No one wanted to tell Roland that they had absolutely no idea what they were looking at.
Finally one of the specialists at the far end of the room cleared this throat and said, “Sir, I think I’ve got a prelim signal, but the cameras are having a hard time reading it.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Roland replied. “We have the most sophisticated camera system in the world, and you can’t tell me what the fuck has entered the tunnel?”
“It seems to be iridescent, sir-almost invisible. The computers cannot analyze the exact material makeup, or even gauge its size or mass.” He dared to glance at the commander, and then wished he hadn’t. “Assuming, ah…assuming it’s there at all.”
“Invisible?” Roland asked and pushed the officer to one side as he moved closer to the console to check the screen himself. He tried reading the information for himself, but he wasn’t satisfied by the answer. The holo-display didn’t make a damn bit of sense, and he had more than thirty years of experience reading output like this. It’s beyond them, he realized. Instead, he turned toward the center of the room where a large table showed the sophisticated tunnel system in a ten-by-twenty-foot holo-display.
“Expand Fissure 9 five to one, Station 35 to three miles.” The AI responded to his verbal command instantly, and the image zoomed forward and in, bringing the long tunnel of Fissure 9 into sharp relief.
This section of Fissure 9 looked like a digital worm ten feet long floating above the surface of the table. There was the entrance in question: Station 35, one of the digitally camouflaged entrances to the Southern Sea.
“Give me an infrared readout and locate movement of anomalies,” said the commander. Instantly, the computer analyzed the tunnel, showing a small speck of…something…moving at a rapid speed, deeper down the submarine feeder-tunnel toward the main corridor of Fissure 9- moving toward them, as it happened.
Roland tapped a small patch on his left shoulder and spoke distinctly, “This is Fissure 9 Command. Connect me to headquarters.”
He heard the response in his ear through the tech implanted there years ago: “Roger that.”
Two seconds later, he heard the voice of the computer on the other side, “Central Command, verify password.”
“Fissure 9, 9005105,” said the commander, looking at the tunnel with the flickering things moving forward at a steady-and impressive-speed.
“Hold on, sir,” the computer said, instantly analyzing the password and connecting him to the voice on the other side.
“What the hell are you doing going audio?” the voice on the other side asked.
“We have an incision,” said the commander. That was all the explanation the other side would need.
The voice belonged to the man designated as Mathias, the commander’s counterpart in Central Command. Although Central Command was miles away and over five thousand feet deep in the ice, it was also the point where everything converged. Most of the transport tunnels that crossed underneath the ice connected there, and Mathias would be just as displeased at hearing that word as Roland had been. The moment Roland pronounced it, the other man’s tone changed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” replied Roland. “We’re still working on the recognition sequence, but I’m convinced it’s not one of ours.”
Roland hadn’t taken his eyes off the multiple screens, but he was no closer to understanding what he was seeing than he’d been five minutes ago. “Command,” he said, hating the decision even as he made it. “I am requesting a dispatch.”
Mathias responded immediately, “You do realize how long it will take for the DITVs to get up there?”
“We’ve got a situation up here,” Roland said, biting it off. “I need assistance.” Dispatching Vector5’s Deep Ice Transport Vehicles (or DITVs) were the biggest, most decisive response he could think of. It was important to hit hard and hit fast. But that wasn’t all.
“Central,” he continued. “Can you send the Spiders up Dragger Pass as well?” Dragger Pass was a three-thousand-foot-long crack in the ice, an incredibly dangerous crevasse as wide as two-hundred-feet in certain areas, which opened on the Fissure at various points along the way. The CS-23s, or the Crevasse Spiders, were the perfect tools for forcing unwanted intruders to stop or die, and the only machines capable of navigating the vertical fissure.
Mathias humphed at the request, thinking it through. “We haven’t used Dagger Pass in years,” he said. “There are easier ways to travel now. It’s going to take some time.”
“We don’t have time,” Roland said. “While you’re deploying, I’m dispatching the Drones to get a better visual of what this thing is.”
“I haven’t said if we’re deploying-”
“Roland out,” he said and tapped his shoulder one more time to disconnect from Central Command. He didn’t have to repeat himself; he saw the surveillance duty officer was already at work.
“Sir, I’ve dispatched eight underwater drones along the cord,” he said, referring to the Fissure 9 tunnel. The tiny robotic cameras no larger than baseballs would travel to their assigned destinations at speeds exceeding thirty miles an hour. Once they reached their goals, they would dig in and remain dormant until activated.
Roland nodded and allowed himself a tiny moment of satisfaction. He walked outside of the monitor room in search of a decent cup of coffee. “Good,” he muttered to himself. “Once we get a look at this thing, I’ll know how to deal with it.”
He only knew one thing for certain: whoever, or whatever, had entered Fissure 9 had a death wish…and he was more than sure he would make it come true.
FISSURE 9
Twelve miles from the open water, deep in the dead-black tunnel of Fissure 9, the Spector pushed on until Max, terrified beyond thought, stopped dead.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t drive this thing blind.”
The bridge was lit only by the dim blue light of the instrumentation. They had doused all the other illumination, as well as the high-intensity external lights to avoid detection.
Max and Simon were both convinced they were being watched-or at the very least, being sought. Sonar and radar-active scanning of the outside world-would draw attention like moths to a flame. So they made themselves absolutely blank…and absolutely helpless. Without the external lights, even the front-facing flat-screen was useless. It just showed black on black on black.
“We have to figure something else out,” he said as he slowed Spector VI to a barely suspended state in the middle of the tunnel-or what he thought was the middle, based on what he had seen just before he slowed the vessel down. He had to keep the vessel moving. There was a hint of a current outside, and holding it in almost the same place would be virtually impossible without power. He just hoped it wouldn’t run into anything before they figured out what to do next.
No one could guess that a military force was already on its way, or that they were less than twenty minutes from the vast central dome of Fissure 9.
Hayden’s depth indicator, working from passive pressure readings, was still functional. That told him how deep they were, and Max could tell from that input alone that they had been traveling in a straight, level line for more than fourteen miles; but that was it. Otherwise: he was blind.
Hayden sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said, “enough with the ‘run silent, run deep’ game. We have to turn on the AIs. It’s our only chance of understanding what’s going on, or we might kill ourselves against the tunnel wall.”
“And if we do, we’ll bring UNED to us within hours,” Simon said.
Andrew was staring at the console, deep in thought. “Can’t we engage just a few of Spector’s outside components?” he asked. “Without turning on the AI module?”
“Like what?” Hayden asked.