Protocol 7 (31 page)

“Expand Fissure 9 five to one, Station 35 to three miles.” The AI responded to his verbal command instantly, and the image zoomed forward and in, bringing the long tunnel of Fissure 9 into sharp relief.

This section of Fissure 9 looked like a digital worm ten feet long floating above the surface of the table. There was the entrance in question: Station 35, one of the digitally camouflaged entrances to the Southern Sea.

“Give me an infrared readout and locate movement of anomalies,” said the commander. Instantly, the computer analyzed the tunnel, showing a small speck of…something…moving at a rapid speed, deeper down the submarine feeder-tunnel toward the main corridor of Fissure 9— moving toward them, as it happened.

Roland tapped a small patch on his left shoulder and spoke distinctly, “This is Fissure 9 Command. Connect me to headquarters.”

He heard the response in his ear through the tech implanted there years ago: “Roger that.”

Two seconds later, he heard the voice of the computer on the other side, “Central Command, verify password.”

“Fissure 9, 9005105,” said the commander, looking at the tunnel with the flickering things moving forward at a steady—and impressive—speed.

“Hold on, sir,” the computer said, instantly analyzing the password and connecting him to the voice on the other side.

“What the hell are you doing going audio?” the voice on the other side asked.

“We have an incision,” said the commander. That was all the explanation the other side would need.

The voice belonged to the man designated as Mathias, the commander’s counterpart in Central Command. Although Central Command was miles away and over five thousand feet deep in the ice, it was also the point where everything converged. Most of the transport tunnels that crossed underneath the ice connected there, and Mathias would be just as displeased at hearing that word as Roland had been. The moment Roland pronounced it, the other man’s tone changed.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” replied Roland. “We’re still working on the recognition sequence, but I’m convinced it’s not one of ours.”

Roland hadn’t taken his eyes off the multiple screens, but he was no closer to understanding what he was seeing than he’d been five minutes ago. “Command,” he said, hating the decision even as he made it. “I am requesting a dispatch.”

Mathias responded immediately, “You do realize how long it will take for the DITVs to get up there?”

“We’ve got a situation up here,” Roland said, biting it off. “I need assistance.” Dispatching Vector5’s Deep Ice Transport Vehicles (or DITVs) were the biggest, most decisive response he could think of. It was important to hit hard and hit fast. But that wasn’t all.

“Central,” he continued. “Can you send the Spiders up Dragger Pass as well?” Dragger Pass was a three-thousand-foot-long crack in the ice, an incredibly dangerous crevasse as wide as two-hundred-feet in certain areas, which opened on the Fissure at various points along the way. The CS-23s, or the Crevasse Spiders, were the perfect tools for forcing unwanted intruders to stop or die, and the only machines capable of navigating the vertical fissure.

Mathias humphed at the request, thinking it through. “We haven’t used Dagger Pass in years,” he said. “There are easier ways to travel now. It’s going to take some time.”

“We don’t have time,” Roland said. “While you’re deploying, I’m dispatching the Drones to get a better visual of what this thing is.”

“I haven’t said if we’re deploying—”

“Roland out,” he said and tapped his shoulder one more time to disconnect from Central Command. He didn’t have to repeat himself; he saw the surveillance duty officer was already at work.

“Sir, I’ve dispatched eight underwater drones along the cord,” he said, referring to the Fissure 9 tunnel. The tiny robotic cameras no larger than baseballs would travel to their assigned destinations at speeds exceeding thirty miles an hour. Once they reached their goals, they would dig in and remain dormant until activated.

Roland nodded and allowed himself a tiny moment of satisfaction. He walked outside of the monitor room in search of a decent cup of coffee. “Good,” he muttered to himself. “Once we get a look at this thing, I’ll know how to deal with it.”

He only knew one thing for certain: whoever, or whatever, had entered Fissure 9 had a death wish…and he was more than sure he would make it come true.

Twelve miles from the open water, deep in the dead-black tunnel of Fissure 9, the Spector pushed on until Max, terrified beyond thought, stopped dead.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t drive this thing blind.”

The bridge was lit only by the dim blue light of the instrumentation. They had doused all the other illumination, as well as the high-intensity external lights to avoid detection.

Max and Simon were both convinced they were being watched—or at the very least, being sought. Sonar and radar—active scanning of the outside world—would draw attention like moths to a flame. So they made themselves absolutely blank…and absolutely helpless. Without the external lights, even the front-facing flat-screen was useless. It just showed black on black on black.

“We have to figure something else out,” he said as he slowed Spector VI to a barely suspended state in the middle of the tunnel—or what he thought was the middle, based on what he had seen just before he slowed the vessel down. He had to keep the vessel moving. There was a hint of a current outside, and holding it in almost the same place would be virtually impossible without power. He just hoped it wouldn’t run into anything before they figured out what to do next.

No one could guess that a military force was already on its way, or that they were less than twenty minutes from the vast central dome of Fissure 9.

Hayden’s depth indicator, working from passive pressure readings, was still functional. That told him how deep they were, and Max could tell from that input alone that they had been traveling in a straight, level line for more than fourteen miles; but that was it. Otherwise: he was blind.

Hayden sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said, “enough with the ‘run silent, run deep’ game. We have to turn on the AIs. It’s our only chance of understanding what’s going on, or we might kill ourselves against the tunnel wall.”

“And if we do, we’ll bring UNED to us within hours,” Simon said.

Andrew was staring at the console, deep in thought. “Can’t we engage just a few of Spector’s outside components?” he asked. “Without turning on the AI module?”

“Like what?” Hayden asked.

“Like the intelligent skin that Simon here created. It ‘sees,’ doesn’t it? It gets a ton of optical, sonic, pressure-wave information over every centimeter of its surface, and uses that to make itself invisible. So if we activate just that, and channel the data through our captive processors here, we can see clear as day without so much as striking a match, or waking up the AIs.”

“And,” Simon added, suddenly realizing the possibilities of Andrew’s plan, “it will make the Spector closer to invisible at the same time. Almost impossible to detect.”

“Well, crap,” Andrew said. “Hit the switch!”

Hayden and Andrew exchanged looks. They had worked on this prototype together for months; they both knew every inch of it, including maintenance tunnels and access tubes.

“Oh, no,” Andrew said. “Please don’t say it.”

“I can’t do it,” Hayden said, “or you know that I would.”

Andrew seemed deflated. “Crap,” he said and lowered his head.

“What?” Simon asked.

Hayden sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his long silver hair. “There’s only one possible way to make the passive aspects of the smart-skin active without AIs,” he said. “It requires some gross rewiring right at the juncture of the dataflow and the skin itself.”

“It ‘requires,’” Andrew echoed, mimicking his boss’ words with a slightly corrosive edge, “crawling on your elbows and knees through an access tunnel about eighteen inches high for about sixty feet. Right under here.” He pointed at the deck’s floor plates and stomped down with the flat of his foot for emphasis. “Great fun.”

“Well, if the treads were out, you could walk through standing up!” Hayden said, sounding oddly defensive.

“Well, the treads aren’t out, are they? And can’t be if we don’t want detection.” He pulled himself up short, raised a hand to stop the response before it began. “No. Wait. Sorry. I just…I really don’t want to do this, mate. That’s all I’m saying.”

Hayden nodded and looked away. “It’s almost impossible to maneuver underneath the cabin while the treads are retracted,” he said. “In fact, we’ve never actually tried it with the treads pulled in and the ship underwater, so…”

“So, no time like the present,” Andrew said. He levered himself out of his seat at Navigation and moved into the ready room. A central floor plate had a ring set into it; it was the work of seconds to pull the ring up and open the plate like a trap door.

Simon saw that the two scientists hadn’t been exaggerating. The plastic-lined crawl-tube that ran the length of the room—and probably the length of the submersible itself—didn’t look wide enough to accommodate a ten-year-old boy, much less a man in his mid-twenties. But Andrew already knew that. He simply disengaged a small flashlight from a wall console, slung it around his neck by its halyard, and sat down on the edge of the access hatch.

Samantha, always concerned about other people’s safety, was the first to speak out, “Andrew,” she said, “are you sure you’re okay with this?”

He shrugged. “It won’t be so bad as long as I can maneuver my way through the madness down there.”

Simon knelt down next to him. “You’re sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” he said. “Besides, let’s get serious, we’re blind. We’re dead in the water. Our only chance of surviving this god-forsaken place is to get the sensors on the outside of the vessel working. Then we’ll be able to see miles into the ice.”

Simon forced a smile and stood up, watching carefully as Andrew slid into the access tunnel, turned over on his belly, and—just as he had described—crawled away on his elbows and knees. He waited until he was completely out of sight before he turned back to Hayden and asked, “Have you ever run the smart skin without an AI involved?”

When he heard no response he looked up and caught Hayden staring back at him.

“No!” Andrew called from under the floor. His voice sounded tinny, but otherwise he might as well have been in the ready room with them. “But it’s worth a try!”

They returned to the bridge, following the sounds of Andrew snaking his way under the floor. Max was still in the pilot’s seat, staring at the motionless console, ready to jump at a moment’s notice.

He glanced around as Simon and Hayden reappeared. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I think you should all put on your cold suits—those lovely outfits Nastasia brought for us, Simon. If we hit something or spring a leak before we get sensors back…well, it could get ugly.”

Samantha made a face, as if she had just tasted something very bitter. But then she took a deep breath and said, “I’ll help break out the gear.”

As she stood, Max turned to Nastasia. “You’re a scientist specializing in ice, right?”

“You know that I am,” she replied calmly. “Why?”

“Then maybe you can tell me why we are traveling in a tunnel miles under the ice shelf of Antarctica without it freezing over.”

She paused for a long moment and then said bluntly, “I’m honestly not sure.”

Max just stared back, his suspicion growing deeper.

Hayden made a surprised sound from his post at Engineering. “Huh,” he said. “What a good question. Wonder why I didn’t think of it.” He powered up a small sampling station to take a half-liter of seawater for analysis.

Sooner or later, Max told himself, I’m going to find out who you are, Nastasia.

Nastasia looked away from him. A moment later she got up and moved back to the ready room.

They could all hear Andrew clanking and grunting as he wedged his way forward, threading through the maze of electrical and mechanical components that were the heart of the Spector. The specs were right, he told himself. At some junctures, there really was less than ten inches of space—barely enough for a human body. Some of the nodes and connectors he was passing were sharp-edged or jagged; others were just plain deadly. He knew that the high voltage, produced by the hydrogen reactor and relayed through some of these components, could kill him instantly if he came in contact with it, and there were points where the up-thrust gears and spokes of the tread system made it almost impossible not to touch a live spot.

Andrew was starting to sweat, and he knew he wasn’t halfway there yet.

“Huh,” Hayden said. “I’m looking at the results of the seawater analysis, and I’m picking up something…unusual.”

“What do you mean, ‘unusual?’” Simon moved over to see for himself.

“I’m not sure.” He glanced at Nastasia, who had just re-entered the bridge. She rushed to his station and looked at the data.

“Perhaps,” Hayden said in a concerned tone, “it’s some sort of chemical additive. It does, in fact, resemble the molecular components of a type of retardant.”

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the sampling system,” Nastasia said frowning. “This isn’t the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in Arctic water…though, I admit, it could explain the lack of ice.”

“What are you suggesting?” Simon asked Hayden. “That it’s a type of anti-freeze? That’s crazy.”

“I agree, crazy. But it sure as hell isn’t a compound that would exist naturally.”

Samantha was pacing directly over Andrew’s last known location. “Andrew?” she called down, worried about his safety. “Are you all right?” She turned back toward the rest of the team and said, “I’m not sure what’s going on down there, but this is taking far too long.”

Hayden nodded in reluctant agreement. “Let’s give him a bit more time. The space is impossible to maneuver.”

“Maybe everyone should suit up right now,” Max suggested without lifting his eyes from the holo-display in front of them. “If something comes for us, or we drift into an obstacle.”

The team members rose and moved quickly to the sleeping quarters at the aft of the Spector to put on the suits. Nastasia explained that the outfits were meant for deep subsurface work and were waterproof; they would stabilize the wearer’s metabolism while the batteries supplied enough heat to survive, at least for a few hours before they needed to be recharged. Without them—on land or underwater—it would be impossible to withstand the sub-zero temperatures of Antarctica. The safe phones that Andrew had given them weeks and thousands of miles earlier were going to be useless now; they would never stand the extreme cold. But each of them activated and tested the wrist communicators Andrew provided that resembled watches—the ones that would work at subzero temperatures.