He had to sit and think. He had to talk with Max and Samantha-the ones he could really trust-and work this out.
The rest of the team had set up a temporary encampment next to the escaped scientists. It was heated by a cobbled-together network of battered and mismatched thermal units, hastily adapted from a half dozen vehicles of different designs and haphazardly connected to create a tiny area barely warm enough to allow the opening of the masks and relatively easy breathing. That circular meeting area-a campfire without a flame-was directly in front of a dimly illuminated structure, the likes of which Simon had never seen.
The structure’s surface was constructed of a durable plastic or vinyl material that seemed to be made of a million tiny cells no bigger than a fingernail, each one filled with air and somehow stiffened or solidified. From a distance, it looked like crystalline rock with an unnaturally smooth, organic exterior. Up close it looked like a honeycomb made of artificial materials, but as rigid as stone. The construction itself was unlike anything Max and Simon had ever seen.
“It’s a Vector5 inflatable structure used for emergencies,” said Lucas as he dropped his bag on the icy ground. “We found it inside one of the larger vehicles we uncovered last week. Thank god we did; it’s no fun sleeping in an ice cube.”
The other members of the Spector VI team had gathered with some of Lucas’ scientists in that small, warm circle, making seats out of crates that seemed to be ammunition cases or empty ration cubes. Simon recognized a few of them as recent arrivals from Spector VI.
As they entered the circle, Andrew greeted them with one upraised arm. It held a nearly full bottle of scotch.
“Greetings,” he said to Simon. “Sit on down, warm yourself up.”
One of Lucas’ men, sitting heavily in a field chair near the edge of the circle, suddenly broke into a wide grin. “Oh yeah!” he rumbled. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“It was packed in a case that traveled with us in the Spector,” Andrew said, slowly opening the bottle with flourish. “Personally, I’ll drink anything that comes my way, but some people around here are a bit picky about their personal brand of scotch.” He cast a sarcastic look at Simon, even as Lucas stopped to gaze in awe at the bottle of liquor.
“Wow,” he said sounding more like a frat boy than a scientist, if only for a moment. “We haven’t seen one of those in years.”
“Well, it’s time you re-established a meaningful relationship,” Andrew said, grinning. He reached down and snagged one of a half-dozen bottles at his feet, this one unopened, and tossed it easily to Lucas, who caught it with some difficulty. Lucas, in turn, offered it to his thirsty colleague, who moved as quickly as he could to seize the prize, but as the scientist tried to take the bottle, Andrew noticed for the first time just how frail the man was. He wasn’t going to be able to stand without help, let alone have a drink.
Andrew was suddenly, painfully aware of how the extreme environment had taken its toll on these men-all of them.
The lesson wasn’t lost on Samantha, either. “Hey,” she said to everyone with a false, almost brittle cheer, “how about we open one of these ration crates and have little celebration?”
They had been waiting for the invitation. In a heartbeat, the scientists, under Lucas’ watchful eye, ripped open one of the Spector’s ration crates and pulled out bag after bag of self-contained, self-heating meals-ready-to-eat; they descended on them like ravenous animals. They just ate-without benefit of utensils or table manners. The sound alone was enough to turn Simon’s stomach.
After all too short a time Lucas called a halt. “Take it easy, guys!” he said. He pulled the last of the few unopened packs from his people-even the ones who fought him-to store them in his own bag for later. “Think about what you’ll eat tomorrow and next week. There’s no telling when we can mount that resupply operation, so this is going to have to last us until then.”
One of the men-the first one to ask for liquor-gave a sarcastic snort. “‘Resupply operation,’” he grunted. “Hitting that bunker at the base of Tunnel 5 is a pipe dream, Lucas. Never gonna happen.”
“You see the guards they have posted down there?” another scientist said. “We wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Not before, we wouldn’t have,” Lucas said, then hefted a long, heavy wooden case off the icy ground and plopped it between the men. “But now…”
The complainer glared at the battered wooden box. “Where’d you get that?”
“The abandoned weapons dump up at Tunnel 36. Remember? That’s why we went out in the first place? Well, food and new friends notwithstanding, it was worth the trip.”
He pried open the box to reveal the strangest weapon Simon had ever seen-a structured box like weapon that seemed to look like a retractable robot. The only thing he recognized was the decal of a skull on one matte-finished panel. The international symbol of deadly.
They looked too small and compact to be rifles, but far too large and complex to be a pistol. Max too was fascinated. To him, they resembled the folded gloves of an experimental exo-skeleton he had seen in a government facility years ago-multiple sections that folded out and clicked together to make…something very strange.
Lucas noticed Max staring. “What?” he said in a voice that was almost prideful. “You’ve never seen a ray gun before?”
“Come on,” Simon chuckled, just as curious as Max. “What the hell is it really?”
“I’ll be happy to show you,” Lucas said. “Follow me.”
They moved to a makeshift firing range they had created a safe distance from the encampment, and facing away into the dark far reaches of the cave. With a few gestures, Lucas indicated where he wanted the observers to stand, and Simon noticed for the first time that Nastasia had silently joined them, a look of naked curiosity on her beautiful features.
It only took a few seconds for Lucas to expand the rifle. He depressed a thumb-latch here, pulled sharply, clicked the folding stock up and then down, and twisted, and the weapon had suddenly stretched to five times its original size and locked itself into an entirely new shape-half-rifle, half-glove, wrapped around his forearm like a robotic parasite. Simon couldn’t keep from being impressed; it was beautifully designed, a compact and clever construct of multiple sections that telescoped into a weapon slightly larger than a machine pistol, with a thick, round muzzle the diameter of a broomstick.
Lucas planted a knee on the frozen ground and set his body, as if preparing for heavy recoil. He raised the weapon and pointed it toward the far end of the range at a carved target over a hundred yards away.
“Behold,” he said, with no sense of irony whatever. “The wonder of Vector5 technology.”
He depressed a side plunger with his thumb and a series of extremely bright rays illuminated sections of the weapon. A stream of glowing projectiles, each the size of a shotgun shell, streamed out of the front with a high-pitched pew-pew-pew sound, and Lucas was thrown back by the force of their flight. Before he stopped moving there was a low hissing sound followed by what felt like a small sonic boom.
A hundred yards away, the black curve of the ice-tunnel wall lit up with pure, bright light.
“What the hell?” asked Max, gaping and taking an involuntary step forward.
“Luminescent bullets,” said Lucas, peeling off the weapon with three quick moves. He handed it to Max, who took it eagerly but gingerly-exactly as one would handle a loaded weapon. “These were experimental prototypes,” Lucas explained, “designed specifically for ice exploration and, if necessary, combat. Vector5 needed something to illuminate fissures in the deep dark tunnels of the underground, so the scientists developed a gun that would penetrate the ice and make it glow internally and kill people at a considerable distance, if necessary.”