Deep Storm

by Lincoln Child

  As he climbed the stairwell, his thoughts returned to Michele Bishop. He did not want to believe it. And yet a part of him realized it was, perhaps, the only explanation for why she hadn’t organized the scientists herself; why she had not called him back as promised. Someday, he would try to figure out her motivation. Right now, he could not even begin to.

  He thought back to their final, brief phone conversation. So Spartan’s not going to stop the dig? she had asked. One thing, at least, was painfully clear: it was not idle curiosity that had prompted this question.

  Reaching deck 12, he made his way quickly through the now-hushed corridors. The staging area for the escape pod was a large chamber adjoining the Compression Complex. As he entered, he found two dozen people lined up before a metal ladder bolted to the wall. It disappeared up through a hatchway in the ceiling. A faint bluish light filtered down, throwing the ladder into spectral relief.

  Vanderbilt was supervising the boarding, Hui Ping at his side. When they saw Crane enter, they came over.

  “Anyone?” Vanderbilt asked.

  “Only two.”

  The oceanographer nodded. “That’s everyone, then. The sweeps of the other three decks are complete.”

  “What’s the head count?” Crane asked.

  “A hundred and twelve.” Vanderbilt nodded toward the line that snaked its way toward the ladder. “Once these last are aboard, we’ll initiate the launch sequence.”

  “Where’s Stamper?”

  “He and the rest of his crew are already in the pod. There’s nothing more they can do from this side of the breach.”

  Vanderbilt headed back to the ladder, and Crane turned to Hui Ping. “Why aren’t you aboard?” he asked, removing the damp towel from around her shoulders and replacing it with the dry one.

  “I was waiting for you.”

  Silently, they joined the end of the line. As they waited, Crane found thoughts of Michele Bishop creeping back into his head. To distract himself, he turned back to Hui.

  “What was that you were going to tell me?” he asked.

  Hui was absently clutching the towel, her gaze far away. “I’m sorry?”

  “Earlier, you said you’d deciphered that transmission. The longer one, the one they first received from beneath the Moho.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Well, it’s a theory, anyway. I can’t prove it, but it seems to fit.”

  She dug into the pocket of her lab coat, pulled out a dripping palmtop computer. “This thing is drenched. I’m not even sure it will work.” But when she snapped the power button, the display flickered to life. Taking the stylus, she opened a window of binary numbers:

  “Here it is,” she said. “The digital stream Dr. Asher saved as ‘initial.txt,’ the one he never tried to decrypt. While I was waiting for you I tried a variety of cryptographic attacks on it. Nothing worked. It seemed to have nothing in common with all the mathematical expressions he deciphered.”

  The line for the ladder was slowly growing shorter; there were perhaps ten people ahead of them now. “Go on,” Crane said.

  “I was about to give up. Then I thought of what you’d said about WIPP, and how they were employing not one but several types of warnings. ‘Pictures, symbols, text,’ you said. And I got to thinking. Whoever planted this stuff beneath the Moho, maybe they used several types of warnings, too. Maybe they weren’t all just forbidden mathematical expressions. So I started experimenting. First I attempted to play the message back as an audio file. That didn’t work. Then I wondered if it might be a graphic image, or images. I broke it up in various ways. Those repeated pairings of ones in the first half of the sequence intrigued me. So I divided it into two equal parts. You’ll note that the first image is delimited by ones. And there is precisely the same ratio of ones to zeros between the two images. It seemed it was meant to be divided in half.”

  She tapped the stylus on the screen. The binary sequence reappeared, this time broken in two:

  She glanced at Crane. “See anything different about the top image?” Crane peered at the screen. “The ones are clustered together.” “Exactly.” With her stylus, Hui circled the groupings.

  “Now, does that suggest anything to you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Not really.”

  “Well, it does to me. I think it’s an image of the inner solar system.” She tapped the large cluster. “There, dead center, is the sun. And circling it are the inner five planets. And I’ll bet that if you checked the star charts, you’d find they had been spun back to their positions of six hundred years ago.”

  “The time of the burial event.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What’s the second image, then?” Crane asked. “It looks random. Like noise.”

  “That’s it exactly. It is random—and in fact, it’s perfectly random. I checked.”

  Crane frowned at the storm of ones and zeros. Then a sudden, chilling thought struck him. “Do you think it means…Armageddon?”

  She nodded. “I think it’s another kind of warning. If we disturb what’s down there…” Her voice trailed off.

  He looked up from the screen and stared at her. “The solar system will be blown to bits.”

  “Literally and figuratively.”

  Now Vanderbilt was helping a female scientist directly ahead of them ascend the ladder into the escape pod. As Hui stepped forward and grasped the ladder, Crane stopped her. “That was impressive, you know.”

  She turned to him. “I’m sorry?”

  “You, hiding in that lab, having the presence of mind not only to work on this problem, but to figure it out…”

  At that moment, the door to the staging area flew open. A marine in black fatigues stepped in, M-16 assault rifle in his hands. His gaze went from Crane, to Hui, to Vanderbilt, to the scientist halfway through the hatch.

  “Step away from the ladder,” he barked.

  Crane turned to him. “We’re evacuating this station, going for help.”

  “There will be no evacuation. Everyone is to disembark and return to their stations, and the escape pod is to be secured.”

  “On whose orders?” Vanderbilt said.

  “Commander Korolis’s.”

  “Korolis is unwell,” Crane said.

  “I’m the senior scientist here,” Vanderbilt said. “With the lower decks inaccessible, I’m in charge. The evacuation will proceed.”

  The marine unshipped his weapon and aimed it at them. “I have my orders,” he said, his voice perfectly flat and even. “Everyone will leave the escape pod. One way or the other.”

  Crane’s looked from the barrel of the rifle to the soldier’s flinty, impassive eyes. There was no doubt in his mind—none at all—that this was not an idle threat.

  The woman on the ladder had frozen in place. Now, slowly, sobbing quietly, she began to descend once again.

  59

  Crane stared at the marine. The man was standing inside the doorway, perhaps fifteen feet away.

  He felt his hands ball into fists. Unconsciously, a plan had formed in his mind. He glanced at Vanderbilt. The oceanographer looked back and a silent understanding passed between them. Almost imperceptibly, Vanderbilt nodded.

  Crane’s eyes returned to the automatic rifle. There was no way he could reach it, he knew, without being gunned down. But if he could keep the marine busy, at least it would give Vanderbilt a chance to move in.

  He took a step forward.

  The black ops agent turned toward him. The man’s eyes widened slightly, as if sensing the agent’s design. Quickly, the weapon swung up to Crane’s chest.

  At that moment a shape came into view in the corridor beyond the staging area. “Secure that weapon,” a familiar voice boomed.

  The agent turned. Admiral Spartan stood in the doorway, a large gash across his forehead. The upper portion of his uniform was stiff with dried blood. A heavy sidearm lay in his right hand. He looked pale but determined.

  “I said secure that weapon, soldie
r,” he said quietly.

  For a moment, nobody moved. Then the black ops agent abruptly swung the M-16 in Spartan’s direction. In a fluid motion, the admiral raised his pistol and fired. In the enclosed space, the explosion was deafening. The marine flew backward under the impact, his weapon clattering across the floor. The woman on the ladder screamed.

  Spartan remained where he was a moment, his gun trained at the motionless form. Then he stepped forward, picked up the automatic rifle, and turned to Crane. Silently, Vanderbilt helped the woman back up the ladder, then motioned for Hui Ping to follow.

  Crane opened his medical bag for a dressing kit, but Spartan waved it away. “Where have you been?” Crane asked.

  “Locked in my cabin.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  The admiral brandished the handgun with a mirthless smile.

  “You know what’s happened?”

  “I know enough. Is everybody aboard the escape pod?”

  “Everybody from decks nine through twelve. A hundred and twelve in all. Deck eight is completely flooded. Nobody below there can get past.”

  A look of pain crossed Spartan’s face. “It’s vital you get these people away from here as quickly as possible.”

  “No argument here. Let’s get aboard.”

  The admiral shook his head. “I’m staying here.”

  “You can’t. There’s no guarantee rescue will arrive in time. Besides, Korolis is down in Marble Three right now. He could reach the Moho at any moment. God only knows what will happen then.”

  Spartan pointed his handgun at the marine. “More like him are on their way. They’ll stop the pod’s disengage sequence, prevent you from leaving. I won’t allow that.”

  Crane frowned. “But—”

  “That’s an order, Dr. Crane. You’re to save as many as you can. Now get aboard, please.”

  Crane hesitated a moment longer. Then he snapped to attention, gave the admiral a salute. Spartan returned it, a wintry smile gathering on his face. Crane turned to follow Vanderbilt up the ladder.

  “Doctor?” Spartan called.

  Crane glanced back.

  Spartan pulled a card from his pocket, held it out. “When you reach Storm King, call this man. Tell him everything.”

  Crane glanced at the card. It was embossed with a Department of Defense seal and it read only MCPHERSON, (203) 111–1011.

  “Aye, sir,” he said.

  “Good luck.”

  Crane gave the admiral a final nod. Then, quickly, he climbed the ladder and pulled himself through the hatchway.

  He was in a small, vertical tube, illuminated by recessed blue LEDs. The ladder continued upward, flanked on both sides by heavy ductwork. There was a hollow clang from below as Spartan closed the outer hatch.

  Climbing another two dozen steps, Crane passed through an immensely thick, collarlike portal and emerged into a low, teardrop-shaped enclosure. It was dimly illuminated in the same faint blue wash as the access tube. As he stood at the top of the ladder, letting his eyes adjust, he saw he was surrounded by two tiers of circular benches, one behind and above the other, that ran completely around the pod. A safety railing was positioned before each. Both tiers were crowded with people, some holding hands. The atmosphere was strangely hushed; hardly anyone spoke, and those who did conversed in whispers. Crane’s eyes moved from face to familiar face. Bryce, the psychiatric intern. Gordon Stamper, machinist. Lab techs, pizza flippers, mechanics, librarians, PX cashiers, food service staff: a cross section of Facility workers he’d treated, worked with, or brushed elbows with over the past ten days.

  Two people were conspicuously absent: Roger Corbett and Michele Bishop.

  To his right was a small control panel, manned by Vanderbilt and a technician Crane didn’t recognize. Vanderbilt rose and came forward.

  “Admiral Spartan?” he asked.

  “He’s staying behind,” Crane replied.

  Vanderbilt nodded. Kneeling, he closed and carefully sealed the hatch. Then he turned and nodded at the tech, who worked the panel controls briefly.

  A low tone sounded overhead. “Disengage now under way,” the tech said.

  Vanderbilt rose, wiped his hands on his lab coat. “There’s a five-minute countdown while the compression sequence is completed,” he said.

  “Time to the surface?”

  “Once we disengage from the dome, just over eight minutes. On paper, anyway.”

  Slinging his medical kit over his shoulder, Crane scanned the seated people on the two tiers of benches, checking for injuries. Then he returned to the control panel. Directly behind Vanderbilt sat Hui Ping. She smiled faintly as Crane took a seat beside her.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “No.”

  A small circular porthole had been set into the portal hatch. It looked exactly like the one Crane had sat next to during his initial descent in the bathyscaphe. Now he leaned forward, looked down through it. He could see the ladder descending toward the sealed outer hatch, outlined in the pale blue light.

  “Two minutes,” the technician at the control panel said. “We’ve got good pressure.”

  Beside him, Hui stirred. “I’ve been wondering about something,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Remember when you explained about Ocotillo Mountain? You said that there were two kinds of countermeasures to prevent anyone, intentionally or unintentionally, from intruding into the vaults full of old nuclear weapons—passive security measures and active ones.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can understand what the passive measures would be—warning signs, images etched on metal, things of that sort. But what would the active countermeasures be?”

  “I don’t know. There was little talk about them at the conference, other than to note their existence. I gathered that information about them was classified.” He turned toward her. “Why do you ask?”

  “Those sentinels we found—those are passive measures in their own way, like you said. They simply beam out warnings. I guess I was wondering if they have active countermeasures, as well.”

  “I don’t know,” Crane replied slowly. “That’s a very good question.”

  “One minute,” the tech murmured.

  And in the silence that followed, Crane could now hear distinctly—filtering up from the hatchway beneath his feet—the sharp, steady cadence of automatic weapon fire.

  60

  The tunnel-boring machine and the Doodlebug had been secured in the lateral retaining tunnel. The stabilization arm had been deployed, locking Marble Three into position directly above the anomaly. These final steps had been simulated many times; the actual procedures had been executed flawlessly. From here on, they were proceeding like surgeons, using only compressed air and the robotic arms. It had gone deathly silent inside the Marble.

  “Give it another shot,” Korolis whispered. “Gently. Gently.”

  “Aye, sir,” Rafferty whispered back.

  The three men communicated by looks and brief murmurs. Even Dr. Flyte seemed caught up in the moment. Again Korolis wiped the sheen of sweat from his face, then pressed his eyes to the tiny view port. A kind of awed reverence hung in the air, as if they were archaeologists excavating some supremely holy tomb. His pounding headache and the strange, metallic film that coated his tongue had vanished completely.

  As he watched, Rafferty sent another puff of compressed air over the bottom of the hole. A small storm of sediment and loose gabbro erupted into the yellow glow of the Marble’s exterior light, to be quickly sucked away by the vacuum unit.

  “Careful,” Korolis murmured. “What’s the distance?”

  “We’re there, sir,” Rafferty replied.

  Korolis turned back to the viewscreen. “Another jet,” he said.

  “Another jet, aye.”

  He watched as another stream of compressed air shot over the bottom of the dig interface. He could see the two large sentinels floating on either side, glittering tails moving r
estlessly back and forth, tendrils drifting lazily. They were like spectators at a show. And why not? It was only right they should be here. They had come not only to witness his triumph, but also to guide him through the fabulous technological riches that awaited. It was not chance that brought him here on this most critical of dives: it was destiny.

  “Again,” he whispered.

  Another jet of air; another gray storm of matter. The viewscreen quickly cleared as the vacuum unit sucked away the particulate. Korolis gripped the control handles even more tightly.

  The radio on his control panel squawked into life. “Marble Three, this is Dive Control. Marble Three, this is Dive Control. Please acknowledge—”

  Without taking his eyes from the viewscreen, Korolis reached down and snapped off the radio. He could see something now—a bright sheen, almost like the reflected gleam of metal.

  “One more shot,” he said. “Very carefully, Dr. Rafferty. Smooth as glass.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  A ripple of compressed air shot through the dark water beneath them; a fresh confusion of gray and brown particles. And then, as it cleared, Korolis gasped.

  “My God,” he breathed.

  The air-jetting system had cleared the base of the shaft, revealing a smooth, glassy surface. To Korolis, pressed up against the eyepiece, it looked almost like someone blowing dust from a tabletop. Beyond lay an illusion—at least, he thought it was an illusion—of nearly infinite depth: a black infinity extending below. His searchlight was reflecting from the glassy surface, but he thought he could make out another light source, dim and strange, beyond and below the bright corona.

  On either side of the Marble, the large sentinels had grown agitated. No longer content to simply drift, they were moving back and forth across the narrow diameter of the tunnel.

  “Extinguish the light,” Korolis said.

  “Sir?” Rafferty said.