by P. J. Hoover
“Don’t tempt me,” Ethan says. “Because if we do spot a two-headed cockroach, then I just might.”
When we stop that first evening, based on the map, we’ve traveled only one hundred meters. But the next thing in front of us is a giant drop, at which point our descent distance should increase exponentially.
I test out the signal booster and manage to get text messages through to both Uncle Randall and Lucas. Just a quick check in that everything’s okay because I don’t want to waste batteries. Then I power it off.
It’s about ten degrees above freezing, but Scott’s set us up with some incredible gear so that only my face is cold. The excitement of descending into the cave finally wears off. I am exhausted. Not long after I curl up into my thermal sleeping bag, I’m fast asleep.
CHAPTER 22
ENERGY BARS ARE WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST. WE’VE PACKED ABOUT A million of them along with every flavor of MREs available. I’m sticking to the vegetarian ones, but Ethan was all about the BBQ Beef Sandwich, making sure he ordered that for the majority of his meals. There are enough small trickles of fresh water running through the cave that we’re liberal with drinking. The last thing we want is to get dehydrated and weak.
After spending the first half of day two rappelling another hundred meters, it passes much like day one. Day three is the same. It’s only on day four that things become more interesting. We reach the end of the recorded path on the map. The only way I know this is because I’ve been using a wax pencil and marking off every single symbol on the map that we’ve traveled. It’s time for us to diverge.
To my left, someone has leaned a sign against the wall that says OVERNIGHT CAMP AHEAD in English.
“America’s been here,” I say, and I pull out my phone, turning it on long enough to snap a picture of the sign. Aside from my text check-ins, if I only use the phone when I need to document the Hawkins Expedition, it should last, especially because I did bring four extra batteries. Except I have no idea how long the journey will really be. Without a unit of measurement on the ancient map we’re following, I can’t be sure what we have ahead.
“What now?” Ethan says, scanning the area with his flashlight. “The symbol here is for water, which has to be this pond. But the next symbol is a door, and I don’t see any doors.”
I take a long sip from my canteen and scan the area, but as far as I can tell, he’s right. There is nowhere else to go but along the main path.
From the direction we’ve just come, something echoes in the distance, like metal falling against the rocks. It’s the first time we’ve heard actual proof that the client Scott was guiding started out. For the last three days, the only sounds I’ve heard besides rushing water and wind whipping through the cave are either Ethan’s or my voices.
Ethan turns his head to look in the same direction I am.
“You heard it, too?” I ask.
He nods. “Sound can carry pretty far. They could still be far away.”
If so, this should buy us some time to figure out where we’re supposed to go. Still, I don’t want to risk running into anyone else and having to make excuses as to why we’ve left the main trail. I search the area again, this time being more thorough. We’re in a wide underground cavern, nearly circular. The walls, though made of rock, are detailed and smooth, as if water once flowed freely inside here.
“How are we supposed to find a door that nobody else has found?” Ethan says.
“Who’s the negative one now?” I ask as I continue my search.
Ethan joins me, scanning the walls. “I’m not trying to be negative. I’m trying to be realistic. People who spelunk for a living have been marking out Krubera Cave for years. This is still pretty high up in the cave, in the grand scheme of things. Don’t you think they would have found it by now if it were actually here?”
I don’t want to give in to his thoughts, even though logically they make perfect sense.
“Maybe they didn’t know what to look for,” I say. “You said the symbol was door?”
“Yeah,” Ethan says. “Or portal. Something we have to go through. Something we have to open.”
I pull my glove off and dip my hand in the clear pool of water. At first glance, it looks perfectly normal, like the crystal pools inside natural caverns all over the world. But when I shift the light just right, I notice that there are all sorts of ridges in the stone at the bottom. They look random, and yet, if I kind of shift my eyes out of focus like I’m trying to look through them, certain parts of them take on more of a three-dimensional appearance.
“Do you see that?” I say, pointing to the 3D pattern of ridges.
“That’s just the rock,” Ethan says. “Natural water erosion.”
“Really? You, Mr. Linguistics? You don’t think they look like symbols?”
“I don’t think they look like anything.”
“Try to look through them,” I say. “Like shift your focus.”
Ethan shines his light into the pond and squints. “Maybe …”
“Try not to blink.” I’m sure I’m right.
Ethan studies the underwater symbols then shakes his head. “Text them to your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my best friend.” But texting them to Lucas had been my exact thought of what to do next.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“It’s true,” I say. “Lucas and I are just friends.”
“Dude’s probably totally in love with you,” Ethan says.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Ethan says.
“He doesn’t look at me any way.”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Hannah.”
I cross my arms and stare him down.
“Fine. Fool yourself. Anyway, just take some pictures and text him.”
He is so wrong about Lucas.
I take pictures as best I can through the water, making sure to show the fact that the symbols are 3D. Then I turn on the signal booster and text Lucas. The signal has been getting weaker every day. It won’t last much deeper into the cave.
What do you think of these? I text.
I have no idea what time it is back home. Here in the cave, time almost loses meaning. But Lucas texts me right back.
I’m on it, he says.
It pains me to sit there waiting because with every second that passes, the battery in the signal booster dies. And I don’t have any backup batteries for it. Five minutes go by. Then ten.
Anything? I text.
He replies. Look around the room. Do you see any matching symbols?
“Check the walls,” I say to Ethan, and we scan the room. If there are matching signals, I don’t see them.
“There,” Ethan says. “You see it. This looks like one of the symbols underwater.”
I take a picture of it. Ethan spots three more, and I take pictures of those, too, and send them to Lucas.
Then we wait again.
This time we don’t have to wait long at all.
Lucas texts, Remember Magic Eye? And then attaches a picture.
“Magic eye?” I say aloud.
“Oh yeah, Magic Eye,” Ethan says. “I have a poster hanging on my wall at home. Those were the coolest.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Weren’t they from like thirty years ago?”
“Sure,” he says. “But I found it in my dad’s stuff ages ago, and he said I could have it. Magic Eye is a 2D image with a 3D image hidden inside. You can come over, and I’ll show you sometime.”
“That almost sounds like a date,” I say.
Ethan opens his mouth, like he’s going to whip out some sarcastic reply, then closes it.
“Anyway,” I say, trying not to smile. “If we line this image up with the bottom of the pool …”
I lean close to the water and look for the symbols that Lucas has highlighted in the picture he sent.
“There, there, there, and there,” I say, pointing to each of them. Lucas has not onl
y highlighted them, he’s written a number next to each one. One, two, three, and four.
I reach into the water to touch one of them, and it moves, almost like it’s on some kind of circular sliding mechanism. I slide it until the symbol is at the top of the others but in the middle. I do the same for the second. Ethan catches on and rotates the third and then the fourth symbols into place.
The entire cavern begins to shake.
CHAPTER 23
“OKAY, THAT DID IT,” ETHAN SAYS.
I yank my hand out of the water, even as the pool begins to drain into a separate basin. The base of the pool splits apart like there’s an earthquake and we’re right in the middle of it. I barely have time to jump to the side as the crack spreads from the pool straight across the cavern floor. By the time the world stops shaking, the rift is five feet across. But unlike a crack created by a real earthquake, the edges of the split in the ground are smooth. Ethan stands on one side, and I stand on the other.
I shine my light downward, into the divide, trying to see how far it goes.
“Hang on,” Ethan says. “I’ll jump across to you.”
“I don’t think you’ll need to,” I say because instead of a pit of blackness looking back at me, there is a massive staircase hewn from the stones of the rock itself. It’s about a ten-foot drop to the top of the staircase.
Ethan walks to the edge and looks down also, and he lets out a low whistle.
“We found it, Hannah,” he says. “I can’t believe it. This is the door! The portal! Your boyfriend did it again!”
I let the boyfriend comment slide because I can’t believe it either. Though I don’t want to admit it, up until this moment, I harbored doubts. Doubts as to whether there was a separate tunnel from the main one. Doubts as to whether my parents might still be alive. Doubts about the Code of Enoch. But this … it confirms so much. It lets me know that we are on the right path. That there is a path.
I text in all caps to Lucas. THANK YOU! YOU ARE A GENIUS! TALK LATER. Then I turn off the signal booster and shove it in my backpack.
I pull my pack off and toss it across to Ethan, then slip my gloves back on. My sleeve is still dripping from the water, and I don’t want my grip to slip. Before I can over think it, I squat down, swing my legs over the side of the opening, and with a deep breath, I let go of the edge.
Even though I’m well over five feet tall, the landing makes my teeth rattle together. Ten feet may have been a bit of an underestimate.
“You okay?” Ethan calls.
“I’m fine,” I say, looking upward. “Drop me our bags.”
He drops me his, but then he pauses.
“Drop it,” I say.
“I got it,” he calls, and I realize that he’s worrying about giving me the only copy of the map. And this after I just handed my bag over to him.
“Seriously?” I say. “I just trusted you. You have to trust me. It’s not like I’m going ahead without you.”
I can’t believe he thinks I’m going to betray him, especially after all we’ve been through.
“Fine,” Ethan says and drops my bag. It lands hard, but I catch it before it topples down the steps.
“Got it,” I say, and I move them both out of his way.
I shine the light on the spot on the ground where he should land, so it will be easier for him to see where he’s going, or maybe where I am—I don’t want him landing on top of me.
“Here I come,” he says, and then he lets go and falls, landing with a giant “ooof.”
“God, that hurt,” Ethan says, standing up and brushing himself off.
“Don’t be such a baby,” I say, pushing his pack over to him. “And just for the record, I’m not going to take off with the map, okay? I’m not that kind of person.”
Ethan swings his bag onto his shoulders. “I’m not saying you are, Hannah.”
“Then why did you hesitate?”
“Because …,” he stammers. “I don’t know. It’s just hard. I mean, my dad … your parents …”
“We aren’t our parents,” I say. “And I’m not going to steal anything.”
“Fine,” Ethan says. “I’m sorry.”
I shoulder my own bag. “I accept your apology this time only. But do it again, and I get your energy bars for the next five days.”
This is enough to ease the moment. “Not the s’mores flavored one.”
“Yes, even the s’mores ones.”
“You’re brutal, Hannah.”
We stand on a stone platform about five feet across, just the width of the gap above us. I scan the area with my light. On the wall behind us are the same four symbols, perfectly aligned, exactly like we’d assembled above in the lake. We rotate the concentric circles that the symbols are part of, separating them back out, and the crack in the cavern floor begins to close above us.
“Move, Hannah,” Ethan says, pulling me from the platform, because the ceiling is getting lower and lower as the split closes.
We hurry down a bunch of uneven steps until we reach another platform. When I look back, there is no sign of where we’ve come from.
“I wondered what those things that looked like steps were on the Deluge Segment,” he says. “And now I get it.”
“So we’re on the right path?” I’m unable to keep a huge smile from creeping onto my face. We found a secret path. Our destination seems so close.
He grins along with me. “We’re totally on the right path. But one thing.”
“What?”
“Let me see the map.”
I dig it out and hand it over to him. His finger moves from one symbol to a different one next to it. “If I’m reading this symbol right, it’s a really big number.”
I stare at him. “And that’s important why?”
He slowly shakes his head as he hands the map back to me. “Because I think it’s the number of steps we need to go down.”
I roll the map and return it to my bag. “How many can there possibly be? I’ve climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Washington Monument, and the Empire State Building.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Ethan says.
We descend to the next platform, and then the next. And then the next and the next and the next, and pretty soon I am regretting my words. When I shine my light far ahead of me, all I can see are more steps. They’re endless. The walls around us are rough stone, as is the ceiling. And even though we’ve been in the cave for four days so far, now that we are descending so quickly, I’m struck with the thought that there are tons upon tons of rock now over my head. Memories of Scott telling us about the rapture return to me. But I’m not alone. And I refuse to panic.
My legs ache with each movement, but I’m not about to complain to Ethan. I can do anything he can do.
“Can we stop?” he says, after we’ve been walking for close to an hour.
The air around us is cool, but not cold, and it’s fresh, though I’m not sure how that’s possible seeing as how this tunnel’s been blocked off for ages.
I almost snap out a sarcastic response, calling him a weenie and telling him to suck it up, but my legs hurt too badly, and more than anything, I want to rest, too.
“I guess we can take a small break.” I drop to the ground when we hit the next platform, inhaling an energy bar, but I limit myself to only a few sips of water. The last thing I need, in addition to my aching legs, is to have my stomach start cramping up.
“Have you noticed how much warmer it’s getting?” Ethan says.
We’ve both shed our outer coat layer and unzipped our jacket liners, too.
I pull out the mobile thermometer Scott had insisted we’d need and set it on the ground so it can get a solid reading. Scott said it was so we could tell what the hypothermia risk was, but at the rate things are going, I’ll be down to my tank top by tomorrow.
“It’s up thirty degrees,” I say as the thermometer settles.
Ethan picks it up to double check. “That’s like spring in Boston. B
ut it doesn’t make sense. Where do you think the heat is coming from?”
I take off a glove and press my hand to the rock wall. It’s hot to the touch. When I pull it back, it’s covered in a greenish residue. “There’s some kind of moss covering the rocks. Thermogenic I’m guessing.”
“What does that mean, Science Girl?”
I brush the moss off my hand and put my glove back on. “It means that the moss is producing heat. Some plants do it to help with pollination.”
“You’re saying you think the moss growing on the rocks has raised the temperature thirty degrees?” Ethan says.
“Sure. Each plant on its own doesn’t account for much, but cover the entire wall in it, and you have yourself a regular sauna.”
Ethan pulls his jacket liner fully off and begins to roll it in a ball. “Well whatever the reason, it’s better than the cold, except now I’m sweating. These steps are a workout.”
I pull my jacket liner off also and instantly feel better. “I think we’ve gone down a million so far.”
“I’ve counted almost two thousand,” Ethan says.
“You’ve been counting?”
Ethan nods as he tucks his coat into his backpack. “Numbers are just another form of linguistics. We’ve been following a pattern in case you didn’t notice. Sixteen steps then thirty-two then eight then thirty-two again then four then thirty-two two more times. It’s been repeating pretty much the entire time.”
“So it’s binary.”
“What? Like ones and zeros?” Ethan says.
“Yeah, like powers of two. Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. You get the idea. Whoever built this place had an advanced understanding of the world around them.”
“Who do you think built these steps?” Ethan says. “And don’t say God because I’m not buying that.”
“I wasn’t going to say God,” I say. “I’m not sure what I was going to say, actually. Uncle Randall and Tobin told us those stories about the flood survivors. Noah. Utnapishtim, Manu. But one person couldn’t have done all this. It’s too much. Too hard. How would they have done it?”
“Carved one stone at a time?” Ethan says.
