by Greig Beck
“Is that for real?” Matt fished in his pocket for the gold coin and held it out flat on his hand. “Did this really come from there?”
“Where did you get that?” Her eyes carried a mixture of shock and barely contained anger. “Who the hell…?”
“I don’t know, honestly. It came in the post, and just with this note.” He handed her a small piece of paper.
“From the lost city in the crystal cave. At the center of the earth.”
Jane sighed and dropped her arm. She glanced at Janus. “Mike again?”
He shrugged.
“Mike?” Matt asked.
“Mike Monroe is Jane’s… good friend. He’s also the other person to climb from the center of the Earth.” He looked down momentarily. “He’s also dying. Like Jane is.”
“What?” Matt asked. “Of what?”
“A form of aggressive skin cancer,” she replied. “We are using interferon to slow it down, but it’ll eventually overtake us.” She gave him a crooked smile. “And it’s from the intense radiation down there.”
Matt spun to Janus. “You never told me this. You can shove this up your…”
Janus held up a hand. “They were both there for many months. We’ll only be there for a few days, a week or two at most. No problem.”
She shook her head. “We only planned to be there a few days or weeks as well. But you know what? Shit happens. Bad shit.” She turned away.
Janus sidled closer to Matt. “You never asked why Mike would send you the coin. And involve you.”
“You tell me,” Matt asked.
“Because there is a natural compound down there that can treat them. And the race of people who were its, ah, custodians and creators, could not be communicated with. A new race, Matt, a new language, a new civilization—we will have limited time, and we need to understand them, and them us, quickly. We need an expert for that—the best expert.” Janus lifted an eyebrow at Matt. “You.”
“Whoa.” Matt felt a little giddy.
“Whoa, is right.” Janus nodded slowly. “Bottom line, Mike wants to save them both.” He smiled crookedly. “Not an unreasonable objective.”
The room fell to silence for several moments until Janus Anderson clapped his hands together like the crack of a gunshot. “Okay, good, now that the introductions are over and ice broken, let’s see where we are up to. And, I have more to share with you.”
Matt glanced at Jane, who still seemed to be simmering.
“Let me share some of the initial impressions and observations.” He also laid out some photographs. “As expected, the water in the area is relatively uniform.” He stood aside but kept his hand on the bathological map. “Except for the rift, or cave, or… or tunnel, or whatever it is down there.”
Jane folded her arms but leaned forward to glance at the details. “What’s with the ‘unknown depths’ notification you’ve made here?”
Janus smiled back. “It is what it is. We used several devices like SNAR—Sound Navigation And Ranging sonar—to send out pulses of sound energy and then monitor how quickly the sound travels back.” He shrugged. “In those areas, nothing came back. It exceeded our equipment’s capabilities.”
“Okay.” She straightened and turned away. “And that’s where you believe there’s some sort of large biological entity hiding out?”
“I don’t know.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. And maybe it’s just a geological thing. An upwelling when the rift opened. Or some sort of pumic expelation. Nothing has been confirmed one way or the other.”
“If that’s the case, then why us?” Jane straightened. “Why bring in our level of expertise?”
Janus seemed to ponder on it for a moment. “I’m successful because I manage risk, calculate the odds, and usually win. So, from a risk management perspective, even if there’s the remotest possibility that what you and Mike said you saw is real, then I want people with us who have dealt with this sort of anomaly before who can advise.” He lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve done my homework. Your credentials are that you went, you saw, you conquered, and you survived. I want that experience backing up my crew.”
“I’ve done a little homework on you too, Mr. Anderson.” Jane’s gaze was flat. “You’re an overpaid antiquities dealer. You made your fortune salvaging to sell. And you also aren’t shy about selling your services to governments. Any governments.”
“Sure did. And?” Janus grinned. “That’s how I make my money. And I made a lot of it. Is it not better to retrieve lost things, and let others have the right to enjoy them?” He held up two fingers. “I have two primary objectives for retrieval: one, the woman, Ally Bennet. A team is already on route to try and retrieve her. And two, the medicinal compound.”
“And?” Jane folded her arms. “Go on.”
His face became grim as he slowly held up a third finger. “Three, if there is a large seaborne entity attacking ships, we are to destroy it. This is sponsored by the United States Naval forces with the backing of the International Maritime Authority.”
“Holy shit.” Matt exhaled through pressed lips.
Jane shook her head and looked away. “You have no idea.”
“Uh, question.” Matt held up a hand. “What am I missing here?”
Janus waved his hand as though dispelling Jane’s warning as if it were nothing more than vapors. “Wondrous things, Professor Kearns, wondrous. Look here.” He opened a small computer and started up a video.
Matt leaned closer, watching and waiting for a few seconds, and then his eyes widened. “Oh my God. This can’t be real.”
It was an underwater scene, and as the dark water was illuminated, he saw there were colossal steps leading from a platform surrounded with broken columns and tumbled plinths of titanic proportions, all crusted in slimy growths and mosses.
Janus watched his face. “From one of our deep-submergence vehicles, or DSVs.”
The DSV’s lights then moved over a vast wall showing carved images of monstrous beasts, some fighting each other, and some with what looked like miniscule figures, but were probably human scale, all marching up a long platform toward the tentacled mouth on one creature that was bigger than all of them.
The submersible continued along the wall and soon came to a broad set of steps all leading downward toward the edge of an immense rip in the ocean floor, and then they kept on going into its impenetrable blackness.
“Are they ruins? Because they look like ruins,” Matt gushed. “Where is this?”
Janus nodded. “Yes, they are ruins, Professor. And they’re at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, some 36,000 feet, nearly seven miles below the surface. And their size is astronomical.” He smiled into Matt’s face. “Who built them? How did they build them? And where are the builders now?” Janus held his hands wide. “So many interesting questions.”
Matt looked spellbound as he stared at the small screen. He glanced over his shoulder at Jane. “This is… something else.” He turned back and then his brows came together, and he tilted his head as he tried to make sense of another image that was appearing out of the gloom. “What’s this showing us?”
Jane snorted softly. “They’re floating stones.”
“Floating? What are they made of?” Matt asked.
“Granite, sedimentary sandstone?” Jane shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What their composition is, is not the right question.” She turned to Janus. “It’s a gravity well.”
“Yes, that’s what we think.” Janus nodded. “Now watch.”
The DSV continued to film as it headed down past more of the ruins toward the impenetrably black hole.
“Stop,” Matt exclaimed. His brows came together as he lifted a finger to point. “On that wall—there’s something written.”
Janus paused the film. “Oh yeah, I never noticed that as I was so focused on the well.” He turned. “Can you read it?”
“I’ve been working on the language for days.” Matt fished in his pocket for the gold coin and qu
ickly examined it. “Yes, it’s the same form of writing.” His eyes ran over the symbols. “Mostly obscured, but…”
While his eyes moved over the glyphic images, Jane took the coin from his open hand, and looked deeply into the gold—the side with the three-faced royal rulers—and flipping it, she saw the monstrous image on the back. It gave her a jagged feeling in her chest.
“Something like, the living god, maybe.” His lips moved. “Sleeper or slumberer, I think.” He straightened. “Can you clean it up?”
“Probably,” Janus said. “But I think we know who or what that is referring to.” He turned. “Right, Jane?”
“Dagon,” she whispered.
“The Lovecraftian legend, like on the coin. The god of the deep?” Matt chuckled. “You mean that Dagon?”
“No legend.” She snorted. “Very real.”
“Enemy number one,” Janus replied. “And Jane talks from experience.”
“You’ve seen it?” Matt asked, brows shot up.
Jane folded her arms and walked a few steps away from the table.
“Was there any more footage?” Matt asked.
Janus nodded. “Just a little more.”
Jane turned to watch as Janus restarted the film.
The camera followed the ruins down toward the dark hole in the ocean trench floor. It moved past some of the floating rocks and then actually entered the massive hole.
At first, it was moving slowly, and even though the feed grew a little grainy, it was still good clarity. Then there came the motion of speed. Faster and then faster again, until the feed totally whited out with static.
“That’s it. We lost communication with the DSV at one hundred and twelve thousand feet. We estimate they were traveling at close to three hundred miles per hour when they fell off the radar.” Janus folded his arms.
“Did they return?” Jane half turned.
“No,” Janus said. “Or not yet anyway.”
“They must have been pulverized by the pressure,” Matt said.
“Jane? You like to field that one?” Janus smiled.
She turned and stared at the paused image on the computer screen. “There’s no pressure in the gravity wells. It’s like a fast-moving river… all the way to the center of the Earth.”
Janus’ smile broadened. “There’s your answer, Mr. Kearns. That’s how we will be traveling. We have two modified DSVs and a specialist team of scientists and security personnel.” He smiled as he raised his hands. “What an opportunity.”
Matt faced Jane. “Seriously?”
Janus checked his watch. “Whoops, I’ve got to step out for a few minutes to take a call. I’ll have coffee brought in. You two finish looking over the material and rewatch the film if you like.”
He headed toward the door and turned with his hand on the door edge. “And, Professor, the intellectual reward will be great, and you may bear witness to the opening of a dialogue with an entire new race, civilization, and I dare say, world. What a thing to tell your kids.”
He turned to Jane. “We have a small window of opportunity, and a fast chopper departing for the support vessel tomorrow morning. I want you and Mike to join us but will understand if you don’t.”
“Mike?” Her brows came together.
“Oh, he’s already committed.” Janus saluted the pair and left the room.
***
Matt and Jane watched the door close and then she turned to Matt. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Matt asked. “About the mission, what might be down there, or…?”
She scoffed. “I know what’s down there, Matt. I’ve been there. I meant the mission. My gut feeling is to say no.”
Matt hiked his shoulders. “I don’t know. This is the most intriguing thing I’ve heard in years.”
She shook her head while staring at him. “You have no idea what’s down there. This is no field trip to the everglades or hiking into some small cave in the Appalachians to look at wall paintings. This is serious.”
Matt nodded. “I’ve been around, Jane.” Matt’s eyes were dead level. “I’m like you. I’ve seen things—strange, horrifying, and monstrous things. Things from the depths of the ocean, and in dark jungles. Things that had no right to exist. I’ve just come out of six months therapy after my cousin was killed by this swarm of creatures from somewhere below the earth. For all I know, they were from the same place you visited.”
“You’re that Professor Kearns?” Her brows shot up.
“Yeah, that one.” He gave her a broken smile. “The one with a curiosity that borders on being suicidal.”
“So why are you doing this? You can’t really have a death wish, surely?” she asked.
Matt turned away to run the images on the screen again and spoke as if in a trance. “Knowledge is an addictive drug. But there’s something else I was told by a special team of soldiers who are tasked with defending the world against these sort of things…” He turned to her. “We save lives. Lots of lives. And people never know.”
She grunted, not yet convinced.
Matt tilted his head. “Do you know how many people vanish at sea every year?”
She shrugged. “Hundreds?”
“Thousands,” he replied. “We might be able to save some of these people just by stopping this… thing.”
“Dagon,” she added.
“Yes.” He nodded. “…just by stopping it from surfacing. But there’s something else. Imagine if the cure you and Mike need really can treat cancer. That would be mind blowing.” He blew air between his lips. “Yeah, I just want to make a difference.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I sound like a coward. I’m not, but I’m scared.” She lifted her chin. “How do you do it? Where does the courage come from to keep going and confronting these things over and over? Why aren’t you scared?”
He smiled. “I never said I wasn’t scared. I am, every time. But I’m an optimist, and I always imagine I’m coming home.” He grinned. “And I just tell myself, I’m excited, not scared.”
They laughed together, and she thought the guy with the long hair and surfer looks was the bravest and most noble guy she had ever met.
“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” She smiled.
“That’s pretty cool. Who said that?” Matt asked. “Was it a soldier?”
“Nope, Billy Graham,” she replied. “It’s been good to meet you, Matt.” She held out her hand. “Okay, let’s save some lives.” She shrugged. “One being Mike’s. The other being my own.”
***
In the building’s security monitoring room, Janus sat back and smiled. “Got ‘em.” He focused the camera in a little closer on their faces. “You have the magic touch, Professor.”
Janus knew he might not be able to convince Jane to go back down, but she might listen to someone she thought was honest and independent—enter the famous Professor Matt Kearns.He lifted a phone. “Marco, get the team ready. We’ll have two extra passengers for rapid disembarking eight am, sharp.” He paused. “And don’t forget to send a fast chopper to pick up Mike Monroe. Tell him Jane Baxter is all in.”
He disconnected the call, and then closed his eyes for a moment, thinking through his plans. They needed to find the race of people Mike had referred to and secure samples of the salve that could be worth a hundred billion worldwide if it had the cancer-treating properties the man suggested.
He’d also need to get an update soon on how the rescue and retrieval mission was going in Russia. At least that was costing them nothing.
Plus, there was the bounty on the head of this large entity that was attacking their ships, if it was even real. But just in case it was, they’d be packing several armaments that could put a hole the size of a train tunnel in anything they chose.
“We can do this,” he whispered. “And everybody wins.”
He rose to his feet. If this job panned out, he’d go from millionaire to billionaire in a week. Janus wh
istled as he headed back to Jane and Matt.
CHAPTER 07
The deep caves, 6 miles northeast of the Kola Borehole – 4 months earlier
Ally Bennet’s eyes were wide, but she saw nothing in the Tartarean darkness. But what the darkness took away, it gave back in other areas—her sense of smell and hearing were now acute. She learned to block out the odors of her own waste and finally the smell of blood as well.
A few months back, another caver had been dragged in and staked out close to her. She could only guess at the time as days, weeks, or months had no meaning without any of the circadian change of light and darkness that signified days and nights.
It was a woman, Russian, and a professional spelunker. She spoke a little English, and sadly, she was already tipping into insanity from her predicament. Ally should have as well, but her specialized military training meant she could endure things that most normal people could not.
She learned the woman’s name was Anya, and her caving team had been attacked by the slimy, pale creatures in the darkness a few days before. Her friends had scattered in the caves with the things chasing them, and she held out hope that they were still alive and would come find her. Ally kept quiet, knowing that the sounds of feasting she heard would be all that remained of her team.
When the creatures came back, Ally took herself from her own body and dreamed of blue sky and fields of green grass dotted with wildflowers. The worst part of it was the things trying to mimic the women’s pleading and screaming.
“Oстановка!” Anya had screamed over and over, which Ally found out later meant “stop.”
Then the things mimicked her—it wasn’t the same exactly, but with practice they were getting better. It was fun to them, as their primitive brains still enjoyed playing, and to them, the people were nothing but toys and food.
When the creatures had finished with them, and their bodies were covered in blood, bites, and the grease of perspiration, Anya had whispered her plan.
“I am be dead,” she said.
“No, we’re not dead yet,” Ally replied softly.
