Journey Into the Flame: Book One of the Rising World Trilogy

by T. R. Williams

  “Is the SCC the only place where they can control the satellites?” Sylvia asked Chetan.

  “Yes, that is correct.” Chetan took a seat in front of a control console. He pointed upward. “All of the satellite control is from the floor one hundred meters above us.”

  “Can you access the Vault’s security cameras?” Valerie asked. “In particular, the ones at the main entrance?”

  “As part of the lockdown, most of the security control has been transferred to the SCC, but I should be able to get to the cameras.” With a few strokes of his hand, a large glass display came to life in front of them, showing the status of the many subsystems at the Vault. Chetan brought up the video feed and started to fast-forward it. “What are you looking for?”

  “I want to see who arrived from AB Control Systems a few hours ago,” Valerie said.

  “I can tell you that,” Chetan said. “Usually, Miko and Ledan from AB Control do all the maintenance work. They are good men.” Chetan slowed the video down to normal speed. “See, there they are.”

  “Looks like they’re not alone,” Valerie observed. In the image were the two men Chetan pointed out as Miko and Ledan. But three more men and two women were with them.

  “Usually, it’s just Miko and Ledan,” Chetan said. He paused the video and zoomed in on a stocky woman with short brown hair. “I’ve seen this young woman before. Her name is Gretchen. She works for the WSA.”

  “The WSA?” Valerie repeated gravely.

  “She’s the one we saw from the airport security footage,” Sylvia said. “You say she works for the WSA?”

  “Yes,” Chetan answered. “I have never seen these others before.”

  “We have,” Logan said solemnly. “They are the ones we’ve been looking for.” Logan pointed to Andrea in her signature crimson hood and a long black fitted raincoat. And to Lucius, clad entirely in black.

  “We have to let someone know,” Sylvia said.

  “Let who know?” Valerie asked. “Whom do we trust at this point? Clearly, not the WSA. Their agents are granting them access to the facility.” She shook her head and turned. “I need to call Burke.” She walked away and placed the call.

  “Are there any cameras on the SCC level?” Sylvia asked Chetan.

  “There are.” He swiped his hands over the controls and attempted to bring up video feeds from the SCC level. “Why is it asking for a security code? These cameras have never been coded before.”

  “Looks like someone doesn’t want us to see what’s going on up there,” Logan said.

  Chetan slid his chair over to another display and brought up a security log. “Let us see what kind of games are being played . . .”

  “You have the access codes for all of the security cameras?” Logan asked, as he observed the lists Chetan was bringing up. “Why?”

  “Why, because I wrote the software for them,” Chetan said with satisfaction. “There,” he said, eyeing the log. “Someone added a security code to the cameras three hours ago.”

  “That’s about the time they got here,” Sylvia said.

  “I wonder what other access they changed,” Chetan grumbled as he slid back to the camera control console and entered the new codes. Soon the images from the cameras were displaying long and empty hallways of the Satellite Control level of the complex.

  “Doesn’t look like too much is happening up there,” Logan observed.

  Valerie looked grim as she walked back over. “We may be on our own for a while,” she said. “If the WSA is involved, we can’t let them know we’re here. Burke doesn’t trust Ramplet, and he doesn’t want to alert Joint Command at this point—Ramplet has their ear. He’s going to dispatch a WCF team, but it may take a few hours for them to get here.”

  “None of us may be alive in a few hours,” Logan said.

  “We’re authorized to use any force necessary to secure the facility,” Valerie said in a steely voice.

  Chetan was still focused on the video feeds from the SCC. “Where is everyone? There should be at least ten people up there. Let’s see what is happening in the control room.” He swiped his hand, and a new set of video images came up.

  “Looks like we found them,” Valerie said. The bloodied bodies of four people had been shoved into a corner. Three other people, alive, sat tied up on the floor next to them. The rest of the SCC staffers were manning their stations at gunpoint. “All right, Chetan, how do we get up there?”

  He did not answer immediately. “I just spoke to a few of them earlier this evening,” he mumbled. “Where are Miko and Ledan? I don’t see . . .” Chetan’s voice trailed off.

  “You have to stay with us here,” Sylvia said sternly. She grabbed Chetan’s arm and shook it. “You have to help us get into the SCC.”

  Looking stunned, Chetan walked to the window that looked out over the computer facility and tried to regain his composure. “The cooling tubes,” he whispered. “You can use the cooling tubes.” He rushed back to the control panel and brought up an image of the facility. “There are pipes that deliver water from the surface all the way down to the quantum core and the Tesla coils. That is how we are able to keep the core cool. Every hour, water rushes through these shafts, and the resulting steam is then vented out of these air locks.” Chetan pointed to the massive pipes on the east and west sides of the floor. “There are ladders in the tubes that allow service people to climb from level to level. In theory, you could use these ladders to access the floor above.”

  “There has to be an easier way,” Logan said hopefully.

  “What are you complaining about? You climbed down a dumbwaiter shaft,” Valerie said, turning to Logan with a slight smile. “Except this time, we’re going up.”

  Logan nodded, the vision of Valerie’s funeral flashing in his mind. He couldn’t return her smile.

  “We will have to time it properly,” Chetan said as he looked at the clock. “You don’t want to be in there when the water is released. We should play it safe and wait until after the next delivery, which is going to take place at 4:00 A.M.”

  “That’s still twelve minutes out,” Valerie said. “There’re only fifty-seven minutes until they activate the pulse. We have to go now.”

  The four of them raced from the operations center to the water-cooling tube at the west side of the facility.

  “Chetan, once we are in, go back to the control room,” Valerie instructed. “You need to be our eyes and ears.”

  “Certainly.” Chetan opened the access door to the tube with the swipe of his security card. “You have to hurry. Once you climb up about one hundred meters, you will see another access pad like this one. Swipe my card, and the door will open.” He gave his card to Valerie. “You will have thirty seconds for all of you to pass through the door before the alarm is activated. You must have the door closed prior to the water cycle, or the alarm will also sound. If the alarm goes off, they will know that you are there.”

  “Anything else?” Valerie said sarcastically, as she entered the dark shaft, followed by Sylvia.

  “Would you like to leave your backpack here?” Chetan asked Logan.

  “Nope.” Logan secured it tightly over his shoulders and entered the shaft.

  “Good luck, then. The water will drop in about ten minutes,” Chetan said, closing the door behind them.

  56

  Contrary to what you may have been told, the little things that bother you do matter. For who has the authority to judge what is significant or insignificant in your life?

  Only you can make that declaration.

  —THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

  DHARAN, NEPAL, 3:51 A.M. LOCAL TIME,

  54 MINUTES UNTIL LIBERTY MOMENT

  Logan’s heart raced, and his muscles ached, as he struggled to keep up with Valerie and Sylvia. The tube was at most three meters in diameter, and the rungs of the ladder were wet.

  “Be careful,” Valerie warned, her voice echoing down the shaft. “The ladder’s slippery.” The shaft was almost pi
tch-black; Valerie’s only reference point was a spot of light coming from above, which she presumed was the access door to the SCC level.

  It was a tough, long climb, and Logan couldn’t stop thinking about the cascade of water that was about to shoot through the tube at any minute. Fear propelled him forward. But as he adjusted his backpack on his shoulders, his foot slipped. Logan cried out as his hands slid down the sides of the wet ladder as he frantically tried to place his feet on a ladder rung.

  “Logan!” Valerie yelled.

  Regaining his grip on the ladder, he felt his heart pounding. “I’m OK,” he said.

  After several more minutes of arduous climbing, his head hit the bottom of Sylvia’s shoes. She had stopped.

  “We’re at the door,” Valerie’s voice echoed from above. She swiped Chetan’s security card, but the door did not open. Instead, the numeric keypad lit up, requesting an access code. “We need some sort of code!”

  Logan looked at his PCD. “We have exactly three minutes to get in there before the water comes down, and judging by how long it took to get up here, we don’t have enough time to climb back down.”

  Sylvia took out her PCD and awkwardly placed a call to Chetan, while maintaining her hold on the ladder. “Chetan!” she said urgently. “We need an access code. The keypad wants a code.”

  “Two minutes thirty seconds,” Logan announced.

  “He’s looking in the security logs,” Sylvia said.

  “Tell him to hurry up!” Valerie said frantically. The keypad dimmed and went idle again.

  Logan attempted to peek past Sylvia. He saw the light coming from above the access door. He could see Valerie’s shadowed face and the access card in her hand. He looked at his PCD. “Just under two,” he said. He couldn’t help but think about the two visions where he had seen Valerie dead. The water was about to flood the pipes.

  “Try one-four-five-five!” Sylvia called.

  Valerie swiped the card again, and again the keyboard lit up, asking for a code. She entered the sequence; to her relief, the red light turned to green. Then the door opened, and Valerie climbed through, followed by Sylvia and Logan. She shut the door behind them, and seconds later, they could hear the sound of water rushing by.

  They had made it into the SCC level.

  “We have forty-five minutes,” Valerie said.

  “This level looks much smaller,” Logan observed from the alcove where they were standing after exiting the cooling tube. “Do we know where we are?”

  Sylvia brought up an image of the floor plan on her PCD. The Satellite Control Center was laid out in three concentric circular structures. The main control center, where they needed to go, was in the innermost ring. It was approximately fifteen meters in width, and the inner wall was made of a single piece of tempered glass, which provided a view of the translucent quantum core that extended to the surface. The middle ring consisted of a thirty-meter-wide circular hallway, where administrative and support staff stations were located. Its three doors provided access to the inner main control center. The outer ring, where Logan and the others were standing, was the largest of the three rings. It was fifty meters wide and was used mainly for maintenance and servicing. While there were twelve doors in the outer ring, which led to the middle administrative ring, none of them led directly to the main control center.

  “We can use that entrance ahead of us to get to the middle ring,” Sylvia said, pointing to a door marked with the number nine. “Once in the middle, we can go either right or left to reach one of the entrances to the SCC.”

  “What do we do then?” Logan asked.

  “We’ll figure that out once we get there,” Valerie said. “But we have to deal with another problem first.” She pointed upward to ceiling-mounted security cameras spaced every ten meters or so. “We need to get by them first.”

  “Let’s see if we can get some help.” Sylvia engaged Chetan on her PCD. “There are cameras all over this floor. Any way to disable them, even for a moment?”

  “Yes, I can issue a reboot to the security subsystem from here,” Chetan said. “It will be about twenty seconds before the cameras restart. That should give you enough time to go through the door. Give me a moment—it will take a little doing.”

  While they waited for Chetan, Valerie pulled her gun out and checked the chamber and magazine, then reholstered it. Then she took her backup piece, which was strapped to her right calf, checked it, and handed it to Logan. “Here, you take this one.”

  He nodded, taking the gun and placing it in the front pocket of his backpack. He looked at Sylvia.

  “I’m covered,” she said, pulling back her jacket and revealing her own WCF-issued firearm.

  “Everything is ready,” Chetan announced. “But there is another problem. They have also locked down the middle ring!”

  “What does that mean?” Valerie said. “The clock’s ticking here.”

  “It means that they have switched the cameras there to be heat-sensitive. Anything caught moving around in there that is hotter than the surrounding air will set off the alarm. No one is going to get close to the main control center without them knowing about it,” Chetan said. “We can’t keep rebooting the system, or someone will be alerted.”

  “This just gets better and better,” Sylvia said, shaking her head. “We have to be able to move around the middle ring freely because we have to figure out a way to get into the main control center.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a cloaking device,” Logan said facetiously.

  Valerie was silent, contemplating the situation. “Chetan, do you have access to the heating and air-conditioning systems for the middle ring?”

  “Yes, everything is controlled by the computer,” Chetan said.

  “Well, can you turn the heat up in the middle ring?”

  “And set the temperature to ninety-eight-point-six degrees. Brilliant!” Chetan finished her thought. “Yes, I can do that. It will take a few minutes to raise the temperature. Hold tight.”

  “Set the temperature to just above ninety-one degrees,” Sylvia corrected. “That is the typical surface temperature of the human body.” She turned to Logan. “How’s that for cloaking?”

  A few more precious minutes ticked by as they waited for Chetan.

  “Everything is set,” he finally announced. “The temperature in the middle is ninety-one-point-three degrees, and the security system will reboot in fifteen seconds.” Valerie drew her gun and prepared to lead as Chetan counted down the time. “. . . One and zero.” Sylvia cut off her call, and Chetan’s image disappeared.

  “Let’s go!” Valerie said, leading them quickly out of the alcove and across the hallway. She swiped Chetan’s card, and door number nine opened. They walked through a large, well-lit access tube until they reached the door on the other side. With another card swipe, they entered the middle ring.

  A wave of heat hit them as if they were walking out into a hot summer day, but no alarm sounded as they cautiously stepped forward. The middle ring was dark except for a few lights that dimly illuminated the circular hallway. With her gun still drawn, Valerie led them to the right, looking for the entrance door to the main control center.

  “We have thirty-seven minutes before they initiate the pulse,” Logan said.

  “Remember, we shouldn’t move very fast,” Sylvia warned. “We don’t want to raise our body temperatures.”

  Valerie slowed her pace. “Get down,” she suddenly said, dropping to the floor. Logan and Sylvia followed suit. They had come to a series of large windows that looked into the innermost ring, where the main control center was. “I saw them in there,” she whispered.

  Logan rose to his knees and took a look himself before dropping back down to the floor. “Andrea and Lucius,” he said.

  “Gretchen has a gun pointed at someone sitting at one of the control panels,” Valerie said. “I remember seeing two more guards on the security footage, but I don’t see them right now.”

  “The only
way to secure the control center is to surprise them. We need to sneak in there somehow,” Logan said. He glanced down at his PCD. “We only have twenty-eight minutes.”

  Sylvia called Chetan back on her PCD. “We’re outside the main control center,” she reported in a whisper. “Any other ways to enter besides the main doors?”

  “The only openings that I can think of are the cable access panels,” Chetan said. “They are used by the service technicians to pull cables in and out of the SCC. There should be one close to where you are, just under the window.” Sylvia panned with her PCD so that Chetan could see what they were seeing. “There, that silver hatch,” he said, referring to a square inset under and to the left of the window. “That is one of the panels.”

  “How do we open it?” Valerie asked. “There aren’t any handles or locks.”

  “They’re magnetically sealed for security purposes. The lock can only be released from the security office,” Chetan said. “One of you will have to go back, very close to where you entered the middle ring. You need to go into office forty-six-B. On the desk is a security panel you can use to disengage the magnetic locks. I can walk you through it when you get there.”

  “I’ll do that,” Logan volunteered.

  “Chetan can guide you.” Sylvia gave Logan her PCD.

  “Be careful,” Valerie said as she gave him Chetan’s security card. “And get back here as soon as you’re done.”

  Logan squeezed Valerie’s shoulder and moved away from the windows. He stood up slowly and walked back down the hallway, looking for office 46-B. He was holding Sylvia’s PCD out in front of him as Chetan’s image was projected. All of the offices were situated along the long circular wall to Logan’s left. The doors were made of stainless steel and bore an eerie resemblance to the maze room at G-LAB.

  “You just passed room forty-seven; forty-six-B is coming up,” Chetan said. “There, on the left.”

  Logan swiped the security card, and the door to the security office opened. The lights in the room came on automatically as he entered. A very large desk with three chairs behind it occupied most of the office. The floor had a dull gray carpet, and the walls were bare except for a few blank monitors.