by Michael Bray
Russo didn’t answer, watching his team carefully as he approached the rope and clipped his harness to it.
“Just like the last time, lean back and take it steady.”
Morrison led the way, Russo following on the second rope, unable to tear his eyes away from his team, who were standing at the top of the slope. He couldn’t really see their faces – the shadows were too heavy in the green hue of the lights, but he could feel them staring at him with hungry eyes.
Bastards.
Turning his attention back to the climb, and trying to ignore the pains that slammed through his body, he inched his way to the jagged horizontal opening at the bottom of the slope.
“Looks tight,” Morrison said as they came to a halt. “We’ll have to go in here on our bellies.”
“Is that safe?” Russo said as claustrophobia threatened to overcome him.
“None of this is safe. If you want to turn back, now’s the time.”
Russo looked at the jagged black mouth, and tried to imagine how it would feel to be crawling through it on his stomach, his face only inches from the ground, and his back pressed against the thousands of tons of ice above him.
Was it really worth it? He asked himself as he contemplated what he was about to do.
Was it worth the stress, was it worth the risk?
These were questions that would always be answered with one of his imitation mint antidepressants. Without them, those questions wouldn’t go away so easily. The truth was that he was ready to give up. He was tired, both mentally and physically, but he was also stubborn, and wasn’t about to let his team see any sign of weakness that they could exploit. He looked at the hole, then to Morrison, making sure to look him dead in the eye.
“Let’s do this.” He said simply, managing a smile that felt as repulsive on his lips as it must have looked.
“For the record, I’m advising against this,” Morrison said as he fed more rope into the black depths. “You have no idea what’s down there.”
“I know exactly what’s down there.” He whispered. “And it’s waiting for us.”
Morrison dropped to his knees and peered into the fissure, unclipping his light from the front of his jacket to see better inside.
“Looks like it gets pretty narrow. No more than two men at a time. Looks like it levels off a little way down, but it’s hard to say.”
Russo was terrified to the point of thinking he was going to throw up. Confined spaces were one of the few things he hadn’t been able to train his mind and body to ignore, and the hole in front of him looked like his own personal hell.
“You don’t look so good,” Morrison said.
“I’ll be fine, I’m just… Excited.”
“There’s no shame in being afraid. I’ve been in some of the worst hellholes on this planet, but this place is giving me all kinds of bad vibes.”
“It’s exciting isn’t it? The thought of climbing into hell itself?” Russo whispered.
Morrison frowned at the haggard, bearded spectre in the dark.
“I guess it is.” He muttered.
“Shall we proceed?”
“I guess so.”
The pair ducked their heads into the opening and dropped to their bellies, army crawling through the narrow passage, Morrison, as always led the way with Russo slightly behind. As they delved deeper, Russo could feel the weight of the ice pressing against his back as he pulled himself along. Whenever the thought of collapse entered his mind, he forced it aside, counting back from ten until the idea went away. At the point when he was sure it was too tight to progress further, the chamber began to widen. Just a little at first, then big enough to crawl on all fours, and then large enough to stand in.
He heard Morrison draw breath a second before he saw for himself, joining him in a surprised gasp.
The pair stood and looked at the scene below. In that one instant, all of Russo’s plans changed. Nothing had prepared them for this.
“I don’t believe it…” Morrison muttered, his eyes wide and staring. He looked to Russo for some kind of a response, and was chilled by what he saw.
Russo was smiling.
CHAPTER 61
Andrews had shaved his five day beard growth and put on his best suit. He adjusted his tie and assessed his reflection, trying to see it as an outsider would. He looked exactly how he should – a high ranking government official who still had his sanity. That was key. Making a minute adjustment to his tie, Andrews walked through the deserted ship and out on the deck. In the distance, he could see the decommissioned battleship making its way through the ice, smashing through the field with little effort. They would be here soon enough, and if they followed procedure, would send a boarding party to the stricken the Victorious.
Andrews hoped so. He had his evidence prepared, and was ready finally to discredit Russo and try to regain a little of his self-respect. The addiction had been easy to prove, as were the murders for which he was responsible. The only thing that remained was convincing those higher up the chain that their chosen project leader had become a liability. If that meant he was pulled from the entire operation, so be it. It had after all, been a complete clusterfuck from the start anyway. Taking a deep breath, Andrews watched the battleship draw closer. It was time.
Russo couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Even in his wildest imagination, he couldn’t have pictured such a perfect scene. The narrow crevasse had opened into a gargantuan bowl – a stadium like natural formation of ice. High above, golden shafts of Antarctic sun streamed through holes in the arched roof of the giant ice cave. Down below, the platform on which Russo and Morrison now stood fell away at a natural incline, before meeting the ocean that had formed a huge underground lake. As impressive as it was, Russo had barely paid it any attention. Instead, his focus was on the creature. It lay motionless, its enormity perfectly visible in the crystal clear waters. Around it swam three of its young. Each roughly the size of a fully grown elephant, the offspring of the creature stayed close to its parent.
“Did you know about this?” Morrison whispered as he looked at the scene below.
“Of course I didn’t,” Russo snapped, staring open mouthed. “But this is a game changer, make no mistake.”
“If this thing has offspring, there must be another one somewhere.”
“I doubt it.”
“Are you serious? These things had to come from somewhere.”
“Believe me, if there were more than one of these things, we would have detected them.” Russo whispered as the rest of his team started to enter the chamber and stare at the spectacle below.
“So how do you explain this?”
“Some creatures, for example, certain species of frogs and seahorses are asexual. They don’t need a mate to produce offspring.”
“You think that’s what we have here? That’s a pretty big leap, Russo.”
“Not really. Look.” Russo pointed to the water’s edge, which was littered with whale bones.
“This isn’t a new home for these creatures. My suspicion is they have always existed here, generation after generation of them living and dying in this space.”
“How would they feed?” Morrison asked as he gawped at the creature.
“This location ties in with a recent collapse of the shelf before we first detected the Bloop signal again. My guess is the mother had been trapped here, and the collapse opened the chamber wide enough to allow her finally to get out into the open ocean.
“That still doesn’t answer how it was able to feed, to sustain itself for all these years if it was trapped.”
“Actually it does. Let’s assume there was some kind of access tunnel or canal leading to the ocean, but it was too small for our creature to escape through. That doesn’t mean nothing was able to come in. Look at those whale bones. There are a hell of a lot of them. My suspicion is that the whales were drawn here, who knows, maybe some rudimentary form of sonar enticed them straight into the creature’s lair.”
“All I hear is more if’s and buts. You really don’t know anything about these creatures, do you, Russo?”
“No I don’t,” he snapped. “I intend to find out. That is the beauty of this. We have discovered a missing link in the evolution of this planet. A subspecies self-contained for thousands of years, living and dying in its own miniature eco system. It actually makes sense now.”
“What does?”
“Why this creature went on a rampage when it was set free. Can you imagine the sensory overload it must have felt when access to the ocean was finally granted? For years it must have been able to sense its surroundings teeming with life, but was unable to act on them.”
“So why come back? If it had been stuck in here for so long, why not stay out in the world?” Morrison asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? After we tagged it and it was hurt, its natural instincts told it to return to the one place where it felt safe.”
“This is all well and good. You still haven’t told me what you intend to do or even why we’re here.”
Russo checked his watch, and then turned to Mito, who along with the others had joined Russo and Morrison in the cave. “Give me the radio.” He said simply, holding out his hand.
Mito handed it over, unable to tear his eyes away from the creature. Russo grinned at Morrison, for the first time able to forget about his agonising withdrawal pains.
“It’s time we did a spot of fishing.”
Andrews looked Commander Tomlinson in the eye, watching for a reaction. The pair was sitting at the table in the galley of the battleship. He had told the commander all about Russo and how he had gone off the rails. As Andrews had relayed the information, the sandy haired Tomlinson had simply stared impassively, his blue eyes watching Andrews’s reactions for any hint of a lie.
“And you say Agent Russo has some kind of addiction?” Tomlinson said in his southern twang.
“That’s right.” Andrews replied, tossing one of Russo’s empty mint tubes on the table. “I found that in his room. I’m sure you can get some residue from the inside if you wanted to prove exactly what he’s been taking. When he left the ship, he was exhibiting classic withdrawal symptoms.”
“And you say there have been, uh, casualties?”
“Deaths, Commander. Murders. Let’s call them what they are.”
“These are wild accusations. Do you have any proof?”
“Aside from my own testimony, actually I do. There are three other people who were on board who can verify my report. They’ve gone after Russo to try to stop him, but have written and signed statements as to what happened before they headed out over the ice. Those are right here,” he said, handing the folder of papers to Tomlinson.
“This is a very serious situation.”
“Yes sir, it is,” Andrews shot back. “What I need to hear from you is what you intend to do about it. It’s obvious to me this has all gone too far.”
“Absolutely. I agree completely. What we need to do is ensure we resolve this with the minimum of…uh, shall we say embarrassment.”
“I get that, Commander. Believe me. I know how things work here. Resolution with the minimum exposure or risk. I get it.”
“I’m glad you understand. Do you know anything about what is happening here?”
“Not really. I don’t have the security clearance.”
“You do now.” Tomlinson said.
“Our task was to capture this creature with…”
“I know this part. I picked up pieces along the way,” Andrews cut in. “I don’t get exactly how you intended to get the thing from the ice to the boat and contain it.”
“The idea was simple really. We suspected this creature always had a lair, a place where it felt safe. Russo’s job once he’d found it was to frighten the creature out into the open and in to the waiting transport bay of this research vessel.”
“How do you frighten something so big?”
“The idea was to use a series of underwater concussion grenades. Russo was under instruction to toss them in the water and drive the creature out of the cave system.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you intended to get it on board the boat. Besides, wouldn’t that compromise the integrity of the cave?”
“The structure of the cave system was a concern, however, we felt by using underwater charges, the damage to the outer structure would be minimal. Of course, as with anything there are certain risks. As to getting it on the boat, we intended to rely on using what we know about these creatures.”
“Let me guess. You have bait in the holding tank, right?”
Tomlinson nodded. “As you know, this creature has an almost insatiable hunger. Our research showed much of the marine life in this area has vacated what they deem to be the creature’s territory. In the end, it was fairly straightforward thought process. The holding tank contains a recently killed whale. We were to send a series of underwater vibrations that we hoped the creature would hone in on, sensing either a creature in distress, or a rival to its territory. The hope was that in its curiosity, it would swim right into the holding tank and we could close it up behind.”
“You’re talking in past tense. I hope that means you fully intend to call this off.”
“Yes,” Tomlinson nodded. “This has already gone too far, and if Russo is half as unstable as you say he is, then we need to remove him from this situation.”
Tomlinson’s radio crackled to life, as the unmistakeable sound of Russo’s voice filled the room.
“Speak of the devil,” Andrews said. “Mind if I sit in whilst you give him the bad news? Forgive me if I seem mistrusting, but a hell of a lot has happened since this mission began.”
“By all means, stay and listen. I fully intend to make our stance on this situation completely clear.”
“What do you mean stand down?” Russo hissed into the radio. “Everything’s ready and in place.”
“That’s a direct order agent,” Tomlinson’s voice crackled over the radio. “This mission is over. Return to the surface. A chopper will pick you up and bring you and the rest of your team in. You have a lot of questions to answer.”
“You don’t understand, we’re so close. Have you any idea what we’ve risked to get here?”
“The only thing you have risked are the lives of good men and the integrity of our government.”
“That’s easy for you to say in your big fucking boat with your fat salary,” Russo croaked, his eyes wide. “I put myself through hell to complete my mission and these are the thanks I get?”
“You went way beyond the call of duty here. We all know that.”
“That’s what I do!” he screamed, his voice reverberating around the cavernous space. “That’s why you hired me. I do whatever it takes.”
“Even as far as murder?”
Russo and Morrison shared a worried glance, and then Russo’s frown morphed into a twisted grin.
“Andrews is with you isn’t he? I bet he couldn’t wait to start feeding you his bullshit version of events. Tell him he has a lot to answer for once our fish is on board and I get back.”
“You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying to you. For the record, and to make myself perfectly clear. Abort the mission. You are relieved of command.”
“Its right here, I’m looking at it as I talk to you!” He raged, gripping the radio hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
“I will not have a drug addict in charge of good men.” Tomlinson said, the authority in his voice unmistakable. “If you want to avoid making this situation any worse, come back to the surface right now. I’m sending choppers to the location now to extract you all.”
“Sir, all I’m asking is for you to open the tank doors on the transport. I’ll do the rest. It’s so close.”
“Negative. The containment vessel has been put in stand down. This is over, Agent Russo. Come to the surface.”
“So someone else can take the credit for all my hard work? I don’t think so.”
Russo hissed, glaring into the gloom at the creature. “I’ve come too far to let some prick in a suit just tell me to give up.”
“You are out of line, agent. This behaviour isn’t doing you any favours. Come to the surface before things get any worse.”
“Fuck you,” Russo said, before lowering his voice just to above a whisper. “I won’t let you take this away from me, do you understand? You dare sit there, safe on that boat of yours and give me the high and mighty command speech. It’s me here in the trenches. I’m the one who puts his neck on the line. I’m the one who gets the job done. You can say whatever you like, believe me when I tell you people will name this fish after me. They will all know the name of the man who discovered it.”
“Agent, I…”
With a roar of defiance and frustration, Russo threw the radio as hard as he could, shattering it against the ice wall, then fell to his knees, pounding the floor and blinking away tears. Morrison looked on, and then turned to Mito.
“Gather everyone together. Prepare to go back topside.”
Russo’s sobs morphed into laughter, and he turned towards Morrison. “I don’t think so. We go ahead with the mission.”
“There is no mission,” Morrison said. “You heard what was said on the radio. They aren’t waiting for the creature. This is over, by direct orders of the Commander. Flushing it out now won’t do anything but put lives at risk, and it sounds like you are already in a lot of trouble.”
“Didn’t I tell you I always have a backup plan?”
“I don’t think we should…”
“We have ropes and we have guns.”
“Whatever you have in mind, forget it. Keep your money too. This is over. There’s no way I’m living out my years rotting in a prison cell because of you.”
“You already killed a man. I’ll make sure they know. I’m not going down alone for this. So help me I’ll drag you down with me if you don’t do as I say.” Russo bellowed.
“What is it that you want?”
“I want us to use our ropes, and our weapons and our explosives, and I want to drag one of the newborns out of the water.”
