Protocol 7 (51 page)

Max turned to walk directly toward it, as if he knew where he was going. Simon followed, his heart pounding.

He could feel it: Oliver was close by.

* * *

Hayden started to feel cold. Not the endless, penetrating cold of the ice, but something more—a cold he thought he would never escape, the coldness of life draining from him.

His lack of movement had forced the damaged suit to shift into its emergency back-up mode. It reduced the suit’s temperature grade by ten degrees, and the decreased temperature was already having an effect.

Hayden felt dizzy, but he didn’t know why. Still seated in the alcove, his back still against the glassy ice-wall, he noticed an odd vibration coming from the ice itself.

He had no idea that a drone was pushing its way toward him from Tunnel 3. Only a few feet of ice still separated them.

Farther down the tunnel, Samantha was running. It was harder than she had ever imagined. Her legs burned with exhaustion, the equipment she carried was heavier than cement. Keep going, she told herself. It was a dull, desperate mantra. Keep going, keep going. Her breathing became heavier and heavier under the thermal mask. She couldn’t take it off; it was the only source of light and heat that she had. Without those tiny lights mounted on the right and left side of her mask, without the air that flowed into her lungs being heated to a breathable temperature, she knew she would surely die in the dark.

But this is too much, she told herself. Too much. The rifle she was carrying felt heavier than she had remembered, especially with the ammo-pack that was magnetically attached to its side.

“Hayden!” she screamed through her mask. She pawed at the controls and turned the external volume up as high as it would go. “HAYDEN!”

She saw nothing. She heard nothing. The tunnel felt longer and more unrelenting than ever, a dark and cold path through an endless dungeon, leading to infinite blackness.

Almost a mile ahead, Hayden thought he heard something—faint sounds, distorted by distance and the ice. A voice? he wondered. Samantha’s voice?

He pressed his hands to his knees and pushed his heavy body to its feet. The faint voice was there—he was sure of it—but he couldn’t pinpoint the direction, or how near she was. Time to pull yourself together, he thought. Time to—

The pain from his thumb shot through his arm like a hot stiletto blade. He gasped in a breath and pushed away from the wall, commanding himself to move, move. He would not accept the fact that he had lost orientation. He knew it was important, vital, to get back to the encampment, back to heaters and food and medicine. But which way was it? How had he gotten there?

He couldn’t remember.

Get moving, he ordered himself. He turned to the left and put one foot in front of the other, and then another, and then another. After what seemed a very long time, the tiny alcove where he had waited disappeared into the frigid darkness.

He had no idea that he was headed away from the camp.

Three quarters of a mile behind him, Samantha stopped for a moment, resting her hands against her knees. She was too tired and breathless to continue running. I’ll walk for a little while—I’m destined to get there sooner or later, she told herself.

The camp was almost exactly two miles behind her when she passed the tiny alcove where Hayden had rested for so long. Had he stayed there, they would have found each other, but he was gone now, farther into the maze of ice.

And worse, Hayden had decided it was time to pick up his pace. He was walking farther from Samantha and farther down the tunnel that would take him back to the chamber where the Spector had melted into the ice.

Less than five minutes after Samantha passed the alcove, when she was barely twenty yards past, the first little drone—still under Central Command’s control—cut through the last thin wall of ice that separated it from the open path. It used an industrial laser guided by its small but very clever AI, dropping a twenty-four-inch square two inches thick into Tunnel 3.

The drone climbed over the cut ice effortlessly. It paused for a moment, assessing its orientation, comparing it to the complex of digital maps it kept in it memory…and then turned right toward the encampment where Ryan and the rest of the scientists waited.

Samantha and Hayden were half a mile away in the opposite direction. The drone’s sensors didn’t even register their presences.

And Hayden was still alone, moving mindlessly, his thoughts driving, going back and forth between memories of Andrew and his own fear and exhaustion.

Samantha was almost a mile behind him, and moving only slightly faster than the injured scientist. She kept wondering how far she had. She could feel panic rising in her, threatening to steal her control. She fought it off for the moment.

Neither Hayden nor Samantha had any idea that they would never see the scientists or their encampment again.

* * *

Almost 250 feet directly below Samantha, the Spector struggled forward, burning the ice as hard and beautiful as glass, melting a path with its steaming, massive body. The tunnel that lay ahead was just three feet in front and eight feet below them.

“Almost there,” said Rolfe.

Lucas could taste the freedom at last. “All we need to do now is to climb two hundred kilometers of Gorge,” he said, more to himself than to his terrified men. “Even if the Spector can’t do it, we can go on foot.”

He felt no remorse for what he had just done. The frozen hell that had kept them captive had changed Lucas. He had not seen daylight in over ten years; his body was weak and his mind was tortured.

His hands slid over the virtual console that controlled the Spector VI. He held his arms so tightly he could feel them shaking. He was ready—ready for freedom from his captives.

He felt the sudden vibration below his feet as the Spector’s nose burned through the last few inches of ice and entered Tunnel 5. They were directly connecting to the gigantic Gorge that would lead them home.

They braced themselves as the Spector dropped nose-down, into a sixty-two degree angle that pointed into the icy void below. It was still burning the ice as it accelerated downhill.

“Stop the heat!” screamed Rolfe, barely keeping himself in his seat.

Lucas had no clue how to stop the outer skin from heating up. He frantically analyzed the console but had forgotten exactly how Andrew had circumvented the entire system to heat the outer skin.

“I can’t!” he said, his hands wavering uncertainly over the controls. “I can’t!” he said.

“Then turn the whole vessel off!” Rolfe screamed.

Lucas realized it was their only chance. He instantly touched the power icon on the console. Seconds later, the vessel’s lights went dark.

The submersible started screeching and sliding against the icy floor, flinging itself toward the Gorge below. As the treads under the Spector started to cool, the vessel eventually slowed down, friction carving into the icy terrain. Finally it stopped, pointing downward at almost a forty-degree angle, stuck in the massive fissure called the Gorge, absolutely motionless. It ticked and steamed there, exhausted from its impossible journey.

Lucas sighed in relief. He could barely contain himself. “Freedom at last!” he shouted.

The others took a deep breath, all together, and shouted in unison, still holding onto their chairs in the pitch-black vessel.

All the while, Nastasia’s inconspicuous nutrition pack, still sitting in the rear cabin, ticked away, the numbers counting down with each passing second.

2:53…2:52…2:51…

* * *

Max and Simon passed the vehicle bays and entered the next space. What they saw shocked them.

Over thirty soldiers, all solidly built, were moving about the vast room, tending urgently to various tasks. The magnificent cavernous space they had walked into looked almost octagonal, adequately lit with a ceiling that extended over fifty feet. Beyond them, large doors led to what seemed to be quadrants, each one in turn leading into other tunnels and spaces. Each area was numbered, but soon Simon noticed that only one was brightly lit. He had spotted some activity inside it, from the corner of his eye far in the distance.

The entire structure reminded Max of a security facility. He had seen this type of arrangement before. It was the perfect design: a central core and cells leading off in multiple directions to house prisoners. Radiation icons and danger symbols surrounded the structure.

A gigantic hole, the size of a small building, was cut right into the center. The cavity seemed to drop even further down, and a massive crane, unlike anything they had ever seen, was situated over it. A platform was suspended from the crane. Hundreds of wires several inches thick dropped into the massive cavity, tentacles connected to large oxygen canisters that sat immediately to the left of where Simon and Max now stood.

It looks like some kind of a lit tunnel; wonder what the hell is down there? Simon thought.

“Simon,” Max said quietly through his teeth. “Come on.”

He climbed a catwalk that led into the strangely lit tunnel. It took a sharp turn just inside the entrance, then a series of steps moved down, even deeper into the complex.

“Max!” Simon whispered out of the side of his mouth. “This isn’t the way—”

He stopped dead at what he saw in front of him. Max had pulled up short just three paces ahead.

They were on the edge of a vertical shaft that appeared to go down forever, and suspended in the middle of it was what seemed like a semi-transparent needle-like object without any visible means of support, its tapered point aiming straight down to the center of the planet, its surface covered with…shapes…or letters…or symbols. Simon couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t even see it clearly; it hurt his eyes—hurt his mind—to even look at it.

The sound it made was something like a groan, something like a seductive song. The light was impossibly broad—ultraviolet and infrared, blue and black and purple at the same time, throbbing behind his eyes.

This is not human, he said. We did not build this; we couldn’t have.

Max suddenly whirled around and shoved him, square in the chest.

“Go back,” he said brutally, forcing the words out of his mouth. His eyes were huge and haunted. There was blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

When Simon didn’t respond fast enough, he seized him by the shoulders and spun him around, facing away from the massive spike that hung in the air, turning away from the hideous light. “Go back,” he said again and shoved him even harder.

Simon stumbled and moved. He knew that Max was right. He wondered how his friend had even managed to look away at all, to resist the sinister radiation that flowed from that…from that…

They stumbled out of the tunnel entrance, back into the room they had come from. For a moment they stood there, blinking and swaying, trying to remember what it was they had just seen.

“My god,” Max said. “What…?”

For that one moment, they had forgotten where they were. As they stood there, unsteadily recovering, they nearly forgot that they were surrounded by soldiers.

But the soldiers had not forgotten them. Max snapped back to attention as a coterie of Vector5 men approached; he looked off into the distance toward the same opening that Simon had spotted earlier and started moving, stalking straight toward the lit corridor, crossing the thousand-foot space at a swift but businesslike pace, like someone who knew where he was and who he was and was eager to finish an unpleasant job—like a powerful bureaucrat.

Their senses were on high alert; both of them gripped their rifles, ready for a shootout.

As they moved, the coterie of soldiers faded back, distracted by other duties, except for two who kept coming straight for them even as Simon and Max approached the opening.

Max continued to look preoccupied. Simon counted the distance between them and tried not to look out of place. It was the longest thousand feet he had crossed in his life.

Any second now, Max thought. They accelerated their pace; as they approached, the opening revealed itself. It was approximately eight feet high and six feet wide. Perforated floors sat above the ice with cables and focused lighting in the ceiling. They entered.

The corridor was lit adequately and seemed endlessly long. Simon could feel the soldier’s eyes, following them.

Ten feet into the tunnel, off to the left, Max noticed a locking mechanism. I wonder if this is to the exterior door, he thought. Looks like it can be controlled remotely.

He had been trained his entire life to study his surroundings with photographic detail; that training had saved his life many times. This time would be no different.

Twenty steps into the tunnel, the audio enhancement unit in Simon’s headgear twittered to life, picking up a fragment of conversation from somewhere down the corridor. He heard it clearly and without mistake.

It chilled his spine and almost stopped him in his tracks.

“So, Oliver,” said the deep, authoritative voice. “It’s been too long.”

The words were both horrific and hopeful to Simon’s ears. Max heard them as well and turned instantly, realizing that his best friend would not have the patience to calculate their next move alone.

If he acts on impulse, Max thought, he’ll get us killed.

Simon had been holding onto the rifle with both hands. Max turned to him, drew his attention, and held up two fingers close together. Then he separated them into a “V.”

Simon recognized the signal instantly. It was one they had used in their childhood games.

Why split up? he asked himself. Then he looked down the corridor, as Max already had. Thirty feet ahead, the passageway forked off—continuing straight on and offering a ninety-degree turn to the right. Even before they reached the adjacent passage, they could already sense the ambient light that flowed into their path, coming from that next hallway. They slowed down and carefully looked to their right.

Off in the distance, they spotted an open door. They heard the voices coming from inside, and they saw a huge soldier standing at the opening looking straight inside, not noticing them.