Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  There still wasn’t much to see. After brushing away some of the dust and grit that had collected on the makeshift surface, he did find one square section of wood that didn’t completely blend with the rest of the planks used in the counter’s construction. Cole ran his finger along the edge of that square and quickly found a spot that could be pushed down. The little panel levered up to expose a metal plate with a single unmarked keyhole.

  “Old school,” he muttered. “I like it.”

  The second key on his ring fit in the lock and he turned it.

  “That did it!” Frank shouted. “The floor is opening!”

  Cole removed the key and flipped the square panel back in place before leaving the shed. He’d barely taken three steps into the fuselage when he heard Frank’s voice again.

  “What happened?” the Squam asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The trap door closed again.”

  Cole stepped up to the section of floor they’d been trying to pull open. It looked the same as when he’d left it. “Did that open?” he asked.

  “Yes, and then it closed again.”

  “What was under there?”

  Frank let out an impatient sigh. “Another layer of metal. There were keyholes in it.”

  “How many?”

  “Two…I think. It was only open for a second. I was lucky to pull my hands out of there before losing any fingers. Once the panel was up, I did smell explosives. Lots of explosives. They must be planted below the panel somewhere.”

  Running a hand over the brushy stubble covering his scalp, Cole sighed, “Let’s check the other guys again. Pockets, boots, chains around their necks…no. Wait.” Digging into his pocket, he pulled out another set of three keys. “I found these on one of the guards outside. That door obviously needs two people to open it,” Cole said while pointing down at the floor. “Two people with keys! Maybe we’ve got all we need right here.”

  Somehow, Frank’s reptilian features seemed even sharper when he was skeptical. “That would be too easy. Wouldn’t it?”

  “This place isn’t like the one where we were held. Or,” Cole added, “it could all be underground. Either way, I think the prison’s main line of defense was that nobody knew where to find it. After all the passwords, emails, secret handshakes and other assorted bullshit to go through just to get directions on how to get here, most of The Vigilant themselves couldn’t even get this far.”

  Frank’s ridged brow lifted somewhat. “And this position was well defended. I doubt many others would have made it in our place.”

  “There you go! Optimism. It’s not just for breakfast anymore.”

  “What?”

  “It was a commercial…kinda…I think. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a commercial. Anyway, here,” Cole said as he tossed the second set of keys to the Squam. After telling Frank how to find the square panel hidden in the shed, Cole said, “Turn the key and leave it there. Hopefully that’ll keep this door open so I can get a better look.”

  “Perhaps I should be the one to get another look.”

  “I’ve got some experience with locks, so I’ll take first crack at it.”

  Frank’s serpentine grin reappeared. “Lessons from Paige, no doubt. She was full of a good many tricks.”

  “Yeah,” Cole replied in a tone that had turned bone dry in under a second. “Go and get that door open for me.”

  Knowing he’d touched a nerve, Frank nodded and darted toward the end of the fuselage with the speed of something a tenth his size. Cole found himself staring at the floor without seeing much of anything and was so lost in his memories that he jumped when the floor panel swung open.

  As promised, beneath the trap door was a metal plate and two keyholes. The plate could have been made from any number of different materials ranging from cast iron to Adamantium. Cole was no expert on the subject, so he wouldn’t have flinched if someone told him the thing was made from Kryptonite. Whatever it was, it looked tough as hell and wasn’t the same stuff as the rest of the fuselage. The keyholes were skewed to the left of center. Cole reached in to brush away a thick layer of dirt caked onto the metal surface. He saw marks in that dirt that had been put there by a set of nails or claws. Remembering what Frank had said about almost losing his fingers, Cole guessed the Squam had been doing exactly the same thing when the panel came slamming down. After giving it another couple of seconds, he was pretty sure that leaving the key in place back at the shed was keeping the panel open. At least, he hoped that was the case as he reached in to scrape away some more of that dirt.

  “Shit,” he grunted when he uncovered a third keyhole.

  Cole twisted his head to look up at the ceiling directly above the panel. There was a section missing, which exposed that portion of the cabin to the elements. More than likely, the hole had been cut there to allow guards to fire down into the cabin or chuck in a few grenades if things got really sticky. That explained how the mud had gotten so thick on the panel. Obviously, that plate wasn’t opened very often, but at least it hadn’t been forgotten. Sighing as he tried to think happy thoughts regarding his odds of finding anything worth his while beneath the plane wreck, Cole tried one of the keys in the first hole.

  The first one fit, but he didn’t turn it.

  The second one fit in the third hole, and the third key on the ring fit inside the middle hole.

  “Great,” he said under a disgusted breath. “Is opening this damned door a four-man job?”

  Looking down at the panel, Cole was about to start turning them one at a time to see if that was all it took. What stopped him was a gut-level instinct that he hadn’t felt since the last time he’d had a chance to sit down in front of a TV screen with a game controller in his hands. He nodded slowly as he processed everything he’d seen so far. Even though he knew he didn’t have all of the pieces, enough of them were coming together to form a pretty convincing picture. He was so deep in thought that he almost didn’t hear Frank when he called out to him.

  “Is it open?” the Squam asked.

  “Give me a second!”

  Frank appeared in the doorway at the far end of the cabin where he could see what was going on inside while still keeping watch on the outside. “Will you be able to open it or not?”

  “I’m thinking,” Cole said in a voice that could be heard throughout the entire cabin even though it was mainly meant for his own ears.

  “The keys turn or they don’t. It is not that difficult.”

  “No. You were right. This is too easy. There’s something more. It’s…like a puzzle.”

  “The Vigilant don’t strike me as the kind who would create something as quaint as a puzzle.”

  Cole smirked and wagged his finger at the panel set into the floor as if he’d caught it trying to pull a fast one on him. “This place is small, and the guys who set it up made it that way for a reason. Otherwise, they would have built it up or just picked somewhere else that was more like the prison where we were kept.”

  “Perhaps this isn’t the place you thought it was at all,” Frank said.

  “No. It is. It took years and a hell of a lot of patience, but I scraped through every freaking layer of security The Vigilant threw at me. And the guy I found…he couldn’t have lied to me.”

  The somber expression that drifted across Frank’s face could even be seen at a distance. “No,” he said gravely. “I suppose he could not.”

  Too wrapped up in his current train of thought to react to the disapproval in Frank’s tone, Cole said, “That Nymar trick isn’t fun to pull off, but it works. The Vigilant don’t have enough guys left to waste any at the bottom of a crack in the ground. Not even the military can waste manpower without good reason anymore. Something is here, and the men with the guns are only the second layer of defense. Maybe even the third.”

  Cole pointed with his finger to the defenses they’d encountered as if he was writing on a chalkboard. “There was the location, which was more secret than secre
t. Then there’s the terrain and one way to get in without being seen. We got through, but that was a fluke. I mean, it’s not like Skinner and Squam was one of the options The Vigilant would have known to protect themselves against. Then, of course, there were the men with the guns. They have this structure set up for defense.” Pointing up at the hole in the ceiling directly above him, Cole added, “Right down to creating a kill zone in what’s got to be a key location.”

  “Speaking of men with guns,” Frank said, “there could be more arriving at any time. We can’t linger long enough for these men to wake up.”

  Cole looked over to the unconscious guards. “They were trained pretty well and were equipped to defend this spot. Almost pulled it off. Which leads me to believe that another line of defense makes complete sense. This one,” he said triumphantly while pointing down at the door.

  “You mean the lock?” Frank asked. “We knew that was there already.”

  “No. I’m betting this is rigged to set off those explosives you smelled if we don’t unlock it in the specific way it’s supposed to be unlocked. Wouldn’t be too hard, really. You’ve got three switches…four if you count the one in that shack…and a bunch of psychos looking to keep something from getting away. If I was in their shoes, I’d want a failsafe, and this is where I’d put it.”

  Frank cocked his head to one side, which made him look like a cross between a dog and iguana. “Those explosives could be detonated from anywhere. Even from a remote control.”

  “True, but these guys would want to make sure someone stumbling around trying to get their secret Vigilant stuff would be caught in the blast…even if every guard here was killed. That’s the sort of devious, bloodthirsty shit Jonah Lancroft was all about. We can never forget that, above all else, The Vigilant were crafted by Lancroft himself.”

  “I thought you were going to say it was a puzzle similar to one of the games you designed.”

  “There’s that too,” Cole admitted. “Actually, there’s something like this multiple key gag in just about every game.”

  “I see. And the rest of what you were saying?”

  “I was thinking out loud. It all makes sense, though, right?”

  “It does,” Frank willingly admitted.

  “Great. That’s settled.”

  After a few moments passed with the only sound being the wind tearing through broken sections of the fuselage, Frank asked, “So, what now?”

  “Still thinking.”

  Frank took a few steps into the cabin, stopped and then turned around. “I’ll come and see what I can do to help. First, let me close the cover.”

  “Closing the cover won’t help me.”

  “I can’t leave that key unattended. What if someone comes along to take it?”

  “Then stay back there.”

  “I want to help.”

  Cole gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the halberd. Although he didn’t intend on willing the weapon to shift into another shape, the bite of the thorns into his palm gave him something else to focus on apart from how aggravating the conversation had become. “Just give me a second. I need to figure out how to turn these keys. If they’re not in the right order, anything could happen. My money’s on something blowing up.”

  “If you’re wrong, nothing might happen.”

  “And if something blows up, whatever we came after is destroyed right along with us. You spent more time than I did in that Vigilant prison,” Cole said as he turned to look at the Squam. “Tell me those guys would lock the most important door in the place without some kind of failsafe.”

  Slowly, Frank’s expression shifted into something similar to Cole’s when he’d been digging the thorns into his palms. “You’re right. There must be something else. What do you suggest?”

  “Well…in the gaming world…there’s always some sort of clue in the area to tell you what order things like this need to go in,” Cole replied. “Usually something with the correct number of spaces so you can be told which ones go in what order.”

  “These men would be the only ones who know that code,” Frank said. “In our prison, I saw them do many things by memory.”

  “Yeah, like tracing the runes on the walls. You haven’t seen any of those things drawn anywhere have you?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  Another lull in the conversation was filled by the whistling of cool winds ripping through the canyon. A loose piece of metal somewhere slapped against the side of the fuselage. Leaves scraped against the exterior.

  “Do you really think there will be a clue somewhere?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Cole groaned. “Those things being posted where they could be found like that were always stretching it even by videogame logic.”

  Frank walked forward a few steps so he could speak without yelling quite as loud as before. “What about the method you used in Cody?” he asked. “The one that allowed you to…question that man?”

  The Squam’s yellow eyes darted toward the row of sprawled guards, and Cole looked over there as well. None of them had moved, but that didn’t eliminate the possibility of at least one of them laying low and trying to hear as much as he could. Without giving away too much on the subject, Cole said, “That requires prep time. More than we can spare right now.”

  “Perhaps we can build a shelter. A barricade or some sort of protection for us if there is an explosive. If a trap is sprung, we should be able to jump behind it before…”

  “Before what?” Cole asked with a chuckle. “Before this whole plane goes up in flames? Or just half of it? I don’t think the crap laying around here will cut it when it comes to protecting us against that.”

  “At least I am trying to work with what is here,” Frank said angrily. “And not dreaming about what is inside some game!”

  “Sorry,” Cole said as he stood up and held the halberd in both hands. “Why don’t we just file the shelter thing under Plan C?”

  “Did I miss Plan B?”

  “Nope. I just came up with it.” Cole raised the halberd with its squared blade pointed down at the metal panel set into the floor. “Just to be safe, you might wanna give me a little more room.”

  “What are you doing? You could kill yourself!” Frank shouted. He started to charge into the cabin, but stopped as he refigured his chances of getting to Cole before the blade was dropped. “At least let me build the shelter first.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to need it.”

  “But just in case…”

  Cole snapped his head around to look directly at Frank. “I know what I’m doing!”

  “Could you at least explain it to me first?”

  “Sure,” Cole replied in a tone that was calm enough to relieve most of the tension in the air. “This is a pretty heavy duty piece of metal, and it’s set into the floor with higher quality bolts and rivets than the ones used to put this plane together. I bet the casing for this lock could withstand gunfire or whatever explosives may be set to blow. It would be pretty stupid of them to make anything less.”

  “I agree,” Frank said. “But I can smell lots of explosives. Too much for you to make such a reckless gamble.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t think it’s so reckless. The explosives have to be connected to the keyholes, since the mechanism itself is so well protected.”

  “Then, as you already said, it most likely can withstand a large explosion or several barrages of gunfire.”

  “But,” Cole said as he raised his weapon higher, “can it withstand a Blood Blade?”

  Frank’s eyes darted back and forth between the panel in the floor and the weapon poised directly above it. “I still say I should build the shelter.”

  Cole shook his head. “Not enough time. The safest bet we could make is that at least one of those Vigilant put out a call for backup sometime during the fight. Someone’s got to be on their way right now, and these assholes believe real strongly in overkill. We’d be stupid to stay long e
nough to meet whatever they’re sending. We need to get whatever is under here and be real damn quick about it.”

  The Squam crouched down with one foot set behind him as if it was pressed against a starting block. Whether it was his stance or some shifting of his internal structure, his entire body became sleeker and more angular than normal. He nodded once and said, “Do it. First sign of trouble, I’ll help you out of there.”

  Even though he wanted to tell Frank to get back and clear enough room for a possible crater to be formed where he was standing, Cole knew that would only waste more time they didn’t have. He set his sights on a spot along the edge of the metal plate, adjusted his aim, tightened his grip and drove the halberd down with everything he had.

  The blade attached to his weapon was able to cut through a Full Blood, which meant the thick metal plate in the floor presented no trouble whatsoever. It took even less effort than he’d hoped to keep cutting all the way around in a series of downward sawing thrusts. As the plate began to sag, Cole could see it was actually forged from several layers of metal, all of which he’d neatly severed. When he made his last cut, Cole left the blade stuck where it had landed so the top plate could fall onto it like it had been worked over by a can opener.

  “Little help,” he said.

  Frank rushed over to him and immediately grabbed the edge of the plate. When he lifted it, he was only able to get it halfway up before letting out a strained breath. “This thing…could probably survive…a nuclear bomb.”

  Although the Blood Blade had cut through the metal plate, that didn’t make it any easier for Cole to lift. The best he could do was use the halberd as a lever to help bring it upward a few more inches. With one more grunting surge of strength, Frank pulled the plate away from the exposed section of floor and let it drop beside the trap door.

  Cole looked down into the opening to find the keyholes extending up from the bottom of the panel. Each consisted of a long narrow sheath where a key was placed. Each sheath was fitted into a circular dial set into the bottom of the enclosed metal box that Cole had opened. Each dial had notches at the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock positions. The first dial had wires leading from both 10 and 2. The second had a wire connected to 2 and the third had one connected to ten. As Cole took all of this in, Frank squatted down to look over his shoulder.