Below The Earth

by Lucas Pederson

  “Correct. We’ll kind of leapfrog down the line.”

  All that communication filtered through the mech I wore.

  “Wen,” Hannah said. “I want you to stay in the Flex Mech. I might need you to go out and clear rubble for either tunnel using the mines.”

  I paused. “Wouldn’t that be a risk of a cave-in?”

  “Yes. But we can’t spend the time using the sub arms to slowly move the rocks.”

  “Okay,” I said, really not happy with the idea. The tunnels were millions of years old. The slightest shock would collapse them.

  Or so I thought…

  I couldn’t see what was going on, but they communicated enough to where I kind of got an idea.

  “Entering tunnel one now,” Hannah said. “Wait one minute, Megan, and enter tunnel two.”

  “Copy,” Megan said.

  “The way is clear in tunnel one,” Hannah whispered. Then in a louder tone, “Transmitting optical to you live.”

  “I see you,” Megan said.

  Nothing showed up in the mech and I flirted with the idea of requesting to enter the cockpit of the sub so I could see, but then…images flickered before my eyes.

  I stared down a jagged tunnel. If there were any hidden or frozen prehistoric beasts, I didn’t see any evidence of them. Still, I watched, kind of hoping something would be found, and kind of not.

  “Entering tunnel two,” Megan said. “Transmitting image.”

  The screen splits and I gaped at two scenes unfolding. Hannah’s sub and Megan’s. It was Megan’s screen I was most drawn to because…

  “We have a corpse!” Megan shouted. “Something big. Must’ve got stuck.”

  “Can you identify the species?” Hannah asked.

  “Standby.”

  Megan zoomed in on the blockage, that dead thing trapped in the tunnel for millions of years.

  The more she zoomed and the pixels adjusted to clear the image, the faster my heart thrummed.

  Once it all cleared, I gasped. My sight fixed on the long teeth and snout, so much like a crocodile. “Mosasaurus.”

  There came a long pause from both sub captains, then Megan said, “Yeah, Wen’s right. Appears to be a juvenile Mosasaurus.”

  “Are you certain it’s dead? Form our image, it appears suspended…frozen.”

  “No. It’s dead. Look…” She zoomed in on various points of the Mosasaurus, each one revealing tattered and bulging flesh where the creature tried to force itself through, though to no avail. The visual evidence was palpable.

  “Can we clear it out and save it for further sale?”

  “I’d tear it apart trying to dislodge it. It hasn’t decayed much so fully intact removal might be impossible.”

  A long pause rolled out.

  Then…

  “Wen. I need you to collect the head, then set three mines on its body. The head, I want you to deposit outside the tunnel for further analysis.”

  “Okay,” I said, not really sure how I felt about cutting the head off one of the most feared beasts of the ocean during the Jurassic Period. I thought it should all be intact. And with it so preserved, maybe it’d also have medical discoveries too.

  Regardless, none of that was my job. I had no choice in anything. And I imagine, even if I had tossed up a fuss, it’d fall in deaf ears. I was a tool for the most part, no matter how good they made me feel. That, I needed to keep in mind moving forward.

  I was expendable…

  5

  According to Hannah, the Flex Mech was equipped with a cutting laser. I could slice through the mosasaur’s thick neck in no time. “Like butter,” she said.

  Never mind the fact that I didn’t know how to do that, or, if in doing so, I might blow myself up. The mech was a prototype, after all, and no one seemed to really care about me. No real precautions. No safety standards. I was literally out there on my own with no idea what I was doing while Hannah pretty much read from an owner’s manual on how to operate the damn mech.

  Utterly helpless, I floated no more than three feet from some of the most fearsome teeth in prehistoric history, while I waited for Hannah to instruct me on how to work the stupid laser cutter.

  Being so close to those massive jaws, I couldn’t stop shivering. My heart thudded heavily. And…of course I had to pee now.

  The Mosasaurus was so well preserved, it appeared to be merely sleeping. As though, at any moment, its eyes would open, and it’d lunge forward, swallowing me up. I used the reverse thrusters to move away from the creature.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “One second, Wen. Bear with me.”

  I sighed, gaze slipping over the Mosasaurus. It didn’t appear to have any deformities or mutations, like most of the creatures found wandering the ocean. Things that were perhaps prehistoric, awakened from rising sea levels and the warmer waters and somehow, either from radiation, or toxic waste, spores, disease, whatever, they reawaken as true monsters of the deep. Things with tentacles and two heads and God knew what else.

  Perhaps it was evolution. Like dear old Roofus out there. A splicing of DNAs by intercourse or blood. Hybrids…

  I stared at the dead Mosasaurus and teared up. Because, even though it was an alpha predator back in the day, it really didn’t deserve the fate it got. Getting stuck in a tunnel either chasing food or looking for food. Either way, it was sad. How the thing must have suffered before finally drowning to death. An excruciating, slow death.

  I reached out and placed a hand on its rough, gray snout. The teeth just below my hand were longer than my thigh. Juvenile, Megan or Hannah said. So…how big would an adult have been? Small particles floated in front of me, silvery bubbles warbled from the silty bottom of the tunnel.

  “Sorry, big guy,” I muttered.

  “What was that, Wen? Repeat,” Megan asked, sounding a little too much on edge.

  “I, uh…nothing. Never mind.”

  “Here we are, Wen. Ready? Remember, once you cut the head off, Megan will intervene and pull it out of the tunnel.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah, so,” Megan said. “Make sure you’re all clear when I come in, okay?”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  A snort. “There’s that spontaneous sarcasm again. Love it!”

  “Okay, you two,” Hannah interjected. “That’s enough. Wen, turning the laser option on and off isn’t at all complicated. Just took me a bit to find it. Like the thrusters, the laser is voice activated. Simply tell the mech, ‘laser on.’ To use it, point your right arm where you want to cut, and squeeze your hand into a fist. That’s it.”

  “Fun,” I said. “Okay, I’m going to start cutting.” Although, I really didn’t want to do such a thing. It felt wrong. Like desecrating a grave or something.

  Besides, I’d be destroying something never seen before in such detail by human eyes.

  Still…again, I had no choice.

  “Laser on.”

  Soft whirring filled the mech… Which I really considered more of an exoskeleton or exosuit, rather than a mech, but what the hell did I know?

  I pointed my right arm, thrusting just enough to the side of the head, right behind the jaws. Drawing in a breath, I squeezed my hand into a fist. The kickback wasn’t much, but noticeable, as a blue beam shot out of the mech’s arm and sliced into the mosasaur’s thick neck.

  I half-expected its eyes to pop open and for it to begin thrashing, tearing me apart in the process.

  But…it didn’t move and in about three minutes, the head sloughed off its body and thumped to the tunnel’s ceiling.

  “Laser stop,” I said, adding. “The head is off.”

  “Alrighty,” Megan said. “I’m coming in. Keep to the far right and back as much as possible. If one of the sub’s claws clamp down on you, I’m not sure what’ll happen, but let me know if I get too close.”

  “Okay,” I said, and told the mech to reverse thrust until I collided with the spongy flesh of the mosasaur’s neck stump. Then I moved
to the right wall of the tunnel.

  A moment later, I saw the lights of the minisub as it glided into view, claws outstretched.

  Megan didn’t even get close to me as the claws latched onto the mosasaur’s head and slowly backed away, leaving me with the headless body. Alone. There, I waited instructions. If I had to cut the body to pieces with the laser… I wasn’t sure if I could do that.

  Seconds passed like hours until, finally…

  “Megan,” Hannah said. “Once the head is secure, I want you to ram into the body and see if you can dislodge it. We might need to push it out of the way. If not, Wen, you’ll need to use a mine.”

  “Won’t that cause a collapse?”

  “The rock is strong here. It might cave a little, but nothing we can’t break through.”

  I didn’t know about all that, but okay. I was still a tool to be used, so…

  No. Screw that. I wouldn’t be a tool. I’d been a tool all my damn life and with everything going on, I had enough.

  “No,” I said. “It’ll collapse.”

  A long pause. “Wen, we don’t have time for—”

  “Listen, this looks like slate. Slate is very brittle. Probably how the tunnels were formed in the first place. You detonate a mine in here, it’ll totally collapse, and you lose everything.”

  Another long pause, longer than the last. Then, “How do you know it’s slate?”

  I turned to the wall. “Can you see what I see?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Watch.” I reached out, hoping it really was slate and I wouldn’t look like an idiot.

  The mech’s fingers pinched a small, ragged outcropping. I held my breath and pulled downward. The outcropping snapped off.

  Silence followed for a moment.

  “The Flex Mech increases your strength 10 times,” Hannah said. “I don’t think any of us could have broken that on our own.”

  I didn’t dare leave the mech. Doing so would be suicide, just to prove a point. And I had Venis to think about. I couldn’t leave him in the care of his other mother for too long.

  In any case, I said, “Doesn’t matter. Granite or bedrock, anything strong, wouldn’t have broken off like that. Barely any pressure was applied.” I didn’t know for sure, of course, but it felt right. Granite was one of the hardest rocks, after all. It didn’t break off so easily.

  “Upon further analysis,” Hannah said, “it appears you’re right, Wen. Not quite slate, but close enough in properties according to our scans.”

  She sighed. “You’ll need to cut it apart, if ramming it with the sub doesn’t work.”

  I also sighed. “Cutting it up would take a long time, I think.”

  “Let’s just see what Megan can do,” Hannah said.

  Before I could really respond, the minisub’s lights came into view. I pressed myself as much as I could to the wall of the tunnel as Megan rammed the sub into the mosasaur’s corpse.

  It all happened mere feet from me. A single false move from Megan’s sub and I’d be in trouble. Unless the Flex Mech was stronger than I thought. Bits and pieces of the corpse swirled in a dark storm, completely blotting out my vision. Something solid clanked against my chest. A bone? A chunk of rock? I didn’t know. The storm of debris grew so thick, I couldn’t even see the sub’s lights anymore.

  “Status report, Meg?” Max asked.

  “Um… I’m not sure. Somewhere in the middle? Apparently, I’m going through it instead of pushing it out of the way. It’s all over the place in here.”

  A beep drew my attention away from the conversation. A tiny, red light blinked in my peripheral vision. I frowned. What the—?

  Then, I found myself gasping for air.

  “Just keep plowing through,” Hannah was saying. “As long as the blockage is—”

  “Can’t…breathe,” I managed.

  Dead silence greeted me. No one said anything for what felt like hours but was only seconds. The air inside the mech was thin and getting worse.

  “Your intakes are clogged,” Hannah said. “Get out of there and swim around in the clean water. That should get rid of the debris.”

  “Should,” I said. “Forward thrust.”

  I shot away from the dark storm and, eventually, into clearer water of the tunnel. I wheezed, trying to control my breathing and stammering heart. Within seconds, I burst from the tunnel and powered through the clear, open water of the trench. Nothing was happening. I coughed, gasped, vision clouding.

  “You need to reverse too,” Hannah said. “Back and forth to completely clear everything. Hang in there, Wen.”

  I almost laughed. Hang in there…yeah…sure. I’m only suffocating. No big deal.

  “R-Reverse thrust.”

  The mech slowed its forward motion and moved backward.

  Mouth opening and closing, trying to get what little air was left in the mech, I barely managed, “For…ward…thrust.”

  It blasted forward and—

  A sharp hissing sound filled the mech. A gush of cool air and I sucked in a sharp breath, coughed, and drew in another until I was finally breathing again.

  “Wen?” It was Max, though I couldn’t answer him right then.

  I was too busy breathing.

  Finally, I managed, “Hey.”

  “You doing okay?”

  “Oh, ya know…just suffocating to death. That’s all. You?”

  Light chuckling. “I’m showing the mech intakes are clear now. It was all my fault, I didn’t get the sync in time.”

  “Well,” I said. “You’re fired.”

  He chuckled some more. “Probably best to stay out of the tunnel until Meg clears the way.”

  “Yeah.” Not like I was going to go back in there any time soon anyway.

  “Almost done,” Megan said. “I think. Can’t see shit, though.”

  “Keep going,” Hannah said. “We have, roughly, six hours before that net dissolves.”

  “On it.”

  “Make a few passes back and forth,” Hannah said. “Make sure the debris is minimal for Wen.”

  “Will do,” Megan said.

  I floated there in the trench, staring at the mosasaur’s head clamped to the trench wall, near the mouth of the tunnel. I hated myself for doing that. It would end up in some collector’s warehouse or something. Eventually forgotten. I mean, I did have a choice. I could say no. I could return to the facility and go to the surface if they let me. But, I had a feeling Murdock Jones would be informed and not only end me, but my baby boy Venis too. The fear was palpable. So much so, I didn’t dare go against the grain on anything. I had to play nice, unfortunately.

  Time crawled by and I wondered, briefly, if I could really escape everything. Maybe get to the surface, get Venis, and go north. Hide. They would be looking for me forever.

  Or would they…?

  My dear, beautiful Venis. No. I couldn’t do that to him. Best to get this over with and move on. Just as long as they didn’t ask me to join them full time. Would I even have a choice then too? Probably not. I could imagine it being, either I accept…or everything I loved was dead. Which pissed me off to no—

  “Alright,” Megan said. “I think we’re all clear in here. You can come back now, Wen.”

  “Okay,” I said, breaking out of my thoughts.

  I positioned myself toward the tunnel and forward thrusted. The water was still a bit murky, but nothing like the insane swirling, black storm of reptile flesh and bone and God knew what else.

  Soon enough, I came upon Megan’s minisub, simply idling a few feet from where the body of the Mosasaurus used to be. Judging by the mounds of gray and white matter, she really tore the poor thing apart. More so…she pulverized it. I wondered why, if they were in the business of specimens and such, they utterly destroyed a complete and fully preserved corpse when it would’ve, no doubt, brought them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Surely, a head wouldn’t bring much. But, then again, what the hell did I know?

  “Wen,” Hannah sai
d. “I want you to stay behind the sub. There might be tributaries worth exploring deeper in. We have come to the end of our tunnel. Nothing but ocean. We’re heading to tunnel three now.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I followed behind Megan, watching the walls, floor, and ceiling of the tunnel. It was all ragged stone. Most likely slate by its rigidness. I really didn’t know, but everything felt…brittle. No holes. Nothing. But…

  “Ahead,” Megan said. “About 40 meters. My scans are picking up a chamber of some sort on the lower right wall. Wen, can you check it out quickly?”

  “Yeah,” I said and thrusted by the minisub.

  I didn’t know how far 40 meters was but kept a close eye on anomalies near the bottom right wall. Not that I needed to because…

  “It’s coming up, Wen,” Megan said. “Another few feet. Keep an eye out.”

  I told the mech to slow down and it did. I kept moving forward, but at a much slower pace.

  Beginning to think it was merely a glitch in the software, I was about to shrug it off when I noticed the hole. Maybe a foot from where the wall joined the floor of the tunnel. The hole itself was, perhaps, about four feet in diameter. Bubbles drifted out of it on a regular basis.

  “You should be right on top of it,” Megan said. “You see it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Four-foot diameter hole, I think. Looks like it goes straight down.”

  The mech’s vision is stellar, though night vision wasn’t an option. Unless it was, and I just didn’t know about it. I was at the hands of basic mercenaries, or pirates, more or less.

  “Can you check it out for us?” Hannah asked. “What you see is what we see. If I notice any danger, I’ll call you back and we’ll reassess.”

  “I guess. Yeah.” Even though I didn’t want to. What if the intakes got clogged again? What then? I’d be trapped in a hole at the bottom of the goddamn ocean.

  Knowing my luck, I’d get stuck, just like that poor Mosasaurus. Even though the hole was plenty wide, my mind did its overthinking thing, as often happened, freaking me out.

  “Wen?”

  I gasped, cleared my throat. “Yeah. Sorry. Going in now.”

  “Just be careful,” Megan said. “We’ll be here for you.”

  Sighing, I lowered myself headfirst into the hole. It was pitch black.