Protocol 7 (54 page)

Simon stood in silence feeling his father’s compassion in a way he had never imagined existed.

The next words changed Simon forever. They changed everything he had imagined and known since childhood, everything he believed in and learned throughout his life.

“We are in quarantine, my son,” Oliver said closing his eyes, searching for a way to explain what he had known all along and had kept secret his entire life.

“Quarantine?” Simon did not understand.

Oliver’s head remained bowed, his eyes closed. Here, finally, he had broken the secret of the society—told the secret he had sworn to uphold all his life, a secret that lasted since a time before the Sumerians. It was a knowledge that mankind had no right to share, no right to know.

“We are captives on our own planet, Simon.”

“Captives? I—”

Oliver lifted his hand to stop Simon but did not open his eyes.

“Below where you are standing, thousands of devices from another time are embedded into the bedrock, waiting to melt the ice and create the next ice age. They are about to activate once more to create global catastrophe. To send us back into the Dark Ages.”

“Father, who is doing this? Who—”

“Extraterrestrial intelligence, my son. The same intelligence that helped create the pyramids, the ancient roads, all the many of the mysteries you and I never understood. The same intelligence that genetically altered us as an experiment. They held us captive. They watched and studied us for thousands of years, and decided that we were not capable of interstellar travel. We were not evolved. There were problems with the genetic code. Diseases started to arise, systemic failures of incompatibility. They realized that we—this experimental race—could not be allowed to take greed, war, suffering, and genetic mutation to other planets, not under any circumstances.

“We called them angels or gods, Simon. We wrote books about them. Entire religions were formed around them.”

Simon’s mouth had dropped as Oliver continued.

“They planted devices below the ice shelf and in other locations throughout the globe as a method of protection. They are control mechanisms. They ensure that we will not evolve beyond what we were capable of.”

Tears continued to slide down Oliver’s face as he realized the enormity of the moment. Then he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Simon.”

“But…” Simon’s voice trailed off. He simply couldn’t put the words together. He could not believe what he was hearing. His stomach sank; he felt hollow and worthless for the first time in his life…but somehow, something in him fought the will to believe.

“This is outrageous,” he said, and he was surprised at the sound of anger in his own voice. “This is impossible.” My father must be out of his mind, he told himself, standing stiff as a block of ice himself, staring defiantly at Oliver.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Whether you choose to believe me or not, what I am sharing with you is the absolute truth. You have little time to argue, and I have little time to convince you. You must escape and tell the world before it is too late. As long as you can get to the surface, you will stop all this.”

“But how do you—”

“How I know is not important right now.” Oliver said. It’s better if he does not know, he said only to himself.

“I need to know!” Simon demanded. “I need to know why, how you kept this from me, how you know. Who are you, Father?”

“There is no time to explain,” Oliver said, waving him away. “You need to escape now. Leave everything. There is a transport vehicle for an emergency escape situated right beyond the Great Room. It’s an Ice Raptor. It will shoot you straight through the continent and ten thousand feet toward the surface. Use your own judgment once you’ve escaped, decide how to reveal the truth, how to use it as a tool—and a weapon. But be careful, Simon. Please.”

Then Oliver reached out, ready to take his son’s hand, but Simon did not offer it. He looked crestfallen, broken, as he pulled his hand back. I deserve it, he told himself. I swore to protect a secret I should never have kept. The secret is not my life. My son is my real reason to live.

“Please forgive me, Simon. That is all I ask.”

Simon clenched his teeth. He felt no more pain from his shoulder. It simply didn’t matter now. What he had heard now changed everything. If it were true, it would change who he was and why he lived. He did not want to believe it.

For a brief moment he felt pain for mankind. His father had betrayed him—betrayed them all.

He stood for a long moment before Oliver spoke once more.

“You must escape immediately, and you must find…”

With a sudden burst, the cell door blasted open and careened across the room, crashing into the far wall with tremendous force. A shadowy figure emerged in the dark and moved into the room. Simon had reacted instantly: he pointed his gun straight at the stranger.

“Simon,” Max said, his voice cutting through the darkness. “I need you.”

“Max!” Oliver said. He was glad to see that his son’s best friend was next to him.

Without a word, Max turned toward Simon and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s zero time,” he said. “We’ve got to fight or die in this hellhole. Come with me; I need your help to take out the remaining eight soldiers before reinforcements arrive.”

With little more than a backwards glance, Max disappeared through the door, stepping over the bodies of the soldiers that were slumped on the hallway floor like rag-dolls.

Simon looked back for a brief moment as his father.

“I won’t leave you. I will come back for you.”

Oliver could not speak another word. Simon was already out running behind Max and toward the adjacent hall.

* * *

Blackburn and the eight remaining soldiers carefully made their way toward Oliver’s cell from the opposite direction. They were looking for Simon and Max. They were ready to kill, and they were headed straight toward them.

“Come out from wherever you are!” he called into the frigid gloom. “I knew you would come for your father. I can shut the elevators down and freeze all of you to death.”

He looked ahead, carefully walking behind the soldiers. He watched the lights reflecting on the interior from the source light mounted on the solders’ rifles. “Whoever is down here is going to pay for what they have done,” he said grimly.

Blackburn touched the comm device at his shoulder, careful not to raise his voice. “Send reinforcements and explosives to the Nest,” he snapped out. “NOW!”

The voice on the other end responded nervously. “Sir? If I may? The elevator hatch is completely shut down from the power outage.”

Blackburn knew that, but it was the last thing he wanted to hear.

For a second, he remembered the Raptor that was parked not so far away, fueled and prepped for him and his escape. I can get away any time, he remembered. If I have to, he reassured himself. Then he responded through clenched teeth.

“Get the fucking system back up before I get up there. For your own sake.”

He had said all that he needed to. He tapped his shoulder and disconnected from Central Command before the officer had a chance to acknowledge his wish.

* * *

Max knew that minutes—minutes—were all that separated life and death. He had a plan but needed to lure the enemy close to where the crane sat at the center of the large dome. That was the key.

He carefully made the bend around the first corridor. Oliver’s cell was almost two hundred feet behind him. He moved into the main hallway that led directly toward the octagonal room almost one hundred yards ahead of him.

Simon followed Max very carefully, clutching the pistol in his left hand. It was pitch black in the corridor, except for localized lights mounted on the dead soldiers that Max had left behind.

Simon was gripped with apprehension. He had no idea where they were headed. His mind drifted for a moment as he thought about Oliver’s words. It’s not possible. This whole thing is a dream, he told himself.

Twenty-five feet ahead of him, Max motioned Simon to slow down and stop. They put their backs against the wall of the main hallway and looked straight ahead. Less than three hundred feet in the distance, the silhouette of a massive crane loomed, dimly illuminated by an eerie glow from below.

Simon was terrified. He didn’t know what to expect as his body stuck against the cold wall. He was feeling the burning pain in his shoulder once more, felt the friction of the rough, cold wall against his back and the freezing steel of the rifle in his hand, as they inched forward, cautious not to expose themselves but ready to fight.

Max froze instantly, startled. He motioned back to Simon: stop moving.

It was too late.

A Vector5 soldier ahead of his squadron moved toward them in the pitch black, appearing out of nowhere, lunging forward to attack. Max reacted instantly as Simon watched twenty feet behind. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind him, turning the man 180 degrees, and choked him—briefly, brutally—with his right arm.

Simon moved forward, trying to assist, but he pulled back as the soldier’s handgun fired into the hallway. Max struggled with the man as the soldier shot another bullet straight into the ceiling above them. The small corridor that led to Oliver’s cell was just fifteen feet behind them.

Automatic gunfire exploded. Out of nowhere, bullets cut through the air in an unrelenting barrage, whizzing and shrieking past them.

Simon stuck to the wall, praying for his life. Max turned the soldier toward the direction of the oncoming fire, using the man as a human shield.

The soldier took several shots saving Max’s life. He could hear the bullets slicing the cold air as they flew by. Max felt the force from some of the bullets entering the man’s body as it jerked with every additional round.

Simon pulled back as fast as he could, throwing himself back into the small corridor, avoiding the fusillade.

Max’s task was not so easy. He stood directly in the line of fire, knowing that if he let go of the dead soldier, he would have no chance. The man’s body was excruciatingly heavy for Max, but he did not falter; he grabbed the man around his waist and tucked his head behind the soldier’s neck, walking backwards, inching toward the small corridor.

Something penetrated Max’s forearm. I’m shot, he knew instantly.

The bullet had cut straight through the man’s body and into Max’s arm, but he held on. Just a few more feet, he told himself.

Simon watched from the little corridor, horrified, praying his best friend would not die. I have to do something! he thought instantly.

Max threw his body into the little corridor, diving toward Simon as he let the soldier fall to the floor. That very instant, the image flashed through Simon’s head. The oxygen canisters! It’s our only chance. Like lightning, he moved onto one of the Vector5 soldiers lying dead on the ground and grabbed his rifle, instantly locating the laser-guided mechanism.

Wordlessly, without hesitation, Simon threw his body into the main hallway. He skidded flat on the ground, the pain from his shoulder so intense he almost fainted.

“Fuck this!” he growled. “I’m not ready to die.”

He inched forward on his arms, fighting the pain while he tried to stay as low as possible, still using the body of the dead soldier that lay inches away from his face to absorb the bullets that still flew toward them. He scraped his chin against the floor, praying that his skull would not take a bullet, inching forward like an animal crawling. He fought the pain and positioned his rifle barely above the man’s chest, aiming straight through the hallway into the Great Room.

The bullets kept coming.

It’s now or never, he told himself.

He pointed the gun straight toward the source of the assault, focusing the laser-guide right below the massive crane, centering on the oxygen canisters.

He didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger—once, twice, over and over.

* * *

Blackburn stood opposite the canisters, almost five hundred feet away on the far side of Simon and Max. He looked at the seven soldiers positioned right below the crane—the last of his men, his final defense. They were shooting straight into the hallway in an endless rampage, straight toward the only man they could see—a shadow behind a corpse, aiming a single weapon straight toward them—

Less than a second later, the first of Simon’s bullets penetrated an oxygen canister standing directly behind the seven men. It exploded on impact. The explosion detonated the next canister, and that in turn made the next one explode—over and over, in a cloud of fire and debris that instantly filled every crevice of the octagonal room.

The seven soldiers that surrounded the canisters near the massive crane, immediately disintegrated. The force threw Blackburn himself backwards almost ten feet.

The massive crane that sat above the opening started to collapse into the massive hole. In a fraction of a second the explosion expanded—into the hallway where Simon was waiting, the force of it throwing his head back with a neck-popping jerk. The dead soldier in front of him shielded most of the impact, and suddenly there was absolute silence, a soundless vacuum.

Then, slowly, the crane that was falling into the icy opening started screeching. It sounded like an old train squeezing its mangled structure against the icy walls as it slid down toward the abyss below. The explosion had blown out the emergency lights above octagonal room. The dim light that omitted from the hole beneath the crane illuminated the edges of the mangled structure as it started falling into the opening.

Simon took a deep breath and hesitated for a moment, almost wishing that he could just lie there for two seconds longer. He pulled his body into the small corridor next to his best friend.

Both men were wounded. Max was at a loss for words. Simon had saved their lives.

“Max, we’ve got no time,” Simon told him. “Let’s get out of here.”

They forced their injured bodies up into standing positions. Oliver’s cell was two hundred feet away, and without a word they pushed themselves forward toward the room.