“Our first stop is nine, boss,” Ollie told him. “Then we head to seven.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. “Fine, but hurry up. Those platform and railings aren’t going to tie themselves down. Last thing you want is a loose piece of kit to puncture the spacecraft.”
“God forbid,” Ollie said, waving as Sandusky frowned and walked away.
The doors closed and the grate elevator shook as it began climbing again.
“What was that all about?” Kay asked, impressed Ollie had managed to fast-talk the guy.
“I didn’t give us these uniforms by accident,” he told her. “We’re NASA grunts, populating the lowest rung on the totem pole. Our job is to tie down equipment, railings and anything else that may get knocked loose during the takeoff. I thought we might blend in better this way.”
“Ollie, you there?” Patrick said over the radio.
The elevator doors opened onto the ninth level and they stepped off. Kay’s arms and legs were live wires of nervous energy.
“I am, go ahead.”
“The first package has been stored, I repeat the first package has been stored.”
“Good job. You and Sven slowly work your way down to the cart and wait for us there.”
“Roger that.”
Kay looked through the grate at her feet and saw slivers of activity on the levels below. The ninth floor was close to thirty feet in either direction. On either end, men in white jumpsuits took readings and entered data into mobile computer terminals. Among them was a security officer, peering over the railing. Straight ahead was a walkway that led to the rocket itself.
Kay stayed by the elevator, pretending to secure a workstation in place while Ollie approached the second-stage booster. She would keep an eye out and let him know if anyone was getting close.
Ollie reached his position, knelt down and opened the toolkit. A passing cloud of exhaust temporarily whited out their vision.
Kay kept her hands busy, scanning left and right. “All clear,” she said, sweating profusely in the muggy Florida air.
Leaning forward, Ollie pressed the magnetic device to the booster’s outer bulkhead and was about to set the timer when he lost his footing and nearly plummeted into the gap between the rocket and the walkway.
Kay gasped and stood up. The guard must have seen her sudden movement because his head snapped in her direction. She saw this and felt her skin begin to tingle with fear. “Uh, Ollie, a guard is coming.”
He was in the middle of righting himself. “I just need another minute.”
The guard was fifteen feet away now right as the elevator behind her began rumbling to life. She could see the guard was in his early twenties with a fresh face and clear blue eyes.
“A minute? He’ll be here any second.”
The walkway Ollie stood in was enclosed with aluminum siding, which meant anyone working on the far ends couldn’t see exactly what he was up to. But anyone coming out of the elevator or standing next to her would have a perfect view.
She imagined removing her pistol and firing at the approaching guard. She could see he was armed too and surely far more proficient with a weapon than she was. She realized that offense was far from her best option. Instead, she decided to cut him off, keep him away from the elevator area where he might spot Ollie setting the bomb. What she didn’t know was whether the elevator was heading to nine or another level.
“I’m just about done here,” she said, moving past him.
The guard stopped and snagged her by the arm. “Hey, is everything okay? You looked a little startled for a minute.”
Kay was beginning to learn that trying to smile nonchalantly with cottonmouth was no easy task. She hoped Ollie could hear her talking over the radio and would know what was going on. “Oh, that. I thought I’d forgotten my…” She paused, searching for a technical-sounding instrument. This guy was a guard, not an engineer, all she needed was something that sounded good.
His eyes narrowed and his forehead scrunched up. “You don’t look so good.”
Her eyes began to flutter as her legs gave out. The guard moved in to catch her before she fell. His hands clasped under her arms.
“Hey, what’s that?” he asked, feeling the hard edge of the pistol she had hidden beneath her overall.
Just then the elevator door opened and Sandusky came out hollering. “What the hell are you doing over there?” He was pointing at Ollie.
Sandusky took two full steps before bullets from Ollie’s gun struck him in both thighs, sending him tumbling to the grate, screaming and clutching his wounded legs. Seeing this, the guard stood up and fumbled for his weapon. Ollie came around the corner, still focused on Sandusky. The guard pulled his weapon free. From the floor, Kay already had him in her sights.
The guard’s eyes jumped from one of them to the other. His finger began to squeeze the trigger. Kay fired three times into his chest, the pistol barely audible over the din. The guard fell face forward. Ollie rushed in and helped Kay to her feet. The other technicians must have noticed the commotion because they stood, frozen in fear.
They got in the elevator and were drawing even with the platform’s third floor when a general alarm sounded and flashing yellow lights filled their vision.
Ollie called out over the radio. “Sven, the second package is secure. The timer is set for five minutes. Tell me you’re waiting to pick us up.”
The line remained silent.
“It’s more like three and a half minutes now,” Kay said, feeling increasingly numb from the neck down. Whether it was from the adrenaline surging through her system or the shock over taking that young man’s life, she couldn’t tell.
They reached the platform’s main level. A handful of technicians rushed past them and down the metal staircase to the tarmac below. In the distance, sirens blared as half a dozen NASA security vehicles barreled toward them.
Ollie and Kay got to the tarmac and didn’t see the cart anywhere.
“He left us,” Kay said, horrified. The only other thought going through her mind was to run away from what was going to be a massive explosion.
“Sven, where the hell are you?”
Kay dragged Ollie by the arm, away from the oncoming security. She glanced back to see a cart dart out from behind the vehicle assembly building, honking its horn. Sven pulled up with Patrick in the passenger seat waving them in. They hopped on and started to head back.
“Not that way,” Ollie shouted. NASA security was less than fifty yards away and would surely cut them off. “Over there,” he cried, pointing in the opposite direction. “We’ll use the platform as cover for as long as we can.”
“This ain’t a Tesla,” Patrick cried. “It’s a glorified golf cart. We can barely outrun a guy in a wheelchair.”
“Have faith, mate,” Ollie said as Sven whipped around and floored it.
Kay stared behind them as the security detail reached the platform, driving under and around its massive metallic pillars. “They’re getting clos―” she began to say when the rocket detonated in a violent explosion. First from the bottom where an expanding fireball engulfed everything around it, including the security vehicles passing underneath. A series of explosions raced up the length of the rocket as the flammable propellant ignited into an awe-inspiring spectacle. Kay shielded her face from the searing heat and the concussive wave that struck them a moment later, nearly sending their cart toppling onto its side. Sven struggled to maintain control. In the front seat, Patrick hollered like a NASCAR fan watching his favorite racer cross the finish line.
Sven followed the shoreline as they headed back to the boat. More sirens were sounding, but these were coming from fire trucks and not police cars. By the firelight, Kay caught sight of the quiet smirk on Ollie’s face. He never said a word, but that satisfied look said enough.
Chapter 30
Everyone present in the lab had stopped what they were doing and gathered around Anna. “Dr. Greer, if you recall, I spoke to yo
u earlier about the seismic scans conducted in the pyramid’s main chamber.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, I recall. You mentioned the portal had been distorting the image, which made us wonder about the unusual energy being emitted.”
“We’re still working on that, by the way,” Eugene protested. “We growing more confident dark energy might be at play, as well as a slippery new particle we’re struggling to identify.”
“Not long ago,” Anna told them, “a team entered the portal in order to conduct seismic scans on what we understood to be a planet somewhere in our galactic neighborhood.”
“That’s right,” Jack said, distinctly aware of the suggestion he’d made to Stark during his debriefing. “So what did they find?”
Anna laid out a stash of images she had been holding in a manila envelope.
They had expected to see layers of rock, laid down over millions and billions of years. Instead, the geophysical images from the other side simply showed a flat surface.
“What does that mean?” Dag asked, looking at the only geophysicist in the room.
“It suggests something is blocking the signal.” He turned to Anna. “Did they take any other readings?”
She nodded. “From three separate locations and all of them were the same.”
“There’s some sort of metallic surface beneath the planet’s surface,” Gabby speculated. “Could it be another structure? Something we may have missed?”
Jack rubbed the fingers on his left hand, considering the idea. “That’s hard to say. I mean, it isn’t exactly flat prairie land over there. You’re talking about a rather rugged landscape with peaks and valleys and at least one small lake.”
“A lake?” Dag repeated, not trying to hide his exasperation.
“You know how to swim, don’t you?” Jack asked with a wink.
He shook his head. “Just because I look like a surfer doesn’t mean I am one.”
“I believe there may be an alternate explanation,” Anna said, cutting into the brief moment of levity. “Thankfully, I was able to overcome the portal’s distorting effects by creating a new algorithm, one that magnified the multi-attribute full waveform inversion while also filtering anomalous signals. I discovered that my initial assessment was incorrect.”
“Wow,” Gabby said, her eyes wide and chin lowered in surprise. “Anna made a mistake. I guess that gives some hope to the rest of us.”
Anna grinned with humility. “I have made plenty of errors, Dr. Bishop. And I consider each of them an opportunity for improvement.”
“They are,” Jack agreed, but with noticeable impatience. “I can tell you’re about to hit us with something and I wanna see it.”
“My apologies, Dr. Greer.” Anna laid a cleaned-up seismic scan on the table. Each of them leaned in, their faces frozen in astonishment.
The image showed the layers of crystalline bedrock resting beneath the Mesonyx pyramid. That part they had expected. What caught them all off guard was the massive diamond-shaped object just below the surface.
Jack’s head snapped in Anna’s direction. “I thought you said that second pyramid was an echo.” His voice wasn’t just shocked, it was almost accusatory.
“At the time, that was my best assessment.”
The room erupted into a maelstrom of questions, almost all of them directed toward Anna. Her head turned in so many directions at once, it looked as though it might pop off and roll away.
“Let me make certain I understand,” Grant cut in. “Are you suggesting another Atean ship is buried beneath the Mesonyx city?”
“I have not suggested anything, Dr. Holland,” Anna replied. “I have merely shown you the data I collected. In addition, I never said the ship belonged to the race of extraterrestrials you are calling the Ateans. Lastly, the ship, which is quite a bit larger than the one discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, lies directly beneath the city’s own pyramid.”
“Do you believe the location of the Mesonyx pyramid is a coincidence?” Gabby asked her.
“I doubt it,” Jack replied. “Remember the building we found in the piazza, how the central statue had been holding what looked like an Atean pod? They must have known it was there and decided to build their own version of it above ground.”
“As a sign of reverence,” Gabby added.
Dag pursed his lips. “No kidding they had reverence. It was probably the most powerful thing they’d ever seen. Enough to inspire them to build an entire civilization on top of it.”
“I’d be willing to bet,” Jack said, crossing his arms and stroking his chin, “that at least some of the technological advancement we witnessed came from reverse-engineering pods and other goodies they discovered.”
Eugene put his hand up like a schoolkid in the front row. “I think you’re all missing the bigger picture.”
“Then feel free to enlighten us, old boy,” Grant said.
“This isn’t about the Mesonyx or pilfered technology,” he said, waving his hands in the air, “but about the portal. Can’t you see? It doesn’t lead to a distant planet. It’s a doorway into the ship.”
Chapter 31
Jack couldn’t help feeling like a large, intricately woven carpet had just been yanked out from under him. It had been startling enough to discover the alien landscape they had been exploring was protected by a dome. To learn that said dome was not light years away, but mere meters beneath their feet had left Jack utterly speechless.
Gabby was comparing scans of the ship beneath them to the one they’d found in the Gulf. “Sure, both craft are the same shape, I’ll give you that. But what gets me is that the ship in Mexico was only half the size of this one. Not only that, but the entire internal structure appears to be radically different.”
“Dr. Bishop, are you suggesting the two are not related?”
She glanced down at the pictures again. “At this point, I really don’t know what to think. From the outside, they look the same. They’re both shaped like diamonds. They’re far more massive than any ship we could ever build and clearly both of them landed at some point in the past, wiping out much of life on earth.”
“We’ve said it before,” Jack said, finding his tongue again. “There may be other ships scattered around the planet. One to account for each of the planet’s major mass extinctions.”
Grant laid one of his long-fingered hands on Eugene’s shoulder. “I actually take some comfort from the discovery Anna has made.”
“You do?” she asked, hopeful.
“Absolutely. It tells me what we are after might be here after all.”
“Grant does have a point,” Jack admitted. “Trekking through a hostile, alien world in the hopes of flagging down a native inhabitant willing to give humanity a helping hand did seem like an act of desperation.”
“Not so desperate when it was all we had,” Gabby said, always the voice of reason.
Jack glanced down at his watch. “It’s just hard searching for a needle in a haystack when you’re not even sure a needle is what you’re really looking for.”
“Nor whether you’ll recognize the haystacks when you see one,” Eugene muttered.
“If nothing else,” Anna said, “I believe this demonstrates we are on the right track. I am not sure why, but I am hopeful.”
They stopped and regarded her for a moment. Sure, someone could argue Anna had been programmed to be positive and encouraging. However, Rajesh had never programmed her to be distraught when she thought she had hurt someone’s feelings. To a greater or lesser degree, a person had a say in whether they chose to view the world through a bright or gloomy prism. In Anna’s case, Jack wasn’t amazed by the choice she had made, but that she had had one to begin with.
Gabby started to laugh.
“What is it?” Jack inquired, emerging from his own thoughts.
“At least we know if the worst happens everyone at Northern Star can go live on the ship.”
He started to laugh as well and then stopped himself. “You know, that’
s not a terrible idea.”
“Oh, come on,” Eugene protested. “I’ve seen the videos you brought back. I’ll bet some of those creatures would love nothing more.” He started waving his hand, as though helping a truck back up. “Bring in the cattle. No, thank you.”
“I’d bring my mother there in a heartbeat,” Gabby said dreamily.
“There’s no telling what impact we would have on a fully enclosed ecosystem like that,” Grant said, a hint of concern in his voice. “Big and nasty or not, the indigenous life is almost guaranteed to get wiped out. Especially given the relatively small amount of space.”
“As I have told the others,” Anna said, “the dome has a diameter of two miles.”
“Hell, there’s no telling what impact we’ve had already,” Jack said. “The only species I’m interested in saving is our own. If that means we try to live on the ship, so be it. If you ask me though, I don’t think it’ll work.”
Grant was nodding.
Gabby saw this and said: “You agree with him?”
“On Earth, it has been common for one species to displace another,” Grant started to explain. “When Homo sapiens left Africa, they encountered Neanderthals, a cousin with a distant common ancestor. Whether through war or breeding, Homo sapiens eventually pushed Neanderthals into extinction. This is a game that has played out countless times throughout Earth’s long history. A game I need not remind you humans are not immune from. I think Shakespeare said it best.”
“‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,’” Jack recited, drawing on the minor he’d earned in the humanities.
“Apart from philosophical arguments,” Eugene interjected, “there are practical ones. You guys saw what looks like soil is really just a strange mixture of biological and dead silicon cells. In other words, what would we eat? And how would we breathe? Eventually we’d run out of air filters for our suits.”
Extinction Crisis Page 14
