by Nick Cook
If that wasn’t jaw dropping enough, beneath them was a huge, bowl-shaped floor that seemed to be constructed entirely of giant hexagonal glass plates. They reflected the scene like a huge fragmented mirror, making it impossible to see what was beyond the floor.
A faint light radiated around the bathysphere as we descended through the middle of the enormous chamber and a slight electrical humming sound came from the craft’s walls.
My mind was left reeling by what was around us, the scale almost beyond comprehension.
‘Bloody hell,’ Mike said.
‘That is a serious understatement, buddy, even for you,’ Jack said.
With a sense of absolute awe, I stared out of the portholes, taking in the mind-bending scene, unable to string together a coherent thought. I wasn’t alone; everyone had fallen silent, content to just absorb the incredible spectacle.
With a distant crackle, a giant spark of energy suddenly leapt from the crystal trees and earthed itself onto the chamber walls. The walls glowed briefly around the impact points before fading away, as a tingle of static brushed over my skin. No wonder the WASP’s systems had been fried when it tried to enter this place.
The bathysphere felt like an ant compared to the vast chamber, as we sped towards the bottom. I noticed the depth indicator on the door had just ticked past ten thousand feet and our ride still wasn’t showing any signs of slowing.
It was Ruby who finally found a voice. ‘What is this place? I mean, what was it built for? It was obviously built for something, right?’
‘Well, this is certainly an Angelus megastructure and whatever it was designed to do was clearly something on a very large scale,’ Mike said.
An incredible thought struck me. ’Could this be the device that the Angelus planned to use to defend Earth from an external threat?’
‘What, you think it could fire some sort of massive energy weapon into space, Death Star style?’ Jack asked.
‘I wouldn’t rule anything out – will you just look at the size of the bloody thing?’ Mike said.
‘Whatever it does, it looks like we won’t have much longer to wait because we’ve nearly reached the bottom,’ I said, pointing downwards.
The hexagon glass floor was getting closer fast. The cables of the other two bathyspheres were dangling through a shattered hole that had been punched through the floor, presumably with underwater charges. Framed within the broken section was what I could only describe as an inverted swimming pool, the surface of which was facing down into the area below the glass panels. Through the rippling surface we could see the two other bathyspheres already on the ground beneath the glass roof.
‘Looks like the end of the line is coming up,’ Jack said. His eyes suddenly widened. ‘Have you seen how deep we are?’
I turned to the display to see eight thousand feet tick past.
‘That noise can’t be good,’ Mike said.
For the first time I tuned into the sounds around me, hearing creaks and groans coming from the spherical metal walls.
‘Based on the fact that we are still breathing, and there are already two other bathyspheres on the seabed in what appears to be an area filled with air, I think we’re going to be okay,’ I said, trying my best to sound absolutely convinced.
At last we started to slow, as our bathysphere dropped towards the rippling surface.
‘Okay, get ready everyone in case there’s a reception committee waiting for us,’ I said.
Immediately, everyone was pure combat focus, checking over their weapons and ammo. In my case that also meant checking the Empyrean Key was safely stowed in my rucksack. If this all went according to plan, when we found the micro mind – and after seeing all of this I was now absolutely certain that we would – I would need it to communicate with what was obviously a very wide awake Angelus AI.
We broke through the upside down surface of the water, which totally messed with my head, and then we descended through a wide open area beneath the glass floor. As we slowed to a stop next to the other two bathyspheres, much to my relief I couldn’t see a single person to greet our unscheduled arrival with a storm of bullets.
With a soft shudder the bathysphere settled onto the ground. A chime came from the door panel and a message, air pressure stabilised, door unlocked was displayed on it.
‘I think that means it’s safe to open,’ Ruby quipped.
I slung the MP5 with its thirty bullet magazine over my shoulder and slipped the safety off my LRS as Jack placed his hand on the wheel that opened the door.
‘Keep sharp everyone; we have no way of knowing what we’ll be up against,’ I said.
‘If I didn’t know that Alvarez, Fischer and probably a whole lot of trouble wasn’t already down here, I’d actually be looking forward to this,’ Jack replied.
Ruby connected the sight to her sniper rifle. ‘Then it’s time to go and hunt us some bear.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruby was peering out of the portholes like an astronaut on a lunar lander. And in many senses that was exactly what this whole experience was like. Impossibly, we seemed to have entered a vast, air-filled chamber nearly thirty-five thousand feet beneath the surface of the ocean. I suspected the rush I was feeling wasn’t a thousand miles away from what Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin must have felt as they prepared to step out onto the surface of the moon for the first time.
‘I can’t see any hint of a welcoming committee out there,’ Ruby said.
‘We can’t assume there isn’t one, so we all need to stay on it. Be ready for anything,’ I reminded.
Not for the first time I wished that Lucy was with us. I would certainly feel a lot more relaxed if we could shift over into the twilight zone right about now.
Weapons ready, numerous grenades clipped to our belts, I patted the reassuring shape of the Empyrean Key in my bag as Jack turned the handle on the hatch in the floor. It swung open. Moments later, we’d all climbed down the ladder and were standing on the sea explorer equivalent of the lunar surface. On their hydraulic legs the bathyspheres even resembled the lunar modules, albeit with a bit of a Jules Verne steampunk vibe. This was another world in so many ways and apart from Alvarez and his people, we were almost certainly the first people outside the Overseer organisation to visit this site, considering how impossibly far beneath the surface we were.
Around the landing zone there were signs of human activity everywhere and the immediate area resembled a builders’ yard. Everything from pneumatic drills and shovels to even small diggers had been lined up in regimented rows. There was a wide, well-furrowed track with numerous tyre marks leading away into the gloom.
Banks of arc lights had been set up around the site, making it hard to see what lay beyond, where the distance was only faintly lit by the luminescence of the tree-like structures towering over the vast glass ceiling above.
One of the twisted crystal shafts of the tall mushroom structures intersected the ceiling about a hundred meters away, its trunk passing through it into the rocky floor. Other trunks were also visible, stretching away into the distance like a supersized crystal forest.
A gentle lapping sound was coming from beyond the glass, as the odd alarming creak and groan echoed throughout this impossible place at the bottom of the ocean. There was also a strong smell of rich earth rising from the thick carpet of lichen that covered most of the floor, and some sort of vine wound around the trunk of one of the mushroom towers, continuing up towards the roof and creeping across it, vines dangling down. How those plants could thrive in this deep underwater location was beyond me. Maybe it was an undiscovered species that could thrive on the little luminosity from the chamber?
Standing in the pool of light I certainly felt very exposed. We were surrounded by the cobwebs of shadows and darkness of whatever this place had been built for. I flicked down my thermal HUD and was quickly reassured when I couldn’t see any silhouettes of people waiting in the darkness to ambush us.
‘Talk about Alice stepp
ing through the looking glass! I feel like I have just been transported to another planet,’ Jack said.
‘You’re not the only one,’ Mike said, peering into the distance at the glowing forest of strange structures. He gestured up towards the blasted-through panel in the roof that was rippling like an upside down swimming pool. ‘This all has to be Angelus tech; there’s obviously some sort of gravity field holding that water back.’
‘Almost certainly, but the question is why keep this area clear of water at all?’ I asked.
Ruby gestured to a track marked every fifty metres or so with green beacons. ‘Maybe we’ll find the answer along the yellow brick road, because I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.’
I agreed. ‘Presumably wherever that leads we’ll find Alvarez and Fischer and the rest of their people, and hopefully the micro mind too.’
‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to getting up front and personal with that guy for some serious payback,’ Ruby said.
‘You’ll have to get in line behind me, but I’d be much happier knowing what was at the end of that track, waiting for us,’ Jack replied.
‘It’s just a shame we didn’t bring one of your WASPs. We could so do with it scouting ahead for us, Ruby,’ I said.
’Hang on, even if we haven’t got a WASP, I can still do this the old-fashioned way and scout ahead on foot,’ she said. ‘I’m far lighter on my feet that any of you baby elephants.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘I love you too. But scouting ahead does sound like a good plan. Just keep in contact via the radio channel on your Sky Wire. One upside of standing in a giant air bubble is that radio waves should still work down here.’
Ruby nodded and with her image intensifier screen pivoted down over her eyes, set off at a light jog into the darkness.
‘So, time to see where this particular yellow brick road leads,’ I said.
Following in Ruby’s footsteps we moved to the left of the track about a hundred metres out so we wouldn’t bump into anyone coming from the opposite direction. We set into a steady rhythm, with me leading the column in order for us to present less of a target in case we did run into Alvarez’s soldiers.
It wasn’t long before our chosen route took us closer to the base of the nearest mushroom structure. The crystal cables that knotted together to form the trunks appeared to have a root-like system burrowing into the moss and the ground beneath. Faint pulses of light ran through them, up into the structure.
Everything about this place screamed purpose. The problem was that until we made contact with the micro mind we would have no idea what that purpose actually was.
As we headed past the base of the mushroom structure its scale became clearer. It was easily at least a hundred metres wide, making us look like ants at the trunk of a giant redwood.
We had just passed it when Ruby spoke over the comms.
‘Guys, you’re not going to believe what I’ve just found,’ she said.
‘What?’ I replied.
‘Uh, you really need to see it for yourselves. It’s about two klicks out along the track that you’re on. I’ll push on to check the coast is clear.’
‘Roger that, but why won’t you tell us more?’ I asked.
‘Because I simply haven’t got the words, Lauren. Also, I’m not sure I trust my own eyes right now.’
I glanced back at Jack and Mike, who both shrugged.
This so wasn’t like Ruby on a mission. She was usually the very definition of professional detachment. But right now she sounded way more confused than I had heard her in a long time and that intrigued me as much as anything else down here.
‘Okay, understood. We should be there in another eight minutes,’ I replied.
‘You’ll know it when you get there,’ Ruby replied.
Without me needing to say anything, all three of us picked up our pace, keen to discover whatever the big mystery was that Ruby had just discovered, especially as she was being so cryptic.
Thanks to the gloom, even with my helmet’s thermal vision system, it was barely possible to see much of anything ahead of us. We’d been walking for around seven minutes when Jack’s voice came through my speakers.
‘Are you seeing what I think I’m seeing?’ he asked.
I turned to see him staring off into the ten o'clock position. I peered at where he was pointing, then I saw them. My heart skipped several beats as I began to take in faint shapes in the distance…ships.
‘Bloody hell, we’d better check this out,’ Mike said, his eyes wide.
‘Sounds like you’ve reached those ships,’ Ruby said over the link.
‘No wonder you weren’t sure about your eyesight…neither am I now,’ I said.
We veered off as one, heading straight towards the ships, which slowly became clearer as we closed in on them. There was a large fishing trawler, a tanker, and what even looked like an old warship, all covered with a thick blanket of moss.
‘Oh my God, that’s an Illinois class pre-dreadnought,’ Jack said, staring at the warship in awe.
‘I damned well knew it,’ Ruby said over the link. ‘They started building those around the 1900s, am I right, Jack?’
‘I believe so,’ he said, shaking his head, eyes wide in disbelief.
I made a T-shape with my hands. ‘Okay, time out here, people. First things first, what the hell are these three wrecks doing down here?’
‘Um, I don’t think it’s just three wrecks, Lauren,’ Mike said. He nodded to the left of the tanker and this time even I couldn’t stifle a gasp.
Stretching away beyond it was an elephants’ graveyard of ships of every description from every possible era. From small pleasure boats and a shattered three-masted sailing ship to a tug and a wood-panelled pleasure cruiser. There were even planes, including what I was pretty sure was a Corsair Second World War fighter that I’d once seen in an American military aviation museum.
The other startling thing, especially considering how long some of the vessels must have been down here, was that they hadn’t dissolved into rust in the oxygen rich atmosphere that we were breathing in, which tasted anything but stale. But many of the ships had evidence of significant damage that had almost certainly directly led to them sinking, from large holes in their hulls to a tanker that had been split completely in two.
‘Oh Jesus, I think I know what this might all be connected to,’ Jack said.
I turned towards him. ‘What?’
‘I can’t believe I’m actually going to voice this out loud as a serious explanation, but you do realise that we’re very close to the edge of the area known as the Bermuda Triangle? So…’ He made a sweeping gesture towards all the boats and planes before us.
I looked first at him, then at Mike – who was gawping at his friend – and then back to the graveyard of ships.
‘You’re seriously suggesting these craft were lost in the Bermuda Triangle?’ Ruby said over the link.
‘I know I’m in danger of sounding like Fox Mulder here, but if the damn Greek god Poseidon had its origins in an Angelus AI, then the Bermuda Triangle isn’t so far beyond the realms of possibility, right?’
‘You’re not saying that the micro mind deliberately sunk these craft?’ I said.
Jack shrugged. ‘I have absolutely no idea. But I guess it’s certainly a possibility we should consider. Maybe we are dealing with another rogue micro like Red?’
But it was then I spotted something beyond the Corsair fighter that made everything fall into place.
‘I don’t think the micro mind was responsible for any of this. Look…’ I pointed towards a trawler that had been converted into a deep diving vessel. I’d instantly recognised it from the footage of Raúl’s dive video…a ship with barely any moss…
‘Bloody hell, it can’t be!’ Mike said.
‘ I’m absolutely certain that trawler is Hercules.’
‘No, not that, that!’ Mike said, pointing with a trembling finger. ‘Tell me that’s not Artemis?’
> ‘You’re shitting me?’ Ruby exclaimed over the link. “How did I miss that?”
‘He’s absolutely isn’t shitting us,’ I said as my heart leapt at the sight of the lost craft. Then the obvious thought struck me… what about Tom?
Artemis was sitting on the rocky floor beyond the last boat. It’s upper hull had been partly crushed from the landslide that had landed on top of it, the bottom of the saucer completely blown away by the self-destruct charges that Tom had activated.
I was already running towards the craft before my mind even had a chance to catch up with what my subconscious was desperately hoping for.
My lungs were burning as I skidded to a stop before the X craft. A large gash had torn through the hull and holes were punched through it like a Swiss cheese. Artemis’s full complement of WASPs were visible in their racks through the launch bay doors that had been twisted partly open by the blast.
A moment later the others caught up with me, both men breathing hard.
Even though I knew no one could have survived the blast, I still called out, ‘Tom are you in there?’
The tiny flickering flame of hope that I’d allowed myself to believe for just a moment, spluttered and died when there was no response.
Mike put his hands on his head as he stared at our sister craft. ‘Shit, you remember when our systems blinked out for a minute with that magnetic pulse? That must have been when whatever it was transported Artemis here.’
Fresh wild hope filled me. ‘What if it was in time to save Tom?’
Before the others could answer, I turned towards one of the holes in the X103 to crawl through it. But then I felt a hand on my arm. Jack gazed at me with soft eyes as he gently shook his head.
‘There could still be a chance,’ I said, answering his unspoken words.
‘You and I both already know the answer to that,’ Jack said quietly but firmly.
I tried to pull away from his grip. ‘But I still need to check.’
