Then the passage opens up a few feet. He glides in beside her. Here, all he can do is gape.
Below them, no more than two feet, is a large underwater cave of bones. He spots the brachiosaurus skull immediately. The scans weren’t wrong at all, from what he’s seeing now. Although, the scans didn’t show the complete massiveness of the bone trove.
“I don’t even know what half of these are,” Kayla says, tone brimming with awe.
“I do,” Ash says. “This is it. This is the dig every paleontologist dreams of.”
“Jackpot, then?”
He smiles. “Jackpot.”
Kayla inspects the rocky walls of the passageway. “Too narrow to get everyone in here. The trove is plenty wide down there, but might need to open the passage up a bit more.”
Ash nearly chokes on his own saliva. He coughs, shakes his head. “That could be bad. It might all collapse.”
“Might,” Kayla says and swims to the trove of bones. “We have a few tricks up our sleeves, Dr. Barrington.”
“Ugh,” Ash says. “That sounds so…old. Just call me Ash.”
She snorts in his earpiece. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Well, that’s almost forty, so…”
“I—shut up.”
Kayla chuckles.
Ash laughs a bit and says, “How about we focus on getting these bones out, hmm? That would be fantastic.”
“Oh, hush, ya ol’fart. I’m getting to it.”
He laughs some more. Can’t help it.
From out of a sack attached to her belt, Kayla brings out what appears to be folded, blue cloth. A silver cylinder is fixed to it. Carefully, she unfolds the blue thing. The more she does, however, it looks more like a tarp than paper.
“When I set this,” Kayla says, “we have three minutes to evacuate the passage.”
“What happens if we don’t make it?”
Kayla humphs. “Then we don’t make it.” She spreads the blue tarp-like thing over as much of the bone trove as she can. In her right hand, she holds the silver cylinder.
“What is that thing?”
“This,” Kayla says, “is what will protect the fossils when we widen the passage.”
Ash frowns. “How in the name shit is a tarp going to protect anything?”
“Get the hell out of here in, three, two…one…” She presses a button on the cylinder and swims frantically toward him. “I said get the hell out! Go!”
Ash, not really sure how to maneuver in such a tight space, tucks, turns and swims toward the mouth of the passage.
“Gogogogo,” Kayla shouts.
He pushes himself to swim faster and in less than a minute he bursts out of the passage mouth and into the lake. He stops, though not for long. Kayla emerges, grabs his belt and pulls him away from the passageway and hill.
“Don’t stop,” she says. “It—”
There’s a muffled, though deep thudding sound. Then a force shoves him hard from behind. He spins, head over flippers. Kayla says something, though he’s not sure what. He’s trying not to puke as he tumbles through the water in a flurry of madness.
When he’s finally able to stop the momentum, Ash rights himself, choking down hot bile. Once the sensation of vomiting passes, he gapes at the hill as it cracks and silt swirls in the water creating a sickening stew.
The debris is quickly blown away and all Ash can think of is that the trove is gone. Whatever Kayla used, it created the collapse he feared would happen. His heart bashes itself against the walls of his chest like a mad-ape as the last of the silt and debris swirls to the side like a filthy curtain.
He blows out a long sigh of relief. The hillside is cracked, yet still intact.
“Okay, Bryce,” Kayla says. “We need to widen the passageway.”
“On it,” Bryce says. The mini-sub moves into position and does its thing.
“And you thought it’d collapse,” Kayla says direct link, swimming close to him. “Oh, what little faith you have.”
“Yeah, well, it should have collapsed,” Ash says, trying not to chuckle too much.
“Ah, but it didn’t. You ready to make history?”
Ash laughs. When it subsides, he says, “Not really. Just can’t wait to see what species are here.”
“Spoken like a true nerd.”
“Hey now.”
They both laugh a little and face the hill as Bryce widens the passage.
Via direct link from Julia, “You know we can hear everything up here even if you’re talking through direct link, right?”
He blinks.
“By the way, barf. You two need to get a damn room.”
“We’re just joking around like we do,” Ash says, not sure if he believes that or not.
“Stop it,’ Julia says. “That was all grade A flirting right there. She—”
“You know,” Kayla says, “being the dig team’s leader has its perks. Wanna know what one of those perks is? Anyone?”
Ash, bobbing in the water waves his arms to turn and look at her.
She winks through the clear glass composite of her mask. “No takers? Well, one of the perks is the ability to hear all communications, just like up in the office. Hi, Dr. Remus.”
Very tentative, “Hey, Kayla.”
Again, Kayla winks at Ash. “Oh, I just want you to know I’m not hitting on your boyfriend. I’m not into men.”
“You—I—he’s not my boyfriend.”
Kayla giggles, waves a hand at Ash. “I know, but see how it feels when one assumes?”
Through Ash’s earpiece, Julia sighs.
Kayla shoots Ash a thumbs-up and swims toward Bryce and the mini-sub.
“Ash…you’re not my boyfriend.”
He snorts. “That’d be weird, considering you’re not into men either.”
Kayla, obviously hearing this, pauses her strokes for a couple heartbeats, then continues to the mini-sub. “Let me see how we’re doing, Bryce.”
“Anyway, Quinn and I are listening and recording as the dig progresses. Just a heads up on that.”
“I kind of figured,” Ash says. “I’ll give as much description as I can.”
“Rock on. Be careful, dude.”
“Always, lady.” He swims, soon joining Kayla at the opening of a much wider passage.
“Not complete yet,” Kayla says. “But I think this diameter will do. About seven feet.”
Ash nods. “Looks good to me too.”
They back away and Kayla tells Bryce to finish up, keeping the seven-foot diameter. As Bryce does his thing, the other guy (Ash forgets his name) swims near, blowing the debris, silt and sand away from the dig site. The remaining eight of Kayla’s team swim around, more then five have what appear to be rifles of some kind. They’re lookouts, he realizes. Just incase of any dangers, they’re the first line of defense. And with the mutation coming out of nowhere…
Ash watches and waits as Bryce uses the laser drill of the mini-sub to widen the passage.
He waits, though inside his nerves are a tangle of electric wire.
TWLEVE
It takes almost ten minutes for the passage to widen completely and as soon as the mini-sub is ordered to moved aside and await further instructions, Kayla leads Ash, the debris blower guy, and four others down to the trove.
Like all the others, Ash is given a high-density mesh bag. He can’t help but wonder if they find bones too large to fit into the bags? Then what? The mini-sub, maybe? Probably.
“At the bone trove,” Kayla says, relaying to the office recording equipment. “Here with Dr. Barrington, world renown prehistoric anthropologist and paleontologist, and…what else?”
Ash chuckles. “Archeologist, but that one is typically ignored.”
Kayla nods. “Archeologist too. In any case, we have dug a passageway into the foot of what we’ve all dubbed History Hill, over one thousand feet under the surface of Lake Superior. And now we enter the trove of presumably prehistoric bone
s and fossils previously indicated in deepening our floor scans. What follows, is the discovery as it happens.”
She gives Ash a nod and points at the trove of bones no more than three feet below him.
He clears his throat. “Dr. Ashton Barrington, about to exhume the first skull of the trove.” He swims the short distance, right hand plunging through the empty eye socket of the brachiosaurus skull. It’s a young one, judging by the size. He carefully pulls the skull away from the rest of the large mound.
“A young brachiosaurus skull.” He holds it up as bits of debris float by. “Fully intact and, except…” His sight lingers on the deep gouge along the right side of the skull. “There is a long gouge on the right side. By the look, it appears to have been made by a sharp tooth.”
He places the skull in his bag and reaches for a random bone. They’re all very well preserved being locked in this cave for millions of years under the floor of Lake Superior. No air. Still, considering they are all bones, either the dinosaurs were picked clean by scavenger fish, or something stripped the flesh right off to consume. But what kind of creature could do such a thing? What would actually bother with peeling the flesh off its prey?
Breath whooshing through his helmet and mask, Ash pulls free what appears to be a femur. He swims backward, bumping into a few of Kayla’s team as he does. The femur is at least six feet long. Too big to stow in the bag.
“It appears,” Ash says, “I have the femur of the same juvenile brachiosaurus.” He turns it back and forth. “There are more of the same deep gouges as on the skull.” Which concerns him a bit. What could have made those marks? His brain tries to click through all the possible species that might’ve been in the area millions of years ago, but draws a long, white blank. “Too large to place in my bag, so transferring out of the passage to Bryce.” At least he thinks Bryce will retrieve it. Hopes so, anyway.
The team hands it out of the passage and he returns his attention to the trove again.
Little by little, him and Kayla pull apart the tangle of bones. Only a few fit in their bags. Then…
“No,” Ash says, barely able to breathe as they come upon the last of the trove.
“What?” Kayla asks. She even nudges him.
Ash shakes his head, blinking at the sight below him. “There’s no way.”
He’s vaguely aware of Kayla swimming closer to him. She glances at Ash, then follows his sightline. She doesn’t say anything.
Ash swallows down a thick thump in his throat, heart thudding. “That…that’s a carnotaurus skull.” He observes the short skull adorned with a pair of knubby horns over the hollow sockets of its eyes. Dead giveaways of this species. “They have only ever been found in South America. Very rare.”
“So,” Kayla says, “why do you think its skull is here when…wait, is that a tyrannosaurus rex under it?”
Ash squints, and holy shit…
“Yes,” he says. “T-Rex.” The skull is just barely under the carnotaurus and twice as large. The closest a tyrannosaurus has been found in this area is Sue, discovered in South Dakota. She is also the largest recorded. Though, various species of tyrannosauruses have been considered an invasive species from Asia.
“Dr. Barrington,” Kayla says. “Are you alright?”
He shakes it off. “Y-Yeah. Sorry. We just already have more species here than we should, if science is right. Tyrannosaurus’ might have been an invasive species to this region. But the carnotaurus…” He shakes his head.
“How do you suppose those species got here, Dr. Barrington?” Julia chiming in, like always. “Ash, how do all these fossils end up in one place? Because it’s not making sense to my brain.”
All he can do is shake his head.
And for some reason, his mind drifts to his daughter Ky. Her bright, smiling face under the warm summer sun as she picks tiger lilies outside the entrance of Maker’s Woods before their weekly hike to Ghost Rock. Wondering, as he often does, what his beloved wife would have thought about their beautiful, smart daughter? Their daughter who poured her heart into everything she did. Their Ky, who would rather hug someone than hold a grudge. Not saying she didn’t have her moments, like all children, but her moments were few and far between. His memories shift to them fishing on the beach of their Minnesota campsite, watching the sun dip lower and lower across the lake. Golds and pinks and reds and purples, all shimmering over the surface of the nearly placid water as far as the eye could see.
And what was it Ky turned to him and said? Something he hadn’t expected, but…
“Mom’s watching us,” Ash says now as the memory fades.
“What?” Kayla waves a hand in front of him. Bits of lake debris swirl. “Dr. Barrington are you alright?”
He blinks, shakes his head, hating himself for letting the memories override reality again. “Y-Yeah. Sorry.”
“Ky?” Julia asks in his earpiece.
He sighs. “Yeah.”
“Who’s Ky?” Kayla frowns at him and adds, “I hope you’ve stopped recording.”
“I have,” Julia says. “Ash, just breathe. She’s in your heart, always remember that.”
“Who’s Ky?” Kayla asks.
“I know,” Ash says. “Just sometimes—”
“Whoa,” Kayla shouts. “Who the hell is Ky?”
Ash wants to tell her, but his mouth doesn’t work right and instead of telling her Ky is his daughter, all he manages is a mumbling, “A-ghter.”
Julia swings in for the rescue. “His daughter. She was murdered over a year ago.”
Kayla mutters something Ash can’t make out. Then, “Sorry for your loss, Ash. Really. But I need you to focus here. With you naming off the bones we pull from this place it adds more validity. Murdock will actually do something. And I, for one, want nothing more than to get the fuck out of here. This will be enough to shut Infinity Moon down and Murdock can swim in the spoils, which will be billions judging by all the rare finds here. So, suck it up and finish your damn job.”
A long moment of silence, then Julia says, “Well, holy shit. Now that’s a speech.”
“When you haven’t seen the surface in almost a year, so yeah, I’m a little pissed. We all want out of here. We need to get out of here.”
Julia says nothing, as Ash figured. She knows just how right Kayla is and any other argument is moot. Ash knows Julia is smart enough to recognize this.
“Okay,” Ash says, managing a few breaths. The memories of Ky, those ghosts, stowed away for now. “Let’s finish this and get everyone back home.” He pulls the carnotaurus skull out of the bundle and passes it up the chain. Too large to fit into his bag.
“Recommencing recording…now,” Julia says, her tone cold and dry.
“The discovery of the carnotaurus skull, a species only found in South America,” Ash says, “has me more stumped than ever. The brachiosaurus, now the carnotaurus. Why are they here? How are they here? And even though there’s a young T-Rex skull, tyrannosauruses were invasive species that roamed and hunted widely.” With Kayla’s help, they pull the T-Rex skull from the trove, turn it and…
He gasps, and for the longest moment, cannot speak.
“What…what happened to it?” Kayla asks, frowning at the skull, which is nearly as long as she is tall.
“It…” Ash swallows down a hard lump in his throat. “Appears something took a bite out of its head.”
“A bite?” Kayla points at the skull. “Half the skull is missing.”
“Something very big took a bite,” Ash corrects, not really sure what to say, but saying something. He clears his throat and says, “It appears some rather large animal bit a majority of the young T-Rex’s skull off. Perhaps an attack by a larger T-Rex, or…”
“Or what, Dr. Barrington?” Kayla asks.
His gaze slips over the clean cuts in the bone. It doesn’t look like the skull was bitten into but…sheared.
“I’ll need to examine it more to be sure, but it appears that whatever bit through the skull,
there’s more of a shear than a bite.”
“Dr. Barrington, can you explain a bit more what you mean?”
He shakes his head. “Not at this time.”
Kayla and Ash hand the partial T-Rex skull over to her team. It takes four of them to swim it out of the passageway to the lake.
Ash places a few more smaller skulls in his bag. A couple velociraptors, skulls no larger than a horse or cow. He gathers smaller femurs and various other bones. The larger ones, he passes to Kayla’s team. The trove is huge, he realizes as they dig in. Much larger than he at first realized. And deep. It feels like the more they dig, the more bones appear. It’s almost maddening.
He’s about to have Kayla net a bunch of the bones and just pull them out with the mini-sub when something more unusual than either the brachiosaurus or carnotaurus catches his eye. It’s partially buried, but…
He swims to it, pulling away various other bones. Then he just sort of floats there staring at the new skull.
“What is it, Dr. Barrington?” Kayla asks.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But it was a herbivore, judging by the teeth.”
The skull isn’t small, either. Larger than himself and maybe another person. Something between a brontosaurus and a triceratops. Kayla loops a strap through its eye sockets and orders Bryce to back up slowly. As the skull is pulled from out of the trove, other bones and skulls tumble into the hole it creates, though fall straight through. He frowns, peering into the hole.
“There seems to be some kind of tunnel below the trove,” he says.
“What?” Kayla joins him, also looking into the hole. “Holy shit, you’re right. How come our scans never picked this up?”
All Ash can do is shrug.
Kayla sighs. “Julia, hun, please stop recording.”
“Done,” Julia says.
Kayla shines light into the hole, revealing a very large tunnel leading down into absolute darkness.
“I think we’re done for the day,” Kayla says. “We’ve collected a lot and it’ll take you a while to do your thing.”
Ash grunts. “Sometimes it only takes a couple of seconds.”
“Right. Okay. But I’d rather you take this a piece at a time and be accurate rather than flying through and getting things wrong.”
The Guillotine Page 8
