Trinity

by Patrick Morgan

  ‘Please don’t touch that until the forensics people have been in here,’ said O’Brien firmly but his look suggested he only half meant it. ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Katherine. ‘Myra?’

  ‘Some sort of old computer storage device or something?’

  ‘It’s an emulator,’ said Olson from behind them. Surprised by his insight, Katherine turned to look at him.

  ‘It’s an old emulator used to record and relay signals in and out of a system. They were used for checking what were then very complex processors in control systems. Of course, they are a fraction of that size now.’ He gave a good-natured laugh, with which no one joined in.

  Shrugging uncomfortably he offered up a simple explanation. ‘My father’s company used to make them.’

  Katherine looked again at the manufacturer’s inscription, then back to Olson. For a moment she scrutinised him, trying to recall what she could of INI Industries. Memory came flooding back and she straightened as a sickening realisation gripped her stomach.

  ‘Your father’s company was INI Industries?’ she said slowly, making sure she had the story right.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Olson, with an irreverent joviality so out of place the others began to share Katherine’s discomfort.

  Megan looked from the shocked, pale face of her half-sister to Olson, and back in bewilderment.

  ‘So that’s why you were interested in how I found ROOT,’ said Katherine, still fitting the pieces together. ‘ROOT and the technology he offered effectively put your father out of business.’

  Olson looked absently to one side, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, I guess I was interested. I never thought I’d get to meet that famous little girl who found the magic box of Mayak.’

  ‘All those people,’ said Katherine, furiously rubbing her forehead. ‘You had to lay off all those people and your father blamed you. All because of me.’

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said in a kindly but sad voice.

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ she protested. ‘Finding ROOT was just a stupid accident, but for you…’ She looked at him and shook her head, unable to finish the sentence. To the others, who could only watch this exchange with a sort of morbid curiosity, she looked as if she was about to crumple to the ground.

  ‘It’s the law of unintended consequences,’ he said in supplication. ‘You, at age fifteen, would never have imagined what might happen.’

  She was still shaking her head, her mind clearly not in the present. He moved a step towards her and gently took her hand. ‘Some good things came out of it. I never wanted to run that company and I resented my father for making me. I was never cut out for a directorship but it’s hard to admit that, even to yourself. Once it was gone, once he had gone, my wife came back and we were happy together. And now I’m doing what I dreamt of doing as a child.’

  She looked back at him sadly, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Your wife, she’s still with you?’ It felt an important detail to cling to in this moment.

  He wanted to reassure her but that wasn’t to be. ‘She died. Cancer. But we had some of the happiest times before that. She was a truly wonderful woman. And look,’ he said, his voice now suddenly filled with humour, ‘I get to work for this control freak. I get to go down dark passages with attractive ladies.’ He looked to Megan and Myra for approval and both grinned.

  O’Brien, who knew Olson’s backstory, chipped in with uncharacteristic generosity. ‘He’s very useful for me. He knows how these big companies work. How they get corrupted and how to look for the rot. I’ll miss him when he retires.’

  Katherine pulled herself together as best she could. She sucked in a deep lungful of the stale air and asked the one question that remained. ‘So this is how HEX’s telemetry is being interrupted?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Olson. ‘That is exactly what this device does.’

  Katherine looked at it then turned to sweep her flashlight through the open gap that would once have housed a door. The light flickered across the far wall of the corridor. As it did so, something caught her attention and she brought it back. Her brow furrowed as she squinted.

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ she said.

  All turned to see what she was looking at. Across the corridor, embedded in the wall, was a steel access panel that sat partially open. In contrast to the wall and floor around it, it looked distinctly well cared for. Unusually, it opened backwards, into whatever was behind it.

  Megan moved to it excitedly, examining it in the glow of her own flashlight. ‘This has to be the link to the 7075 tunnel!’

  ‘The what?’ asked Katherine.

  ‘It’s a service tunnel that runs close to here. We think it’s how whoever stole HEX got out.’

  Megan knelt and poked her head through the hole, pushing at the door as she did so. She had expected the hinges to squeak but they were smooth and silent. She reached in and shone her light around before calling back.

  ‘It’s definitely a service tunnel, there are pipes and things all over the walls.’ Before anyone could protest she had climbed through and jumped down to somewhere below.

  O’Brien looked at Olson and frowned. ‘Adventurous girl for a librarian. There’s no way I’m going down there.’

  Olson gave a wry grin. ‘She’s an archivist, not a librarian, Vincent.’

  ‘You’d better follow her,’ O’Brien said. ‘The two of you have got us this far. If you can find out where that tunnel leads it would finish the job nicely.’

  Olson nodded then looked back at Katherine. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after her.’ Then he added, ‘Don’t worry about that other stuff. Please?’

  She gave a resigned nod and, after accepting it, Olson himself climbed through the steel hatch and into the darkness below.

  019: The Tunnel

  Below Skala

  The oppressive darkness that surrounded Megan seemed like a dead space, alive only in the glint of her flashlight. In the thirty turns since she had entered the tunnel network, followed by Tyler Olson, they had made good progress.

  The tunnel was far from featureless; its crumbling concrete walls were lined with electrical conduit and sagging pipes that leaked refrigerant gas from cracks that appeared where wall-mounted supports had failed. Occasionally, smaller tunnels spurred off to the sides, providing irregular reference points where the air moved noticeably faster. The cool breeze was a welcome respite from the sweet, mildly intoxicating smell of the Freon gas.

  The concrete floor became increasingly irregular and littered with debris the further they ventured. Glass from long-exploded vacuum light bulbs crunched underfoot, throwing up occasional puddles of refracted light. Occasionally they heard the hum of crossed cables discharging crackling electricity and a distinctive tang of ozone. Distantly, the clicking of ancient relays could be heard, bringing an increasing sense that a secret, long-forgotten electro-mechanical world existed beneath an uncaring upper world. The scratching and skittering of small, clawed feet was close, but the creatures themselves remained unseen.

  At a touch of Olson’s hand on her arm, Megan slowed her pace. They came to a standstill before a high arched opening lined in crumbling, pale brick. Tracing the outline with the flashlight she paused at the keystone, her attention arrested by a symbol carved deep into its surface. A series of three diagonal slashes, one above another, had been chiselled into the stone accompanied by a single vertical cut to the right.

  ‘This is it,’ said Olson, with a degree of trepidation. ‘This is where the tunnel leads to.’

  Megan shone her flashlight into the void beyond the arch, the abyssal darkness swallowing the beam whole. Straining her eyes, she could just make out a tall, pale, cylindrical shape in the distance. As her eyes adjusted, she thought she saw a shadow flash across it. A stab of adrenaline surged through her system, causing her focus to sharpen and her already tight lungs to draw in an involuntary drag of the gas-laden air.

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nbsp; ‘What is it?’ Olson asked, his eyes straining into the faint illumination.

  ‘I don’t know, something moved,’ she whispered, not daring to take her eyes off the cylinder.

  ‘A person, animal maybe?’ His voice calmed Megan just enough to hold back fear.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We go carefully then,’ he said. ‘My wife once told me, in the strictest of confidence, there is a whole subculture living down below the city. I’ve never told a soul before, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.’

  Megan stared ahead, not daring to look away. ‘People, living down here?’

  ‘From what I know, they leave us up-worlders alone most of the time. Have you ever heard of anyone going missing down here?’

  ‘No,’ replied Megan, not remotely reassured.

  Olson moved forward and Megan followed, fear blooming inside her like a dark rose. Crossing the threshold of the arch, she shone her light deep into the space beyond, scanning from right to left. Detecting no movement, she swallowed hard and took a step further inside.

  The space was large compared to the relative confines of the tunnel. It appeared wider than it was deep, the flashlight picking up no wall on either side. But she could see ahead of her. The cylindrical object they had seen became clearer, one of two huge, grey tanks. They reached up to twelve metres in height and were encircled by an austere-looking set of metal walkways. Far to the left was what appeared to be a hulking spoked wheel, half buried in the floor and coupled to a series of long ornate linkages that joined a pump-like machine.

  ‘What is this place?’ she whispered to Olson. Terror gripped her hearts as she realised he was no longer beside her.

  ‘What is this place?’ intoned a deep, booming voice from directly behind her. She froze, petrified.

  ‘This place, down here in the darkness. This place, it be called the Siphon.’ The voice, rich and melodic, echoed faintly around her before dying away into the darkness.

  Megan fought back tears and fright as she heard the soft struggle of Olson somewhere behind her. She was rooted to the spot, unable to muster the courage to turn and face the owner of that terrible voice. It came again, slow and closer this time, answering the question she dare not speak.

  ‘And what of it, young miss? We do live down here although, for us, this is but an attic. Our kingdom lies beneath.’

  He drew closer and Megan became aware of an intense aroma of incense just as the man himself took in a long, nasal breath. She felt the air move above her and knew he derived satisfaction from her scent. She felt fingers running softly against her hair on both sides and the proximity of palms that did not quite touch her. Sweat ran in streams across her brow and into her eyes, stinging and making her blink. But still, she didn’t move.

  ‘Your friend is a quiet one,’ said the man, calm and questioning. From behind her, Olson spoke up in a supremely level voice.

  ‘She’s a child. Don’t hurt her. You don’t need to hurt either of us.’

  ‘A child you say. She does not have the smell of a child.’

  ‘She’s not old enough to have done you any harm,’ replied Olson.

  ‘No?’ enquired the voice and Megan felt the man draw himself against her, his breath blowing downward around her ear. He laid his hands on her shoulders with a terrifying lightness, his long splayed fingers coming to rest across her clavicles. ‘But she might yet do harm to others, my friend.’ His grip on her shoulders tightened.

  Despite her fear, Megan was confused, mostly because Olson seemed to know how to converse with this man on a level he clearly understood.

  The voice spoke again but this time from a step or two behind and Megan felt the hands draw back, the fingers running over her shoulders like flaccid claws. ‘And what are two souls from high above doing in the underworld?’

  ‘We’re just passing through,’ said Olson, as if this were a normal thing to be doing on any given shift. ‘We are retracing the steps of a friend of ours who came this way recently.’

  At this, Megan felt a sudden rush of air as the figure behind her whirled. Finding her paralysis broken, she turned and gasped at the sight before her. The first thing she saw was Olson, his white shirt and face bright in the light of her wavering flashlight. Restraining him by the arms was a small group of men. All, to Megan’s astonishment, had darker skin than anyone she had ever seen. All were powerfully built, dressed in light-coloured, dirt-stained rags. They seemed to hunch as if at the ready; for what, Megan tried not to think.

  Between Olson and herself stood the man to whom the deep voice belonged. Even with his back turned, she could see he was tall, over two metres at least, with long hanging plaits of black hair adorned with beads or rings. He wore a robe of dark sacking torn at the sleeves and at the hem, which nearly touched the ground. Megan could see from his bare feet and the backs of his tattooed forearms that he too had the same dark skin. In his left hand, he held a long staff tipped with a translucent yellow stone that caught her light and refracted it in a diffused halo.

  ‘The woman Myra?’ asked the man with obvious recognition.

  Olson didn’t flinch and spoke confidently. ‘That’s right, you know her?’

  ‘We know her,’ said the man with obvious respect in his voice. ‘She is one of the few visitors we tolerate down here in the darkness.’

  The man turned to look back over his shoulder, giving Megan her first sight of his face. His high-set cheeks were full and covered in dark freckles, but it was his eyes that took her. He had the eyes of a cat. Though not slits exactly, the pupils were not round but possessed a definite vertical appearance that bled out at the edges. The iris surrounding each pupil was a deep green and shone bright in the flashlight. Megan saw no malice in those eyes, a hardness born of difficult circumstances, yes, but their intensity told her she was not in mortal danger.

  Straightening, the figure turned fully towards her. Megan stood stock-still, forcing herself not to show lingering fear. For a moment, she met his gaze and felt a flicker of recognition in those strange eyes looking down on her.

  ‘Look like her you might, little miss, but you have a calmer soul.’

  ‘Thank you,’ was all she could think to say, more in a whisper than as actual words. Look like her? That made little sense, as she possessed little more than a passing resemblance to the Vault’s monitoring technician. She fought to regain her composure and, partly succeeding, managed to speak with more confidence than she felt. ‘Who are you?’

  The man turned his head, looking back at those behind him. Megan followed his gaze, noting that the assembled group had relaxed. Olson was no longer being held and stood, quite unmoved, apart from them.

  ‘We are Hadje,’ said the tall man with a sweeping gesture. ‘That means nothing to you?’

  Megan stuttered, embarrassed and afraid. ‘I’m sorry, it doesn’t.’

  ‘No,’ said the man thoughtfully, and turned to Olson. ‘I imagine it may mean something to you?’

  ‘A little,’ agreed Olson. ‘Enough to know we’re safe.’

  ‘Safe you are,’ agreed the man and turned back to Megan. His voice was low and, although quiet, it reverberated with an almost dreamlike quality. ‘Come, make the descent with us and I will show you our world, as I showed Myra.’

  Startled, Megan looked to Olson, who gave the briefest of nods. He may have said he felt safe, but his looks assured her the descent to wherever it was they were going was a journey they were in no position to refuse.

  The huge man moved towards Megan and reached out for her flashlight. She fought back a resurgent stab of fear to hand it to him. He snapped it off and, for a terrible moment, the world went dark. Then, from the tip of the staff, came a soft, yellow glow. The light grew steadily brighter, enveloping the whole group. Its quality, together with the smell of incense, had an overwhelming, calming effect. The man turned and, as a group, they moved off into the depths of the unknown.

  020: Mal-Kas

  Mal-Kas Mine, 122km
Northwest of Skala

  JT had been hard pressed to find an appropriate vehicle to make the journey to Mal-Kas. Eventually, he located a Unit of similar age to Hydra that had been split up due to a persistent gas turbine issue. Pegasus 2, as the vehicle was dubbed, carried JT and Ira over the rocky terrain that led upwards into the barren but deposit-rich expanse of the northern mountains. It was rough going, causing Ira to look distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘So – this trip is legitimate, you said?’ he asked JT, speaking up above the hum of the turbine through the bulkhead beside them.

  ‘Yes, totally legitimate. I’ve got a list of equipment Hellinar Research lent the contractor, a company called ‘MineVision’. No one’s seen it since. In truth this visit’s overdue.’

  ‘Sounds an inventive name,’ said Ira sarcastically. ‘Will we have to go into the mine?’

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘I don’t much like dark places,’ said Ira nervously. He shivered, momentarily reliving a previous experience.

  ‘Well, you’d better get used to the idea. Mines are a very harsh environment at the best of times.’

  ‘You’ve been in one before?’

  ‘A long time ago. I’ve tried to avoid them since, but needs must if we’re going to find Connor.’

  ‘Maybe you find Connor, and I’ll take a look around above ground.’

  ‘We’ll see how the land lies when we get there.’ JT didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand, although he preferred to have Ira with him.

  A rotation later, they reached the bund wall that delineated the outermost edge of the Mal-Kas encampment. The road, a well-travelled track of reddish dirt, took them directly to a sliding gate, which screeched open on a protesting rack and pinion. There was nowhere obvious to park, so JT guided Pegasus 2 toward a prefabricated building marked ‘Admin and Ops’. He throttled down and flicked a switch to lower the tailgate. They squeezed between the staggered seats of the cockpit and made their way out through the spacious cargo hold.