It was time to go. Max gestured with his head and they cautiously stepped out into the blackness. The embedded lights in the Vector5 suits automatically activated, creating an eerie glow that was nearly swallowed in the void; Simon sensed an astringent mineral odor in the dense frozen air.
They had reached the deepest point of the network where the density of the ice was equivalent to glass. Max took the lead; Simon followed. Nastasia took up the rear, a few yards behind.
We are standing in ice that hardened thousands of years ago, Max thought. He could feel all ten thousand feet of compressed ice above them.
Dad, Simon told himself. Dad. If you’re down here, I’m coming for you.
Simon saw Max put a finger to his mouth, motioning them to be careful and absolutely silent. The tunnel had narrowed; it wasn’t smooth and finished like the walls a thousand feet above them, but unfinished and roughly hewn. There were mounds of wire scattered along the ground, snaking along the sides of the tunnel, and small crevices in the tunnel walls themselves.
Simon realized he was squeezing the rifle so hard his knuckles were throbbing. His body was tense, ready to react on a second’s notice. They crept forward, still blind, Simon’s attention fixed on Max’s silhouette, where it moved in and out of sight like a shadow cast by a candle. It was difficult to breathe. The air was thin and filled with a strange mineral odor-an odor that seemed to intensify the farther they moved into the dark cavern.
They had not moved more than a hundred yards before Max held up his left hand, pointing the rifle upward close to his shoulder. Without hesitation, Simon repeated the gesture for Nastasia, telling her to slow behind him. Seconds later, Simon realized why Max had stopped.
The tunnel had started to vibrate ever so slightly.
Max turned instantly to Simon and saw the intensity in his eyes. He made a quick downward motion. The elevator, Simon realized. He motioned Max with his head, indicating a narrow opening in the tunnel, darker than pitch. As Max began to move, he turned back to engage Nastasia.
She was gone.
He froze for an instant; dread shot through him like cold lightning. Something has happened, he told himself. They got her. He turned back to Max, who had already noticed that she was gone.
“Leave her,” said Max.
“But-”
“Leave her Simon,” Max repeated through clenched teeth.
Simon shook his head and grabbed at Max’s shoulder as he tried to slide into the alcove. Max snapped back to him. “I said leave her, Simon. I don’t fucking care.”
The massive elevator doors that were next to their own suddenly chunked and shuddered. Instantly, Max doused the lights on his suit and plunged them into total darkness.
Subtle, shifting sounds escaped from the opening doors, and years of training helped Max analyze the voices and footsteps inside. He brought up five fingers and held them inches away from Simon’s face, then closed his fist and held up one more.
Six, Simon realized instantly.
They both heard footsteps approaching-louder and louder, coming toward them. It sounded like the men who had left the elevator were in a hurry. They shuffled and panted as they approached. Max and Simon stood like stones, pistols in hand, pressing against the icy wall.
Where the fuck did Nastasia go? Simon caught himself thinking. He pushed the thought away and brought himself back as the first of the men passed by less than ten feet away, backs to them, moving even deeper into the darkness. They were dressed in black military gear and moving quickly. Only seconds passed before they disappeared into the tunnel to their left.
Max made a serpentine gesture with his hand. Follow in the shadows, Simon knew. He had seen the gesture before when they played hide and seek as kids.
Simon hesitated, if only for a split second. It was all the indication Max needed. He turned back to Simon and shook his head. Let it go, he was saying. Let it go.
Simon nodded. Oliver was more important than anything else, but Nastasia’s sudden disappearance, before the other elevator even opened was strange. Very strange. He was both concerned for her safety and baffled. But his own safety and that of Max’s was just as important now, and he needed to stay focused.
Max turned away, moving like a ghost, following the men in the shadows of the tunnel. Simon followed, but he couldn’t forget her.
* * *
Nika couldn’t stand the sound of her alias-not anymore. She had hated it from the moment she had chosen to call herself “Nastasia,” on the day she had arranged for the note to be left in Simon’s passport back in Malta.
She didn’t need it any longer. Now she was finally close to realizing her destiny, and Simon had been pivotal for her mission.
She was close-very close.
She was grateful in an odd way. Without the Spector and the assistance of the team, she would have never been able to reach Antarctica, much less to the Nest itself.
And she knew that was where she was; she could smell the minerals.
“Pathetic,” she whispered, only to herself.
There was no way to stop them. She knew she was at the right place. Now it was only a matter of time, and very little of it, before she would change history once more. No one could stop what the universe had destined for mankind-not even Oliver Fitzpatrick.
She looked at her wristwatch: 19:33. She closed her eyes for an instant, remembering the team inside the Spector.
She was not a cold-blooded killer. She cared for those people. But she also knew, in her heart, that it was better for them to die in the explosion than face what was to come.
She slipped into the shadows, like a vampire instinctively guided to its victim.
* * *
“Can’t walk anymore,” Hayden said. His legs were like boiled noodles; he couldn’t take another step.
It didn’t matter. His life’s work had disappeared. His close friend and student was dead.
There was no hope.
“Please, Hayden,” Samantha said for the thousandth time. “We need to reach the encampment before we freeze to death.” Samantha had to pull every ounce of strength she had to push her exhausted body toward the camp. She was mentally and physically drained, but she knew that it was moments like this that tested a human’s will to survive. She remembered the many expeditions she’d been part of in the past; she thought about how many times she had faced death. I have to be their strength, she told herself. Simon needs me.
She trailed fifteen yards behind Ryan, who trudged forward, head slouched, focusing on every step. She could visibly notice the exhaustion and desperation in his walk. He had started to slow his forward steps as the sheer magnitude of their reality consumed him.
“Guys, we’ve got to keep moving,” she said. “We need each other. Simon needs us…” I am their strength now, she told herself again.
“Please,” Hayden begged, barely able to speak. “Tell me how much longer.” He forced the words out through uneven gasps of oxygen.
“Fifteen minutes,” Ryan said, though he knew that felt like eternity to Hayden. As he focused on the icy floor, he remembered how they had escaped to the encampment with the MC-7s, just hours ago.
The tunnel seemed much, much longer on foot.
* * *
Lucas and the rest of the scientists hunched inside the burning Spector as it sank down a shaft of its own making, falling toward the Gorge, melting the surrounding ice. They could not feel the vertical drop. It was too slow-slower, in fact, than Lucas would have liked. At any moment, he knew the hydrogen fuel that heated the vessels exterior could deplete itself. The exterior would cool and they could be stuck permanently in ice forever. I can’t think about that, he reminded himself. He sat impatiently at the virtual command console, but none of the monitor screens were activated-they would show nothing but endless walls of ice. He felt as if he was in a capsule dropping endlessly into the depths of an infinite white ocean. Outside, the ice turned into liquid as the burning Spector cut into the frozen water toward the network of tunnels now barely 250 feet under the submersible.