Neely, who was still hovering beside her. 

Neely acknowledged and reached down to retrieve a knife from her leg.  She then reached out and cut a small sample from a nearby tendril.  She moved forward and took a piece from another plant, continuing until she had several.  The dolphins followed her curiously.

What talk?

Dirk turned back to her.  “You come back with more friends.  Heads want to know how many others.”

From inside her face mask, Alison watched as the dolphins spoke to each other.  She paused, trying to understand Dirk’s translated question.  The IMIS system was amazing, but it still had limitations.  And the way Alison sounded to them must have been just as challenging.

“How many of us?  Um…three.”

She watched the elders speak again through Dirk.

Not three.  How more?

How more?  Alison thought to herself. 
How more what?

“I don’t understand.”

How more peoples?

“How many people where?”

No.  How more peoples there.

Alison still didn’t understand. 
What did they mean by there?  On the boat?

“I’m not-” she began to speak but stopped.  IMIS hadn’t caught it.  But she suddenly did.  They didn’t mean there, they meant everywhere!

“You mean how many people are there?”

Yes.  How peoples all there?

Alison smiled, briefly gloating over the realization that she’d translated something before IMIS did.  Yet her face became dour again as she considered the question.  They wanted to know how many humans there were.  In total.  She suddenly found herself nervous.  They understood numbers, but there was no way they could understand
billions
.  And if they did, her answer was probably going to scare the hell out of them.

“Many,” she replied.

How?

Alison looked to Neely and Lightfoot, both still watching her.  She wasn’t about to lie, but there was no way the dolphins were ready for the truth of just how many humans there really were.  Not by a long shot.

“Many,” she repeated.  She took a breath.  “Like fish.”

Their reaction was unreadable.  The elders simply stared at her with their dark, soft eyes.  It wasn’t worth pointing out that not all people were
friends
.

The third elder on the right moved closer.  She drifted past Alison’s shoulder, examining the scuba gear. 

She say stay
.

Alison began to reply when she was interrupted by the beeping from her dive computer.  They were reaching their nitrogen limit.  They needed to get to the surface.  “I cannot stay.  We must go up.”

She motioned to the others and added a brief blast of air to increase her buoyancy.  “I’m sorry, we’re out of time.  We will come back.”

They want stay.

“I’m sorry,” Alison repeated.  “I cannot.  But I will come back.”

It was the last translation Alison heard before reaching the pod of dolphins above her, where the trio stopped and hovered for a few minutes before finally breaching the surface.

Bobbing among the waves, Alison pulled her mask off and inhaled a lung full of fresh air.

She raised her voice so the others could hear her.  “We have to get back aboard!”

Lightfoot nodded and swam forward.  Neely followed, leaving Alison floating behind them.  Something had struck Alison from the moment they’d reached the bottom, but it didn’t register until Dirk mentioned the plants.  She suspected neither Neely nor Lightfoot knew enough about phosphorescence to catch it.  There was something wrong with what they saw.  Bioluminescence caused by the light-emitting pigments and enzymes, luciferin and luciferase, had very distinct hues of green and blue.  But what Alison had just seen below was not the same –– it was a very different hue of green.  One that she’d seen only once before and in a place very far from the ocean.  It had been on top of the Acarai Mountains in South America.  She didn’t notice the first time she’d seen the plants because they were there during the day.

She had to get to a phone.  Immediately.

72

The tropical waters from which Alison was being lifted could not have been more different from those in which John Clay now stood.  Water had collected at the lowest point of one of the mine’s shafts, leaving an ultra-clear basin that was waist-high, stretching over a hundred yards along their path.  And unlike the warm Caribbean, this water was ice-cold.

Carrying his bag on one shoulder and holding his phone and flashlight with the opposite hand, Clay could feel his toes growing numb.  Which meant it must be even worse for Li Na, who was trailing behind him. 

The only consolation was that the second half of the tunnel was relatively free of debris, while in the first half they had encountered a number of small cave-ins.  It had slowed their progress considerably, making the icy water a faster, if somewhat painful, change of pace.

They had been underground for hours, far longer than expected.  And unless the remainder of the shaft was in better shape than the way they’d came, their chances of finding a way out anytime soon weren’t very good.

Clay continued pushing forward through the water, maintaining a slow enough pace to keep the ripples to a minimum.  He held his flashlight above his head, allowing him to see the bottom clearly, or at least well enough to spot any surprises.  But maintaining a clear view wouldn’t be a good trade-off if their slow progress resulted in frostbite.

He paused to look ahead and could hear the chattering of Li Na’s teeth.

“Not much farther.”

The teenage girl behind him nodded, but said nothing.

The truth was she had no idea what she was doing.  She felt sure the man in front was trying to help her, but she didn’t know anything about him.  She finally spoke to distract herself from the biting pain in her legs and feet. 

“Mister Ishmael.  W-Why did you come here?”

Clay stopped again, momentarily.  He smiled at Li Na under the glow of his light.  “My name is not Ishmael.  It’s John.”

She looked at him with a confused expression.  “Why did you say it was Ishmael?”

He turned back around and continued.  “It’s kind of a joke.”

“Oh.”  She didn’t understand the joke.  “Why did you come here?”

“To find the case you’re holding in your arms.”

In the dark coldness of the cave, she’d almost forgotten she was carrying it and gripped it tighter.  “My father’s case?”

“Yes.  Did your father tell you what was inside?”

“Not exactly.  I wasn’t awake the last time he came.”  After thinking, her expression changed to quizzical.  “You didn’t know I was here?”

“I did.  But only shortly before I arrived.”

“I see.  So you weren’t expecting…all of this.”

Clay grinned again but continued moving.  “No.”

Li Na shrugged and tried to lighten the mood.  “Surprise.”

Clay chuckled.  “Your English is very good.”

“My father was a soldier.  He told me it was important to learn English, like the Americans.  He said someday they would have to learn Chinese.”

“Your father sounds like a wise man.”

Li Na’s voice grew quiet.  “He was.”

They continued in silence for several minutes before she spoke again.  “So what exactly is in this case?”

“I’m afraid it’s a long story.”

“I think we have time.”

“Not enough,” Clay responded.  He stopped again and shined the light forward.  The end was in sight.  In the distance, he could see wet soil rising up from the water.

Several minutes later, they made it to dry ground where Clay immediately dropped his things.  He focused his light on the bag and unzipped it, retrieving the thermal blanket.

“Here.”  He moved to Li Na, who had just sat down against the rock wall, wrapping the blanket around her legs and feet.  “It’ll warm you up faster.”

“Thank you.”

He stood up.  “You’re doing great.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.  I can barely stand up.  I’ve been sick.”

Clay nodded.  “Are you hungry?”  He turned back to his bag and pulled out a small package.  He cut it open with a knife and handed it to her.

“What is this?”  She took the thick, brown plastic bag and turned it over. 

“It tastes better than it looks.”

“What’s an MRE?” she asked, reading the letters off the bag.

“Food.  It’ll give you some energy.”

Clay sat down on the opposite wall and watched Li Na take a bite of an unrecognizable chunk.  After chewing, she raised her eyebrows and took another bite. 

“Not bad, huh?”

“It’s very good.”

Clay leaned his head back and closed his eyes.  He hadn’t slept more than an hour in the past two days and without much food, he was reaching a new level of exhaustion.

“Where are we going?”

He rolled his head from side to side.  “I’m not sure yet.   First we need to get out of here.”

“How much farther do you think it is?”

“Hopefully not far.  We’re headed back uphill, which is encouraging.”

“What does that mean?”

“Encouraging?  It means…hopeful.  Of course, a little luck wouldn’t hurt either.”

“Do you believe in luck?”

He grinned and closed his eyes.  “I do right now.”

Li Na stared at him in the ambient glow of his flashlight.  It was the first time she’d gotten a good look at his face.  Or at least all of it.  He was handsome, for an American.  With dark hair and a square jawline, he reminded her of someone she might see on television.  He was also tall and very tired.

“Are you in the military?  In America?”

“I am.”

“Like a soldier?”

“Not anymore.  Now I’m more of an investigator.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone who tries to find things out.”

“Oh.”  She took her last bite and folded up the empty plastic bag.  “My father admired the American military.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.  He said Americans fight for honor.”

“We try to.  Usually.”

“You don’t always?”

“Unfortunately, not.”

“My father said that you-”  She stopped suddenly when Clay’s eyes shot open.

“Shh!”  He held his hand up, signaling her to be quiet.  His eyes stared at her, unmoving.  “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

He angled his head slightly.  He heard it again.  They both did.  A distant thump.

Clay was instantly on his feet.  He grabbed Li Na and pulled her up, whipping the blanket from her legs.

“There’s someone else in this tunnel!”

“Are you-”  Clay cut her off, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he whispered.  “We have to go!  Quietly.”

He stuffed the blanket and empty plastic into his bag, hefting it back onto his shoulder.  The rest he gathered quickly before stopping and looking at the case in Li Na’s hands.

They had traveled almost another quarter mile through the tunnel before Clay suddenly lowered his light and turned it off, plunging them into blackness.  He remained still.  “Do you feel that?”

“What?”

“A breeze.”  Clay closed his eyes in the darkness and held his breath.  He was sure he felt it.  An almost undetectable flow of air.  “Come on!”  He turned the light back on and surged forward, with Li Na stumbling to hold on.

A hundred yards farther and Clay stopped again.  This time when he briefly turned off the light, Li Na didn’t need an explanation.  She could see a ray of light in the distance.

“Is that the end?”

“I think so.” 

Clay turned the flashlight back on.  Clumps of rocks and dirt littered the floor of the tunnel as they’d seen at the other end.  As they neared, the light grew brighter to illuminate the mouth of the tunnel, largely hidden from the outside beneath a curtain of roots and vines.

Clay stopped at the curtain of vegetation and separated several vines.  There wasn’t much to see.  Just a narrow path outside, almost entirely reclaimed by the forest.

Clay powered off the flashlight, tucking both it and the phone into the pocket on the leg of his pants. 

“Stay close.” 

He unslung his HK in a smooth motion, raising it to his cheek.  He then took a step forward and let the rifle slowly emerge from between the vines.  His eyes searching left, then right.

He stepped out onto the dry groundcover, crunching under his feet, and listened carefully.  Clay continued slowly and had made it less than ten feet when he froze, causing Li Na to bump into him.

“What is it?”

Clay didn’t answer.  Instead, he turned carefully around and stopped, staring over Li Na’s head.

Lining the tiny hill above them were over a dozen soldiers, all with their rifles raised and aimed directly at Clay.  Off to the side stood Li Qin, with a bandaged right hand, and before him, the terrified teenage boy who had shown them the tunnel.

Clay didn’t move.  Instead, he stared up as Qin smiled and laid his good hand reassuringly over the young boy’s shoulder.

“Drop your gun.”

Clay felt Li Na press in behind him as he studied the other soldiers.  Very slowly, he lowered his HK to the ground.

Qin motioned to one of the men next to him, who then lowered his own rifle.  It was at that moment that Clay removed the phone from his pocket and held it up.

The approaching soldier stopped and studied the phone curiously.  He glanced back to Qin, who was doing the same.  Together they watched as Clay turned the unit in his hand and began typing a message with his thumb.

Qin’s eyes opened wide.  He screamed at the soldier who was now within twenty feet.  “STOP HIM!”

The man exploded into a run, quickly reaching the end of the incline and launching himself forward. 

Clay took the full impact and was thrown to the ground while the phone tumbled out of his reach.  The soldier reached it first and brought down the full weight of his boot, smashing the device into several pieces.