3

by James Phelan

  “How about—wait, can you hear something?” Xavier said.

  It was the sound of a car speeding down the road. It was a massive SUV with blacked-out windows.

  It’s practically a tank!

  And it was definitely not their designated pickup vehicle.

  Lora and Xavier took aim with their dart guns.

  The vehicle stopped in front of them and the driver’s window slid down noiselessly.

  Xavier did a double take.

  “Dad?”

  “Xavier, get in. We have to go!” Dr. Dark said.

  Lora and Xavier needed no second invitation. They raced out to the car and it tore away, a spray of bullets landing on the roof as the car flew down the deserted road.

  Lora was already on her phone frantically relaying the attack to Jedi, getting him to call in the local authorities.

  “Look, behind us!” Dr. Dark called.

  Xavier and Lora looked out the rear window of the car.

  Dozens of Agents appeared out of nowhere, converging fast in the middle of the road, racing to catch them.

  We made it.

  But we’re the only ones left now.

  34

  EVA

  “You’re a monster!” Eva screamed, hot tears of anguish and defiance streaming down her face.

  Stella turned from Eva to the screen, looking at the carnage at Chernobyl and simply shrugged.

  Eva strained against her bindings. Her wrists were almost free. If she could get loose, and get Stella close enough, and off guard, she could …

  What? What could I do?

  Something. Anything!

  “It’s done,” Stella said, pointing at the screen. “You lose, as you always will. And ultimately I will get what I want. So don’t make me torture you, just give it to me now and maybe you can spare yourself some pain.”

  Eva watched as dozens of Agents calmly got into their vehicles and began to drive away. The camera view changed again and she winced to see the dozens of bodies lying in the dirt, lifeless and abandoned.

  “Now you know what I’m prepared to do,” Stella said. “Tell me where the next Gear is. I’m done talking to you.”

  SAM

  SMASH!

  The Agent took the blow and turned with it, throwing Sam across the floor and sending him smashing into a vending machine that started spewing out chocolate bars.

  His Stealth Suit flickered and then stayed on, visible for all to see. Sam looked down to find he was wearing a bright pink Hawaiian shirt and a kilt with yellow and blue tartan.

  “Great time to malfunction,” Sam muttered under his breath.

  On his back, Sam looked up as the Agent neared for another attack. He’d been taken completely by surprise. An Agent had come silently around a blind corner and sprung into action with lightning speed. They were in the recreation area just off the rear entrance to the vault, plastic tables and chairs scattering as they fought.

  Right now, Sam had an ever growing pile of expired chocolate bars raining down on his chest.

  And the Agent was a couple of paces away and nearing fast.

  Sam threw a handful of chocolate bars at the Agent’s face, causing him to flinch, and he kept throwing, a peanut bar catching the guy in the eye.

  “Argh!” The Agent was momentarily blinded.

  Sam used the distraction to spin around on the ground, tripping the Agent up.

  CRACK!

  The big guy landed hard on the floor and hit his head, out cold.

  “Man,” Sam said, standing up and brushing himself off, picking up his dart gun and shooting the Agent in the leg to be sure that he remained out of it for a while longer. “Never,” he said, eating a chocolate bar as he walked away, “sneak up on a hungry teenager.”

  EVA

  “I don’t believe you,” Stella said.

  “It’s true!” Eva replied, almost free of the binds behind her back.

  “You’re telling me that you took the Gear from the vault,” Stella said, “and for some reason it’s hidden just through this door?”

  “Yes.” Eva felt her wrist slipping free and she had a sudden flush of adrenalin as she imagined what she had to do next.

  I gotta rush Stella as soon as she turns her back to go through the door toward the vault. It’s my only chance.

  “If you’re lying,” Stella said, her hand on the door handle. “You know there will be consequences …”

  SAM

  Sam ran hard at the door marked VAULT and hit it with every bit of force that he had.

  Unlike the previous door he’d broken down, this one seemed to give right away. In fact, it crashed open so easily and so fast that it was like it was being opened from the other side.

  “Sam!”

  “Eva?” Sam said, worried for a moment that he’d knocked her to the ground.

  He hadn’t.

  Eva stood before him.

  Sam looked down.

  Stella was there, dazed, and looked up at him with shock and then anger in her eyes.

  WHACK!

  Stella fired at Sam, and Sam dived but was too late—the dart hit him in the face, cracking the lens of his glasses and stuck there, a millimetre from his eyeball.

  “Not,” Sam said, ditching the smashed glasses, “cool.”

  WHACK!

  Sam fired point blank, the dart hitting Stella squarely in the shoulder. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she slumped against the ground.

  “Nice shot!” Eva said.

  “I should have gone for the head,” Sam grimaced.

  “What took you so long?” Eva asked, untying her other wrist.

  “Did a bit of sightseeing,” Sam said. “You got the Gear?”

  “Got it,” Eva said, bending down to take her necklace back from Stella. She showed Sam the tiny little Gear that hung next to her dream catcher charm. “Stella had it right in her hand and didn’t even see it.”

  “How’d you get the code to the vault?” Sam asked.

  “The dream—I saw it,” Eva said, smiling. “Well, it was probably my dream, right?”

  “The code was ‘thirteen,’ as numbered letters, right?”

  “With X equalling one,” Eva nodded. “But Sam, there’s something you should know, I saw Stella’s Agents in—”

  “Not now,” Sam interrupted. “Tell me everything once we’re out of here.”

  “You’re right, of course, let’s go.”

  They turned to go back and stopped—

  There was a new presence there.

  Solaris.

  35

  ALEX

  “If we’re naturals at this,” Alex said to himself, trudging slowly across the snow, “I’d hate to see an amateur out of his depth.”

  He was third in the line, all of them linked by ropes. The Guardian in the lead, dressed in a red snowsuit, was a mountaineer who’d summitted the world’s seven tallest peaks. Then there was Hans, Alex, and lastly, poor old Ahmed. Three matching yellow snowsuits in a row.

  All four of them carried backpacks full of survival gear, and five metres of red rope was strung between each of them, tied onto climbing harnesses around their waists.

  Alex looked back over his shoulder and saw Ahmed, his hooded head down, shuffling miserably. Behind him, steam rose from the vent tube they’d been winched up from, the winch and beacon still there for their return leg.

  “We’re so not trained for this,” Alex said under his breath. He looked ahead and kept on trudging. Hans was in front of him, the Guardian at the front, GPS unit in hand. About two hours by foot, he’d said.

  This is going to be a long day.

  They stopped forty-five minutes in, using the cover of a rocky outcrop against the strengthening wind to have a hot drink. A propane campfire heated water, and tea and sugar was added. Lots of sugar, to keep their energy up. They’d eaten muesli bars in silence, the expedition leader radioing back and smiling, clearly in his element. Then they set off again.

  “Have to race t
he weather!” the Guardian said before pulling up his balaclava to cover his nose and face, pulling down his goggles. “Follow me—let’s see if we can make it another forty-five minutes before the next break.”

  The weather beat them to it.

  Alex was walking diagonally into the wind, mimicking those ahead of him, to stay on his feet.

  Snow and ice crystals blew in hard, but there was nowhere to shelter.

  Underfoot, the ground had changed from snow powder to hard ice, deep fissures in places, which they had to skirt around. Thirty minutes in and Alex was so tired he could hardly move his legs. Worse, Ahmed had almost stopped, the archaeologist practically being dragged along by the rope connecting the four of them together. Up ahead, Hans and the Guardian stopped. Soon the four of them huddled together, face to face against the increasing wind and biting cold.

  “Another hundred metres!” the Guardian said against the howl of the wind. “The fissures in the ground are getting bigger. We can find one to shelter in until this passes over!”

  “OK!” Hans said.

  “One step at a time, then tug on the rope and take another!” the Guardian yelled. “And we continue on like that, OK?”

  The four of them gave the thumbs up and set off, headfirst into the crosswind.

  The snow was now so thick in the air that it was a full-blown blizzard. Visibility had dropped to the point where Alex could only see the red rope connecting them and not the figures of Hans and Ahmed to his immediate front and back. They’d step, tug the rope, he’d step, tug the rope …

  “Arghh!” Alex was being dragged forwards. He knew instantly what had happened—the Guardian had slipped down a fissure, his weight threatening to drag them all down with him.

  Alex dug in his heels, the long steel teeth of the crampons gouging through the hard ice.

  Ahmed didn’t stop behind him. He was pulled off his feet and slid past Alex like a bowling ball tossed down a well-polished lane.

  Alex was now being pulled forwards by three grown men, the ropes at his waist dragging him down.

  He was pulled to the ground and onto his side, sliding head first toward the others, to what he imagined was a bottomless crevasse. Without a moment to spare, Alex drew the knife from the sheath on his pack and cut both the ropes.

  There was only snow and ice—desolate, blinding.

  It had been an hour since he’d last seen the others, and he’d skirted the crevasse, one slow step at a time, calling out, hopeful.

  Then, the weather cleared. The blizzard passed. The dull grey sky was replaced by an ice-cold blue, the sun low on the horizon.

  Must find shelter.

  Who’s going to find me?

  I’m going to die out here.

  “No, not like this!” Alex screamed at the sky. “You hear me? I have a destiny to live out!”

  The eerie silence closed in around him.

  With nothing more than the pack on his back, and no other choice, Alex trudged on. Finally he made the top of the ridge. He cleared the ice from his goggles.

  There was a valley—rocky, with hardly any snow, and—water. A lake in the middle and all around it, orange and green moss in hardy clumps. Steam rose from the water.

  It’s warm. Must be geothermal.

  The heat of lava flowing near the surface heats the ground keeping the lake liquid. For thousands of years, it would have been an oasis, a refuge for anyone down here.

  The other side of the ridge was a steady decline of loose gravel that looked like it would be hard going.

  Not exactly a tropical oasis.

  But it was the best hope he’d had in over an hour.

  Is this the only place like this here? No, it can’t be. Not on a huge continent like Antarctica.

  He took a couple of small steps to start his descent—

  “Arghh!”

  The wind gusted and blew him over, tumbling him down the mountain side. Alex felt like he was inside a washing machine—filled with gravel. He pulled his arms in over his face, and brought his knees to his chest, forming a ball and rocketing down. Covered in all the snow gear, he didn’t feel anything until …

  CRASH!

  Alex hit the bottom of the valley and slid. He shot out his hands and feet to slow the slide but it was useless. He was on the orange-green mossy lichen, and it was wet and slippery, and he was now sliding face down, headfirst, toward the water pool.

  The steaming water pool.

  Oh boy …

  Alex pushed his toes into the moss. His boots bit hard, slowing him.

  CLINK!

  The crampons detached against the strain.

  In five seconds he’d hit the water.

  I’ll be a boiled lobster in five seconds!

  Alex used every bit of strength he had left to shift his weight, pushing down with his heels while he shoved himself upright with his arms. He turned his toes inward, forming a V-shape, just like he’d learned to do on skis as a boy.

  It’s working—I’m slowing down!

  Alex put all his weight forward to the outer edges of his boots, and they bit into the fine, sandy gravel under the moss. The final metre of ground before the water was barren.

  Too hot for anything to grow.

  He hit that and instantly his boots gained traction, gouging two troughs until …

  He stopped.

  The water lapped at the front of his boots. The pool was steaming and bubbling.

  Not a friendly warm bath-type of pool, then. Definitely more the lobster type.

  “Wow, that was close.”

  Then he smelt it. A sickly, sweet smell, like burning plastic or rubber.

  “Ow!”

  Alex stepped away from the water’s edge as he saw the soles of his boots melting on the hot gravel. Up and down the valley it seemed much the same as this, the hot lake in the middle, the growth all around it.

  There were a few places down the valley where the water was broken up by larger rocks that formed bridges, and Alex took one of these to the other side. This side grew steeper, faster, and the plant growth was minimal, in some places sparse enough for him to jump over and walk on the frozen rocks.

  To his side, up the steep rock wall toward another ridge, were deep, dark fissures.

  Alex checked the time.

  “I should shelter for the night,” he said to himself. He walked along the fissures, looking for one that might be deep enough to fit in.

  Not that there is night here. So weird having daylight all the time. But my body’s saying it’s time to sleep.

  The evening light hit the white snow-covered top of the opposite ridge, impossibly bright even at this hour.

  The next place I find that’s big enough, I’m squeezing in.

  He rounded a large rocky outcrop. The water here was at its widest, bubbling and steaming. He kept against the rock wall, using his gloved hands to find a way forward. Where the rocks met at another outcrop, there was an opening. He felt around it—it was just big enough. He pushed himself inside. The rock face on his back and front was tight against the puffy snowsuit. He stopped, relaxed.

  Not large enough to lie down, but I can sit and sleep, my back against the rock wall.

  He tried to wriggle out to check his supplies before settling in and stopped.

  He realized his other arm, deeper into the space, was moving freely. It was as though it had passed the tightest spot between the rocks and found a wider space beyond. He backed out, took a glowstick from a pouch on his arm and snapped it, shaking it until it came to life.

  He undid the top half of his snowsuit and pushed it down past his waist, forcing his way back into the space. With the fluorescent yellow light, he could see a few metres around him. He pushed on through the closest points between the rock walls and into …

  “Wow—it’s some kind of natural cave,” Alex murmured in surprise.

  A tiny pool of heated water in the middle made the cave warm too.

  Awesome.

  I might be ma
rooned in Antarctica, but at least I’m not going to die of hypothermia.

  Although starvation is still going to be a problem. Huh.

  Alex noticed something else as he shuffled farther in.

  The floor’s smooth, and the walls. They’d been carved into the rock.

  This is no natural cave.

  36

  SAM

  A jet of fire flashed to the right of them and splattered against the water.

  “Turn invisible!” Eva said to Sam as they ran across the bridge.

  “I can’t!” Sam said, running next to her. “Suit’s broken!”

  “That explains the kilt!”

  WHOOSH!

  Another jet of fire, this one hitting the ground at the back of their heels.

  “Wait!” Sam said and stopped.

  Eva skidded to a stop a few paces ahead.

  Sam turned around.

  Solaris’ black-clad figure, his form shimmering, was some thirty metres back on the bridge.

  Sam looked out over the lake, the water rushing below. The underground structure had been carved into the rock from the natural salt cavern that had come into being over millions of years. To the side of the vault platform, giant concrete water tanks, each the size of a suburban house, formed a wall.

  Next to them were the generator turbines that powered the base. And between those spinning turbines and the water storage tanks was a huge gas turbine generator.

  “Give me the Gear,” Solaris said through his rasping mask. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”

  Sam took out the flare gun that Henk had given him, raised it and fired.

  Solaris laughed as the round flew up into the air far over his head.

  “You little fool,” Solaris said. “You are a worse shot than I ever imagined, Sam.”

  “Am I?” Sam said.

  Solaris was silent, then looked over his shoulder.

  Just in time to see the flare arcing through the air. Its bright white and orange phosphorous core, burning at a thousand degrees, was curving down.

  Toward the generator.

  Sam turned and grabbed Eva’s arm and they ran for the exit.

  He didn’t need to see the impact.