Earth Cry

by Nick Cook

‘So are we ready to head out, guys?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but let me lead the way,’ Mike said. ‘I did a fair bit of scramble biking back in my teens, so, unless you object, I’m probably the most experienced to lead us on what could be a tricky ride.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ Jack added.

  Mike nodded and manoeuvred his bike on to the narrow trail ahead of us.

  As we set off behind him, if anything the night-vision system did a better job than our headlights of turning night into day, albeit a very green one. I could easily see the dirt track was littered with small stones and potholes as we started to descend towards the bottom of a valley.

  ‘We just need to keep our speed down if we don’t want to lose a filling,’ Mike said over the intercom.

  ‘I had no other intention,’ I replied, already shaken to my core.

  Cicadas chirped in the trees around us, only briefly stopping as we passed them. Despite my closed visor, the heady aroma of the jungle, a combination of rich compost and heavily scented mountain flowers, managed to seep into my nostrils.

  I noticed that our GPS marker on the map was still located back where we’d run into the departing minibus. ‘It looks like we’ve loss GPS coverage.’

  ‘Maybe the mountains are blocking the signals from the satellites,’ Jack said.

  ‘Not the best moment to lose our map position, though.’

  ‘We should be fine – this trail leads straight to Choquequirao.’

  ‘You reckon? I can get lost in a car park.’

  Mike and Jack laughed over the intercom.

  The trail became increasingly uneven. I ended up standing up in the saddle, trying to help my body absorb the lumps and bumps in the trail, whilst also trying to restore some circulation to my legs. Slowly I started to get into the rhythm of the bumpy track by focusing on the trail ahead and weaving my way between the potholes rather than dropping straight into them.

  Suddenly a small mountain slide reduced the path to just a tyre’s width. I jumped off the Zero and tiptoed along the section, following Mike’s lead, and we all made it through unscathed. Back on the bikes, our speed didn’t get much above ten miles per hour, still faster than walking but not the speed I would have liked. It was a good two hours before we finally drew level with what appeared to be a deserted campsite. Above us, stars blazed in the sky. Maybe one day I’d return here for some serious camping with a small portable telescope. But that would probably have to wait for another life…if we managed to save the planet.

  After about another twenty minutes, we reached a bridge crossing a river. We drew to a stop next to another deserted campsite on the shore.

  On the opposite side of the river, the trail led up the mountain ahead of us. ‘Please tell me it’s not much further? My bum is numb enough already.’

  ‘We’re on the last leg now,’ Jack replied over the intercom. ‘Once we’re over this bridge, we’ll begin a steep ascent up to Choquequirao. But even on the Zeros, it will take us a couple of hours.’

  ‘Bloody hell. I’m going to need a long soak in a hot bath to iron out all the knots in my muscles after all this.’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ Jack replied.

  Mike turned to look at us, his face one huge smile behind his visor. ‘You mean you’re not enjoying this ride of a lifetime?’

  ‘At least someone’s having good time,’ I said.

  Mike’s smile widened even further. ‘Damned right I am.’

  Whatever lay ahead of us, the mood of our group was getting lighter. Maybe it had something to do with the mountain air, but also because we were finally closing in our target, I hoped.

  Following Mike, we crossed the bridge one after the other and began to crawl up into the jungle again.

  This was by far the hardest riding yet. I had to use every gram of concentration to stay on the narrow path to avoid tumbling down the slopes. My clothes were covered with fine dirt kicked up from the trail. I desperately wanted to stop to take on water, but I was far too aware that time was ticking on.

  At last the jungle petered out, and we were on the exposed steep mountainside, the number of switchbacks and false summits only adding to my tension. The altimeter in my HUD had ticked up past 2,500 metres and I was definitely starting to feel light-headed.

  But despite the numbness in every limb, anticipation grew inside me about what we might discover up at Choquequirao. Though there was also a nagging worry lurking in the back of my mind. What if we’d got this wrong and there was actually another secret chamber back at Machu Picchu? Maybe that was the real reason Alvarez and the others hadn’t turned up here yet. Maybe the micro mind was already in the hands of Alvarez? Maybe…

  There you go again, Lauren. Just stop it already.

  Yes, maybe this was a wild goose chase, but maybe we were really on to something at last. I couldn’t keep speculating about what might be ahead. No, I needed to stay focused and deal with the here and now, rather than try to second-guess maybe situations. I would have talked about it with the others, but being the team leader weighed down on me. This probably wasn’t the best time to voice my anxiety.

  As I rounded the next switchback bend, I saw a brief flash high in the sky. Yet when I screwed up my eyes, even with the assistance of the night-vision system, I couldn’t see anything. Probably just a meteorite burning up. Then a tremble ran through the bike, growing rapidly stronger.

  ‘Quake! Off your bikes now!’ Mike called through my helmet’s speakers.

  We all braked hard and dropped the Zeros to their sides as the mountain began to shake beneath us.

  Mike threw open a pannier and took out one of his quake sensors. While small stones skittered down the mountain slope around us, he quickly twisted it into the ground.

  I lay flat, grateful for the crash helmet’s protection, as stones began to strike us and our bikes like large hailstones hitting a tin roof.

  The ground groaned beneath my body. Further down the mountain, boulders shaken loose tumbled down end over end, gathering speed. Some had already reached the river we’d crossed earlier, sending up plumes of water as they cannonballed into it.

  ‘It’s subsiding!’ Mike shouted as he stared at the probe’s readout.

  With almost a sigh, everything slowed to a stop and the mountain became quiet again.

  Mike blinked as he peered at the display, leapt to his feet and let out a long whoop.

  ‘We’re near the source of the monowave?’ I asked.

  ‘The most powerful monowave yet – five on the Richter scale. We have to be close to the source.’

  A surge of relief passed through me, but I couldn’t relax completely until I laid eyes on the micro mind. ‘Then let’s get a shake on, people.’

  We remounted our bikes that, apart from a few stone chips, looked fine, and started up the mountain again.

  The slope soon became almost vertical, the trail barely a thin ribbon for us to follow. One slip and we’d be history, tumbling back down the mountain to join the boulders in the river.

  My mouth became bone dry as I leant over the handlebars to try to maintain the motorbike’s centre of gravity. If I had felt tired before, my legs were jelly now, the back of my throat sandpaper. The thin air was certainly doing nothing to help. Any chatter on the intercom had fallen away. We were all feeling it.

  At last, after what had felt like an impossibly long time, we climbed up through another section of jungle and the slope finally became more gentle as the vegetation thinned. Dead ahead of us was a tin shed and large sign signalling our arrival at Choquequirao.

  ‘Thank god for the sake of my numb arse,’ Mike said.

  ‘You’re telling me,’ I replied.

  Jack flipped up his visor. It was his turn to have a huge grin on his face. ‘I know it’s been tough getting here, but goddamn this is one hell of a day to be an archaeologist.’

  ‘You’ll certainly have a lot of material to put into your TED talk now,’ I
said.

  He snorted. ‘Aren’t I just? So what next, Lauren?’

  There it was again – I was the one who was meant to know what to do. I quickly gathered my thoughts. ‘We need to get these bikes out of sight and keep as low a profile as possible around here. Just call me paranoid.’

  ‘As I’ve always said, a great characteristic in a leader,’ Jack replied.

  I smiled at his vote of confidence.

  Following Mike, we rode along a track towards the start of some steps cut into the cliff. We dived into the trees next to it and, after a few minutes, parked up.

  ‘So let’s get going,’ Jack said.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘We need to take on some much needed water and food. You’ll be no good to anyone if you collapse before we find the micro mind.’

  Jack pulled a face but nodded.

  I noticed Mike now had his back to us, his hands hanging down like a rag doll as he stared out across the valley. His lighter mood during the ride up here seemed to have evaporated.

  I exchanged looks with Jack, who grimaced and nodded. One unspoken conversation later, I was heading over to our friend.

  I stood before Mike, but he gazed through me. Was part of him back in the cell reliving what had happened to Ricardo?

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  His eyes focused on me and he blinked. ‘Sorry, Lauren… You know, my brain keeps looping back…’

  ‘Of course.’ I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. ‘If you need to sit this one out – stay with the motorbikes until we get back – neither of us would judge you for that.’

  He glowered at me. ‘No, I’m done with waiting. Look where that got me at Machu Picchu.’

  ‘Mike, relax. I get it, I really do.’

  His shoulders dropped. ‘I know you do. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.’

  ‘It’s already forgotten. But let’s get this thing done, hey?’

  Mike nodded and slowly drew himself up as if recharging himself from some hidden source. He headed back to his bike and opened up his side pannier boxes.

  ‘OK, we’d better be prepared for anything, so load up with whatever you might need,’ I said. ‘We should probably keep our helmets on – their night-vision systems might come in handy.’

  ‘Good call,’ Jack said.

  After we’d finished refuelling with energy bars and water, we filled our rucksacks. Mike took his dart gun, whilst Jack and I loaded up with our respective pistols and several extra clips. Jack gave Mike several flash-bang and smoke grenades and I was pleased to see that he was happy enough to accept them.

  With the tuning fork pouch clipped on to my belt and the Empyrean Key safely stowed in my rucksack, I took out my Sky Wire phone. ‘Time to alert Niki that we’re here and to get an update on our evac. I don’t fancy staying on this mountain any longer than we have to.’

  Jack looked up as he finished loading an assortment of grenades into his rucksack. ‘Yeah, me neither.’

  I listened to my phone but there was no connection tone. When I glanced again at the screen I saw the lack of reception bars for the satellite phone. ‘Shit, it’s not just the GPS signal we’ve lost. There’s no phone either.’

  Mike gestured to the mountains around us. ‘These can’t be helping. We must be in a dead zone. We may need to go to the car park where we know the GPS was still working. We’ll probably also get a phone signal there.’

  ‘Oh, that’s flipping great – it was hairy enough getting up here. I don’t want to think about trying to get down those breakneck slopes,’ I complained.

  ‘If it comes to it, I can go alone,’ Mike said. ‘To be honest, you two would just hold me up.’

  ‘What happened to sticking together?’ Jack asked.

  Mike shrugged. ‘Needs must, but as always, this is Lauren’s call.’

  ‘Guys, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ I said. ‘Let’s see how we get on before we decide to send anybody off to call home. We know they’re on their way anyway.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Mike replied.

  Five minutes later, with our Zeros hidden in the bushes, we were at the steps that lead up to the site.

  Now we were clear of the trees, I checked my Sky Wire phone just in case, but it still had no reception bars. ‘This place is as bad for phone reception as the metal-beamed night club I used to hang out at in Macclesfield.’

  Jack peered at his Sky Wire and frowned. ‘That means that we haven’t got map coverage either. We’re going to have to rely on our memory of the model of this site from the hidden temple.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem, should it? It was a lone building near the top right-hand corner. That should easy enough to track down, right?’

  ‘It would be if seventy per cent of Choquequirao wasn’t overgrown with jungle that hasn’t been cleared yet. This place is not Machu Picchu.’

  ‘Hang on, forget the Sky Wires – if a micro mind is nearby, it’s time for the old tech,’ Mike said.

  I felt like slapping myself. ‘Of course.’ I fished the Empyrean Key out of my rucksack and flipped up my visor so the helmet’s night-vision system wouldn’t interfere. I gently struck my tuning fork against the stone.

  As the low tone hummed out, the effect on my vision was immediate – a green arrow shimmered into life over the orb. It pointed north-west of our position, up the jungle-covered slope of the mountain.

  ‘Is it working?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Like a charm,’ I replied. ‘So here’s the plan. Jack and I will head up to the site and, Mike, if you could…’ My words trailed away as I spotted a bright flash of light in the sky again, but this time it lingered. The point of light seemed to get bigger as it raced towards us. ‘Hey, what’s that thing up there?’

  Jack’s eyes tightened on it as it grew ever larger. ‘A missile with our fucking names on it.’

  Mike paled. ‘You mean the Overseers have found us?’

  ‘No time for conversation – shift your arses!’ Jack said.

  The three of us sprinted for the jungle as the missile raced towards us. My mouth tanged with bitterness as I kept running…panting…running… Keep going, keep going…

  Five, four, three, two, one…

  A blinding flash of light turned the jungle bright white for a moment. A split second later a shock wave smashed into our backs, throwing us to the floor. I clutched my hands over my head as debris rained down. My heart thundered as the explosion’s roar echoed away across the valley.

  We picked ourselves up slowly, scraping the grime from our helmets’ visors.

  ‘Shit, that was too close,’ Jack said.

  ‘But where the hell did that missile come from?’ Mike asked.

  ‘That sneaky bastard Alvarez probably had something like a Reaper drone keeping an eye on the police station. Most likely it trailed us the moment we escaped Machu Picchu. And if it is a Reaper, it will have more missiles on it.’

  ‘Going by that little demonstration, I don’t think they’re interested in taking us prisoners this time round,’ Mike said.

  ‘So we’ve led the Overseers straight to the pot of gold at the end of the bloody rainbow?’ I asked.

  ‘I guess so,’ Jack replied. ‘We can expect company any moment now.’

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ Mike said. ‘I’m going down the mountain to try to contact Niki to let him know he’s flying into a hostile situation. The X101 is unarmed.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere with that damned drone circling up there,’ I told him. ‘There are too many open slopes on the way down for you to be spotted.’

  ‘But we’re going to be stuck up here without any backup.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to press on and take our chances to locate the micro mind,’ I said. ‘With everything at stake, the priority is getting the micro mind repaired and launched. Even our lives are secondary to that. Remember, we’re saving the world here.’

  They gave me a grim look and then both nodded.

  ‘If the
Overseers know we’re here, I bet that explains the lack of phone reception,’ Jack said. ‘I expect they’re jamming all the frequencies around the site like they did back on Orkney.’ He glowered up at the sky through the canopy of leaves and raised his middle finger towards it.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ I said. I hitched my rucksack up higher on my shoulders and struck my tuning fork against the Empyrean Key. ‘Let’s move out, guys.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  As we crept through the jungle, my body aching with every step from the aftermath of the missile strike, I kept the Empyrean Key clutched in my hand. But whenever I checked it with a tuning fork strike, the arrow hovering in front of the orb still showed a steady bearing to the northwest.

  We made sure we kept the cover of jungle canopy over our heads the whole way. As we worked our way up over the overgrown stone terraces, the knowledge there was a Reaper circling above us weighed down on me. I kept glancing skywards through gaps in the leaves, looking for any sign of the killing machine. Not that I would be able to see it – Jack had told us that drones like the Reaper flew too high for the human eye to spot. The first we would know that we’d been seen would be a missile streaking towards us. No wonder these machines were so feared – if they could dispatch death with hardly any warning. But something puzzled me about the flash of light I’d seen, which I’d thought was a meteor. Could that have been the Reaper? That didn’t stack up if Jack was right. What if it had been Lucy? Though that didn’t make sense either – surely she would have made contact if she was keeping an eye on us?

  ‘How long until we reach the building we’re aiming for?’ Mike asked.

  ‘It can’t be much further,’ Jack replied over the intercom. ‘We must be almost at the edge of the site by now and…’ His words trailed away as he pushed through a large bush to reveal a moss-covered mound straight ahead of us. Jack turned towards me. ‘Please tell me this is it, Lauren?’

  I glanced at the Empyrean Key and struck the tuning fork again. Sure enough, the arrow pointed straight at the mound. To make doubly sure, I tried sidestepping left and right as the note faded and the arrow kept pivoting back.