by Amy DuBoff
She activated the comm link in her armor and set it to a private channel to connect with the Raven.
Widmore answered after five seconds. “What do you make of it, Lieutenant?”
“It’s every bit as strange as we observed from above, and so much more, sir.”
“I’d say I’m glad to hear it, but I’m not sure. I’ve been following along on the video feed, and I don’t like the look of that structure.”
“Neither do I, but it’s located at the center of the target site. Seeing the valley up close, the details look strikingly like a transmission dish.”
“That should have been obvious from the aerial view,” Widmore replied.
“Caught us by surprise, too, sir.”
“Control center?”
“Maybe. The question is, do we go inside?”
The major was silent for ten seconds. “Do you have enough information about the dwarf planet to recommend a course of action?”
“No, sir.”
“Would going inside that building offer additional insights?”
Ava took a slow breath. “Most likely.”
“Then you know what you need to do,” he stated. “You have your authorization to proceed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Ava,” Widmore added after a moment, “watch your backs.”
“Always, sir. We’ll check in as soon as we have additional information.”
She ended the private call, then switched to her team’s channel.
“All right, we’re going in.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Nick and Sam, can you get that door open?” Ava asked.
“Psh.” Nick snorted. “You needn’t even ask.”
Ava smiled. “Work your magic.”
The two warriors got to work doing what they did best while Ava and Edwin kept watch. The sensors on her suit were unable to penetrate the walls of the structure, so they’d have to wait to see what was inside.
“You know, I would have expected them to make a move to snatch you by now,” Edwin commented privately to Ava.
“I kind of did, too, actually,” she admitted. “As much as I’d like to think our stealth tech makes us invisible, I suspect it’s useless against this particular opponent.”
“They can probably pick up our specific brainwaves or something.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Ava’s hand instinctually gravitated toward her sidearm. “We’ll need to be extra careful inside. Secret underground lairs are the perfect hiding place for robotic monsters with tentacle arms.”
Edwin chuckled. “True.”
“This motherfucker,” Nick swore into the comm.
“I haven’t seen encryption this intense outside of the FDG.” Samantha sighed.
“Can you break it?” Ava asked, switching back over to the team’s common band.
“Of course.” Nick swore again under his breath. “It’s just going to take a little time.”
After four minutes of cycling through their various hacking tricks, Nick and Samantha eventually found a combination that worked.
“Take that, Dyon bastards!” Nick exclaimed as the door hissed open.
“If that was their front door, I can’t imagine what the computer systems are going to be like,” Samantha said with far less enthusiasm.
“Another point that I hesitate to even mention,” Ava began, “is why there’s a door and a panel that resembles the tech we’re used to. I can justify building a planet with the same organic composition and general habitat that we’re used to as humans, but a structure like this…”
“Yep, just going to choose to ignore that point for now.” Edwin readied his multi-handgun and stepped through the open doorway.
As he entered, lights came on.
“Okay, yep, the stealth tech is pointless,” he said.
Ava could make out, around Edwin shoulders, what appeared to be some sort of control room with desks and monitors. She followed him inside to get a better look.
The room was laid out with three computer stations along the wall, complete with an array of monitors, and a door similar to the entry point, positioned on the left wall. Again, her suit’s sensors only read as far as the room.
“I’m gonna guess that’s the way in,” she commented. She checked her suit’s settings and saw that the signal to the Raven was cutting in and out. “Aw, shit.”
Samantha must have noticed the same thing. “We’re going to be in the dark, aren’t we?”
“Looks like it.” Ava sighed. “One sec.” She stepped back outside to warn Widmore that their connection would likely be severed as soon as they entered the underground facility. He instructed them to proceed, offering additional words of caution.
When Ava got back inside, she found Nick and Samantha each working at one of the computer terminals. The screens above the desktops displayed what looked like scrolling gibberish.
“This won’t be easy,” Samantha stated without taking her eyes off the screen in front of her.
“I’m trying to find a root database, but this isn’t laid out like a normal system,” Nick added. “And this coding is weird. I’m going to try running it through the external processor.” He pulled out one of his specialized pieces of equipment—a small black box that contained powerful software that ADAM himself had helped design to interface with alien tech and understand its structure.
Nick dropped beneath the desk to look for wires to use as a hard jack into the alien computer. “If I can’t make sense of this, we’re shit out of luck.”
“I think I may have found the door controls, at least,” Samantha said.
“Damn, I was kind of hoping we’d have to blow it up,” Edwin replied with an audible grin.
“Yes, explosives near the computers is a great idea.” Ava rolled her eyes.
>>Ava, perhaps I can assist Nick and Samantha,<< Ruby offered.
If you want to try, be my guest. I just don’t want to have to brain jack into this system.
>>I can connect wirelessly to Nick’s external processor. If I do so, though, it will require most of my resources. While I’m distracted, I’m afraid you may feel some physical effects like you experienced earlier.<<
Go for it. I can take it.
A moment later, the pressure she had felt in her head when they first stepped into the rock formation returned twofold, and this time was accompanied by a high-pitched buzzing that stabbed behind her eyes. “Argh!”
“You okay over there?” Edwin asked.
“Yeah, just don’t ask me to do math or be patient with children for a few minutes.” Ava placed one gloved hand on the side of her helmet while she breathed deeply.
“Ruby, you’re a genius!” Nick cheered after a minute.
“This is, indeed, a strange system,” Ruby said over the team’s suit comms. “I noticed that the frequency being emitted from the transmitter has a visual wave pattern similar to the arrangement of geographic features on this world. I extrapolated that layout to the computer system architecture, and it matched. The database is located at a system core analogous to the location of this facility relative to the rest of the world.”
Ava scowled. “I didn’t follow all of that, but it sounds like you found what you’re looking for.”
“Yes,” Ruby confirmed.
“Good. We’ll go with that.”
Ava waited while her team followed through on Ruby’s lead. The pressure in her head remained, but after a couple of minutes she found herself getting used to it.
“Ah ha!” Samantha let out a delighted cackle. “Got it cornered now.”
“Shit, this is going to take forever to download over the slow connection through this firewall,” Nick groaned.
The hum in Ava’s head diminished as Ruby disconnected from the external processor. >>Sorry to have put you through that.<<
I’ve experienced a lot worse than a headache.
>>Glad it wasn’t too bad,<< the AI replied. >>We were able to find the data repository, but we d
on’t have the storage capacity on hand to hold all of it. I set up a crawler to extract information related to the Alaxar Trinary. It’ll take at least an hour to comb through and copy the relevant data.<<
Do you need to be here for that? Ava asked.
>>Actively monitoring the transfer from this room? No.<<
Then how about we go check out what’s underground while it finishes?
Ruby gave a mental scowl. >>The data will likely offer insights into what’s going on down there. It’s prudent to wait until we know what we’re up against.<<
Or, countermeasures against our presence on this world might trigger at any moment, and we could lose out on our only opportunity to investigate, Ava pointed out.
>>By that token, we may all die.<<
You really know how to spread the cheer, Ruby.
>>I’m not joking. There’s certain danger down there.<<
We knew that when we came in here, Ava reminded the AI. Remember what we discussed about life in the Force? We run toward the danger, not away from it.
Ruby made the mental equivalent of a harrumph. >>Suit yourself.<<
Wow, you are temperamental for an AI!
>>You’re not the only one with adjustments to make, Ava. I’m used to being safely tucked away in a lab.<<
Suck it up. We’ll get through this. Ava returned her attention to her team. “All right. Sounds like it’s going to take some time to copy the data, so let’s check out the facility and leave this running up here.”
Edwin shifted on his feet. “That’s assuming we exit the same way we go in.”
“Worst case, this entry isn’t far from our original landing location in the pod. We can always circle back here if needed,” Ava replied.
Nick nodded. “I don’t really want to wait around here watching a progress bar march across the screen. I vote for exploration time.”
Ava’s statement hadn’t been an open call for votes, but she decided to let it slide. “Get that door open,” she ordered.
“And… presto.” Samantha made an entry on her computer terminal.
A bolt clanged, and the door popped open with a hiss. It slowly swung inward.
There was only darkness beyond, and the sensors feeding into her HUD indicated a featureless corridor with uniform temperature. A row of lights along the ceiling illuminated, and a strip of lights along the floor to either side of the corridor lit the path to an apparent stairwell.
“Oh yeah, absolutely nothing ominous about that,” Edwin said.
Ava swallowed, happy her opaque helmet hid her face. “Nothing to worry about.” She hoped her tone sounded more confident than she felt.
Before her team could reply, she strode forward through the open doorway, weapon aimed ahead.
Edwin followed. “Let me go first, ma’am. If they’re after you, you should stay in between us.”
The idea of being snatched from the group hadn’t occurred to her, but Edwin did bring up a valid point. Not that she felt better about the enemy needing to go through her teammates in order to get to her. Still, she figured the aliens would find a way to get to her regardless of marching order, if that was their aim. If it made Edwin feel better to go first, then there was no reason to stop him. “Go ahead,” she consented.
The private slipped passed her in the corridor to scope out the stairwell ahead. “I can’t see past the first switchback.”
“We’ll take it slow,” Ava instructed. “Hopefully it’s not too deep.”
It was.
The stone stairwell descended twenty-four stories, with flights of twelve steps each forming a spiraling square around a solid central column. With each floor, Ava was reminded how strange it was that there were stairs on this alien world. Human-sized stairs. Not to mention twenty-four stories and no elevator. Nothing about the place added up.
“This is really fucking weird, right?” Ava said as they rounded the second switchback of the twenty-fourth story.
“Oh, without a doubt,” Edwin agreed.
“Whoever this architect was, they’re fired,” Samantha joked.
“Wouldn’t that be more of a structural engineer?” Nick asked.
“They’d do the load ratings on the stairs,” Samantha replied, “but I think it’d be an architect who’d make the call between a stairwell versus an elevator.”
Edwin stopped short in front of Ava. “We’re here.”
Ava peeked around the last bend and saw a metal door in front of Edwin—unmarked, and with no window or accompanying control panel. She tried to get a reading of the space beyond, but the same interference she’d experienced on the surface prevented her suit’s sensors from penetrating the walls.
>>We won’t be able to make a very quick exit from here,<< Ruby cautioned.
Leave the military protocol to me. Just keep me from turning into a Hochste or having a seizure, and we’ll be good.
Ava focused on the door. “Is it unlocked?”
Edwin pushed on it, and the door swung inward.
“You first.” She motioned Edwin to the side.
With a nod, Ava used her right arm to swing the door wide while Edwin rushed in to assess the interior with his weapon drawn.
“Clear,” he announced. “I mean, there’s nothing to see.”
With the door open, Ava’s HUD completed the map of the other side. Another long corridor stretched ahead. This time, though, the walls showed a heat signature—and were pulsing in temperature from warm to hot every three seconds.
“Ummm…” She waited for her team to offer additional commentary.
“Please tell me we aren’t about to walk down the esophagus of some giant space monster,” Samantha said from two steps up the stairwell.
“And all of you laughed at me before.” Edwin shook his head.
“It’s not a circulatory pulse,” Nick observed. “I bet you these are cables relaying data bursts. They heat up when the signal passes through and diffuse the heat into the stone in between the bursts—keeps it from overheating and melting.”
“The signal for telepathic control?” Ava asked.
The warrior nodded. “That would be my guess.”
“So, where’s the origin point?” Samantha asked. “The cables have to run somewhere.”
Edwin pointed ahead with his handgun. “Only one way forward.”
Ava tried to suppress the disquiet nagging at the back of her mind. They wanted me, and this is a place designed for humans. It can’t be a coincidence.
The team advanced down the corridor for another hundred meters before an exit was visible up ahead.
“There’s a larger chamber,” Edwin observed. “More than one, I think.”
The end of the corridor fanned outward until it blended with the smooth walls of a domed chamber twenty meters tall and twice as many wide. Three other corridor entrances, identical to the one they’d traversed, were positioned at equidistant points around the base of the walls. In the center of the space, a bundle of thick cables funneled into a rock formation that resembled the wave forms on the surface, only with the arches curving outward from the structure like petals of a blooming flower.
“Yeah, I’m at a complete loss,” Ava admitted.
>>Oh, that’s interesting.<<
See something, Ruby?
>>Your suit couldn’t get clear readings of the rocks on the surface, between the ambient radiation and the other structures. There’s a high enough concentration here, though, and the analysis is quite intriguing.<<
Which is…? Ava couldn’t keep the impatience out of her mental tone.
I thought AIs were supposed to jump straight to the point? Apparently, a science-minded AI was all about gathering sufficient data and offering context for every statement. It didn’t quite mesh with Ava’s shoot-as-soon-as-you-know-they’re-the-bad-guys approach.
>>The mineral in this rock is the same substance that’s in the TRs.<<
Oh, shit. Ava’s pulse spiked.
“Ruby just clued me in that t
hese rocks are made of the same material as the telepathic receptors they discovered in my brain and in the subverted people.”
“Fuck, really?” Nick eyed the rocks. “I guess it makes sense to use the same substance in the transmitter.”
“Again, still missing a critical piece here—we have the transmission equipment, but where is the signal coming from? Where are the Dyons controlling that signal?”
“I have no idea.” Ava looked around, but there were no signs of life. “Let’s check out the other corridors.”
They cautiously made their way across the chamber. Nick and Sam tried to remotely interface with the computer system, but they couldn’t find a signal compatible with their suits. With the external processor still up in the control room—or whatever it was—at the surface, they had no other way to access the system. They’d have to do a visual inspection and see what information they could gather the old fashioned way.
The first corridor on the right terminated forty meters down, at a stone monument that resembled a miniature version of the structure in the center of the main chamber. Cables disappeared into the stone ceiling, and there were no other signs indicating the structure’s purpose, or if it extended beyond what was visible in the corridor.
The second corridor mirrored the first, though when they reached the end, there wasn’t a stairwell; instead, there was a pit.
The team’s HUDs indicated a potential tripping hazard up ahead, and they slowed their pace as they approached.
“What is it?” Ava frowned at the dark nothingness two meters in front of her.
The round pit was roughly four meters across. Its walls were the same stone found elsewhere in the facility, but it resembled natural stone more than the concrete-like finish found on many of the floors and walls.
No wind or sound came from the opening. Its only distinguishing feature was that the temperature increased the deeper the hole went—until the sensors cut out at approximately three hundred meters. At that depth, there was still no sign of the bottom.
“I didn’t think this could possibly get any weirder or creepier, but mission accomplished,” Samantha stated. She took a step back from the pit.
Edwin craned his neck over the edge. “There’s no way we can get down there.”
