2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent)

by Robert Storey

  Sarah withdrew her phone and checked the battery, which was at ninety-three per cent capacity. ‘We should split up,’ she told them in a business-like manner. ‘Take your phones and take as many photos and videos as you can. Document everything you can, down to the smallest relic, and then meet back here when you’re done. When we get out this footage will be invaluable in proving what we’ve found down here and exposing the truth about Homo gigantis, and this base, too, for that matter.’

  Jason looked at her with a sulky expression and Sarah raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘I was looking forward to enjoying this,’ he explained to her. ‘Now I’m going to have to rush around taking sodding photos like some demented tourist.’

  Trish pouted her bottom lip out like a small child. ‘Ah, diddums.’

  Jason gave her the finger and Trish retaliated by sticking out her tongue. Sarah was pleased to see her friends hadn’t let their recent experiences dull their natural ability to bicker with each other; strangely, this lifted her spirits as much as anything else.

  ‘Look,’ Sarah said to Jason, ‘I wouldn’t mind spending a few weeks looking round this place, but our priority should be to get out of here … and besides, it costs a bomb to get in and we’d have to work for months to afford to go round this whole place thoroughly; since I don’t plan on staying here longer than a week we better get cracking.’

  Jason acknowledged her point with a grunt.

  Agreeing to meet back at the cafeteria at noon, the three newly reunited friends split up once more to go their separate ways. As Sarah left Trish and Jason she felt a pang of loss to be leaving them again so soon. Stop being a baby, she chided herself; you’ll be back with them again in a few hours.

  Sarah had opted to take the lower levels of the Museum while Trish took the middle ones and Jason the top. As she descended in a large glass lift, she had already stopped a few times to take pictures of some primitive giganthropsis wall art, extracted from one of the natural caves dating back even before Sanctuary itself, over a million years past. The designs were of human-like figures, plus animals and plants. By themselves they would have been the discovery of a lifetime, but within this museum they were merely a very small appetiser and she’d had to tear herself away for what treasures lay ahead. The lift reached the bottom floor and Sarah was already hypnotised by the sight of what lay in the large high-ceilinged room she walked out into. In front of her, standing in row upon magnificent row, were statues – giant statues.

  Walking between them she examined the tourist information plaque that stood in front of one of the towering sculptures. According to this, they measured over forty feet high and had been some of the first major discoveries made by a team of explorers back in the eighteen hundreds. The scale of the statues wasn’t their only remarkable feature; each one had been carved from dense granite and in exquisite detail. The strange forms and shapes of the ancient peoples they depicted also captured Sarah’s attention. Realising she had been staring at one particular piece for a few minutes she grabbed her phone and took some video. This was one of the hardest things she had ever done, to walk through this place quickly was an impossibility as her thirst for knowledge and her love of archaeology exerted its powerful forces upon her, slowing her to a crawl.

  Finally leaving the first hall behind, Sarah found herself in a much more regular sized exhibition full of large architectural models, each enclosed within a square glass case. The brochure told her these were scale representations of the major structures found so far within Sanctuary. As Sarah read on, she kept noticing the word ‘Anakim’ replacing ‘giganthropsis’. It seemed this was how this race of giants was referred to, like the word ‘human’ was to ‘sapiens’, or perhaps ‘Asian’ or ‘Hispanic’ was to sapiens. Sarah needed to get hold of some books to get up to speed on the subject. It didn’t escape her attention, though, that the name ‘Anakim’ was used in the Christian Bible when it spoke of giant men. Clearly giganthropsis had been extinct for millennia at that point in human history, so it was most likely deemed an appropriate name to bestow on the builders of Sanctuary by latter-day explorers. Sarah liked it, despite its religious overtones. An – a – kim. Anakim. It had a good ring to it.

  The buildings that had been excavated or found abandoned but intact were wide-ranging in their size, design and function. Palaces and temples were the most prevalent sites, but other, more intriguing, structures had also been discovered, their purposes as yet only speculated upon. Sarah found it more than a little strange to think that some of the ancient discoveries in this museum may have been more advanced technologically than humans were today. As she took more photos the distant sound of raucous laughter caught her attention. Looking around she saw she was the only one in the area, probably due to it being so early in the day.

  The clamour from an approaching group of people grew louder, their footfalls and voices echoing through the all but deserted halls of the museum’s lower level. Finally nine people strode past, twenty feet from where Sarah stood holding her computer phone. Dressed in dusty, mud-splattered, military-style red and blue uniforms, each of these individuals also sported a robust utility jacket and carried in one hand an expensive-looking high-tech helmet. They walked like they owned the place and with an arrogance born of a superior self-confidence that was replicated in their tone of voice and general demeanour.

  A couple of them turned to look at Sarah as they passed and one man made lingering eye contact with her before turning back to join in with his comrades once more, cajoling and joking. As they moved away and just before they disappeared from view around a corner, their footfalls receding on the hard flooring, Sarah glimpsed a sign on the backs of their jackets. In bold white lettering it read:

  DEEP REACH

  SURVEY TEAM

  ALPHA SIX

  Her curiosity piqued, Sarah decided to follow this close-knit crew of men and women to see where they were headed. Ensuring she stayed at a comfortable distance to avoid detection, and after a few twists and turns, Sarah lost track of her quarry, the sounds of their passage no longer in earshot. Scampering along, she found a door swinging shut on an emergency exit stairwell, the echoes of activity drifting up from below. Pursuing them inside and down the flight of steps, Sarah found herself emerging into a darkened corridor with illuminated exit signs directing her to the right. The noise of the survey team, however, could be heard coming from the left. Hurrying to catch up, Sarah found another door closing in front of her. Grabbing it just before it shut, she saw it bore a restricted access sign and the words Authorised Personnel Only; to one side of this entrance, on the wall, was a swipe card reader and at its top a small light glowed a bright, neon green. With only a moment’s hesitation Sarah ducked inside, the door shutting behind her with an audible click. A duplicate card reader sat on the other side of the entrance and – unseen by Sarah, who now traversed along a narrow corridor – its green light switched to red.

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah moved through the deserted area, her senses heightened, like an athlete waiting for the starter’s gun. The low-lit echoing hallways extended into a rabbit warren of little-used office space and storage rooms full of unopened crates and curiosities large and small, many bound in copious amounts of bubble wrap.

  Not wanting to get left behind in unfamiliar surroundings, her bearings already shot to hell, Sarah made sure to keep pace with the team of people walking ahead of her. Turning a corner, she had to duck back out of sight as the team had halted outside a large black opening fronted by bright red and yellow safety barriers. Peeking around to see what they were up to, she realised they were waiting for some kind of industrial-sized lift. Soon enough, a whirring screech of metal cables, travelling at high speed, announced the arrival of the roofless platform which the mysterious survey team boarded and then activated, disappearing into the depths below.

  Sarah, now completely alone, darted out from her hiding place, her footsteps pitter-pattering over the vinyl flooring. C
raning her neck to see over one of the barriers, she could just make out the service lights of the elevator as it continued its rapid journey down, ever deeper, the muted sound of its descent now barely audible. Now that she had come this far she felt almost desperate to find out where these people were leading her. The chase and her commitment to it were too far advanced to give up now. There was a problem, however; the lift didn’t seem to have any controls to call it back up. It must operate on a remote switch, she concluded, wirelessly called by whoever needs it.

  Sarah brushed back some long strands of hair behind one ear, as she stared into space. An idea popped into her head. Taking out her phone, she directed its light into the shaft, illuminating its steel clad, girdered interior. The beams were placed at such angles and intervals to make climbing down them a real possibility. I can do that, she reasoned, as she attempted to mount one of the waist-high safety gates to enter the void. Holding onto one of the side walls, she balanced both feet on top of one of the narrow barriers, wobbling precariously as she did so. As she hung out a long leg to traverse to the nearest girder, her standing leg slipped from under her, sending her flailing into nothingness.

  Sarah’s shriek sang out into the abandoned expanse. She flung out her arms and somehow latched onto the floor. Clinging on for dear life, her hands slid an inch on the vinyl surface, almost sending her plummeting to certain death. Her heart thumping and her breath ragged, Sarah dared not move her legs or body in case her fingers, which had now begun to perspire, might slip from their tenuous hold. Her brain frantically sought a solution to her problem, but as the milliseconds flashed by she knew with a gut-wrenching, fear-inducing certainty that she wasn’t going to be able to prevent herself from falling. Millimetre by excruciating millimetre edged her closer and closer to oblivion. A strange noise, flashing lights and the image of her mother’s beautiful smile were Sarah’s final thoughts as she slipped from the ledge.

  Air rushed past and then she hit a flat surface – hard, twisting a leg painfully, the air knocked from her lungs. She’d never been so pleased to hurt so much in her life as she lay on the cold steel floor of the lift which had been returning from below. As the elevator halted Sarah groaned and sat upright. With a tender touch she probed her left kneecap, checking to see the extent of the damage. It was a bad twist, but not as bad as it could have been. Standing, she put pressure on it, wincing at the pain which lanced up her leg. Testing it further, she managed to walk a few hesitant steps. Bending to massage it, she bit down on her lip against the agony before she deemed it fit for purpose.

  Thanking her lucky stars that the lift had returned of its own accord, but cursing her own reckless stupidity, Sarah considered her options. The platform consisted of a checker plate floor and a thick handrail that ran around three sides; attached to this thick tube was a rugged control panel comprising large, well-worn, coloured plastic buttons. Moving to the panel, she eyed it while deliberating as to what to do next. Should I carry on or go back, she asked herself, or just stand here like a lemon? Her hand hovered over the big green button with the down arrow on it. Sod it! she thought, depressing the button to send the platform whizzing back from whence it came.

  As the lift continued down, Sarah questioned the sanity of her actions. Her inhibitions in risk-taking over the last twelve months had slowly been eroded and her reasoning to continue had suppressed an intuitive warning for caution. Was this the real her, a risk-taker, a chancer? Or had she just become too used to such situations, her mind learning to adapt to them … or worse, was she seeking out danger? She didn’t think she was as she attempted to look inside her own mind with an objective eye. While mentally wrestling with herself, the whine of the elevator decreased as it slowed before coming to a shuddering stop, the sensation bringing her back to the present.

  Exiting the lift and still slightly favouring her injured knee, Sarah found herself in a large brick tunnel, a stark contrast to the museum’s interior. A row of bright strip lighting ran off into the distance and out of sight, as the dazzling panels traced a bend in the wide passageway’s ceiling ahead. To her mind, judging by the bricks used and the construction, it was similar to something built in the Victorian era rather than a part of the super modern clandestine project located above and around it. She presumed it was one of the first things built by the U.S. President’s team back in the eighteen hundreds, still surviving as a tribute to those that first discovered Sanctuary all those years ago.

  Moving on, it took only a few minutes to reach the end of the wide passageway, which consisted of an old rusty iron door located in a brick surround. With no obvious locking mechanism, Sarah lifted the latch and pushed open the heavy metal obstruction. A cacophony of noise rushed in through the ever-increasing gap. She dived inside in one fluid movement, sealing the opening behind her with a dull clang. With her back to a wall, Sarah peered out over a large crate and into the inside of an enormous steel and glass clad building. A high, expansive atrium with a circular design encompassed the entire circumference of a curiously shaped inner structure full of floors and rooms with transparent walls, and staircases made of crosshatched metal grating. The whole building had a sparse military feel to it, aided in no small part by the presence of camouflaged, gun-toting soldiers, who bustled about inside alongside their civilian counterparts. Where the tunnel had been old-tech, this place was the polar opposite, with cutting edge technology bristling from seemingly every surface.

  Whatever was going on here, it was a large scale operation and one Sarah felt sure she shouldn’t be privy to. Sensing no one would notice her presence and feeling oddly emboldened by her previous brush with death, she stood up from her hiding place and walked into the building as though she belonged. Walking amongst the people Sarah didn’t exactly blend in, but she didn’t stand out like a sore thumb either. The continuous activity inside consisted of individuals wearing a whole range of clothing, from grim-faced, armoured, Special Forces personnel to bumbling lab technicians in their stereotypical white coats.

  Having read her fair share of spy novels Sarah believed she knew the basics of blending in to somewhere you didn’t belong. Passing an empty desk she snatched up a paper-laden ring binder, opened it out and pretended to refer to it as she wandered in towards the centre of the busy place of operations.

  ‘Out of the way!’ a woman called out as she approached Sarah at speed along a tight corridor. She pushed a flatbed trolley loaded with what looked like an overabundance of climbing equipment.

  Sarah, initially thinking she’d been rumbled, pressed herself flat against a wall.

  ‘Thank you!’ The woman rattled on past.

  Intrigued and more than a little relieved her cover remained intact, Sarah trailed along behind. Passing a doorway she saw an unattended lab coat hanging on a hook. Filching that, too, she shrugged it on and hurried to keep pace with the fast moving trolley and its owner as they barrelled along at breakneck speed. The hallway soon opened out into some kind of warehouse, or staging area, where men and women checked and donned various pieces of equipment and outerwear. The woman and trolley disappeared into the melee of activity, but Sarah’s attention was drawn to the people at the far end and some kind of command centre. Above this, a large, impressive emblem hung, cast in thick, pockmarked, burnished steel:

  Nearby, the elusive red and blue clad survey team had gathered, mingling with other similarly garbed men and women. This must be an assembly room for teams going outside of the USSB, Sarah realised. Edging forwards she glimpsed many other team designations on the backs of the ever-growing number of people that now streamed into the vicinity. As far as she could tell there were five types of team, including Mapping, Structural, Archaeological, Scientific and Deep Reach, the latter the only type with the oddly shaped high-tech head gear. The helmets in question drew Sarah forwards, closer to the original team she had followed from the museum. Surreptitiously she took out her phone and began to record what she was seeing; this is good footage, she thought while easing p
ast a couple of trolleys, I can definitely utilise this when exposing Sanctuary back on the surface.

  ‘Quiet down now, people!’ A man’s voice rang out over a speaker system into the large oval chamber. The assembled masses, which Sarah estimated now numbered a few thousand strong, settled into a respectful silence. Sarah looked expectantly, along with everyone else around her, towards some kind of command centre, where a broad-shouldered man stood on a large platform. He wore a simple white shirt, blue tie and plain black trousers. His silver-grey hair and demeanour intimated seniority, while his voice left it in no doubt that he expected, nay, demanded, your attention.

  ‘Now listen up,’ he said, ‘as ever it’s my pleasure to provide some words of wisdom to all of you taking a trip out into our fair Sanctuary. Many of you will have heard them before, but equally there are many of you still green around the gills who will need reminding of the dangers you are about to face outside of this base. You all have the potential to come up against situations which even the most experienced among you will never have encountered. Safety is paramount, people; if you discover something that looks dangerous, it probably is. We have no idea what you will stumble upon out there and if the human race is anything to go by, our older and larger cousins may have left behind some pretty nasty stuff.

  ‘Ensure all personal gauges and detectors are checked regularly. Seismometers and structural stability maps for all teams except Deep Reach are to be adhered to at all times. No exceptions. Always keep in radio contact with your teammates; due to the rock composition many parts of Sanctuary Proper will limit long range transmissions. If you get in trouble don’t be afraid to call for help; egos will get you dead down there very quickly.

  ‘Make sure you double check your kit before you disembark; most of you will be gone for a few weeks and you may need your emergency supplies when you least expect it, so no trying to lighten your pack by taking out things you think are non-essential. As ever, as far as our signal relays will permit, rescue and decontamination teams will be on standby in the field to respond to any distress beacons.’