[Anthology] Killer Thrillers

by Nick Thacker

  “He’s alive, barely,” Saunders said. “Found this on him; otherwise unarmed.” She tossed a small cellphone-shaped device to Mark and dumped Austin’s body casually on the dirt in front of Nelson. Nelson poked him with his foot, looked him over, and shrugged.

  “Scrawny little twerp,” he said. “What took so long?”

  Saunders ignored him.

  “Any idea what that noise is?” she asked. “And where’s Statnik?”

  “We thought you could help us with the noise,” Nelson answered. “And, uh, he didn’t make it.”

  This was the first time Jen had even thought about anyone else besides her son and Mark. Her initial fear was replaced by a cold callousness. She gritted her teeth as the rest of the group stood in silence for a moment while Mark examined the small electronic device.

  He turned it over in his hands, trying to figure out how it worked. It was the same device Austin had waved behind the scientists ear, back in the lower levels when Mark had been contained. As simple as it was, Mark still couldn’t see any indication that it was working. The only feature on the object besides the box and antenna was a small, unassuming black button on the side. He pressed it a few times, but nothing happened.

  “That woman ran away from us as I was chasing Austin,” Saunders said, “but I have no idea where she ended up. Could be that she made it down to the lower levels and started that machine again.”

  As if on cue, the floor beneath them began shaking. It wasn’t as powerful as when they’d experienced it firsthand on the lower levels, but it was still noticeable and, this time, more unnerving.

  Jen looked at Mark. “We need to stop it.”

  The floor jolted, mildly at first, then more intensely. Reese almost lost his balance, as did Nelson.

  “How much longer do we have?” Saunders asked.

  “I’m not sure. Last time it started and lasted a solid twenty minutes before it stopped again. My guess is that this last rotation won’t need to be as long. It just needs to be deep enough to crack the surrounding plates, remember? But if we can turn it off…”

  “There’s no way you’re going down there, Jen,” Mark said. “We have to get off this rock and back to the surface.”

  Saunders shook her head. “Power’s down. That elevator is still out, and the only lights on the levels below us are emergency lights. Obviously another treat from that woman, since you would have to manually turn the lights off in a place like this.”

  “Give me a flashlight.”

  “Jen,” Mark argued, “stop. It’s over. We have to get out.”

  She whirled around, her eyes on fire, and looked at her husband. “How? How do you suggest we get out?” She turned to the remainder of the group, eyeing them one at a time. Her mind was racing, both ecstatic that her family was alive and terrified at their predicament. “There’s nowhere to go. We’re under five miles of water! Plus, you heard Austin from before. When the president got here, that submarine left. Remember? The gunshots, too?”

  “She’s right,” Saunders realized. “There was at least one explosion up there that I heard; probably a grenade. Whatever’s left of the second docking station after the sub left is permanently sealed behind pressurized doors. Even if we had a sub, we couldn’t get to it.”

  Nelson nodded slowly in disbelief. “So, we’re, uh, trapped here?”

  “We’ve been trapped here, Nelson,” Jen said. “This was Austin’s plan all along. He needed Mark to get through the communications barricade, but he couldn’t take the chance of letting any of us back out. Hell, even he wasn’t going to make it back out.”

  Mark hadn’t spoken yet, but finally he offered a suggestion. “We’re in it, then, Jen. This is the endgame. Are we going to sit back and let things happen, or are we going to use our last minutes trying to stop this thing, even if it’s in vain?”

  She nodded.

  “Wait.” The voice was hushed, almost a whisper, but it was firm. They searched for its owner, and found the man lying on the ground.

  “Take me with you. Or kill me. Don’t leave me here.” It was Jeremiah Austin, speaking in a steady, low voice. Blood pooled next to his face, a small amount dripping from his chin.

  Saunders walked over to him, but Jen stopped her. “Hold on,” she said. She looked down at Austin. “Why? What are you afraid of?”

  Austin’s face and body language conveyed nothing out of the ordinary. But Jen saw it in his eyes.

  He was terrified.

  Of what?

  “We’re all going down together, thanks to you,” she said to him. “Unless I can get the machine turned off.”

  He laughed, a mixture of gurgling noises and coughing. “No. No, you can’t. It’s been locked in, set. Sylvia started it, because I didn’t make it down to finish the job. But don’t leave me here to die like this. They—” he cut himself off before they could hear the rest of the sentence.

  His eyes met Jen’s, defiant. “Kill me.”

  Jen stared, thinking. “They. Who’s they, Austin?”

  Austin didn’t speak.

  “You mean the scientists, don’t you? The ones you created here. Your lab rats.”

  “They’re not—”

  “They are! You created monsters. They attacked Lindsay, and they attacked Dr. Pavan. And when you turned Carter into one, he attacked us too.”

  Austin frowned, surprised. “So Carter found the others? Interesting.”

  “Nope,” Nelson said, “Just him. But believe me, he was more than enough to handle.”

  Austin was visibly perplexed. He mumbled to himself. “How can that—never mind.” He looked back up at the group. “They only attack as a group, usually. Their motor skills are completely controlled by involuntary reactions to their environment. They’re essentially a physical host for a much lesser, much simpler species. When they find a foreigner, they don’t know how to respond.”

  “So they scratch people to death?” Nelson asked. “Come on, Jen, we need to get that machine shut down.” He turned to leave, but Jen stayed.

  “Should we take him with us?” she asked. “Without keeping an eye on him?”

  Saunders spoke up. “Where’s he going to go? Besides, you heard him. They’ll hopefully get to him first.”

  Jen saw the pleading in his eyes, hiding in plain sight behind the battered, torn face of a dying man. She remembered everything he had done. Everything he had put her through.

  “Let’s get that machine turned off.”

  55

  Geothermal conversion.

  Pressurized water-control systems.

  Ventilation.

  That was it, Jen thought, as her feet pulled her body along down the rows of descending stairs. As she plummeted into the depths of the research station, she wracked her brain for Dr. Storm’s lessons and her own research on geothermal power plants.

  How can you turn one off, she wondered, in a way that is impossible to turn back on?

  There was obviously more to it than just flipping a switch, she knew. And they didn’t have any firepower—at least enough to do any significant damage.

  And whatever she did to the machine, Sylvia, wherever she was, could undo it.

  Unless she sabotaged the ventilation system.

  The ventilation system, linked into the cooling apparatus of the machine, would be the core piece of the puzzle that would cause the machine’s operation to backfire on itself. If she could find the control shaft for it, she could create a temporary blockage that would overheat the drill’s engine.

  If she timed it well enough, Sylvia wouldn’t be able to get down to move the blockage.

  If she timed it really well, Sylvia would arrive on the level just in time to see her project’s magnum opus go up in smoke—and hopefully a Hollywood-worthy explosion.

  Two birds with one stone.

  But she would need a stone.

  She passed the sign marking Level Ten and thought again of how they’d had the wool pulled over their eyes this whole ti
me.

  Nouvelle Terre. Level Ten: Rue Or.

  It was the perfect ruse. Hidden in plain sight, with enough of a quirk that it was decipherable.

  But Jen chided herself. She hadn’t been able to decipher it. Austin had worked on this massive project for decades, and no one had been able to uncover the scale or impact of what he was trying to accomplish.

  And now we’re within twenty minutes of seeing what it will do, Jen thought.

  She shuddered as she reached the threshold to Level Eleven: Rue Marron. Brown.

  Entering the level’s cramped quarters, she saw the behemoth in front of her. The shuddering had reduced to a low roar, but she clearly saw the machine slowly rotating at the center of the level. The pipes, tubes, and computerized levers moved in arbitrary directions, and the telltale steam rising from certain areas told Jen all she needed to know.

  Their project was working perfectly.

  She raced toward it, finding it harder and harder to run in a straight line. As she approached the outer buildings, her eyes scanned the names.

  Water Conservation and Control.

  E.435 M.

  Electrical.

  Damn, she thought. Nothing. And I can’t even guess as to what’s in half of them.

  She kept running, encircling the machine’s rotating body. She followed a pipeline that stretched from the ceiling to the wall, and then ran down into—

  There.

  She saw it at the edge of the level, just before the wall. A small unmarked building that was expelling an unnatural amount of steam into the air.

  The rest of the group was behind her, moving quickly to keep up. Mark was holding his damaged arm, careful to not upset the bullet wound any more than it already had been. Between Saunders and Nelson, he ran next to Reese. The boy was wide-eyed and scared, but otherwise an easy companion to the team.

  Through the steam, she could see a huge vented opening in the wall above and behind the building, shimmering and blurry. It was like a mirage in the desert. The pipe’s length stretch across the concrete ceiling, emptying into a larger round silo behind the building, where its contents were corralled and sent upward to someplace behind the vent. Jen guessed that this vent opening was just one of many, one that aided in dispersing the heat and steam created by the machine to the different levels of the complex.

  As Jen neared the vent at the level’s outskirts, she wracked her brain for the next steps. I need to block the vent access. But there’s no way I’m reaching that grate on the wall.

  Jen knew there had to be a more elegant solution.

  “What’s the plan?” Mark asked, sidling up next to her at the wall. He gazed up to the vent, instantly understanding the dilemma.

  “We need to reach the vent,” she said, “and somehow take off that grate. It’s riveted to the wall.”

  “And even if we get the grate off, how are we going to block the exhaust?”

  Jen didn’t have an answer for that. She hadn’t seen anything that wasn’t bolted down to the floor or built into the ground. There were no trash cans lying around, or street benches, and none of the usual trash and detritus found on a generic city block. They were in a research station—an elegantly-designed space intended to serve a specific purpose.

  “Let’s assume we find something to throw in there,” Mark said, continuing his line of questioning. “We still can’t get something that big up that high.”

  Still, she didn’t respond. There has to be something I’m missing, she thought.

  Crimping the pipeline wouldn’t work, since the only external pipe she could see leading to the vents was fifty feet above their heads, bolted to the ceiling.

  Suddenly, the machine rocked wildly. Jen stumbled, caught her balance, and reached out to grab Reese. He found his feet just as another jolt shook the room.

  “It’s getting close,” Saunders said. “Jen, what’s the holdup?”

  Jen followed the pipeline with her eyes one last time. “We can’t reach the vent, and we can’t reach the pipeline on the ceiling. Those are our best options, but we can’t afford to wait around and figure out how to get up there.” The floor shook beneath her. “So we need another plan. Hog, give me a boost.”

  Nelson looked surprised, but shrugged and followed as Jen ran toward the center of the level. The machine, now visibly shaking, was pouring thick layers of steam into the already humid air. Jen approached the side, near where the pipeline encircled the giant rotating device.

  “If I can disconnect the pipe from its source, the heat and exhaust will fill the room. It’ll take longer than we want, but it’ll do the trick. The level’s not large enough for the heat to dissipate in time. We’ll need to seal the door behind us, and then get to the main level.”

  Nelson didn’t argue. He placed his hands out, interlocking his fingers. Mark stepped up next to Jen. “Jen, you sure this will work?”

  “Have a better idea?”

  Jen stepped onto Nelson’s lift, and he shot her straight up as if she was no heavier than a child. “That’s good,” she said. Jen was now at eye-level with the circle of metal piping, and she reached to test the temperature of the steel.

  “This is it,” she said under her breath. She couldn’t get her hands close, as they were immediately repelled by the intense heat of the pipeline. Then, calling down to Nelson and the others, “the pipe is most likely a ceramic shell with copper and steel insulation,” she said. “It’s burning hot, so this will definitely work. Mark, can you find something to hit this with?”

  “I have a better idea,” Nelson said. Jen felt herself falling, then was caught abruptly as he gently lowered her to the ground. “Go ahead and step back, sweetie.”

  Jen just stared at him.

  “Seriously, Jen, this isn’t going to be pretty. How attached are you to keeping this machine in working order?”

  She just rolled her eyes.

  “That’s what I thought. I’ve been saving this baby since I picked it up off a dead Russian,” he said as he reached for a grenade he’d stashed in his pack. “It’s gonna to be messy, but it will definitely do the trick.” He waited a moment. “I’d, uh, recommend standing back if I were you,” he said.

  He hurled the grenade toward the machine. Jen wasn’t optimistic about the plan until she saw the accuracy of his throw. The small round object bounced through an opening in the machine’s side, directly below the connection to the main ventilation pipe.

  “Come on,” Mark said, grabbing her arm and pulling her away.

  She turned just as the grenade exploded. The initial blast wasn’t large enough to cause much damage, but she heard the popping of gaskets and pressurized piping. They ran for the nearest building, trying to put at least a little distance between themselves and the overheating power plant.

  Finally, Jen heard the noise she was waiting for. A loud pop sounded throughout the level, and she turned to watch the large pipeline sever itself from the main artery of the plant. It fell away, leaving a billowing gust of steam and smoke from the grenade’s blast. The pipe wriggled free of the machine, leaving it dangling precariously from the ceiling, still connected to the long channel of pipe that stretched from one end of the level to the center.

  But it was enough.

  Jen knew the damage had been done. Now, it was only a matter of time before the entire level filled with smoke and steam, generating too much heat for the power plant to function properly. She planned to speed up the process as well. Jen stopped. There was one more thing they could try.

  “Get to the stairs!” she yelled. Saunders, Nelson, and Reese were already running. Mark waited for her to take the lead and kept pace as they ran for the open metal doors marking the entrance to the level. “Mark, close those doors when we get through. We need to keep the heat and exhaust contained in this level. On Level Four, we can get to the power station and see if there’s a way to route as much energy as possible to this level.” It was a long shot, but it was all they had.

  Mark no
dded, and as Jen ran over the threshold, he and Nelson swung the heavy doors closed.

  Would it be enough?

  Jen pushed the thought out of her mind. It didn’t matter anyway. We’re trapped here with a giant drill, waiting for either the entire base to collapse on us, or the machine to tap into the earth’s mantle.

  Either option spelled out the same fate.

  But overheating the plant would work, she knew. It just needed to work before the drill finished its final rotation.

  When she thought about the drill once more, she realized the shaking and rotations had subsided.

  It’s almost done.

  One more rotation and the drill would be complete. It seemed to be spread over three distinct timeframes, the first alerting the rest of the base, via the loud alarm system, that the first rotation was to begin soon. The second was the rotation that had just finished.

  The third would begin within minutes.

  It was only a matter of minutes before the drill punched its way through the bedrock, splitting the two adjacent shelves made up of the trench walls, and unleashing a fury of molten lava, earthquakes, and cataclysmic events upon the unsuspecting world.

  The thought pushed her exhausted legs harder and faster.

  Keep going.

  She willed herself to continue.

  Level Eight.

  Level Seven.

  The entrances to the levels flew past as the group made their way upward to Level Four.

  56

  Sylvia knew the clock was ticking. After reaching Austin’s office and finding the controls for the machine, she had unlocked his console and entered the bypass code for the station. As the only other functioning scientist besides Austin remaining at the station, Sylvia had been privy to much more sensitive information than Austin would have liked.

  Now, she knew he’d have been proud. When she’d first enlisted into Nouvelle Terre, the organization had branches around the world that were struggling to survive. They were mainly philosophical meeting groups; places where like-minded individuals could gather and discuss ideas. Gone were the days of government funding, massive research grants, and private interest. Gone was the original excitement and energy that existed within the Agartha Base project team. The organization had dwindled to outliers; a fraction of what it was in Austin’s and Storm’s early days.