by RF Hurteau
He made a note of the data and let the program continue running, but he couldn’t think of where he’d seen those numbers before.
It came to him suddenly, like a flash of lightning in his mind. He stood up so quickly, his tablet slipped from his lap and onto the floor, going black. Ben cursed and stooped to pick it up. Thankfully, it appeared all right, and he restarted it as he made his way back to The Rat, and up into Pods.
He looked around his office for his own comm. He hardly ever wore it even though he was supposed to. It hurt his ear, and gave him the sense that his head was unbalanced. Spotting it, he popped it in, knowing it was already set to Sylvia’s frequency. She was the only one he ever bothered to contact. “Syl?” he asked.
“Ben? What’s up?”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m with Edwin. We’re in his office.”
“Okay. Okay, good. Can you bring him with you, and meet me at your lab?”
“Sure, but why?”
“I’ll explain when you get there.”
He stepped out of his office where Killian Graves stood awkwardly, fist raised, about to knock. The other man stepped back and let his arm fall to his side. “Oh, hey, Ben,” he said.
“Hey Killian. Sorry, kind of in a hurry right now.”
“Oh, sure, no problem, but listen, real quick, I just wanted to let you know that the supplies you requested have arrived.”
“Awesome. Whatever you’re working on, drop it. Grab some of your guys and get to work on those.”
“But I—”
Ben raised a hand. “This is important, Killian.” A brilliant, crazy idea had taken root in his head. “I have a feeling we’re going to need that stuff sooner rather than later.” He walked off, leaving Killian looking dumbstruck behind him.
The labyrinthine basement was so familiar to Ben that his feet took him where he needed to go without thought. He took a lift to the first floor, and hurried toward Sylvia’s East wing laboratory. He arrived before her and Edwin, and he let himself in, looking around.
Sylvia had the medical pods arranged in a neat ring around the room. One cylindrical glass one was occupied. He stepped closer, looking at the man who lay suspended in a green liquid, naked except for a mask that obscured most of his face, releasing bubbles as he exhaled. Although the green liquid gave his skin an eerie appearance, Ben could tell that the man was badly burned. Most of his body was covered in shiny scar tissue, completely devoid of hair. Ben nearly fell over backward as the masked face turned slowly toward him. Shaken, he stared into pale eyes. Or rather, one pale eye. The other was a milky white orb, which looked pale green through the liquid.
“Ben?”
He jumped a second time, his hand flying to his chest. “Good grief, Sylvia! You startled me!” he said, turning away from the man in the pod.
“Sorry,” she said, looking around him. “What’s so urgent?”
Ben was still flustered and struggled to remember why he’d come. “Oh. Oh, right!” He looked around, spotting Sylvia’s workstation. “I uh, need to use that really quick.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You called me down to use my workstation?” She said, incredulous.
“No. Well, yes. But no. Just wait, okay? I need to find something…” his voice trailed off as he worked silently, hands flying over the panel.
“You remember…” he said, trying very hard to concentrate on what he was doing and saying at the same time, “how a few of the Elves were abandoned here?”
“How could I forget?” Sylvia said, shaking her head sadly. “I wanted to treat them, but there were too many injured Humans to take care of. I was overruled. I did what I could to make them comfortable, but…” she sighed.
“But you have data on them, right? You took their vitals, and samples, and everything? I remember seeing it.”
“Oh, yes. I do,” she said, moving beside him and pointing. “It’s here, see? Down, down, no, back up. Yes, that’s the file.”
Ben glanced at the file, at the familiar patterns. The numbers weren’t an exact match, but the pattern was the same. He gave a low whistle.
“What’s going on, Ben?” Edwin demanded at last.
Ben turned to Edwin with a look of triumph shining in his eyes. “I think I just figured out what they were up to down there,” he said, grinning.
eight
Unexpected Visitors
Perhaps Terrance had been a little overindulgent on the trip, but the whole idea of being trapped in a small space surrounded by four other people he barely knew for ten days had called for desperate measures. He eyed the crate of Nouritas with longing as he surreptitiously took the last swig from his own, now empty, bottle. He placed it on the console, where the constant grinding of the drill’s progress made it walk slowly across the smooth surface with each rhythmic bump. He watched its progress idly, placing a hand out to catch it as it tipped over the edge. Then he placed it back upright, forcing it to repeat its slow, unsteady journey.
“We’re almost there,” said Rupert, tapping on the glass cover of a pressure gauge hopefully. “So far, everything seems to be holding together just fine.”
“Good,” Bohai said, scooting to the edge of his seat. “Very good. I wouldn’t want to greet the Therans with anything less than a fully functional prototype. Leon, will you be able to explain everything to them in detail, but in terms that are easily understood?”
Leon, Terrance’s fellow engineer, gave a nod of confirmation. “I can explain, sure. But I’m not sure if they’ll understand it or not. There is quite a bit to this little machine.”
Terrance gave a derisive laugh, which ended in a hiccup that brought the Nouritas up into the back of his throat. Everyone looked at him, and he smiled, the tips of his broad cheeks raising his spectacles up until they brushed his eyebrows. “You think that the Elves are going to have trouble figuring out this little toy when they systematically tried to destroy our planet with biological warfare? They’re far more advanced than you’re giving them credit for, Leon.”
Bohai looked stunned. “Terrance, please. We have all agreed that The Sequencing will not be among the items we discuss if we hope to broker this alliance with Thera.”
Terrance shrugged. “Yeah, I remember the briefing. I’m just saying, they’re not idiots.”
“Well, if they could figure it out themselves, they wouldn’t have agreed to meet us,” Leon pointed out.
“All they want is for us to do the dirty work for them,” Terrance said in disgust. “I keep saying that, how come no one seems to understand?”
Bohai’s lips formed a tight frown that showed how hard it was to restrain himself from saying what he was thinking. Terrance rolled his eyes, and went back to watching the empty Nouritas bottle walk slowly along the console.
He hadn’t wanted to come on this mission. In fact, he’d found himself standing before Her Majesty the Queen as the sole voice of reason. Terrance had said that the whole plan was a bad idea. That Culei should focus on maintaining strong bonds with the other nation-states. But he had been overruled. No one cared about the opinion of one lowly engineer, when there were hordes of brown-nosed advisors falling all over themselves to offer the Queen endless affirmation of her ever-impressive wisdom. Culei was a proud nation, and the Queen had viewed this as the only logical option. They didn’t want to take chances; they wanted to take the winning side. The Queen’s Council had advised her that this meant doing whatever it took to secure the favor of the Therans. And since all Culei had to offer was a way to get the Elves from Antiquity’s Gate to their ultimate destination, that was the deal they were bringing to the table. It was only a matter of time, they’d decided, before the Elves figured out a way to do this themselves. It was necessary, therefore, to be proactive before their offer became useless.
Terrance had been conscripted for the mission not because of his desire to serve but because he was one of Culei’s best engineers. If anything were to malfunction on the prototype wh
ile in transit, he was one of the few people who had a shot in hell of fixing it before they all froze, drowned, or met some other equally unpleasant end. But he had come under protest, and as a result, the other four members of the team, who actually had volunteered to be here, had spent the better part of the last ten days pretending he wasn’t there. To them, he was more of a life jacket, or something kept in a case that said, “In Emergency, Break Glass,” than a member of the team. Terrance didn’t really mind, though. He’d drowned his better judgment in Nouritas and let the chatter of his compatriots wash over him like a slightly chilly breeze.
“Head’s up! This part will be a little rough,” Rupert warned. Terrance slid against the back of his chair as the whole vehicle began to angle slowly upward. The sound of the drill soon became less of a grinding and more of a whirring as they broke through the icy surface of the Antarctic landscape. It died down to a dull hum as Rupert killed the engine, and Dante, Bohai’s aid, began passing out heavy parkas. “Put these on,” he said, handing one to Terrance along with a pair of wool-lined gloves and thick goggles. “I brought one in your size, as well,” he said smugly. “It’s going to be cold out there.”
Terrance snorted again at the painful obviousness of the statement, and Bohai shot him a warning look. “All right then,” Bohai said, his voice shaking slightly. “This is it. Let’s get through the Gate quickly. The sooner we’re out of this ice chest, the better, I say.”
Leon stepped forward along the slanted ground and released the lock from the overhead hatch. He pulled down the retractable ladder, and one by one they made their way outside.
Squinting through the thick goggles, Terrance could make out the outline of the infamous domes of Sanctuary. They were almost a comforting sight, because they felt familiar. Terrance’s great, great grandfather had been one of the people who helped design the domes. He had agreed to oversee their construction as well, against the wishes of his wife and son. He had left them with a promise that he would bring them to see his creation when it was finished.
He’d never come home.
Before the domes had even been completed, the first cases of The Sequencing had begun to spread. The population of New Zealand, Terrance’s ancestral home, had been nearly eradicated. His family had taken shelter with other survivors in boats. They’d hidden in sea caves, distrustful of others, far from the relentless scourge of The Sequencing. It had been this meager handful of survivors who had founded the great nation of Culei, whose capital was built using the knowledge and plans that Terrance’s family had protected through the chaos. Deep beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the domed capital of Paru lay safe from attack. From that single city, the first Culeians had leveraged their sea-faring skills and stealth to wage battles against other small powers until their territory had expanded into a full-blown nation. Still, despite their size and prestige, the pride of Culei would always remain with Paru, the pearl of the ocean.
“Don’t just stand there, Terrance, get a move on.”
Terrance shook his head to clear it. The last of his drink was still affecting him, and everything was a little fuzzy. Still, the warmth in his belly did little to combat the cold as he stomped along behind the others toward the ominous purple glow of Antiquity’s Gate.
Bohai reached it first, and he craned his neck toward the sky, taking it all in, clasping his crate before his chest like a shield. The others stopped behind him, but when Terrance caught up, he quickly became impatient. “Come on, then,” he said, and stepped up behind Bohai, giving him a quick shove from behind. And just like that, Bohai had vanished.
The others cast anxious glances at one another, but Terrance was beyond caring. He only wanted to get out of this awful cold. He stepped through and disappeared.
* * *
Terrance squinted around the clearing, which was swarming with Elves. Two long rows of ominous, pompous looking guards flanked the Gate, and a number of others were gathered around several small crafts that appeared to be hovering in midair. Terrance threw a look in Leon’s direction, as if to say, “See? I told you they were smarter than you gave them credit for.” Leon just offered a shrug in reply.
After several minutes, Bohai returned. Although Terrance hadn’t been able to hear his exchange with the sour-faced Elven man who had just walked away, he could tell that Bohai had not had the experience he’d been hoping for.
“Men,” Bohai said, handing Dante his gloves, “I’m afraid I have some rather unfortunate news. The Lord Nero has informed me that my team will not be welcome at the talks and that you should return to the prototype at once.”
Terrance shook his head in disbelief. “Did you tell him it’s cold over there?” He asked, incredulous. “Does he expect us to keep the engine running, most likely for days, so we don’t freeze to death?”
“I did try to explain—”
“Explain again,” snapped Terrance. “Insist that they accommodate us here. They don’t want us at the talks? Fine. Set up a tent for us or something.”
Bohai threw a worried glance over his shoulder. “I will do nothing of the sort,” he said smartly. “I am here to make them happy, not cater to your comfort. And you will not make a scene. Now, go back to the ship. Run the engines. Pile on some blankets. Do whatever you need to do. I will return as soon as our talks have come to a favorable conclusion.”
The others grumbled, but no one said anything else. They simply turned around and vanished through the Gate once more. Terrance was the last to go.
“Don’t screw this up, Bohai,” he warned. “There’s no going back now.”
Bohai straightened to his full height and raised his chin. “For Her Majesty’s honor!” He said. Terrance sighed and retreated back through.
He and the others tromped silently back to the drill, Terrance taking up the rear. He climbed down the little ladder, closing the hatch behind him with a hollow clunk. Looking around, he saw the expressions of uncertainty on the others’ faces. “Why so glum?” he asked. “At least all we’ve got to do is sit around and wait. Could be worse, right?”
Leon grimaced slightly. “Sit around and wait and not freeze to death, you mean.”
Rupert was nodding. “I don’t know what Bohai was thinking. We can’t survive long in this thing. I can’t run the engine indefinitely, not if we want to have enough fuel to make the return trip.”
Terrance plunked down in his chair, and the cold metal surface seemed to sap the warmth from his legs. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Things are going to get a little uncomfortable down here.”
The others began taking inventory of what they had, Leon prattling on about calculating just how often they could keep the ship running under different scenarios. “If we run it in intervals,” he was saying, “we should be able to hold out for a good long while…but it won’t exactly be pleasant.”
Just then, there was a rapping on the hatch. All of them looked up, startled.
“What’s this now?” Terrance grumbled, standing. “Did he forget his notes or something?” He stepped up on the first rung of the ladder, pulling aside the lock and pushing the hatch slightly. It rose away as someone tugged it from his grasp, and he looked up into the fading light to see a face he did not recognize.
“You’re not Bohai,” he stated.
The face leered back at him, then looked around at the others. “And you’re not welcome here,” the newcomer retorted. “Come on, now. Everyone out.”
Terrance looked around at his companions. They had no weapons and no combat skills. They weren’t going to be able to put up much of a fight. “All right,” he said with a shrug and hefted himself out of the hatch once more.
The others followed, and they soon found themselves surrounded by a circle of vaguely menacing men in clothes ill-suited to the environment. They wore makeshift cloaks, their hands buried under the layers of fabric, the outline of what might have been clubs visible beneath.
“No funny business,” warned the leader, who stood a few inches high
er than Terrance. He was about the same build but looked as if he put a bit more care into his figure. Whereas Terrance’s belly protruded in a generous mound that obscured his belt buckle, this man’s bulk seemed to be concentrated in his broad shoulders and thick arms. Terrance nodded to indicate his acceptance of the terms, too cold to speak. The man led the way, his team flanking Terrance and his men. Terrance looked upward once more, taking in the awesome scale of the domes. Their frosted surfaces gave no indication, no hint of what dwelt within. They were like giant beings, a ring of unwavering sentinels, watching over Antiquity’s Gate in silent solidarity.
The group had walked only a few minutes before they came to the entrance of what appeared to be a tunnel. Just inside stood a massive door through which the men led Terrance and the others. It was much warmer inside, and Terrance was grateful for that much at least. They walked in silence for a time, before he finally spoke up.
“I was under the impression that this place had been destroyed,” he said, thoughtfully. The corridor before them stretched out as far as he could see.
“Well, it wasn’t,” said the man in a gruff voice.
“I can see you are a man of few words,” Terrance said. “I can respect that.” The man grunted, though whether it was in agreement or annoyance, Terrance couldn’t be sure. “Is it much farther?” he asked, finally. “Bad knees, you know.”
The man didn’t answer. At long last, they came to another set of doors, and Terrance’s mind, which had begun to thaw from the initial shock of their situation, began spinning again. The Elves had said Sanctuary was no longer inhabited, and yet that had clearly been a lie. What else had they lied about? He felt both nervous and justified at the same time. He’d known the Elves were no good, filthy liars. He was walking through the proof, right now!
They emerged into a large room full of unfamiliar machines, but when Terrance tried to stop and look around, one of the men following gave him a little nudge with his club, which Terrance could now see was a simple length of metal pipe. He raised an eyebrow, giving the man a skeptical look. “That’s the best you’ve got, really? A pipe?”
