by Nick Thacker
Colson was nodding along. “I’ll take the heater offline again twenty minutes after you shut the laptop, again for ten minutes. It’ll drop the station’s temperature quite a bit, but it’ll just be a bit uncomfortable for an hour or so afterwards.”
Ben frowned as he stood up and put the pack on his shoulders. “Sorry you’ll be uncomfortable.”
“That’s okay, we —“ Colson stopped himself when he realized Ben was actually not concerned with his comfort.
“Okay, let me know when you’re ready with that laptop,” Ben said.
Julie stood and inserted the laptop into Ben’s open pack. It was lighter than he’d expected, and he was glad he hadn’t removed any of the equipment to make space for it. He wasn’t sure what he would need on this particular journey, so his instinct was to take as much as possible. If all went well, he would only need the laptop, the rope, and the climbing pickaxe.
Hendricks walked over to show Ben how to use the climbing ratchets, tools Ben hadn’t seen before. They were military-issue, sturdy industrial metal handles with holes for the rope to pass through one way. As he climbed upward on the rope, he could simply slide the ratchets upward one at a time, his bodyweight engaging the locking mechanism on them so they wouldn’t slide down. It was a simple yet ingenious contraption, and he loved Hendricks’ explanation of them: they’ll make you climb faster, and keep you safer.
Those were the words he wanted to hear.
Finally, Hendricks pulled off his underclothing — a long-sleeved weatherproof shirt — and handed it to Ben. Hendricks retrieved a t-shirt from his own pack while Ben put on the extra layer.
“Two should keep you plenty warm,” Hendricks said. “But it’s about 10 degrees out there, so if there’s any wind, you’ll feel it.”
Ben was used to cold weather, but near-single-digit temperatures and wind chill with only two shirts on was cutting it. He liked the cold, but usually because he could properly enjoy it — wearing many layers and covering his extremities properly.
Shaken but satisfied, Ben walked over to the vent grate at the far end of the wall, and crouched down.
“I’ll go in first, then hand me the pack.”
Hendricks nodded, but Kyle and Joshua began yelling at the other end of the room before he could help Ben with the grate.
“We’ve got company! Grenade — get down!”
The grenade had been lobbed in from the corner of the stairwell and bounced off a table that Joshua had placed on its side for protection. It rattled over to the corner of the room and exploded, safely out of harm’s way. The group fell to the ground, but Ben could see that no one was injured. As they picked themselves up and rejoined the fight, two heads appeared in the doorway.
“They’re coming in!” Kyle shouted. He started firing at them even before he had a decent aim. Reggie joined, and the man on the left entering the room fell.
“Ben,” Hendricks said, his face suddenly down at Ben’s level. “Go. Now. Get down there and get us our data, so we can get the hell out of here.” Hendricks grabbed his gun and ran back to the action, leaving Ben alone with his mission.
Ben nodded, ripping the last corner of the grate off the wall. He didn’t bother to unscrew it — it wouldn’t do any good to hide his tracks now. He dove into the duct headfirst, still not completely over his first trip through the station’s air system. Ben shifted his position around so his body was in line with the duct and his head was now poking out into the room through the open hole in the wall.
He waited for a second as Reggie, Joshua, Kyle, and Hendricks worked to eliminate the threat from the Chinese soldiers at the front of the room. The noise was deafening, so he couldn’t call out. Thankfully, Julie spun around.
Her eyes grew wide, and she ran over to Ben and crouched down.
“Sorry — I… got lost in all of it.”
He smiled. “It’s okay, Jules, you’re in the zone. I get it. What are we supposed to say, anyway?”
Her face fell as she struggled to make sense of the situation. “Ben, you… I don’t know.”
“Better come back?”
A tear formed and fell down her cheek, and she clenched her teeth and wiped it away. “You die out there, I’ll kill you myself.”
He laughed, reaching for the backpack and pulling it into the hole. “Deal.” He was about to turn and begin his journey forward when Julie leaned into the duct and grabbed his face, kissing him.
He kissed her back, then pulled his head back slightly. “Jules, we really need to talk about timing. Haven’t you ever seen an action movie?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I have. You make me watch them all the time. And there’s a poorly timed kiss in every single one of them.”
CHAPTER FORTY
The journey through the vent went far smoother this time around. There were no vertical drops, no branches off the long, straight hallway to navigate, and no one else to slow him down. He was bathed in complete darkness now, the sounds of gunshots and explosions slowly being replaced by the hum and vibrations of the heater, lying somewhere up ahead.
He had found a small flashlight in of the backpack pockets, but he felt comfortable using his hands and arms to feel his way forward. The heat was growing, either from his proximity to the station’s heater or his exertion, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the temperature would rise past uncomfortable and into the realm of dangerous.
Come on, Colson, he thought. Get this thing shut off.
He truly hoped Colson wasn’t overhyping his own abilities and was actually capable of bringing the heater down for a few minutes. There was no way he would be able to crawl past it while it was on. He tried to remember what the heating system in a building looked like. He had no experience working on them, but remembered that his house growing up had a furnace in the basement. Ducting ran above the furnace, the intake and downlines all connected in a long, unbroken shaft of rectangular metal tubing. If this system was just a larger version of his parents’ old system, it meant the heater itself would be off to the side of the vent, allowing him to crawl past unimpeded.
If, of course, Colson can shut it down.
He reached the point where it was impossible to continue about ten minutes later. By his estimate Ben had traveled about one hundred feet, sliding along slowly with the backpack looped over his foot. If the station’s side and the end of this shaft lined up with the far wall of Level 7, it meant he had to be close.
But the heater was still on, and it was pumping hot air over Ben. He was sweating profusely, a fact he couldn’t ignore. Not only was he losing water, he was soaking himself and his clothes in moisture that would immediately freeze if and when he made it outside.
He stopped, raising his upper arm to wipe the sweat from his brow and remove the skull cap. He had abandoned the mittens ten minutes ago, clipping them onto a loop on his ski pants. He let the skull cap fall to the floor of the shaft, letting his body push it forward as he slid.
Colson, let’s go!
He thought about shouting, but the roar of the heater would easily overpower his voice, and there was little they would even hear him back in the room if anyone was still firing their weapon.
He wasn’t claustrophobic, but he suddenly had the realization that he was too large to maneuver around in the cramped vent. He couldn’t even take off his clothing. Possibly kick a boot off, but there was no way he would be able to get it back on.
He couldn’t help but wonder if the shaft had shrunk slowly as he navigated down the length of it. Twisting slowly around on his side, brought his right leg up and toward his hand. He had to stretch his knee upward into the top corner of the metal rectangular prison he was in, but finally got a hand on the backpack’s strap. He carefully unzipped the bag and reached for the light.
Flicking it on, he aimed it down the length of the shaft. It was difficult to look directly ahead, as the heat came in a constant, never-ending wave of air that seared his eyelids and made his eyes water profusely. He
got a quick glimpse, and immediately lost all hope.
The heater was, in fact, off to the right of the shaft, theoretically making it a clear shot to the exit. But it was still over a hundred feet away, and his limited light could only barely make out the offshoot where he assumed the heating core lived. It would have an intake that would suck air from outside and send it back up into the main shaft, pumping the heat throughout the entire station and allowing it to rise naturally to the upper levels.
He flattened down, defeated, hoping the bulk of the heat would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble and simply pass over him, traveling on to the farthest reaches of the station.
The metal of the duct floor was now penetrating his clothing. His face touched the surface briefly, eliciting an immediate pain response, and again he wondered if the others had forgotten him.
Then, with a surreal flick of fate, as if God himself had reached down and answered Ben’s prayer, the heater died. The noise stopped immediately, and the rush of air fell to a gentle breeze, then to nothing at all. After a minute, the temperature in the shaft fell to a level he had been quietly dreaming about, and he opened his eyes and shined the light ahead.
Now, once again able to focus, he could see the end of the tunnel. It was still far, and he’d have to move quickly, but it seemed possible. He pushed himself forward once again, working out the kinks and soreness that had already set in.
Thank you, Colson. The man they had rescued from a long and slow death had now returned the favor.
CHAPTER FORTY-one
“It’s not going to hold,” Jonathan Colson whispered. He always fell into a trance-like state after ten or fifteen minutes in front of a computer, speaking in riddles and half-sentences, much to the annoyance of any bosses or coworkers trying to communicate with him.
“Colson,” Julie said, “You’re not making any sense. Stop and look at me.”
He heard the words but didn’t look away. He hadn’t really been listening, so it was only thanks to some strange subconscious authority inside him, keeping him human, that he finally realized what she had said. He blinked a few times and looked up from the lines of code he had been staring at.
“Huh? What — oh, right. I said ‘it’s not going to hold.’”
“What is not going to hold?” Mrs. E asked from the chair she had collapsed into nearby. She was vying to help, but her injuries made any movement difficult, so she had relegated herself to backseat driving, prodding away with questions and feedback as Colson and Julie did the bulk of the work.
“The, uh, heater. It — I mean, it’s offline, but…” Colson shook his head vigorously, as if trying to force his mind back to the real world and not the matrix-style computer land he preferred to inhabit.
“Colson,” Julie said, her voice soft. “Explain what you’re talking about. You got the heater offline, right?”
“Right. Yes, it’s — “ he checked the small dialog window on his computer. “It’s down, yes.”
“Great,” Julie said. “That’s what we needed. How long will it be down?”
“Ten minutes, as we discussed. But…” He clicked around again and opened a few more dialog boxes. After fiddling for a minute with the sizes of the windows, he closed them all and opened a new terminal prompt. He typed a command and waited for the result. “Correct,” he said, answering no one’s question. “It is down for ten minutes — er, 9 minutes and 43 seconds.”
He noticed Julie shoot Mrs. E a glance and knew what they were thinking. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I can’t really jump from this to, uh, you know — real life — very quickly.”
Julie placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, then?”
“The system is down, and the countdown I’ve given it is set. But it’s initiating its own restart procedure, well ahead of the countdown.”
“I — don’t understand,” Julie said.
“Nor do I,” Mrs. E added. “It has initiated its own countdown?”
“No,” Colson said, “a restart procedure. Not a countdown. It’s trying to restart the heater.”
Julie pressed her fingers on her forehead and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. “Colson, I can’t really put this together. Do you mind being very clear with us? How is the system initiating a restart procedure for the heater if you’ve told it to wait ten minutes?”
“I’m not really sure, but… look.” He decided to show them instead of try and explain it. “That’s the timecode of the countdown. 9 minutes and 12 seconds… but that is the timecode of the restart procedure. It’s trying — failing, but trying — over and over again to restart the heater manually.”
“Wait, manually?”
Up to this point Colson had simply been a messenger, a removed entity delivering information from one side to the other. He had been detached, even indifferent, as was his nature when he was focused on a computing task. But now, facing tall odds in a room full of scared, tired, fighters, it was impossible to ignore his feelings.
He answered the question once again silently in his head, this time really understanding the words. His blood ran cold, and he looked up at Julie and Mrs. E.
“Yes. A person is manually accessing the heater core restart module.”
“But that means that —“
“Yes, that means that someone in the station is hacking the system.”
CHAPTER FORTY-two
Ben hadn’t realized how tight a fit the shaft near the open heater core would be. From a hundred feet away in the wider part of the shaft, the section had appeared smaller than it really was, an optical illusion in the low light that made the heater seem farther away.
He realized as he slid closer that the shaft was, in fact, constricting slowly, and the heater wasn’t quite as far away as it had initially seemed. Whether a design flaw or a purposeful feature, the duct was growing more narrow the closer he got to the exit, and he was now unable to shift onto either side of his body as he traveled. His pace slowed, and he found the only way forward was by pulling himself on his forearms, using the toes of his boots to push. There was no other motion his body could make without hitting the side of the duct.
It had been roughly three minutes since the heater had shut off.
The offshoot that led to the furnace was directly ahead, only two feet away. His head was almost at the edge of it, and he could see the far side of the vent grate separating the duct shaft from the heater itself.
The device that would roast me alive if it were on, he thought.
He pushed away the thought and slapped his wrists down again and pressed himself forward. He was moving four to six inches each time, stopping to catch his breath after every push. It was tiresome, and he had maintained a sweat even though the cool air from outside had plunged the temperature back down.
The exit, thankfully, was only a few feet past the heater offshoot, and in full view. It was another simple grate, one that he thought could be easily removed by a quick punch or two.
He pulled his head inline with the offshoot. Turning his neck, he saw the vent grate, the only protection between him and the now-extinguished flames of the furnace down below. He shined his flashlight between the slats of the grate and looked in.
And the heater hummed to life.
CHAPTER FORTY-three
“No, No, No —“
“What is it?” Julie asked.
“The heater,” Colson explained, pointing at his display. “It’s — it’s on.”
Julie’s hand pressed tightly against her mouth. Mrs. E frowned.
“How can you be sure?” she asked.
“It’s right here,” Colson said. “I have the module’s status window overplayed on the others. That’s what we’ve been watching.”
“But the countdown…”
“Yeah,” Julie said, her voice shaking. “The countdown is still at over 6 minutes.”
Colson shook his head. “I’m — I’m sorry, it’s… I don’t know what to say. The heater is cycling on. It will b
e at full output in thirty seconds, but since it was recently taken offline, the element will still be radiating plenty of heat…”
“Hendricks!” Julie shouted, startling Colson. “What’s our status?”
“What are you going to —“
“We’re still alive, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hendricks said. “Haven’t had an incursion, we think they’re regrouping just outside —“
“We’re going in,” she said. Colson turned to watch this particular exchange play out. Hendricks swirled around, bringing his gun down.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Ben…” Julie paused. “Change of plans.”
“Oh?”
“We need to push through the Chinese group out there and get down to the lower levels ourselves.”
Hendricks seemed startled by what she had said, but Colson was more taken aback by her tone. She wasn’t asking Hendricks for permission. She was demanding.
“We, uh, really have our hands full with these soldiers, Julie. I —“
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m not waiting here until they flush us out. We can hold them back as long as they don’t start rushing the door. But how long do you think they’ll wait until that happens?”
“They’ll lose a few for sure, but it’s a stalemate if they don’t do it.”
Joshua glanced from Hendricks to Julie and back again. “Hendricks, she’s right. We need to get down there, or at least pick off as many of these guys as we can. We’re sitting ducks in here.”
Hendricks started nodding slowly. “Okay, fine. Right, I get it.” He looked at the rest of the group. “We’re agreeing to leave Ben hanging by not sending him the files, then?”
Colson spoke up from his post at his desk. “I’ll keep plugging away at it, probably have something finished in a few minutes, actually. I’ll be able to see when — if — Ben goes online down on Level 9, so he’ll at least have a shot. But…”
