Below him, falling away, Nastasia felt her world closing in.
She didn’t belong here. She knew that. But fate had chosen her, and it was time to do what had to be done.
* * *
Blackburn clenched his teeth as the freight elevator reached the level of Dragger Pass, and continued downward. He had no idea that Simon, Max, and Nastasia were literally a few feet away from him, descending to the Nest in the adjacent shaft at a speed only slightly slower than his own. The padded interior cast an eerie effect from the dim blue lights mounted along its interior edges.
His detachment of soldiers was absolutely silent behind him; he knew they were the only men in the entire Vector5 organization with the clearance-and the courage-to enter the Nest…and he wasn’t sure if he was glad of that or concerned. This was his operation-his goal. He didn’t want to share it, not even with his own men.
The holo-display made the depth reading float in the open air, each numeral as large as the palm of his hand. As he watched, it slowly reached the magic number -2,153 meters, the base level of Central Command-and continued to fall. The calm, slightly amused voice of the AI that controlled the lift said it out loud, “Two thousand, one hundred and fifty-three meters,” it said. “Continuing…”
This final trip was only beginning. They had another one thousand meters to travel.
Blackburn was thinking about the man who was waiting for him at the bottom of the shaft. He knew that Oliver was very ill, perhaps terminally. I wonder how long he’ll live, he asked himself. That is, assuming he decides to cooperate.
The AI’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Two thousand, six hun-”
“Shut up for a second,” Blackburn said. Another voice-a human one, one he recognized-was buzzing in his ear, coming from the earpiece in his helmet. He tapped his shoulder to receive the incoming message.
“Go ahead,” he growled. “I’m listening.” The men around him didn’t flinch; they knew the drill. Blackburn was the chief commander in charge of the Vector5 mission; he was always connected to everything that was happening below and above the ice. It was true, sometimes he confused the men around him when he responded to some unheard comment or question, but that wasn’t important. All they thought about-all they could think about-was the mission. That was all that mattered.
“Sir,” said the voice of his exec, “we’ve identified an anomaly at 842 meters south-southwest of Dragger Pass, four degrees of ascension above the Gorge.”
“What type of anomaly?” Blackburn growled, controlling his temper with some difficulty. This wasn’t what he expected, and it certainly wasn’t what he wanted. I’ve had enough, he told himself. He hated surprises.
“It’s a thermal event, sir. Infrared data indicates a highly condensed source, very localized, and currently descending at ninety degrees from the horizon.”
“What the fuck are you talking about!?” Blackburn shouted, sending a chill through the already cold freight elevator. The number in front of his face read -2,483 meters. The AI voice, prudently, remained silent. “It’s super-hot and moving down a tunnel?”
“No, sir,” his exec said. “Straight down. Through the ice.”
“Shit,” Blackburn muttered. “At that depth, at that temperature, I’m sure the satellites picked it up.”
“Sir, we’ve been monitoring and scrambling the information with the surface droids, but you’re right. I’m afraid this amount of energy might be impossible to hide.”
“What is it?” he demanded. Exposure didn’t matter at the moment. “What the hell is out there?”
“Sir our AIs at central command are suggesting it’s the same submersible that entered Fissure 9. We have also confirmed human activity about one mile from the incident. Acoustic and pressure wave data confirm: a small group moving around and not being quiet about it in one of the maintenance shafts we thought was sealed off.”
I knew it, he told himself. I knew Lucas and those traitors were tapping into the old air shaft system. “Send the fissure drones through the main airshafts,” he commanded. “Send them up to Tunnel 3, and when you find them, gas the fuckers out of their little mouse holes.”
“But…sir,” the exec said in his ear. Blackburn could hear his terror, even in the scratchy little thread of the audio feed.
“But what?” Blackburn snapped. “‘But sir, additional activity in the same area as the thermal event will certainly be noticed by satellites.” It was a deadly accurate parody of his exec officer’s careful, diplomatic tone. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t care. Whatever happened has probably already been reported. We’ll have to deal with that later. But this shit needs to stop NOW!”
“Copy that, sir,” the exec said quickly, obviously eager to end the communication. There was the tiniest of snicks as he broke the connection to follow order.
Blackburn slapped the padded door of the freight elevator in completely frustration. “Can’t this piece of junk move any faster?” he blurted out. But he already knew the answer: nothing moved fast enough to appease his impatience.
None of the men around him spoke. They knew the drill. It was safer to just lay low and not to respond at times like this.
The AI unit had more courage, or perhaps less common sense, than the humans. After Blackburn stopped speaking for thirty seconds, it spoke up:
“Reaching depth of 10,022 feet in 133 meters. Prepare to exit.”
“Shut up,” Blackburn muttered.
* * *
Samantha and Ryan knelt beside Hayden’s motionless body, too drained and overwhelmed to speak. Sam was numb, beyond feeling or thought, as she strained to see the scientist clearly in the failing light. The only source of illumination was the guttering fire from the icy shaft where the Spector had disappeared.
Hayden was breathing heavily; she knew that much. But she couldn’t seem to make herself care. It was just too dark to see, until Ryan turned on the guide lights in his ice suit, and the air was filled with a directionless, blue light that seemed almost acidic, somehow.
The blood draining from Hayden’s ruined hand was black in the odd light.
“God,” Samantha said. Then louder, fuller, “God, NO!” Even the ice around him was saturated with freezing blood.
Years of training surged to the forefront. Her hands reached out almost on their own and tried to explore the wound. She gasped in spite of herself when she saw it clearly: half the skin and part of the flesh had been removed from his right thumb-half-sliced, half-torn away. Lucas wanted his thumbprint, she realized. He thought he might need it in the Spector. He would have taken the whole digit if he’d had the time.
She pushed the horror of it away and got to work, tearing off a section of his ice suit and tying it around his bleeding thumb as tight as she could.
“I have to stop this before he dies,” she told Ryan. “He’s going to go into shock any second, maybe lose his hand, or worse.” Or die, she screamed inside her head. Or DIE.
She pushed it away again, even harder, and reached into a small pouch sewn on into the hip of her own suit. She thanked god she had packed a full med-kit into her clothes before they had left the scientists’ encampment; she was shocked that it became useful so quickly.
The pocket contained a small, foil-sealed pre-moistened cloth infused with ammonia. It was suitable for cleaning, for sterile bandaging…or for what she was about to do.
Sam pulled his mask aside and held the tiny fabric against his nose. Hayden’s body jerked instantly from the intense smell, and his clean, uninjured hand suddenly came up, trying to pull the cloth away-then clutching at his forehead as if to contain a whole new agony.
It took him a long moment to locate the pain. Slowly, slowly he lifted his wounded hand as if it were a dead thing lashed to the end of his wrist. He stared at it with naked horror as a new line of already freezing blood trickled into his palm.