Exodus 2022 (39 page)

The stupendous flood of life summoned to the Exodus had departed. Mia and her kin were the last.

Beck planted his hands on Ring’s console, leaned toward the scientist’s face, and spoke in a voice tight and menacing.

“So what the fuck is plan B, asshole?”

Ring continued working as if nothing had happened.

Monitors around the room showed that the last whales were halfway through the tunnel now, moving steadily, confidently toward the glow at the end of the ethereal corridor.

“There isn’t a plan B,” said Ring.

“A bunch of my guys are dead,” hissed Beck. “And my fucking submarine has vanished.”

Ring nodded. “I guessed that we would lose contact with the sub after it crossed the barrier.”

“But now they’re over there,” Beck waved at the tunnel. “Wherever the fuck
there
is. And we have zero leverage to keep the door open.”

“Correct,” said Ring.

Beck’s voice broke. “So how the fuck are they supposed to get back? How are we supposed to use the tunnel?”

Ring shrugged. “I don’t know. This didn’t go as I had planned.”

Beck glared at him, a breath away from ripping the man out of his high-backed leather chair and breaking his neck in front of a dozen witnesses.

“Didn’t go as planned?” said Beck. “Is that a fucking fact?”

Ring appeared not to hear him. He was staring at a cluster of screens showing Mia’s family deep inside the tunnel. These images weren’t coming from the ROV, but from Joe Stanton’s head.

Beck followed Ring’s gaze. “She’s still communicating with him?”

“Apparently,” said Ring.

Beck stood, drew his 1911 from his shoulder holster and pivoted toward Joe, racking the slide on the weapon as he moved.

“Make her keep the tunnel open,” he said, as he set the barrel of the gun against the priest’s head.

Joe laughed. “How am I supposed to do that, Beck?”

Beck glanced at the screens. The whales were almost to the barrier.

“She’s still communicating with you. She cares about you. Tell her that if the tunnel closes, your girl will die a slow, excruciating death. Tell her you’ll die, too.”

Joe twisted on the gurney, pushing against the gun. “Leave Ella out of this!”

Beck screamed and drove the weapon harder into Joe’s skull. “Tell her to keep the fucking tunnel open!”

Joe shut his eyes and felt Mia’s presence at once. Felt her thoughts rushing toward him.

Good-bye, Stan-ton.

My friend.

I am sorry.

The communication washed over him as before. But there was a finality about it this time.

Mia didn’t blame him for the attack on the baby. He felt not a trace of the rage she’d exhibited moments earlier.

Good-bye, Stan-ton.

My friend.

Beck screamed again, spittle flying from his mouth.

“Make her keep it open! Tell her!”

On-screen, the whales were approaching the bend in the tunnel, the graceful curve that glowed with a holy luminescence.

Joe focused his mind.

Good-bye, Mia.

My friend.

May you find peace in your new world.

Mia and her family swam into the halo surrounding the barrier, and their bodies flared, meteor-like. When the flash faded, they were gone.

Instantly, the screens displaying Joe’s subconscious thoughts went dark. Ring and his techs flitted between consoles, typing and troubleshooting, but it was no use.

Only the views from the ROV and
Marauder
’s deck cameras remained, plus muted news feeds on some of the smaller monitors.

The ROV’s cameras revealed a tunnel empty, forlorn and adrift. Desolate. A lifeless husk.

Beck, sweating profusely, reeking of acid stress, banged the 1911 against Stanton’s temple. “You better hope,” he hissed, “that my submarine comes back and the tunnel stays open.”

A collective gasp drew all eyes to the ROV feed. Beck lowered the gun and gawked.

The tunnel itself was flaring now, glowing brighter by the second, like a dying sun going nova. As it reached its zenith, the entire structure shuddered and convulsed, vomiting a stream of detritus, an asteroid-like field of debris that shotgunned out in all directions.

A dark cylinder whickered past the ROV’s 12x lens, so close it looked like the objects would collide.

It was a section of the submarine. A jagged, twenty-foot-long fragment, twisted and burned and mangled. It looked, whirling by, as if it had been crushed in an avalanche, then set on fire.

Beck stared, speechless, as more ejecta from the tunnel wound past the ROV:
Velocity
’s propeller. A fragment of engine. A section of cockpit.

“Got your sub back,” said Joe.

Beck spun on the priest and clubbed him with the 1911, knocking the gurney sideways and almost upending it completely. Face contorted with rage, eyes wide and burning, Beck lifted the gun, puppet-like, to Stanton’s head.

War Room crew in the line of fire dove out of the way, scattering chairs and slamming desks.

“Good-bye, Mr. Stanton.”

“Wait!” Ring screamed.

Beck pivoted toward Ring, then gaped as the images on the screens changed yet again.

The tunnel’s luminescent glow dimmed, and the vast bell-shaped mouth shrank and shriveled, collapsing in on itself. The tunnel walls, and the radiant latticework that defined the passage, appeared to melt—disintegrating, before their eyes.

Moments later, all of the tunnel’s light—all of the eerie phosphorescence—had been extinguished, and the “skin” of the structure was tearing, dissolving into pieces, like wet paper in a drain.

Beck watched as the pieces became a flaccid mess tumbling in the current. He turned back to Stanton but addressed Ring. “Why should I wait?” he asked, still aiming the gun at Stanton’s head.

“Because we might need him.”

“Why would we need him? The tunnel’s gone.”

“I’m seeing something I can’t explain,” said Ring.

A stream of data was tumbling down a small screen on his desktop.

“What?”

“Give me a minute,” said Ring.

Beck’s head was throbbing, only the thinnest membrane of sanity keeping him from killing the priest, from murdering everyone in the War Room, for that matter. He imagined how immensely cathartic that would feel.

Stanton lay sideways on the gurney, breathing in a ragged wheeze, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. He looked only half-alive.

Beck thought again about blowing Joe’s brains out.

Ignore Ring and just do it.

He wanted desperately to kill. To find release for the failure with the tunnel. For the loss of his submarine.

Lifting his eyes to the monitors, he saw a cluster of boats where the Whaler and Zodiac had been, where debris now bobbed in the tide. People were there, looking for survivors. Bodies.

On another screen, remnants of tunnel wall fluttered in deep current. Ghostly fragments captured in the glow of the ROV’s halogens.

The tunnel was no more.

Beck breathed, and the room spun carousel-like around him. For a moment, an instant, he saw everything clearly.

We put the deployment on hold to investigate a phenomenon.

It was me running the investigation, at first, but something changed.

He thought about the “mystery man” on the weather deck the day he’d killed Ellis. About the apparition he’d seen at the gun range, and the eyes in the desiccated skull in the Bellingham airport restroom. About the rabid lunatic beast loose in his mind.

It’s in my head
, he thought, numb with terror.
And when Heintzel’s concoction wears off…

He stood there, next to the priest on his gurney, oblivious to the gaze of the techs. It was suddenly difficult to breathe.

When my strength is gone and the beast slides into control behind my eyes, when it ascends to its place of control and my energy fades, I will be the one lurking in the corner and the beast will be in charge. A blend of Dahmer and Bundy and Manson. A thing sick and twisted and diseased.

I killed my father and sister
, he thought with remorse.

I killed Ellis. Navarro. Phelps and Edelstein.

The beast murmured discontentedly in his head. Beck fought against it.

I was a rogue before. Pushed the boundaries of the law. Abused my enemies. But what’s happened now is irreparable.

He analyzed his situation with cold lucidity. Like a cancer, the illness—the schizophrenia, or whatever it was—had metastasized, growing, flourishing, sinking its tentacles into the folds of his brain like an invasive weed.

The beast murmured again, then suddenly surged forward. Beck screamed.

I want blood
, the beast whispered.

I want killing and death and pain.

But I want something else even more.

Beck waited, panting, shaking with terror.

I want to go across
.

I want to go through the tunnel. Transit the barrier. And step into the new world.

And Beck understood.

It had been the disease all along. The lunatic part of him whispering in his ear, urging him to delay a massive deployment to investigate the phenomenon.

And now it was the beast moderating his actions, keeping him from killing Stanton, on the off chance that Ring was right.

We might need him,
Ring had said. Though glancing at the monitors now, Beck didn’t see why.

The tunnels were no more. Even the tattered fragments of tunnel wall had now dissolved into nothing.

The tunnels were no more.

Still, Ring was busy with
something
, frantic with something on his desk.

Beck decided he would spare Stanton, for the moment.

He turned to Ring, feeling the sick craving again, spreading now like a blast of whiskey, to his fingers and toes. He said matter-of-factly, “We don’t need the
girl
for anything.”

Stanton twisted on his bed, thrashing against his restraints. “She’s done nothing to you!”

Beck leaned toward Joe with cold, pitiless eyes. “Bring the tunnel back to life.” 

Joe closed his eyes, and focused all his thoughts on Mia. But the lines were dead. The strange telepathic flow they’d shared was gone. He had his own thoughts. Nothing more.

He lifted his head and focused on the black-and-white video feed showing Ella in her tiny holding cell. She was just sitting there, staring intently at something offscreen. 

Beck followed Joe’s gaze. Sighed. “Have it your way, Father.” He patted Joe on the arm. “I’m going to enjoy this.” 

“Please,” said Joe, trembling now. “Please. For God’s sake. She’s innocent. She hasn’t done anything.”

“No,” said Beck. “This is about you. About you reneging on our agreement.” 

Beck turned to the infirmary crew. “Take him into the conference room. Make sure he watches everything.”

“Beck, please! Kill me! If you want blood, kill me. Leave her alone.”

Beck strode purposefully toward the exit.

Blood rushed from Joe’s head, the room rolled and undulated before his eyes, and he gave a strangled cry.

THERE WAS A COLLECTIVE GASP.
Beck paused at the exit, one hand on the massive steel door. Turned.

Screens throughout the War Room were filling with new images. Images that had nothing to do with the sea.

Beck called to Ring. “What the hell’s that?”

Onscreen: A western landscape at sunrise. High, open prairie, reminiscent of Montana or Wyoming. Fog clinging to the ground and dew glistening on tall grass in the flat gray half-light.

The screens refreshed, revealing another section of prairie, this one terminating in a cliff. A ragged precipice where the land fell eight hundred feet—as if a giant fist had long ago smashed the plain in two at this precise spot.

The stone in the cliff face was old. Hammered and broken by millennia of rain and snow, ice and wind and scorching sun. The scrub at the base of the cliff was littered with boulders. Jagged slabs of sedimentary rock born during the Paleozoic.

Beck stepped back into the middle of the room. “Ring,” he said. “What are we looking at?” He pointed at Stanton. “These images coming from him?”

Ring nodded. “Yes, from Mr. Stanton. But, I don’t know where this is.”

A young tech working at one of the computer terminals said softly, “I do.”

Everyone turned.

“I grew up not far from that,” said the tech.

“What’s your name?” Beck asked. 

“Thomas, Sir.”

“Speak up, Thomas.”

The kid stood. Stammered. Pointed at the screens. “It’s called the Madison Buffalo Jump.” He stepped to the nearest monitor. “It’s a few miles from Bozeman.”

“The Madison
what
?” Beck asked. Ring was already searching online.

“Buffalo Jump,” said the kid. “The Madison jump’s one of the most famous ones. It’s a state park now.”

“What the hell is a ‘buffalo jump’?”

“Has to do with the Indians who lived in Montana,” said the kid. “Before whites. They used these cliffs to kill buffalo.”

Beck arched an eyebrow. “Kill them how?”

The kid pointed at the flat, open plan stretching away at the top of the cliff. “It was organized. Choreographed. They’d start miles out on the upper plain, see? A few warriors would find a big herd, maybe ten miles out, get ’em riled up by yelling and throwing rocks and spears. The buffalo would start running, this way and that. But the Indians would gradually steer them into this broad lane bordered by these cairns they’d built—piles of stone that kind of funneled the herd along.

“The lane started so wide the buffalo barely noticed. But it got narrower and narrower as they approached the cliff.

“Warriors closed in behind the herd, screaming bloody murder, dogs barking. Pretty soon the buffalo would be in a full-on stampede.

“Buffalo aren’t as stupid as people think, though. They knew the cliff was up ahead, so they’d try to stop or turn aside. But the Indians had another trick. The last mile or so along the lane, warriors wearing wolf skins would leap up, howling. That kept the panic going. Kept the herd galloping forward. Then, before the buffalo could change course, they were shooting over the cliff. Dozens of them, plummeting over the edge, dying instantly on the rocks.