And with that he was gone. Tess heard the distant echo of his voice as he spoke into his transceiver, but couldn’t make out his words. She wished she knew what connection he had made, but figured he wouldn’t have told her even if she asked. The whole chain-of-command thing was new to her. She was used to the collaborative dynamics she’d taken for granted at the SETI Institute, which she vastly preferred to this need-to-know nonsense, especially considering there were still several other patterns besides the one mapping a route to central Mexico that she had yet to decipher.
The coastline of South America had jumped out at her from the start, but the other remaining stars—or points of data, as she chose to think of them, since they weren’t really stars—had yet to coalesce into meaningful patterns. If the overall motif held true, then the points of data on the opposite side of the “globe” corresponded to points somewhere in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Africa, although if there was a relationship between them, it eluded her. Maybe if Barnett had shared his revelation it could have helped her make one of her own. Then again, perhaps if she rested her eyes for a while she’d be able to make sense of things on her own. As it stood now, she’d been staring at these monitors for so many hours that she’d lost count and her bladder felt as though it had swollen to the size of a bowling ball.
She stood and was halfway to the corridor leading back to the pyramid when she caught movement from the corner of her eye and stopped dead in her tracks.
The shadows were so deep that she could see nothing inside the darkness. She was prepared to dismiss the apparent motion as a figment of her imagination when she detected a subtle shift in the shadows. She took a step closer—
A small animal streaked out from beneath her console, across the floor, and disappeared into the dark corridor. She hadn’t gotten a very good look at it, but she could have sworn it was a mouse, which couldn’t possibly have been the case since there were no indigenous species of rodent on the entire continent and she could think of no good reason for anyone to have brought one.
17
KELLY
FOB Atlantis
To say that everything had changed in the six months since they were last here was an understatement. Kelly couldn’t fathom how in such a short span of time it had gone from a remote scientific installation to essentially what looked like a military base down here beneath the ice dome, where before there had been only darkness. She remembered how they’d initially arrived by mini submarine and the care they had taken to dim their lights so as not to damage the sensitive prehistoric ecosystem.
That felt like a different lifetime entirely.
The lake had been drained, and the ancient city, formerly hidden beneath the water and the accumulation of countless millennia of sediment, laid bare. The ruins looked real in a way they hadn’t before, as though it were finally possible to see how real human beings had actually lived here, once upon a time. She was by no means an expert on architecture, but she’d traveled enough to recognize the similarities between these structures and the ruins of both early Mayan and Egyptian civilizations. The megalithic columns lording over the rubble were like a cross between those of the Celts and the Greeks. She could even see the Stonehenge-like ring, through which they’d ascended into the lake via a series of flooded tunnels from Snow Fell, in the far distance.
Morgan must have read her thoughts.
“We really haven’t had much time to explore the ruins. After a while, you just start seeing them like any other rocks.”
“I’m sure there are countless archeologists who would literally kill each other for the chance to study them.”
“If anyone knew they existed.”
They followed Morgan, who toted their assigned duffel bags over his shoulders as though they weighed nothing at all, away from the elevator platform. Their footsteps echoed from beneath the wooden planks of the boardwalk and reverberated all the way beyond the edge of sight, which really wasn’t saying much. Despite the light posts erected seemingly every fifty feet, the entire base was swaddled in permanent twilight.
“What did you do with all of the water?” Roche asked.
“We estimate that approximately twenty percent of it was evacuated through the subterranean tunnels following the activation of the pyramid. We diverted the aquifers, dammed every inlet we could find, and pumped the remainder downhill to the ocean. From time to time, something thaws or springs a leak, but we haven’t had any problems with flooding.”
How two men who had been at each other’s throats mere minutes ago could act like nothing had transpired between them was beyond her. Theirs was a world separate from the one in which she was raised. They’d served their country in ways she could only speculate about and had undoubtedly seen things she didn’t care to know. While her mother had been protesting the war in Afghanistan, these men had been living it, most likely in portable buildings like the ones they now approached.
Watching Roche interact with Morgan caused her to see him in a new light, one she was having a hard time reconciling. This was a man who would do anything for her, she knew, and yet, at the same time, he’d been trained to spy on his own people and to kill without conscience.
Kelly shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and shivered against the cold. She could tell that Roche saw through her ruse, though. Distancing herself from him had cut him worse than anything she could have said.
The ruins fell away behind them and were swallowed by the shadow cast by the pyramid. The futuristic-looking modular buildings formed a ring ahead of them on what was once a barren stretch of shoreline, upon which she remembered Roche running with that massive box speaker blaring the frequencies she’d deciphered from the petroglyphs towering over them like the Hollywood sign.
“Welcome to Forward Operating Base Atlantis,” Morgan said, and gestured with a flourish toward the prefabricated buildings.
“Do you really believe these are the ruins of the lost city of Atlantis?” Kelly asked.
“Look behind you and tell me that’s not exactly what this place is.”
The deck outside the main entrance was big enough to accommodate a large gathering, only from where she stood the place looked deserted. There were several freestanding kiosks that housed flat-screen monitors, which cycled through a series of maps that resembled the kind posted at trailheads in national parks. Each of them was labeled by elevation and divided into color-coded sections, the notations inside of which meant nothing to her. Roche studied them with a concerned expression on his face. He caught her looking and smiled for her benefit.
“How many people are stationed here?” he asked.
“Fifty-four,” Morgan said. “Fairly equally divided by rank and specialty.”
“All of them Unit 51?”
“Most. The remainder are civilian consultants, like you guys.”
“Is that what we are?” Kelly asked. “Civilian consultants?”
“Until you prove yourselves.”
“What makes you think we want to be part of your unit?” Roche asked.
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Morgan smiled and held open the front door for them to enter. The interior was sparse and barren, and yet had a lived-in feel at odds with the fact that they hadn’t seen another soul. The center of the room was dominated by a long table, upon which dozens of computers sat, each of their monitors displaying a blank login screen. One wall was lined with enormous metal cabinets without labels, the other with various outerwear from arctic gear to isolation suits, and the corresponding hoods, gloves, and boots.
“There are thirteen buildings in all,” Morgan said. “They’re arranged like the numbers on a clock with the mess hall in the center. Right now we’re in Building Twelve, or Midnight as most call it, which seems fitting. Building One is to the left. You’ve been assigned to Building Three.”
He led them through the doorway to the left and a windowless corridor that blew heat straight down upon them.
“Each bui
lding is twenty feet wide by forty-eight feet long, or nine hundred sixty square feet. That’s a total of more than twelve thousand square feet of living space connected by another thousand feet of corridors. We like to think of it as our own Bel-Air mansion down here at the bottom of the world.”
The majority of Building One was divided by a wall without windows and a door that sealed like a walk-in cooler.
“What’s back there?” Kelly asked.
“That’s the daylight room. We strongly encourage everyone to spend at least an hour a day in there. It’s so bright it’s like sitting on the surface of the sun, but the lamps provide the daily dose of UVA and UVB rays required for vitamin D synthesis and overall mental well-being.”
They breezed through another heated corridor and into Building Two, which housed twelve bunk beds, six to either side. The lower bunk had been replaced with a bureau and writing desk that fit underneath it and created something of a private workspace. The “rooms” were separated by curtained partitions that qualified as little more than visual barriers. While all of them appeared to be in use, there were no effects of a personal nature.
Morgan preceded them through the hallway and into Building Three.
“You’ll be staying in here,” he said. “We try to populate the living quarters with people who share the same hours. While all of the barracks are co-ed, we don’t necessarily offer joint accommodations.”
“That’s okay,” Kelly said.
If her words had an impact on Roche, it didn’t show. Not that they should have hurt him. It wasn’t like they’d slept together yet. She reddened at the thought. The mere fact that she felt the need to qualify the sentiment granted her insight she wasn’t sure she was ready to face.
Morgan walked to the rear of the structure and dropped one bag onto the floor at the base of a vacant bed to the left and the other to the right without announcing which one belonged to whom.
“I’d imagine you’re both exhausted and more than a little overwhelmed. The director’s budgeted four hours for you to catch up on some sleep, shower, or whatever you want—” His words abruptly ceased and he removed a handheld device from his breast pocket. He glanced at the screen and returned it to his pocket. The only hint of emotion was a subtle tightening of his lips. “I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait.”
“I guess that means you’re not going to finish the tour,” Roche said.
“There’ll be plenty of time to explore later. Believe me. As for now, all I can say is that Director Barnett is dying to greet you in person and has requested that Special Agent Avila accompany you down as soon as possible.”
“Down?” Kelly said.
Morgan smiled and left without another word.
18
DUTTON
Dry Storage, FOB Atlantis
People thought it was so easy being in charge of food service. They didn’t ever stop to think that he had to have the day’s meals prepared well in advance. He had to be in the kitchen by four in the morning to have breakfast served by five. Then he had to turn around and have lunch ready by 10:30, dinner by 16:30, and nutritious snacks for the graveyard crew by 22:00. Sometime in between he needed to be able to cook and prep, inventory and order, and somehow find time to sleep, which meant he had to take it where he could get it.
Les Dutton was lucky to be in bed by 22:30. While five hours might have been enough sleep for some of these younger kids, it was barely enough to touch his exhaustion, let alone take the edge off his constant headache. Fortunately, he had the rare talent of being able to sleep just about anywhere, which was how he got through his days. Before lunch, he took an hourlong power nap in dry storage on top of the sacks of rice and beans. After lunch, he had to be a little more creative, and utilized the pigpen, as he called it.
He’d volunteered specifically for the task of feeding whatever that thing in the cage was largely because no one else wanted anything to do with it—those who even knew about it, anyway—and because by doing so it secured him his own private space. He received the pigs on the same transport as the food supplies, and brought them down here, where he fed and watered them and stacked their cages against the wall by the feeding cart. He’d gotten used to their grunting and squealing and had almost come to enjoy his time with them. He no longer smelled the stink the guards who worked inside the room down the hall constantly complained about and had actually reached the point where he looked forward to seeing the pigs every day. Unlike the men, the pigs never complained about what he fed them or looked at him as though he were somehow a lesser species. They trusted and respected him clear up until the moment he loaded them on the cart and wheeled them down the hall, which was becoming harder and harder to do with each passing day.
As a child in Oklahoma, he’d grown up on a farm where he’d helped his father slaughter and butcher nearly every animal known to man. It had never really weighed on his conscience, either. It was simply something that needed to be done, like any other aspect of food preparation. As his old man used to say, “Supper ain’t gon’ climb up on the table on issown.”
This was different, though. That thing in there? It took pleasure from ripping these pigs up first, and whether or not you believed what the Bible said about every living thing being food, there was something indescribably brutal about the way that creature hurt the animals before killing them. Most of the guards thought Subject Z was pure and unadulterated evil, but Dutton had been around long enough to know that the nature of the snake was to strike, inject its venom through its wicked fangs, and watch its prey die a miserable death before consuming it. There was nothing evil about it doing what God had designed it to do. It simply was what it was.
Dutton walked along the row of cages and rubbed the damp noses of the swine when they stuck them through the wire mesh. He dumped some pellets into their troughs, topped off their water, and headed to the back corner of the room, where he’d arranged three wire racks housing stacked sacks of pig feed into a U shape, leaving a gap in the middle that couldn’t be seen from the door. He hauled down a couple of bags, laid them end-to-end, and stretched out on top of them. According to his watch, he still had a good ninety minutes before his alarm went off, which couldn’t have worked out any better.
He closed his eyes and welcomed the darkness.
A pig squealed. Then another.
He opened his eyes and looked through the gap below the second shelf. Not a single swine was visible. They’d all shrunken back into the straw in the rear of their cages, where they squealed like they did when he led them down the hall.
“Knock it off already, would you?” he shouted, and closed his eyes once more.
If anything, the racket grew louder as they thrashed around in their pens, slamming into the walls and attacking the metal floors with their hooves. He did his best to ignore them, and was eventually rewarded with silence, although the whole place reeked of fresh urine and crap.
That weightless feeling settled into his legs and he was on the brink of sleep when he heard something that summoned him back to consciousness. He was disoriented at first and couldn’t seem to recall what had caught his attention to begin with, until he heard a scratching sound off to his right.
Dutton turned to see nothing more exciting than bags upon bags of pig feed. Sometimes the pellets inside made noises when they settled, although generally not this long after delivery.
He closed his eyes and was again on the verge of sleep when he felt something on his leg, reflexively swatted it, and resumed his slumber. At least until he felt it again, moving up his thigh and across his belly. His eyes snapped open and he peered down at the folds in his shirt. He flattened them and found himself staring into the whiskered face of the ugliest mouse he’d ever seen. Its eyes were black, its head deformed, and its skin a sickly shade of gray.
“What do you know?” He picked it up by the tail so he could get a better look at it. “You hitch a ride in one of these sacks, little guy?”
It rounded on hi
m and bit his finger.
“Son of a—!”
Dutton dropped it and thrust his finger into his mouth. Blasted thing broke the skin.
Pain in his tongue. Under his gumline.
He removed his finger and scrutinized the wound. The edges were already bright red and starting to pucker. It felt like there was a fiery hot barb embedded inside.
His bile rose and he felt the sudden need to vomit. He retched and leaned forward. Dry heaved. The pain in his stomach drove him to his back.
Tiny hook-like nails climbed the side of his neck, passed over his jaw, and embedded themselves in his cheek.
He smacked the mouse, which only made it dig its nails deeper into his skin. He opened his mouth to cry out and the freaking thing crawled inside. He choked and sputtered and tried to cough it out, but it scurried deeper, until it wedged itself in his throat.
What felt like needles knitted through the soft tissue in his throat and pierced his palate. Wormed their way inside his sinuses, behind his eyes, and into his brain.
The universe opened before him and for the briefest of moments he understood the creature in the cage down the hall and how wrong he’d been about it. It wasn’t like a snake. It was evil, and it wouldn’t rest until it killed every last one of them.
19
EVANS
Teotihuacan
The tunnel felt as though it grew smaller and darker as Evans swam over sediment bristling with bones. His light barely reached beyond his outstretched arms. Having spent considerable time exploring the ruins of ancient Egypt, he knew all about curses, which tended to be a whole lot more bark than bite, but this one was oddly specific. He had to believe that whatever god once slumbered down here had died long ago; however, it appeared to have taken an absurd number of men and animals with it. Surely there was an explanation for the sheer amount of skeletal remains ahead of them, although he was beginning to wonder if he really wanted to know.
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