“I’m guessing that’s what we came here for,” Mac said as the team rounded the bluff and pushed inland along the southern edge of a cove. Ahead of them, halfway up the slope, was the unmistakable outline of a man-made structure, a huge monolith of concrete that jutted out from the face of the mountainside, about a kilometer or so in the distance.
Mac stopped and pulled out his binoculars again, scanning them over the terrain leading up to the vault.
“There’s a road about fifty meters up there,” he said, pointing toward the rocky incline. He led his group up the side of the mountain until they intersected with the road, following it until they stood outside the entrance to the vault.
The entrance would not have looked out of place in a sci-fi movie or as the entrance to some ancient tomb. The concrete slab stood eight meters tall and two and a half wide, cantilevered out of the natural chaos of the land around it, its sharp lines and flat sides an obvious attempt to ensure it would be seen. Near the apex, at the front, a mosaic of mirrors, prisms, and glass glowed with a scintillating blue-and-white light, turning the entrance into the equivalent of a lighthouse, visible for kilometers. It was the absolute opposite of camouflage, Mac thought, which he supposed stood to reason when you thought about the actual purpose of the building.
A short metal gantry led up to the doorway. Richardson, the team’s demolitions expert, stood on it now and examined the locking mechanism. “It looks almost like a regular household lock to me,” he said, the surprise evident in his voice, stepping back so Mac could get a better look.
“It’s not like they want to make it hard for people to get in, after all,” said Mac.
“Want me to blow it?” asked Richardson casually, his hand already reaching into the satchel of C-4 he carried.
“Not if we can help it. If we expose the interior to the elements, we don’t know how long anything we leave behind will last,” said Mac. They had brought a portable oxyacetylene torch with them, which would be preferable to blowing the door. Mac was prepared to use it if he had to, but it would still leave them with the same problem of leaving the entrance open to the elements.
Mac thought for a moment or two then called out, “Ryan! Get your backside over here.”
“Sir?” Ryan crunched his way to Mac’s side. He was a gangly twenty-something, a good lad in Mac’s opinion, and a fast learner. He’d joined the navy when he was nineteen. A misspent youth had culminated in him being caught and prosecuted for burglary. Offered the choice of either a prolonged stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure or a tour with the Royal Navy, the kid had wisely chosen the latter.
“If I remember right, you’ve had a bit of experience with locks in your time,” said Mac, thumping his gloved fist against the ice-encrusted steel door. “Think you can get that open?”
Ryan knelt to scrutinize the lock. “Not a problem, boss, but I’m going to need something that can—”
They seemed to appear from nowhere, materializing from the snow like ghosts, but Mac knew they had probably been there long before he and his men had arrived. Even as Mac registered their presence, he could tell his men were easily outnumbered three to one, and he knew that there would probably be several more that remained hidden, their weapons covering their comrades on the off chance Mac had backup hidden away somewhere. He also knew that if these soldiers had wanted them dead, they would have been dead already.
“Hendene opp! Hendene opp!” the newcomers yelled.
“Hold your fire,” Mac snapped as his men instantly took up a defensive posture.
One of the newcomers stepped closer, a pistol in his hand but held at his side, Mac noted. Not like he needs it, anyway, he thought, not with all the firepower trained on them by the rest of his men. Mac quickly counted twenty figures that he could see, all armed with fully automatic weapons, and, by the accent, he thought, maybe Swedish or, more probably, Norwegian.
“Hvem av dere er kommandoen i?” the man said, his voice muffled by the hood of his parka.
“We don’t understand you,” said Mac, noting the white-clad soldier’s head turn to him instantly.
“You are British?” the man with the pistol said, switching to heavily accented English.
Mac nodded.
“You are in charge?”
Mac nodded again.
“If you would please order your men to drop their weapons. We would prefer for there to be no bloodshed.”
Mac sighed, but it was obvious these guys had them well and truly over the proverbial barrel. “You heard the man. Drop your weapons, lads.”
One by one, Mac’s unit placed their weapons at their feet.
“Thank you. Now, your name please.”
“MacAlister, James. Sergeant.”
“And what are you and your men doing on my island, Sergeant MacAlister?”
“Take me to whoever is in charge, and I’ll explain to them,” he said. The prescribed reply after being captured by an enemy force was name, rank, and serial number, but if the truth be told, Mac thought, he didn’t even know if these blokes were the enemy. Still, he was taking a chance here. They could just kill him and his men and leave their bodies here, and no one would ever be the wiser. But Mac prided himself on his ability to suss people out, and the man standing across from him did not strike him as the coldhearted-killer type . . . he hoped.
The officer—and Mac was certain that was what he was—regarded him with steel-gray eyes for a couple of very long seconds. Mac wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a smile crease his face, all but hidden within the hood of the parka. He said something in his native tongue and the other soldiers advanced on Mac and his men.
“Very well,” the officer said eventually. “We will take you to meet the kommunestyret. Please inform your men it would be in everyone’s best interest not to resist.”
Their captors led Mac and his team along a path and into a small valley where four large military snowcats had been hidden. His men were split up into twos and bundled inside the vehicles. Mac and Ryan found themselves sitting across from the officer and two of his men, their backs to the driver, their weapons trained unwaveringly on the two of them.
“Where are they taking us?” said Ryan, his voice barely betraying the nervousness Mac knew he must be feeling.
“Just sit back and enjoy the ride, please, gentlemen,” the officer interjected, then ordered the soldier at the controls to get underway. The snowcat’s engine kicked in. Mac felt the tracks slip, then gain traction, and they pulled out of the valley and headed inland.
To the north, through the frost-webbed window, Mac saw the unmistakable profile of an airport, a hangar, and several smaller buildings. And an airplane. A plane that looked to be in perfect working order. He leaned in closer to the window. It looked like a passenger plane, maybe an old DC-10? It was hard to tell, really; the snowcat was bumping and jostling him as it made its way over the rough terrain.
The airport ran parallel to the opening of a bay, a kilometer-and-a-half-wide U-shaped concavity, like someone had taken a bite out of the mainland.
“Where are you taking us?” Mac said, turning his eyes back to the officer sitting across from him.
A panicked yell from the snowcat’s driver cut the officer off before he could answer. The snowcat swerved hard right, sending the officer and the soldier next to him flying into Mac and Ryan’s lap. Mac thought about making a move for the soldier’s pistol, but his eyes saw the reason behind the sudden maneuvering, and all thoughts of escape evaporated.
“Holy shit,” said Ryan, his mouth hanging open, his eyes focused ahead through the front windshield to the mass of roiling, bubbling water near the shoreline at the inland curve of the bay.
The driver yelled something in Norwegian, looking back over his shoulder as he brought the snowcat to a complete stop. The officer, his hand on the butt of his pistol, swiveled to face the driver, yelling something back at him, but his words stopped midsentence as he too saw the reason for the abrupt stop.
T
he other snowcats had pulled to a stop alongside theirs, and Mac saw men stepping out, their faces as pale as the snow that surrounded them.
“Screw this,” Mac said. He grabbed for the door handle and was outside before the officer or his men could react, Ryan right behind him, the chilled air freezing the first breath in his throat. Without even realizing it, he kept the door open, instinctively placing the meager barrier between himself and . . .
. . . the massive congealed-blood-brown bulk rising from the water of the bay, six articulated legs digging deep into the permafrost as it heaved itself from the water onto land, mist rising off it like steam. It looked like some gigantic metallic spider, a streamlined crab-shell-like body covered in bulbous protrusions, with a mass of ropelike tentacles that twisted and squirmed beneath its underbelly. The machine, finally free of the ocean, raised itself to full height, the water gushing from its body turning to ice before it hit the ground.
In two nimble leaps that belied its enormity, it positioned itself in the path of the humans, blocking the route completely.
The thought hit Mac like his proverbial namesake truck: he and his men had led the Caretakers right here to this place. Now, however many survivors there were on this rock were doomed, along with the rest of humanity, because there was no way off this island. They were trapped. They were all as good as dead.
“Ah fuck,” he hissed under his breath.
The Norwegian officer was out of the snowcat and standing directly behind Mac’s right shoulder. He uttered something under his breath, an expletive or a plea to whatever god he cherished, Mac did not know, but the next instant the man was yelling orders to his men. They began to take up defensive positions around the vehicles, while others scattered outward across the landscape, taking cover behind boulders or drifts of snow, all interest in Mac and his men gone in the face of this new, terrible threat.
The machine took several more steps toward them, the echo of its feet against the ground sending chunks of snowpack cascading down the face of the mountainside.
Somewhere a siren sounded, its wail echoing off the walls of the mountain.
The machine stopped, the joints on each of the sinewy legs snapping downward one by one in a controlled collapse, until the body was lowered to the ice. An opening appeared, and a ramp unfurled itself from it like a tongue. A second later, three silhouettes, two of them distinctly humanoid, began to descend the ramp.
The officer screamed a command to his men. Even though Mac could not understand the words, the intent behind them would have been obvious to any military man: prepare to fire.
Mac leaped from behind the door; running forward, he turned back to face the officer and his men, throwing his hands in the air.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “For Christ’s sake, don’t shoot!”
Stories rarely write themselves. I’d like to thank a few people for their help with bringing Genesis to life. First, my wife, Karen, who is always at the front of the line to read each finished manuscript and always able to help whittle it into a better story.
Stefani Lowe, Kelly Graffis, and Rosemary Gaskell, for casting their eyes over the story and giving me their thoughts on what did and did not work. I shall be calling on you ladies and gent often.
Tegan Tigani, who is new to the Extinction Point series, but this writer could not ask for a better editor. Thank you for your keen eye and gentle manner. I look forward to a long and wonderful relationship with you.
All the folks at 47North for being so damn awesome.
Last, but not least, I wanted to again thank you for continuing to follow Emily, Thor, Rhiannon, and Mac’s adventures.
PAUL JONES
Photo © 2011 Paul Jones
A native of Cardiff, Wales, Paul Antony Jones now resides near Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and commercial copywriter, but his passion is penning fiction. A self-described science geek, he’s a voracious reader of scientific periodicals, as well as a fan of things mysterious, unknown, and on the fringe. That fascination inspired the Extinction Point series, which follows heroine Emily Baxter’s journey into the bizarre new alien world our Earth has become.
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