Nico turned away from the two-way mirror and waved Eddy over. "Take a look."
Nico shined his light through the two-way mirror, and Eddy gazed upon something that looked like it'd come right out of a horror film. He lurched, quickly removed his facemask, and vomited all over the aluminum floor.
"That is—" Eddy stood up, wiped his mouth and replaced his facemask. "—the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."
"What were they doing here?" Mathias approached the glass, studying the corpse with a coldness that was beyond unsettling. But it was more than that; it was the look in his eyes. They seemed almost to glint in the darkness the moment Mathias caught sight of the corpse. "Some sort of experiment...or an execution, perhaps?"
"How are you so calm about this, dude?" Eddy asked.
"We won't know what they were up to until we get the generator connected and get a look at their files," Nico said.
"You can't be serious, man, not after this," Eddy said.
"And why should this stop us?" Mathias asked. "We're in desperate need of supplies, and we're not even sure we can repair the generators at home with the parts we found. Venturing out in the city is becoming more and more dangerous with each passing day. We've seen death in the city before, and it didn't stop us from looting every nook and cranny, so why should this be any different?"
"What if this place was used to make Measure 86?" Eddy pointed his flashlight at the corpse. "I've seen what that shit can do, watched friends turn into dried-out husks, and I'll tell you, they didn't look too different from that."
"We'll starve sooner rather than later if we don't take this opportunity," Nico said. "So we're seizing it. There's always a risk that we'll accidentally run into Measure 86 out in the city, this is no different."
"Yeah, I can't really blame you for not being scared." Eddy crossed his arms, glared at Nico. "Since your side pulled all their forces out before they deployed it."
"Get out," Nico said.
"No!" Eddy was in his face now, screaming for the dead that Nico had helped put in the ground. "You never saw it! We had to dig mass graves, man, and wear masks twenty-four hours a day to keep from being exposed! It was a fucking holocaust, and you helped make it happen!"
Nico's right hook was so fast in the dark, he hadn't even seen it. Eddy reeled back and fell against the two-way mirror, holding his jaw. "You son-of-a—"
"Would you two testosterone-addled fools think for a moment!" Mathias jumped between them. "Whatever issues you two have, get over them. This is survival, in case you've forgotten. The Earth itself is trying to kill us, and you two are still waging war and arguing politics. Well, let me tell you a harsh truth. The ice age does not care for your point of view, your morality, your religion, or what side of the war you fought on. It is survival of the fittest plain and simple."
Eddy got to his feet, lowering his fists. As much as he wanted to find wisdom in what Mathias was saying, he couldn't just forget the dead. Even in death, they were his brothers. "I'll go along with it, but only for Ira's sake."
Nico scoffed.
"Now, can we please start using our heads?" Mathias asked.
"The plan doesn't change," Nico said. "We have to get this place turned back on."
Eddy swallowed a lump in his throat, and turned for the door. "Hope it's worth it..."
"You and Mathias will follow me to the power source Ira detected," Nico said. "Get Hugo to watch after the girls, and grab Ira's binoculars for me."
"Right..." The nerve this man had, ordering him around after slugging him in the face.
You are so lucky you're her brother, Eddy thought.
Eddy followed Mathias and Nico out into the darkened hallway. Ira looked at him; the emptiness in her eyes told him that she understood. He shook his head.
Nico didn't bother to acknowledge his sister; he and Mathias continued on down the hallway.
"We're going to find the heat source," Eddy said. "I need your multi-specs."
Ira shook her head. "No. We have to leave this place."
"Your brother doesn't see it that way—won't listen till he sees how dangerous this place is."
"That's just like him." She dug around in her pack and handed him the multi-spec binoculars. "Make sure you convince him."
"Trust me." Eddy closed his eyes, shook his head. "Freezing to death would be better than suffering Measure 86."
"Measure 86?" Lena's eyes went wide. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm not sure," Eddy said. "But this place could have been a manufacturing plant for it."
"We should leave, then!"
"Tell that to Nico." Eddy turned to Hugo, who was staring off into space. "Watch over the girls till I get back."
Hugo nodded. "Got you, B."
"And try not to fall asleep again." Eddy followed after Mathias and Nico down the hallway.
"I don't know, dawg, it's real cozy here." Hugo's voice faded into the black of the tunnel. Eddy could almost imagine Lena staring daggers at him.
When Eddy caught up to them, he saw that they were both pressing their weight against a large metal door. He looked through the binoculars before Nico could ask, and saw that the heat source was very close.
"The door won't budge," Nico said.
"Have you tried shooting it?" Eddy said.
Nico caught the sarcasm in Eddy's voice, judging by the look in his eyes, but he pulled his sidearm out all the same. "Stand back."
Eddy grabbed Mathias by the arm and pulled him around the corner as Nico discharged his clip into the door. Each shot rang like a battering ram slamming into the wall of his eardrum.
Mathias shook his arm free of Eddy's grasp. "Don't know what he's thinking he's going to accomplish like that."
Eddy came out from behind the corner to find Nico loading another clip into his sidearm. "You didn't even dent the doorway, man. Give it a rest!"
Nico must have realized that what he was doing was crazy, because he holstered his gun. "The heat source is just beyond those doors. How can we get to it if the main door won't open without power?"
Eddy ran his hands across the smooth metal surface. The door was more like a hatch, a seal. "The better question is, why are all the other doors open in this corridor?" He shined his light back through the hallway, which was more like a concrete tunnel than a hallway. Some of the doors along the path were halfway open, and all the rest were completely open. "None of them look like this one either."
"What the hell does it matter?" Nico said. "It's just another obstacle in my way."
"Ah, but it does matter," Mathias said. "Eddy is asking the right questions. This door is different, so the chamber beyond must be special. Is it a reactor, a generator, or perhaps something else?"
"We can turn back now, Nico," Eddy said. "We can fix the generators back home."
Nico shook his head. "No. We're getting in that room."
"If we had a portable power source, I could probably hook it up to the door's control pad." Mathias walked up and picked at the dead screen to the right of the hatch. "That might give it enough power for me to trick it into opening."
"Where are we going to find something with enough juice for that?" Eddy asked. "No, I think we should just cut our losses and—"
"The snowmobiles," Nico said. "Remove one of the batteries and bring it back to me."
"You're really dead set on getting us killed, aren't you?" Eddy shook his head and sighed.
"Do it," Nico said, patting his sidearm.
"You're not the only one with a gun." Eddy found himself resisting the urge to draw his. What Nico was doing here was reckless. What would it say of him if he let this man lead them straight to their deaths? There was no telling what was beyond that hatch. His worst fears could very well be confirmed.
"You won't shoot me, Eddy," Nico said, drawing his gun and aiming it between Eddy's eyes. "My sister would never forgive you."
"Same goes for you," Eddy said, pushing the barrel away with his finger. "But make no mistake—if we fi
nd any evidence that Measure 86 was made here, with or without you, we're leaving."
"We'll see about that." Nico turned around and crossed his arms. "Now go get me a battery."
Eddy stormed back down the twisting tunnel, Mathias following closely behind.
"You're tempting fate," Mathias said. "Nico is not one to shy away from violence."
"Did I ask for your opinion?" Eddy said.
"No, but you seem determined to get shot."
"The man is out of control."
"You must realize that his goals are the same as ours. He only wants to ensure our survival, and this place seems like just as good a bet as any other."
"You saw that corpse, man, you can't tell me that doesn't raise alarms for you."
"No alarm could sound loud enough to deter my desire to learn all I can about this place."
Eddy examined Mathias closely. His eyes looked as if they were sucking in the detail of every corner of the tunnel with a deep and insatiable hunger. Something about the way he’d said that awakened some nameless fear in Eddy, something that was far removed from the perils of the ice age or even of Measure 86.
"I liked you better when you weren’t saying anything," Eddy said.
They walked the rest of the way to the elevator shaft in silence. Eddy couldn't help but feel like there were eyes on him, coming from the dark. He shook the feeling off and cursed Mathias for being such a creep.
Once they were outside, Mathias helped him take off the front cover to the snowmobile Nico had left on the slope. The battery was easy enough to disconnect. Eddy shoved it in his pack and carried it back to Nico.
4
Mathias brought out a toolkit from his own pack and opened up the screen next to the hatch. He dragged the wires and connected them to the negative and positive.
Sparks flew—Nico and Eddy hit the floor—a hissing sound filled the air and a wave of stale air hit them.
The hatch was open.
Nico and Mathias were the first ones through, shining light into the darkness. Eddy was cautious, but followed anyway.
The room was spherical, with a large cylinder in the center. There were computers and dead screens everywhere, and yet there was a faint buzzing sound through the air that sent his hair standing on end. It took a moment to realize that the center cylinder was pulsing with a dim red light.
"Is that thing nuclear?" Eddy asked.
"Fascinating." Mathias was pacing around the circumference of the pulsing cylinder, shining his flashlight at every tube and wire and crevice. "It appears to be a power source, but it's clearly not nuclear. If I had to wager an educated guess, I'd say it's a small fusion reactor."
"Like the one that blew up in Norway?" Nico asked, without a hint of worry in his voice.
"That was sabotage," Mathias said. "If you're worried about it blowing up, your concerns are unfounded. Fusion reactors are really quite stable in comparison to their fission counterparts. Though it is strange for one to be here, even one of this size. There were only two reactors ever created, and as you pointed out, one of them blew up due to sabotage."
"Clean, renewable, infinite energy wasn't something our corporate overlords were going to just let happen," Eddy said.
"The benefits outweigh the damage to any corporation's bottom line," Mathias said. "No, they were very difficult to build, and the designs were only shared between a few tight-lipped scientists who had a clear distaste for the American Federalist regime."
"Then how did one come to exist here?" Nico's expression changed slightly, his eyes wide with awe.
"Your government probably stole the plans," Eddy said. "Complex spy shit."
"Yes, most likely," Mathias said. "But, why here? What could be so important in this facility that they'd require a stable fusion reaction to power it?"
"Enough," Nico said. "These questions can wait till we figure out how to get the power it's outputting back into the main systems."
Mathias continued to pace back and forth, bending and scanning every now and then. Nico's patience eroded within the first few minutes of silence.
"Can you get power to the systems or not, Mathias?" Nico said.
Mathias nodded. "I believe so. The connections to the system are all still here, but without power I'll have to reroute it manually, which will take a few hours."
Eddy paced toward the edge of the room and plopped down into a computer chair. "Great. I don't suppose anyone brought a deck of cards?"
Nico's glare told him no.
CHAPTER SIX
Ira felt the sunbeams cook her back and grew just a little bit worried about what they might be doing to her cells. She sat up and nudged her friend with her sand-covered foot.
"Aren't you worried about overexposure?" Ira asked.
Jennifer sat up and sighed. "You can't be so cautious, Ira. You have to learn to live a little."
"And why does living have to involve the sun of all things? I was perfectly happy inside. Playing games. Away from the sun."
Jennifer plopped back down on her beach towel, and Ira watched her check out all the half-naked men playing in the ocean—who in all likelihood had just learned how to read and do basic math. Ira lay back down and pouted.
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," Jennifer said. "You spend so much time in those damn games, you forget to live, gain new experiences."
"New experiences, as in, fucking a bunch of macho idiots on the beach?"
"If that's your thing." Jennifer grinned.
"You know it isn't."
Ira watched the waves roll and crash against the beach sands, giggled when a surfer wiped out. Okay, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea, she thought.
She'd never admit it to Jennifer.
"I'll teach you to appreciate this Southern California weather, even if it kills me."
"Famous last words."
"No, Ira, my last words were a jumbled mess of screams as someone slipped a knife between my ribs." Ira turned to face her friend, and screamed when she saw that her torso was littered in stab wounds, her bikini bottom torn, exposing her pubic hair. "I died just one year later, when some fucking looters decided they'd rather rape me than take the big-screen TVs or any of the jewelry in the display case."
Ira's feet kicked at the sand. She was crawling back across the sand, trying to get away. She had to get away. "I didn't—"
"You didn't know?" The corpse that had been her friend only moments ago laughed. Her voice had a bubbly quality, as if there were blood oozing from her throat, cutting her words to gibberish. "Of course you didn't know! You hid away with your brother when the news hit and he came to save your sorry ass. You're worthless, Ira!"
Jennifer's face melted until it bore a striking resemblance to the face of the corpse she'd seen in the chair. Jennifer's hair was falling out in clumps, eyes sinking into a black abyss.
"But you'll see soon enough. They opened up a gateway here. If the beast doesn't get you, then Lai'thamia will!"
The sand became liquid-soft. Her arms sank first, then her legs and torso. The corpse was over her. Ira couldn't move. She could smell its rotted breath. Its skin was turning green.
"You'll see soon enough."
Its laughter was brittle now, like glass shattering.
Ira screamed into the darkness, with only a faint memory of the nightmare that had so recently consumed her.
It took her a moment to remember that she'd gone to sleep on the floor, letting Hugo keep watch of both her and Lena.
The lights came on throughout the corridor. Her arm met her face, shielding her eyes. She let her eyes slowly adjust to the new normal and scanned the hallway. Lena and Hugo were cuddled together, completely passed out. She was surprised that her scream hadn’t woken them.
So much for keeping watch, she thought.
It wasn't enough that he'd fallen asleep on his last watch, and let the generators to explode due to his negligence; now Hugo was tempting fate—again—and risking Nico's wrath. She felt the urge to
kick him in his pale face to wrest him from his sleep, but resisted, cursed under her breath, stood up, and started following the signs that read TO REACTOR CORE.
The lighting was a garish and uncomfortable white. The corridor was tubular in shape. Her initial impression of something similar to an underground military base was confirmed. She had never really been one to buy into conspiracy theories, if for no other reason than the fact that it would’ve made her the laughingstock of university, but she couldn't deny the similarity here.
She rounded a corner and began to hear a discourse of distant and muted voices through a circular doorway. There was a snowmobile battery wired to the console on the wall to the right of the door.
"And what about the entrance doors?" Mathias asked.
"It'll be a team effort to restore them," Nico said. "But I think it's doable."
"I'm not so sure," Mathias said. "It might be easier to booby-trap the entrance room and fortify the remaining doors."
"Easier, but stupid," Nico said. "If there's anyone else still out there, I'd rather them only have one door to choose from, rather than three."
"I agree," Eddy said.
"Now there's a surprise," Mathias said. "Just hours ago, you two were at each other's throats; now you're in agreement."
"Never said I liked it," Eddy said.
Ira made her way to them through the doorway, taking a quick look around the circular room.
"I see you're already deciding to set up camp here." She directed her attention at Eddy, tossing him a scornful look. "You were supposed to convince him!"
"We determined that there was no present risk to our lives." Mathias glared at Ira—his mask and goggles were off, exposing his cold, dark brown eyes.
"Your brother and Mathias swear that this place has nothing to do with Measure 86," Eddy said.
"It's not? Are you sure? If not Measure 86, then what caused that—" she swallowed a lump in her throat "—man to die?"
Nico avoided her gaze.
"Mathias thinks it was some sort of behavior experiment," Eddy said. "Nothing biological as far as he can tell."
"As far as he can tell?" Ira asked.
"Well." Mathias pushed his glasses up to the rim of his nose, turning one of the laptops that they had hooked into an access panel toward him. "We haven't found the mainframe for this facility yet, but the logs that we were able to access hinted at some type of non-biological science experiment. And, yes, we have found no references to Measure 86."
Mind's Horizon Page 7
