Midnight Zone: a Cade Rearden Thriller

by JK Franks

  “That sounds familiar, is that part real?” Cade asked.

  “Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Judah said. “That is one hundred percent undeniable fact. It was the end of World War Two. It seems incredible that soon after a war that had taken so much and crippled global economies, they would undertake an expedition to Antarctica with so much haste. The only other oddity of note was that this was just a few months after the now infamous Roswell UFO crash.

  “Officially, America was curious if the Germans had built a base down here, as many rumors began to circulate that, even though Germany had been defeated, a selection of Nazi personnel and scientists had fled Germany and established themselves at a base on Antarctica. Supposedly, from there, they continued to develop advanced aircraft based on extraterrestrial technologies. And supposedly, the allies were also increasingly nervous about their former partner, the Soviet Union. Another likely possibility was the operation was a potential training exercise on a Siberian invasion of Russia.

  “Now, up to this point, it is all undisputed fact. The part of the story that is much less often told, though, is what happened to Operation Highjump. Byrd and his forces encountered heavy resistance to their Antarctic venture. The resistance was not from Nazis hiding out, or Japanese, or Russians. No, they were attacked by something they described as “flying saucers” and had to call off the expedition.

  “Now, the operation ended after only two months with what was called in the press ‘many fatalities.’ Rather than deny the heavy casualty reports, Admiral Byrd revealed in a press interview that Task Force 68 had encountered a new enemy that ‘could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds.’ Now, the U.S. press never picked up on the stories. Most likely it was suppressed. Byrd’s bosses never confirmed any of it, but interestingly, Byrd was neither demoted nor booted out. Instead, he just stayed silent about the entire thing after that initial reporting.”

  “Holy shit,” Cade said.

  Alan, who had been listening in, agreed. “Cade, what are we getting into down here?”

  Rearden just looked at the boy. He had no answers, not yet.

  38

  The weather actually worsened into a full-blown storm as they neared the coordinates. The polar winds whipped the snow into a whiteout blizzard. Several times, Judah motioned for McTee to stop and wait for the nav system to update before continuing. With nothing to use for reference, Cade was certain they would run into a mountain or off a cliff, but the reliable transport just steadily kept pushing ahead.

  “Getting close there, Captain,” Judah yelled back. Cade was no longer denying his rank, or that they were not actually on a scientific mission. Shit, people were trying to kill them. That was hardly normal for a science expedition…was it?

  “I was nearly twenty before I saw snow,” McTee said, trying not to think on Judah’s tale. “Kind of hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean, the stuff is damn common. My family didn’t travel much, and we were always just a bit too far south or a bit too warm or dry. I mean, we had a few flakes now and then, but no real snow.” He gave a chuckle at the irony. “Then I joined the Navy, and where did they send me…Alaska. I saw all the snow and cold I ever wanted in that first week.”

  They had not discussed the story Judah had told. None of them knew if it was total bullshit or not. Cade figured there was at least a core of truth. Something odd happened. Was it tied to the recent events? He was uncertain, but filed it away with all the other random bits in his increasingly crowded head.

  Judah pointed at the map on the screen, then out the window in the same direction. “Probably two miles around the base of this peak we should find a break from the wind. Should be a good place to base out of and leave the truck. It’s gonna’ be a footer from there.”

  A ‘footer’ wasn’t a fun thing they decided after less than a hundred yards. The going was cold and treacherous. Although the wall of icy rock blocked most of the wind, the sound of it roaring around the peak above was nearly deafening. The small group was walking down a narrow pass between several gigantic boulders. The gap was much too narrow for the MARS-1, so they had maneuvered all the gear to a couple of sleds Judah had provided. Instead of dogs to pull it, lines stretched out to the men.

  Here in the perpetual shadows, the snow was loose with a consistency more like sand than ice. Their boots dropped down half a foot with each step. “No snowshoes?” Alan asked Judah.

  “Nah, don’t use ‘em much down here—normally the ice layer is pretty shallow. We can just go in far enough to set up camp tonight. I don’t think it’s more than a kilometer. Tomorrow, we’ll begin climbing. That’s when it really gets fun. Come on, lads, we’re burning daylight.”

  “It never gets dark here….not really a big motivator, dude,” McTee said.

  They made camp in a spot that did not seem too terribly different from all the other awful spots they could have chosen. Cade was sick of the cold, the ice, and the snow but had to admit the Rapide Tactical Suit made it much more bearable. Wearing it for this long did begin getting uncomfortable, though. They were tight fitting and not ideal for doing your business or climbing mountains.

  “You know,” Judah said, sitting down beside him, “these coordinates are not unknown to me.”

  Cade watched as the man began to eat from one of the meal-kits they’d brought in.

  “Damn, this stuff is good, never had field rations like this.”

  Cade smiled. “So, what do you know about our destination?”

  The older man took another bite, savoring the warm, Asian-spiced pork. “Well, rumor mostly, strange stories. This is all pretty close to the no-fly zone, I suppose you know that.” He waved the fork upward and around in a broad circle. “Guess that’s why you wanted my trucks.”

  Cade shrugged; he was still not high on giving out more than he was receiving. “Nothing was flying due to the weather.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know who you guys are, but this isn’t a U.S. no-fly zone. It’s international. Had you flown in, others would have come after you.”

  Someone had come after them, but Cade decided to not bring that up.

  Judah continued, “Lot of weird stuff said about this area. Most puzzling one was around ’94. Navy brought some scientists out here from McMurdo. Real scientists, you know…not like you guys.” He smiled as he speared another bite with his fork. “Anyway, they flew out on a big transport, had a ton of gear, and all seemed great for a few days, then they stopped responding to radio calls. Nothing was heard for 72 hours, so the Navy sent a chopper out. They reported the camp was undamaged but abandoned.”

  Cade had heard most of this already but let the man speak, just to see if his version might offer more details.

  “Well, the Navy was getting ready to mount an all-out search when they got a call from the scientists saying they were fine and ready for pickup. No one had seen these guys for weeks, and they show up like it’s no big deal.”

  “So, where had they been?” Cade asked innocently.

  Judah finished off the last couple of bites, then sat back with his thermo-cup full of coffee. “Where indeed, my friend. Where indeed….”

  The four of them got an early start the next day. In a land where four AM was just as bright as high noon, why wait? The storm had thankfully subsided, and their first stop was just a few miles away on a high ice plain. “This is supposedly where the scientists’ base camp was,” Judah said. “No idea exactly where, but this general vicinity.”

  Alan was consulting his SmartCom and seemed to be trying to get a bearing on a distant peak. “Judah, what would have been of interest here? I’m not detecting any of the gravity or magnetic anomalies in the area. Wasn’t that what they were supposed to be studying?”

  The Australian was shaking his head. “We all know what they came out here for. It isn’t here. The hole. Never seen it, but the thing they seem to call the hole in the ice is about eight kilometers south.”

  They all looked where he was pointing; jagged peaks, dramatic
cliffs, and unforgiving terrain was all they saw. “That’s what to you yanks? Five miles…and almost three miles of elevation changes. She’s gonna be a bloody bitch, fellas.” He paused to look at Cade. “You sure you want to do this, friend?”

  39

  Cade's eyes scanned the surrounding hills. Never far from his mind was the fact that they'd already been attacked. Someone who’d drawn first blood. Someone who was hunting them. Someone meant to do them even more harm. Another part of his brain couldn't accept the fact that anyone would want to stop them. Not down here. What was out here in this cold, bleak wilderness that someone would want to keep hidden? Still, scientists had gone missing years earlier, and who knew what else might have happened in the God-forsaken place?

  After several hours of crawling over rocky, ice-covered peaks and valleys, he was ready for someone to shoot him. They were all exhausted. He saw nothing, but ‘felt’ a danger pressing in. Walking well ahead of the rest, he tapped his CommDot. “Hey, you busy?”

  Jaz’s voice came back immediately. “Not much, just helping Riley with some genetic stuff. Way out there kinda stuff. Anyway, but I can talk. What’s up?”

  “Boredom, cold, stress…I dunno. I just needed to remind myself someone else was back there. This place is so barren, it just seems to eat at your very soul bit by bit.”

  “I bet it’s beautiful, though,” she said wistfully.

  “I suppose. Never been anywhere quite like it, that’s for sure..I could describe it to you if you like.”

  She could have just activated the video feed from Cade’s goggles but said, “Yeah, do that.”

  “Well, where are you right now?” he asked, straining a bit as he climbed to a higher rock ledge at the same time.

  “I’m in the workshop, why? Are you about to ask me what I’m wearing?”

  “Gotcha….and no. Fabrication lab, okay. Walk as far as you can to the eastern-most wall.”

  She did so, feeling foolish but knowing this had to be going somewhere. Cade was nothing if not entertaining. She was now looking at the slightly curved wall of the lab. “Okay, I’m here. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing,” came the reply. “Now you and I are seeing exactly the same thing. Just a big expanse of empty white space.”

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “Idiot.” Laughing, she went back to check on the experiment she was nominally monitoring. “Your head is an empty space, Rearden.”

  He laughed, too, knowing it was anything but that. “So, what are you guys working on? Any update from Kissa?”

  She didn’t answer immediately; then he realized she must have been going somewhere more private. The sound was different when she started speaking. “We have had some interesting developments. Doris should have sent you an update by now. Kissa, Nance, and her team seem to have stumbled onto something rather unusual.”

  40

  The one they called Steiger watched the small group through the long-range optics. She knew where they were heading, although she had no clue as to what was there. It had been one of the assigned targets to protect. She was used to working as part of a duo but was just as comfortable alone. Her partner for this assignment, Karl, had finally checked in several hours earlier. He’d offered no reason for the delay but acknowledged he’d failed to sufficiently detain the team from America. She cursed silently at the man’s apparent incompetence. Silently, for that was the way of the Schattens.

  The Schattens, or Shadows, were descended from a more ancient group. They appeared occasionally throughout history, often more myth than anything tangible. The boogeyman, the ones who bring pain and suffering and delight in its application. ‘The misfortunes of others tastes like honey,’ is how one ancient text described it. The French would call it ‘joie maligne,’ a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. The Danish word is ‘skadefryd,’ and the Dutch is ‘leedvermaak.’ They were the Shadows, originators of the Schattenfreude.

  All of this, and more, had been part of Steiger's training from the very youngest age. Like all of her brethren in the Shadows, she was born different. Her behavior frustrated, then frightened, her parents. As a child, she refused to be held, refused to be comforted, and disliked playing with others. In other societies, she would have eventually been described as emotionally deficient, sociopathic, or maybe even psychopathic. To the Schatten, though, she was a gift, one of only a few they found each year. The emotional detachment, when combined with high intelligence and physical strength, had made her perfect for the role.

  She trained and studied the ancient ways until her mind absorbed every nuance. Like the others, she now saw the hypocrisy most people carried with them. The outward manners hiding the much darker desires, even to themselves, to admit that a taste for other people’s misery might corrupt their eternal souls. Yet, secretly, that was exactly what they longed for. She was honest with her desire; she embraced the role like the apex predator she was. The exhilaration of having a successful hunt outweighing any concern for the morality, or even consequences if she failed.

  Placing the binoculars into her gear bag, Steiger tightened the straps on her pack and pulled it on. She disliked the need to be dressed in bulky layers and the alpine coverup, but here on the ‘White Continent,’ it was the only way for Shadows to stay hidden. She gently ran her fingers along the cold steel barrel of the FN Ballista FDE Rifle .338 Lapua. She placed the magazine inside her parka to keep the rounds from possibly freezing. A misfire could be fatal, and that was a mistake she would not allow herself.

  She’d ridden out the recent storm in the bitter cold of a cave, and now was anxious to get moving. The four men were almost 5000 meters ahead, moving into the rocks and hills jutting out of the landscape. She could effectively kill them at about half that distance, but getting more than one or two before they found cover was unlikely. No, this was a time when she would need to be close in. With luck, she would ignore the Lapua and use something more personal, something more intimate, to dispatch the trespassers.

  Steiger clipped into her long skis and began poling toward the rocky terrain. Her orders had been clear. Do not let the group get to the coordinates. She was already thinking of creative ways to dispose of the bodies in this unforgiving wasteland. While still very detached from any real emotion, she thought it fair to say—she really loved her work.

  41

  Caribbean

  Kissa stared at the mass of floating debris. Shiny bits of machine parts from the numerous drones as well as scores of fish. Most had been severed in half or mangled beyond description. The creature was indiscriminate in its destruction, animal or drone. The fate was the same. Was this what had become of Thera? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape that one thought.

  “If it was feeding, why did it leave so many?” Coffee said hanging over the upper rail overseeing the carnage. “Seems like it was more interested in killing than eating.”

  Micah was cautiously using a net, trying to salvage some of the more complete drone pieces. “I don’t think it can digest ‘em. I’m sending what DNA and related data we have over to Riley, she’ll know something.” He swung the net out to snag what appeared to be a nearly complete aqua drone before continuing, “If the creature’s biochemistry is as different as I think, most everything would be incompatible as a food source.”

  Nance had eased down the ladder to help steady the boy. “It has to eat, though, right?”

  Micah shrugged, “We assume so, it certainly has the required equipment.” He was rotating the partial drone to expose multiple teeth or beak marks in the polysteel shell. “Any organisms that don’t feed have to get energy more directly from some source. Nutrients are the most common way, but there could be others. The predation indicates that it wants to feed, it may just not be able to, or at least get enough to be satisfied. That frustration may be part of what is fueling its apparent rage.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Micah turned to look at Kissa, “Does this look like anything normal
?”

  Kissa nodded. The early morning sun revealed a debris field nearly a hundred yards wide, blood and fish oil mixed with less identifiable fluids among the bits of detritus and drone wreckage...“That does mean something else, young Micah.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s feeding somewhere—somehow. It didn’t appear weak or malnourished. I think this animal is not natural, which means someone is feeding it. Someone is keeping it alive. If we follow it, we may find the answers to many questions.” And Thera, he thought hopefully.

  Several hours later, Dee indicated that she had acquired the faint track once more of the MHD drive. Trondo was at the helm, moving the craft easily over the pristine waters. The color of the ocean was changing from the brilliant turquoise to a deeper aquamarine. The channels were deepening the farther from land they got. He checked the nav screen once more—the track they were following would not take them close to any land mass. That probably wasn’t a surprise since they were following a submersible, but it also meant Dee was constantly running calculations on fuel and range. The huge boat had enormous tanks and a great range, but another twenty-four hours would be about as far as they could go without returning for more fuel.

  Trondo felt more than saw Coffee coming up to the pilot bridge. It was the large man’s turn to take the wheel. Despite his reluctance to being out on the open sea, he’d taken to piloting the boat like a pro. “Any change?”

  “Nope.” Trondo shook his head. “Pretty straight course if I can believe the computer.“

  Coffee set an open drink can in the holder and took the wheel. “No signs of our new ‘friend’ either, I hope.”