by David Wood
Aaron glanced at his watch, sighed. Another hour until shift change. Almost time to go back topside. Downtime would be good. Hopefully no one would be hogging the PS4 up there.
Something scraped behind him. Frowning, he turned to look at the closed door. He must have imagined it. Or maybe it was his own utility belt rubbing against the stone as he moved. But he didn’t remember moving. The sound came again, quiet, followed by a rapid series of taps, almost a ticking, beyond the door.
Had some of those geeks been left down there from earlier? No, that was ridiculous. He’d have noticed, or at the least he would have been told. Maybe one of the other security crew had been posted inside. He shook his head. He would know that too if it were the case, and the three armed goons with the scientists had all come back too. You couldn’t miss those guys.
He stilled the fidget spinner, gripped it lightly between thumb and forefinger, and turned to face the door, listening hard. He heard no more noise, save for the softly echoing drips for so long he had just about given up and decided he was imagining things when it came again.
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
Then once more after only a couple of seconds. Something was definitely moving around back there. Suddenly Aaron wished for boredom and long, empty shifts on his own. He would have to investigate. It was his job, after all. Besides, it might turn out to be the only useful thing he’d done since he got here. But he didn’t like it.
He opened the door, flicked on the bright LED light he wore on a band about his forehead, and played the white beam around the walls of the dark tunnel beyond. Nothing but smooth, slick, slightly damp stone. He knew another cavern lay beyond the long passage, but he hadn’t been there. He just needed to watch the elevator and the door, he was told. He looked into the dark, saw only the faint glow of a tiny patch of the of the strangely luminescent fungus and his light making stark shadows. He moved and his headlight cut through the shadows like a sword blade.
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
He jumped, turned to the right where the sound had come from, but nothing was there. Weird echoes in the limited space, maybe. Did the sound emanate from up ahead? He crept forward, moving the beam of light slowly left and right, left and right. The shadows seemed to press forward, like the darkness itself tried to embrace him.
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
Quieter this time, further away. He stalked on, the thick soles of his boots quiet as he stepped as lightly as possible. He reached a slow bend in the passage and began to move around it, wondering how far he should go. There was a radio set back by the elevator, linked by cables to the base, as no signal from a transmitter could penetrate this much rock. He should go back and report.
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
Forward and to his left. His light showed nothing but rock. Hair-thin veins of soft green striped the walls. He moved forward again, just a pace or two.
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
scraaaape-tic-tic-tic
He stopped, heart hammering. The sounds had come almost simultaneously, from either side. An echo, or were there two now? Two what? He stood motionless, holding even his breath, ears straining to hear anything but the gentle drips of ancient water. Nothing. He allowed himself a small, silent breath. For more than a minute he stood frozen, listening hard. No more sound, nothing moved. He took longer, deeper breaths, determined to calm himself. He slowly moved his head, let his light play over the walls, up to the curving ceiling of the large passage. Nothing to see but gray stone, shadows, patches of soft green fungus like lightning in freeze-frame here and there.
Two more minutes and not another sound except the pulse in his ears. Whatever it might have been, it was gone. Or perhaps there hadn’t been anything and he’d imagined the whole thing. Echoes of his own restless feet perhaps. He turned back to the mouth of the passage leading to the door and screamed. His bladder emptied at the sight before him, his groin quickly warm and wet. The last image in his mind before pain flooded his nerves was his fiancée waving, a tear in her eye at the airport when he’d left for Cape Town.
9
Slater entered the large elevator leading to the caverns with a weight of foreboding in her gut. She had slept fitfully, bugged by any number of anxieties. Worry about Aston and the complicated feelings that circled her mind like vultures. Worry about the job itself, what it might mean, where it might lead. Worry also about the key players. Not just people like Sol Griffin, who was in charge on the ground. He seemed unrealistically upbeat all the time and that discomforted her. But the others, out of sight. Arthur Greene chief among them, the man behind all of this. What did he really want? A new source of green energy was an admirable goal, but was that all of it? And why not be here to see it happen? Perhaps he was old, infirm, agoraphobic. Although being claustrophobic would be more likely to keep him away from this gig. Being down in those caverns and tunnels was oppressive. Anyway, there could be a hundred different explanations. But no matter how she thought about it, she had a bad feeling about the whole endeavor.
Then over breakfast this morning, she had spotted another thing. The entire team acted excited, keen to get to work, all eating fast and talking faster. Except for Sam Aston. He looked pensive, troubled. He watched the rest of the team with a suspicious eye, like he tried to fathom something just beyond his grasp. Like he felt exactly as she did. On a couple of occasions they caught each other’s eye and while there was still ice between them, a new kind of knowing existed too. She still retained a fury at the asshole for what he’d done, but she realized as well that perhaps he was the only genuine ally she could rely on. And it seemed he recognized that about her, too.
They stood near each other in the elevator as it rattled its seemingly endless descent, but they didn’t speak. Aston had a large canvas kit bag over one shoulder, packed full. She had some extra handheld lighting to set up clearer shots, but nothing else. The scientists all carried all kinds of extra kit, and Sol and the security detail carried supplies for a potentially long stint. Though she couldn’t imagine staying under for more than twenty or thirty hours, there seemed to be no reason not to return to the surface regularly. How far did Sol think they might travel underground?
Chatter on the way down was muted, but the excitement remained. When they reached the first cavern, that had been so mind-blowing on the first encounter, they all streamed directly through without a second glance, heading for the impossible door. Dig O’Donnell stood to one side, taking close looks at the stones of its frame, taking more photographs of the carvings on them, double-checking in a notebook and a couple of textbooks he had in his pack. Meanwhile, the others waited restlessly for the guard to push the door open and let them through.
It was a different guard to the day before, Slater noted. Besides Terry Reid and his two henchfolk, Gates and Tate, Slater had seen at least a dozen other base security and hospitality staff around, so she assumed the guard posts changed often. A person would want to be rotated out of standing in a cave all day on their own, after all.
Slater held back Jeff and Marla, set them to recording as the team milled by the door. “Stay by the door here, get everyone passing through, then tail them. Try to get the scale of the place, yeah?”
Jeff nodded. “You got it.” He shifted to one side, Marla moving on his back left like a shadow. For all his infuriating habits, Slater had to admit that Jeff was good at his job. He had an eye for direction, and producer’s knack for the best attention-grab.
The crew all moved along the passageway, leaving only Dig still examining the door and Reid and Tate waiting to bring up the rear. Reid gave a curt smile, gestured Slater forward. She figured the guy had decided to always be at the back, but then again, perhaps that was exactly his job. Although she couldn’t help feeling like a cow being herded to the slaughter. She needed to shake off the black mood that hung on her like a heavy cloak.
A short way along the passage to the next cavern, a discoloration on the smooth wall caught her eye. She moved closer, crouche
d to see better. Along with regular flashlights, they’d all been issued LED lamps mounted on headbands and she wasn’t wearing hers yet. But she pulled it from her jacket pocket and flicked it on. The patch on the wall was exactly what she’d thought it was. Red. She touched a shaking finger to it, and her fingertip came away wet with blood. It had to be blood. And why was it still wet? She assumed the temperature, humidity, and generally slick surface would have something to do with that, but even so, it had to be fairly fresh. Her mind flickered back to the change of security guard by the door, suddenly now a potentially far more sinister turn of events.
She glanced back. Dig was still examining the door, and Reid and Tate stood back, patient. The other guard, Gates, with his dull eyes, broad stubbled jaw, and generic football jock body shape, had gone ahead with Sol Griffin, leading the party onwards. Aston, leaning into the weight of the bag on his shoulder, had paused and stood looking back at her.
“Sam!” Slater’s voice was a hiss, a forced whisper. She gestured for him to come over. He frowned, clearly wondering what she was up to, but apparently saw the urgency in her eyes and his expression changed. Immediately she saw the friend from Lake Kaarme, and something in her was beyond grateful for that.
He came to crouch beside her and she showed him the smear. “It’s blood, right?”
Sam put a fingertip to it as she had, examined the mark in the light of her headlamp. “Yeah. Gotta be.” He looked around the passage, presumably for any other signs of injury. Then he leaned back, turned slightly. “See how it kind of smears across like that?”
“Like someone was bleeding and they fell against the wall?”
“Or were dragged along it.”
Slater sucked in a breath. “Jesus, Sam.”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions, okay? We haven’t seen other drops of blood or stains. I can’t see any now.” He gestured to the floor right below the mark on the wall.
“Don’t you think that’s odd?” Slater asked.
“Yeah. Maybe it is. What’s this?”
He reached down, fingers probing into a small crevice where the tunnel wall curved into the floor. He pulled out a metallic blue fidget spinner. “What the hell is this doing here?”
A thrill of shock made Slater’s heart rate speed up. “Remember the guard on the door yesterday?”
Aston’s brow creased as he thought back, then his eyebrows rose and he nodded. “Yeah, of course. This was his.”
“So where is he?”
Sol Griffin appeared beside them, silent as if he’d materialized from the air. “You two okay?”
Without a word, Aston held up the spinner. Slater noticed that he didn’t mention or even indicate the blood stain.
Sol took the spinner, turned it over on his palm. “That’s Aaron’s, he was on duty last night. Must have dropped it. Thanks.” Griffin dropped the spinner into a jacket pocket and strolled away, heading back along the passageway.
Slater frowned, looked at Aston. “Did we just get the brush-off?”
Aston nodded, his eyes troubled.
As they stood to move on, Dig closed up his books and came along, Reid and Tate following.
“Everything okay?” Reid asked, his deep voice echoing off the stone.
“Yeah. All good, mate,” Aston said quickly, flicking a glance at Slater.
She read his intent immediately, Let’s keep this to ourselves for now. She nodded subtly and they all started marching on the long walk through to the next cave. Slater realized that she and Sam had fallen naturally into stride with each other, hanging out together with unspoken ease. She wasn’t sure how good she felt about that, but given the blood on the wall, she could put aside any other hurt and be glad of an ally right now.
Eventually they arrived back in the next cavern and the team slowly investigated, paying more attention than Sol had allowed them time for before. Moving clockwise around the roughly circular space, checking each small tunnel leading away, they discovered the first three only went a few dozen yards before tapering off into dead ends or tiny crevices too small for even a child to get through. The fifth and sixth tunnels were the same. But the fourth one around seemed to go further, and deeper. The floor of it slowly angled into a descent.
“There’s a brighter glow this way,” Jahara Syed called back from some twenty yards down the passage. “I think we should follow it.”
With unspoken agreement, they all filed into the tunnel. Slater checked for Jeff, but he was already on it, filming them pass then falling in behind, only Reid and Tate behind him. She and Aston stayed just ahead of the camera. The tunnel went on, and down, for some time, the only light their headlamps playing hectically as they all looked in different directions. But Syed was right, there seemed to be a greener glow emanating from somewhere ahead. After perhaps a hundred yards of dark tunnel, they emerged into a new chamber.
Slater’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh my God!”
10
Two Hägglunds tracked transports drove in convoy at speed across the Antarctic ice and snow. In the lead vehicle, crammed with operatives, Jasper Olsen ran a hand over his close-cropped iron gray hair and sighed. He felt as though he were getting too old for these kinds of missions. Surely, at nearly fifty-five, he should be at a comfortable warm desk rather than having his insides shaken loose in the middle of nowhere. But who was he kidding? He’d be bored and restless in less than a week if he was tied to an office. He shifted the assault rifle on his knees and stared out at the endless white expanse. Seemingly endless, but interrupted by the huge range of pyramid-shaped mountains not all that far away.
Olsen’s breath steamed. Even in the heated Hägglunds it was much too damned cold for comfort. Halvdan Landvik paid well, but maybe not well enough for such conditions. Olsen smiled to himself. He was getting old. Ten years ago he wouldn’t have even entertained these thoughts.
“This is far enough,” he shouted to the driver ahead of him.
The man nodded and slowed the vehicle, coming gradually to a halt. The relief at the cessation of jouncing and noise made the whole squad sigh with relief. Eight men in this vehicle, another six in the one behind, plus extra gear. It wouldn’t take long to set up their camp.
“Everybody out,” Olsen said. “Let’s get our shelters up and some food on the go.”
“How far from the base are we?” someone asked.
“Far enough to not be seen yet.” And that was, after all, the plan.
“Why don’t we just go right in there, seize the base? It has great facilities and we don’t have to camp out here and freeze our asses off.”
General murmurs of assent rippled through the group, reluctant to leave even the dubious comforts of the Hägglunds.
“We’re to take shelter and wait until we hear from our operative on the inside,” Olsen said. He looked around at the frowns of his men. They were feeling the sting of the cold and the nagging voice of impatience just as much as he. “I know you’d like to enjoy the comforts of the base. So would I! But we need to let the team do their jobs first. Once we’ve heard back from our person on the inside that they’ve found what they’re looking for, then we make our move.”
“With respect, sir, why don’t we simply make the captives do what we want?”
Olsen laughed. “Because the easy way is rarely the smart way, son. We’ll get better results if the team continues about their work thinking they’re getting paid. We need their excitement and enthusiasm to work in our favor, no? Besides, if we take the base now, there’s no telling what might happen. Essential team members might be killed accidentally, or they’ll resent being taken captive and try to sabotage efforts. It’s better if we let them find what we want unharried.”
“What is it, exactly, that we want?”
Olsen realized his own concerns with the isolated terrain, the entirely alien landscape and unknown factors of the mission, were concerning the men as well. He couldn’t blame them for their questions, but didn’t have any answers.
“That’s one of the things our person on the inside will tell us when the time comes,” he said. “Now get to it. I want a camp established here in less than thirty minutes. Go!”
11
The next cavern they entered blew every memory of the previous ones from Aston’s mind. The entire subterranean system was like a Russian Matryoshka doll of wonders, but instead of each being smaller than the last, each was more incredible. A similar size to the previous cavern, this one also had patches of the vein-like fungus on the walls and small clumps of the glossy green ferns in crevices and cracks. But the glow came from entirely bigger and more prominent growths that twisted up the walls and across the high ceiling. Aston could best compare them to meandering vines, like a thick-stemmed ivy but without the leaves, the branches themselves emitting the luminescence. Some no thicker than butcher’s string, right up to some broader than his thumb, they snaked and wove around each other, intertwining, filling the cavern with a soft light. It felt like being underwater.
And there was water. A light tinkling came from a stream running across one side of the cavern, emerging from an overhang of rock back and to the right, then disappearing again into a small crevasse on the other side. Just over the stream on that side, another tunnel appeared to lead away and down, but all around the space were caves and indentations, disappearing into shadow.
Syed made a noise of barely contained excitement and ran to the nearest outcrop of vines. Aston, his inner biologist almost as excited as hers, went with her. Syed carefully tapped a finger to one, brow scrunched in concentration. Aston noticed Jeff sidle up just behind them, filming, so he kept to Syed’s other side.
“It feels like stone,” Jahara said, barely above a whisper. She touched again, squeezed between forefinger and thumb. “They’re hard and crystalline, but there is some give in them. I’ve never felt anything like this. But it looks more like a plant growth than a fungal spread, no?”
