by David Wood
The elevator was more than big enough to comfortably carry all eight team members, plus Terence Reid, the muscled security guy, and two of his subordinates. They came in last and as Reid slid the large gate closed, he said, “This is Mike Gates and Ronda Tate.” The two nodded, their faces serious, weapons at their sides. “The three of us will always go where you go, so get used to us hanging around, but feel free to ignore us.”
“I’m still not sure why you feel there’s such a need for so much... muscle,” Aston said.
Despite her annoyance with him, Slater agreed with that assessment.
“Like I said,” Sol interjected before Terry could answer. “Just company policy. Take the man at his word, just ignore them.”
Sol reached for a large control hanging from a thick cable at the front of the elevator. It only had two large buttons, one above the other. Up and down, Slater presumed. Sol pressed the lower one and the elevator jerked once, then began to smoothly descend.
The shaft was dimly lit, a black cable hanging down along one wall with small, oblong halogen lights every so often. The car rattled softly, steel cables hissed through the mechanisms above. They passed rhythmically through bright patches, then dimness, then light again for what seemed entirely too long to Slater. Just how deep were they going? Her ears popped once, then again. As she began to feel an irrational fear that they would never reach the bottom, the elevator slowed, then bumped to a stop.
“Holy cow,” Jeff said. “Journey to the center of the earth, am I right?” He looked around, grinning, but no one else shared his humor.
Slater saw the same trepidation in all the other faces, except Jeff’s, that she was certain was mirrored on her own features. Being this deep underground was uncomfortably claustrophobic despite the fact that ahead of them was a large and well lit cavern.
Reid slid the gate open and stood back to let everyone get off the elevator. As Slater stepped out, she stopped dead and gasped. The cavern wasn’t large, it was huge, arcing up above them into a dome of rock high above. Stalactites pointed down, stalagmites beneath them, some taller even than Terry Reid, the biggest of their group. Warm air tickled her face, the temperature higher than she had expected, and almost humid. Striations of the glowing green fungi covered the walls like veins, spread out mostly, but occasionally in a thick patch. Spotlights on the ground provided the light, pointing up into the dome, creating areas of light and shade.
“Stand still one moment,” Sol said, his hand resting on a control box near the elevator. “I’m going to turn out the lights. Give your eyes a moment to adjust.”
Once everyone had stopped moving, he flicked a switch and darkness fell like a lid had been closed. Almost immediately, the glowing fungi stood out, a network all over the walls. Slater’s sense of wonder increased as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark and the whole cavern took on an otherworldly glow, more and more features standing out in the soft green illumination.
“That’s some of the most bioluminescent fungi I’ve ever seen,” Jahara Syed whispered, eyes wide as she scanned left and right. “Is it a fungus?”
“That’s partly what we’re here to find out,” Sol said. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Okay, watch out, lights coming back.” The cavern burst into life again, orange and suddenly artificial. “Take a look around, everyone.”
“Jeff, get footage of everything,” Slater said. “Start with a close-up of the elevator and controls, pan around for wide shots of the cavern, then start gathering all the details you can.”
“Yes, boss.” Jeff gave a crooked grin, waited as if expecting some response, then shrugged and turned away when Slater just stared at him.
She turned to Marla. “That guy, honestly.”
Marla laughed. “He’s an idiot, but he’s harmless enough. I’m going to try to be more forgiving of him.”
“You’re a better person than I am, then! We need to pick a spot where I can do a piece to camera. Somewhere that looks good, but the sound won’t be lost.”
Marla’s eyes widened as she turned away from looking up at the vaulted ceiling high above. “Oh yeah, work. This place is amazing.”
But Slater wasn’t really listening. She watched as Aston and O’Donnell were led away from the group by Sol, over to a distant part of the cavern. Suspicious, she called Jeff back and had Marla fire up the mic and set her levels. Once they were ready, camera and audio running, she said, “Follow me.”:
Sticking to the shadows, she led them around one side to slowly creep up on the three men. Aston and O’Donnell were examining a strange-looking, smooth black door while Sol and another man, clearly a guard, watched over them. The guard wasn’t one of the two who had come down with Reid, so Slater assumed he must be stationed down here, guarding the door. She wondered if that was really necessary. He stood by, looking bored, absently balancing a metallic blue fidget spinner on one finger as it spun silently. His other hand rested on his holstered pistol.
Slater turned her attention to the door. Large blocks of gray stone, neatly carved and fitted together, made the frame, the door itself a single slab of smooth black rock. It had a kind of recurring pattern lightly carved into the surface. Immediately, cold settled into her gut. From an interesting cavern with strange fungal growth, the place suddenly had something to be scared of, front and center. She remembered the door deep under Lake Kaarme, the mystery of its presence that they had never been able to ascertain, now lost forever. What was this door doing here? It certainly wasn’t new, but how long had it been there? Did that early twentieth century expedition Sol had mentioned put it in? For what? Where did it go? And even as she thought these things, she knew it had to be far older than that.
None of the men were talking as they looked over the door, Aston running his fingertips over its surface. Eventually he said, “I can’t say for certain that it’s the same, but it looks similar.”
Similar to what? Slater thought, but deep down she knew, thinking of Lake Kaarme again.
“I’ll need to do some checking,” O’Donnell said. “But I feel like I’ve seen photos, or maybe drawings, of doors like this before. There’s a lot of conflicting stuff out there, a lot of made-up nonsense. But I’ll take photos and cross-check this.”
“You’ll be able to get online when we return to base,” Sol said. “You can do all the checking you need.”
They turned away from the door and were all clearly surprised to see Slater and her team, filming them. Sol’s face darkened with annoyance.
“Just documenting everything,” Slater said, before Sol could speak.
She strode toward them, making a beeline for Aston, forcing the others to step out of the way or be run over. She knew the action was partly irrational, but her anger at Aston seemed to override every other thought. She shouldered past the men and approached the door, catching Aston’s arm as she went to stop him from moving away. The guard quickly pocketed his fidget spinner and made a move to stop her, but Sol raised a hand to stay him. “It’s all right.”
Slater took a long look at the door, enjoying Aston’s discomfort as he stood beside her, too scared to move away after she had stopped him. But the door held her attention. It felt somehow alien to her but she had no rational way to explain why. Discomforted herself now, she drove away the eerie feeling by focusing on a more powerful emotion: her desire to punch Aston in the throat. She took his elbow and yanked him back toward the door, then took up position next to him, and turned toward the camera.
He started to protest and she gave him a hard stare and held her index finger in front of his face. He shut up like a told off school boy. She turned back to the camera, caught Marla’s nod that she was ready, and said, “Three... two... one...,” then paused a moment before her television face fell down like a mask. With a soft smile, she said, “Believe it or not, this is Sam Afton...”
“Aston,” he said meekly, his expression annoyed and cowed at the same time.
“My apologies, Mister Aston.” She turned back to the c
amera. “Sam Aston is a member of the team,” she said, enjoying the juvenile pleasure of intentionally omitting any credentials. “Mister Aston, what can you tell us about this door, on the far side of a huge cavern, hundreds of feet beneath the Antarctic surface?”
He frowned, swallowed, shook his head. “I’m really not sure. It’s not necessarily my area of expertise.”
“Is it proof of life beneath Antarctica?”
From the corner of her eye she watched Sol and Dig smirking, enjoying her putting of Aston on the spot almost as much as she was. She remembered how resistant he was at Kaarme too, never even suggesting a theory he couldn’t prove. And how uncomfortable he was in front of the camera every time she had it pointed at him. And now he almost squirmed under the eye of the lens, and the others grinning at him.
“Maybe you should ask Dig,” he tried. “It’s probably more his...”
“What do you think could have made the door, Mister Aston? From among known Antarctic life, I mean?”
“I’m really not sure...”
“Do you believe subterranean penguins did it? Or Antarctic Terrestrial Invertebrates?” While she was enjoying her mockery of him, she realized it was also a cover for how much the presence of the door had disturbed her. She found herself perturbed by everything since the elevator had gone so deep, and was using her anger at Aston to deal with it.
“Penguins?” Aston said, forcing a smile. “What?”
“You said the door looks similar. Similar to what?”
Aston’s forced smile melted into a frown. “I know you’re not happy with me right now, but you know what? We’re done here.” He turned and stormed away.
Slater watched him go, then turned her attention to Sol, who startled slightly to find himself suddenly under her scrutiny, the grin sliding off his face.
“Sol Griffin, expedition leader,” she said. “What do you know about the door?”
“Not much,” he replied, rallying as the camera turned to pin him in its gaze. “The survivor of the twentieth-century expedition reported seeing it. Otherwise, we haven’t studied it yet.”
“And what’s on the other side?” Slater asked.
Sol smiled. “You’re going to find out very soon.”
5
Halvdan Landvik sat pensively in his office on London’s Threadneedle Street, one finger stroking his neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard as he looked at a painting on the wall opposite. It was large, dark tones of old oil paint in browns, reds, yellows, by Mårten Eskil Winge from 1872, depicting Thor’s Fight with the Giants. Landvik stared at the hammer Thor held high, yellow lightning arcing around it. He shook his head, thinking of what was lost. Of what might have been. He supposed he should be grateful to be alive, but sometimes that seemed like small consolation. The anger that boiled in his gut at those events would likely never go away. No matter, he could use that as fuel for future endeavors. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
“Come.”
Two nervous-looking employees, Cooper and Waite, entered. Cooper was tall and thin, completely bald. Waite was of a bigger build, but shorter, his hair dark and curly. Both of them largely useless. Genuinely good quality help was almost impossible to find. Landvik watched them, his mood soured further by their obvious weakness. Where were the strong any more? Where were the heroes in this age of digital excess and human frailty? They were clearly waiting for permission to speak.
“Well?” he snapped. “What do you have to report?”
“Our man is successfully embedded with the team,” Cooper said.
Landvik nodded approvingly. At least his underlings could do one thing right. “What else?”
“Our operatives are on their way. They’ll be ready to strike at the appropriate time.”
“Good. I’m pleased that something is going to plan.”
“Should we not simply go ahead and take the base?” Waite asked.
“No. Let SynGreen’s team do all the hard work for us, then we’ll strike. No point making unnecessary work for our lot. The scientists will work harder if they believe they’re doing it for a financial reward, and not under duress. The carrot is more effective than the stick.” They both nodded, but made no move to leave. “I sense you have more questions,” Landvik said, his voice tired. “Reservations, perhaps?”
“Honestly, sir,” Cooper said. “We’re a little confused at your interest in this project. It all seems a bit sketchy, not to mention nearly impossible to believe.”
“Really? Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“Can it be true though, sir?” Waite pressed. “A new source of energy?”
Landvik took out a folder from his desk drawer, opened it and thumbed through the several sheets inside. He had no intention of letting these two fools actually study the material, but often seeing some physical evidence helped people accept a truth. “I found confirmation of a sort in the form of this record. It’s from a pre-WWII Russian expedition to the very place SynGreene have set up their base. The Russians were in search of a powerful energy source, one they thought could make them the greatest superpower in the world. They ran into problems, unexplained in these documents. But of course, survival in the Antarctic that long ago was fraught with danger.” The two men still appeared puzzled. “What don’t you understand?” Landvik asked, losing patience.
“Well, this company isn’t exactly an energy corporation,” Cooper said, raising his palms.
Landvik smiled. “I’m not interested in the energy potential. That is for others to consider. I am interested in the military potential. Trust me, this is going to change the world.”
6
Aston loitered near the back of the cavern by the elevator, stung by Slater’s verbal assault. He knew he deserved her anger, but that little ambush had been downright juvenile. At the thought, he couldn’t help a smile tugging his lips. In a way, he had to respect her for it. Maybe it was one step nearer to them having an actual conversation. At least public mockery was a level up from icy snubbing.
He watched as Slater did a piece to camera beside the stone door. She was a professional, and she deserved so much better than this. There was no reason she couldn’t front a serious show on the major networks. She had the looks, the presence, the eloquence. Sometimes, the world threw the strangest curveballs at people. The same could be said for himself, he supposed, staring past Slater at the mysterious markings on the smooth door. The door that filled him with a kind of dread. It marked a point where everything about this trip changed. Where he could no longer pretend things weren’t awry here. But, he had to remind himself, the presence of a door like the one under Lake Kaarme didn’t mean a prehistoric monster like the one they had encountered there also lurked here. Though that beast had been a guardian, if the local legends were to be believed. So maybe there wasn’t a cretaceous throwback here, but could there be a different type of guardian? Was it possible, or was he projecting his own fear? But his fear was well-founded. The temperate conditions, the strangely glowing fungus, the obviously man-made door. Or something-made, anyway. It all pointed to problems Aston didn’t want to run into. But what choice did he have now? He was committed to the job, even though Sol had said he could leave at any time. He questioned the truth of that, though he wasn’t committed to Sol, but to his own curiosity.
Slater finished her piece and looked up past the camera. She saw him watching and held his eye for a moment, her expression neutral. He stared back, gave a small, non-committal smile that he hoped conveyed a No hard feelings vibe. She didn’t respond, but didn’t immediately look away either. That was something.
“Can I talk to you a moment?”
Aston turned to see Jahara Syed approach him. He glanced back, but Slater was already back in conversation with Jeff and Marla. He sighed. “Sure,” he said to Jahara. “What’s up?”
“You’re a marine biologist, I know, but that’s a specialty, right? I mean, you’re a biologist first and foremost?” She looked frightened of so
mething.
“Sure, I guess so.”
Syed pointed to a patch of wall nearby, bright with the glowing fungus the grew on it, spreading out in a web. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Honestly, I hadn’t had a close look yet. I’ve been distracted.”
“Yeah, but even from a distance, this isn’t normal, right? It’s so bright, so virulent.”
Aston looked at her face for a moment and realized what he had at first taken for fear was actually excitement. “There are kinds of photonic plankton that are really bright...” he started.
“I know, I know, but this is plant life!”
“Well, it’s fungus, isn’t it? I know that’s a gray area, but we have to be careful how we classify this stuff.”
Syed nodded, moving to look intently at the nearest growth. “I need better equipment. Sol said there’s a lab up top I can use.”
Aston went to say something else, but Syed plowed on. “And, dude, what in the name of Allah and all his angels is that?” She pointed to the stone door. “It was made by that expedition a hundred years ago, I’m guessing? Please say that’s what it is. But why go to such extravagant lengths?”
Aston drew a deep breath. “I wish I could tell you they built it. Truth is, I don’t really know.”
Syed’s neatly shaped, dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. She opened her mouth to say more, but Sol’s voice overrode her.
“Everyone ready to move on? As the old saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Aston and Syed exchanged a glance, then headed over to join Sol and the team at the stone door. Slater, Jeff and Marla stood off to one side to record things as Sol addressed the rest of the group.
“We’re going through here now. It’s the only exit from the cavern, other than the elevator shaft, of course. We’ve only gone as far as the next cavern before organizing this expedition, so after this next place, we’re all on new ground.”
Without waiting for any further conversation, he pushed against the stone door and it slid back and to the left, opening a wide gap to reveal a dark tunnel beyond. The guard with the fidget spinner stood to one side and let the team file through, but didn’t follow.
