Protocol 7 (42 page)

“Are you serious?” asked Max.

“You bet I am. You saw the bullets fly out of this thing. What you heard was the sound barrier breaking.”

Lucas chuckled at the look of pure amazement on Simon’s face. “This is why I wanted to show it to you, Simon,” he said. “You can take a set, of course, and all the ammo you can carry. But that’s not the point. The point is, this is the stuff they threw away. As incredible as it is to you, it is yesterday’s news, out of date and out of favor with Vector5.” He casually handed the unit to one of his assistants as they headed for the main tent, ready for an evening meal made primarily from Spector supplies, and an actual night’s sleep.

“The technology being used here is light years ahead of the rest of the world. You literally have no idea how advanced Vector5 really is—you couldn’t, but one thing is certain: you are facing one of history’s most technologically advanced military machines. If you survive the journey, you will witness it for yourself. But you can’t possibly plan for it.”

He slapped Max on the shoulder and smiled. “Now let’s grab a quick bite, and I’ll explain where you need to go and what you need to do.”

Eric Schultz had an advanced degree in mechanical engineering and an international award for his work in quantum alloys. Robert Pallaso had two doctorates, one in industrial chemistry and the other in high energy physics. Each of them had worked for less than two years at jobs in Antarctic Station 9 for UNED and a series of companies with names no one could pronounce when they were “recruited” to the deep research stations on Shelf 1 within a week of each other—part of a horrible storm-related “accident” that “killed” seventeen scientists and engineers and made them Vector5 slaves for the rest of their lives.

Today, these award-winning innovators and technologists were considered something less than mildly talented mechanics, assigned to the DITV operations bay, a thousand feet under the icy surface. Their assignment: to load heavy-voltage weaponry onto the killing machine’s chassis in less than ten minutes. If they did not do so, they would receive no end-of-shift meal. If they made an error, they would receive no end-of-shift meal. If they were caught complaining or refusing to contribute with the proper enthusiasm, they would simply be shot in the head. Twice.

A coterie of Vector5 soldiers formed a loose ring around the operations bay, watching impassively as the team of prisoners fought the weather and the mismatched technology to complete the task. The work was dangerous and difficult and unimaginably cold, but they kept at it. They had little choice. After all, the end-of-shift meal was one of only two given every day. Missing it wasn’t simply unpleasant; it was life-threatening.

“What the hell are they planning to do with these?” Eric asked under his breath as he tried desperately to mount the high voltage generator below the hull of the DITV.

“I have no idea,” Bob said in classic prisoner’s monotone. He could only be heard a few feet away; his mouth barely moved at all. “But it sure as hell seems like something is going on with the Black Ops team. Some kind of ambush.”

A dark look passed over Eric’s features. “Hope it’s not Lucas and the boys. They were good guys.”

“They were idiots,” Bob said bitterly. “Plain stupid to escape like they did. I mean, what the hell are they going to do?”

A Vector5 soldier at the edge of the circle banged the stock of his rifle against a pipe to get their attention. “Hey!” he barked. “Stop the chatter and move on!”

“Finishing up,” Eric said quickly and got back to work.

The vehicle was so tall they needed a special robot to hoist the generator to its mounting plate. It was perilous work, and the frozen conditions made it almost impossible, but they were motivated. Eric and Bob worked as fast as they could.

It wasn’t fast enough.

Eric was tightening the last two nuts on the generator when a five-man Black Ops squad came double-timing out of the shelter, complete in tactical gear. They rushed to the cargo doors that swayed open on their own—in response, Bob knew, to the special-status code chips embedded in their ice suits. It was virtually impossible to open the DIT, let alone operate the complex machine, without one of those s-s chips. Without its answer-back, the controls simply would not respond, the engines wouldn’t fire.

“They’re early,” Bob said.

“They don’t care,” Eric replied.

“This doesn’t look good,” Bob said and hurried to finish. He could feel the vibrations of the special team’s boots echoing from inside the hull; he knew they were stowing gear, strapping in, responding to the lash of the sergeant’s constant goading, “Move it, move it, move it!”

A heartbeat later, the main engine began to cycle up, but Eric and Bob still weren’t done.

“Robert, don’t forget the cable underneath the fuelling hatch. It’s going to catch.”

“I’ve got it,” Robert replied, and scrambled toward the back of the vehicle. The cable was lying in front of a massive, knobby twelve-foot tire; if the DITV rolled over it in its haste to depart, the vehicle itself wouldn’t know the difference, but the cable would be crushed and ruined and would have to be replaced—which meant more work, more punishment, and fewer meals for them. They just couldn’t let that happen.

As he started to jump for the cable, the engines directly over his head roared to full life. It made him flinch—just a bit—and when his boots hit the ground he slipped on the icy floor. Simultaneously, the massive hydrogen boosters whined to life, and the floor under the vehicle—under Bob—start to vibrate.

Bob shouted, “Wait!” and struggled to get to his feet.

It was too late.

He had only made it to his knees when the DITV, impatient to be on its way, jumped forward, smashed the cable deep into the ice, and rolled directly over Robert Pallaso, beginning with his knees and ending with half his skull.

He was crushed to a pulp in an instant.

Eric stood motionless for a long moment, frozen in horror, then dropped to his knees and screamed—a sound of absolute, inarticulate anguish as he stared at the pieces of his friend’s body splattered on the tunnel walls. The DITV had already disappeared into the deep tunnel, unaware and unconcerned about what it might have done. The asset loss would be logged in Vector5 files; Eric would be moved to another team, and he would continue to work until he, too, was no longer of any use. There would be no funeral, no service, no obituary. Vector5 would just…continue.

Eric couldn’t stop screaming. He couldn’t see anything but the crushed body of his friend.

One of the soldiers—the one who had shouted at him earlier—stepped close behind Eric and buried the muzzle of his weapon in the nape of his neck. The soldier knew the protocol. There was no room for mourning. The mission was greater than any one man.

“Get up,” he said.

Tears streamed from Eric’s eyes. He didn’t rise.

“Get up,” the soldier said, and before Eric could respond, looped an arm around the scientist’s neck, pulled him roughly to his feet, and dragged him, struggling, into the security shed at the edge of the Ops Bay.

The moment he was inside, he dropped him on the floor and said, “Get yourself together before you’re locked up.”

This was life underneath the ice, and the soldier knew it well. He was doing the prisoner a favor by reminding him of that fact.

Eric tried to compose himself, struggled to make his body move, stand, work.

He risked one look at the blank, glittering helmet of the Vector5 soldier. “Why?” he rasped, scarcely able to speak. “What could be so important? What could matter so much that…what happened…just wouldn’t matter?”

The soldier did not speak. He did not remove his helmet. After a moment he simply moved the end of his rifle, from aiming at Eric’s stomach to aiming at his head, and said tonelessly, “Get back to work.”

Eric got back to work. The pulped body of his friend had already been removed by others just like them—other laborers, other workers just a little too valuable to kill…just yet.

Over a mile away, the DITV began its climb to the side of Tunnel 5, a huge and deadly robotic insect on the prowl. The team knew their mission.

They would be taking no prisoners.

Samantha walked through the encampment without any real destination. She just needed to keep moving—for her peace of mind and for the tiny amount of warmth that movement generated.

She came across Nastasia, sitting in a corner of the roughly hewn ice room by herself, holding her inhaler in one hand and looking thoughtful. Sam had noticed the device when they were still in the Spector, but she hadn’t mentioned it before—there was simply too much going on.

She stopped in front of the Russian beauty. “Hey,” she said.

Nastasia’s head snapped up, surprised by Sam’s sudden arrival. For one moment she looked almost afraid—then just embarrassed.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I do not like to…take care of this…in front of other people.”

Sam gave her a gentle smile. “I am a doctor, you know. I might be able to help you.”

Nastasia shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not with this.”

“Is it asthma? There are many more advance treatments available these days, far past the old nebulizers.” She nodded at the little canniser-and-pump device in Nastasia’s hand. “That looks like a pretty up-to-date gadget, I admit, but—”

“No,” Nastasia said shortly. “It’s not asthma. And I prefer not to discuss it.” Her eyes burned for a moment, and then she looked away. “Thank you,” she said, dismissing Samantha.

“Oh,” Sam said, slightly stunned by the rudeness. “Oh. You’re welcome.” She turned on her heel and walked away quickly, stung by the rejection. Around the next ten-foot pile of debris, she found Simon and Lucas in deep conversation, and she didn’t like what she saw.

Lucas was lecturing their leader—again—and Simon was not taking it well. He shifted from foot to foot, scowled with impatience, tried to interrupt and didn’t succeed, balled his fists and let them loose again, all in an attempt to remain reasonable—or at least give that illusion.

Lucas was holding a complicated bit of robotics, a roughly spherical mechanism with more legs than body—something she had heard called a “scrambler drone,” just hours before.

“You have to understand the scope of what we’re dealing with here,” Lucas began again.

Finally, Simon had taken all he could stand. Samantha could see him snap, even from a distance. She held her breath and tensed; she almost covered her ears in anticipation of Simon’s explosive reaction.

“No,” Simon said, his voice dripping with badly suppressed anger. “I don’t ‘need to understand.’ I understand enough. You need to understand that I’m not waiting here anymore. Now just tell me: where the hell is my father being held?”

She had never heard him sound more tightly controlled…or more dangerous.

“Look,” Lucas said, sounding perilously close to condescending “I don’t think you—”

Simon grabbed Lucas by the neck and yelled, “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

Max stepped forward and put a hand on Simon’s upraised fist. “Hey, let’s—”

Simon shrugged it off, his muscles tense as iron. “Tell me!”

It was Samantha’s voice that cut through him. “Simon!” she snapped. “Please!”

He faltered then, but only for a moment. His eyes flicked to the side to meet hers, and he abruptly let loose of the scientist’s jacket collar and stepped back, letting the man collapse to his knees, clutching his throat and gasping for breath.

Samantha started to say something more, but Simon held a hand up to her to stop the interruption. He had already communicated what he had intended: there was no stopping him, and Lucas understood that now.

“All right, then,” he said roughly, rubbing his neck. “Traverse the broken tunnel above the Gorge; that will descend a mile onto the opposite side, and take you to Dragger Station, where there are more Vector5 than I’m willing to deal with.” He gave him a hooded, hostile look—no longer the friendly colleague of a few minutes ago. “You’re welcome to take one of the MagCycles with you, if you think you can manage it. And good luck in that frozen hell.”

Simon didn’t thank him. He simply turned and walked out of the encampment alone, finding his small duffel bag and stuffing it with a few of the ration packs they had brought from the Spector and some climbing supplies. Max followed close behind, looking grim and resigned. He knew there was no stopping him at this point.

Samantha’s body had gone cold with the realization of what was coming next. It’s too soon, she thought. Too fast. The team had been given no chance to sleep; they had barely eaten. Their level of tension concerning their own survival was higher than ever, and here was Simon, already pushing ahead.

Ryan stood up and said, “Simon, how are we all going to fit inside one ice cycle?”

Simon turned back instantly. “We’re not.”

“But…”

“But what, Sam? I’m going down myself.”

Andrew shook his head violently. “No,” he said. “No. We’re in this together. You can’t just do this on your own.”

Simon held up his hand again as if he didn’t need compassion any more than he needed argument.

“I need you guys here,” he said. “You need to figure out how the hell to get us out of here.” He snapped a look at his father’s friend. “Hayden,” he said sternly, “I’m counting on you to get back to the Spector and make her operational again before I return. And that won’t be long.”

“You’re daft,” the inventor said.

“…And you’ll need Ryan and Andrew both to pull that off.”

Hayden looked stubborn for an instant. “You’re still daft,” he said defiantly. “You’re right, but you’re still daft.”

“Don’t you think for a moment that you’re leaving this camp without me!” Samantha said sternly.

“I am. They need you here, and so do I.”

Her mouth tightened into a hard line of pain. Nastasia was already gathering her own belongings. “I’ll come with you,” she said as if she already knew what the response would be. “You’re going to need someone to help you navigate, and I’m the only one here who has a sense of the continent’s topography.”