Chapter Sixty-Six
Alexis woke up feeling disoriented. She opened her eyes and found herself in a single room carved into the volcanic rock known as pumice. She ran her hand along the rough, porous stone and tried to remember how she’d gotten there. There had been a problem on the Antarctic Solace — she was all alone, and then a man had come and saved her. His name was Sam Reilly! She felt pleased with herself to have recalled that much. Alexis stood up and instantly felt dizziness attack at her mind. Her hands were shaking and it was hard to balance — there was no doubt that they had drugged her. But who were they, and why had they done this to her?
She remembered the Pegasus ice station and discovering the truth about the Massive Hadron Collider that had illegally been built below the East Antarctic ice sheet. Then she remembered being on board the Maria Helena when a group of frogmen attacked. Someone on board had fought them off well. Her name was Genevieve and she was more deadly than she looked. She grasped at what she knew. Feeling pleased to even have that much information. Her memory was coming back in dribs and drabs, in an ad hoc and illogical fashion, but it was coming back to her — which meant whatever damage they’d done to her could be repaired.
But what happened after the frogmen attacked?
Suddenly she recalled being dragged overboard. The ice cold water pierced her skin with the resounding shock of a thousand fire ants attacking her. Somehow she tried to swim but couldn’t. Why couldn’t I swim? I used to swim laps — why couldn’t I make it to the surface? Then it hit her — someone had tied her legs together and attached a lead weight. They were dragging me to the bottom!
Did I pass out? Alexis couldn’t remember so she guessed she must have. She remembered someone shoving something into her mouth. She fought it, but wasn’t strong enough. She tried, but eventually took a deep breath and then entered a blissful sleep. Am I dead? Alexis looked around the room again. Some afterlife, hey? This’s what I get for being an atheist is it?
She tried to stand, but the ground beneath her trembled. She could feel the vibrations and hum of heavy machinery. She tried to stand again. She was definitely on a boat, or a submarine. No. I’m not dead — they took me on a submarine and then they drugged me. Why did they drug me? What do they want from me? Alexis struggled to reach the door at the end of the room. She tried the handle and it turned easily, which meant she could leave if she wanted. But did she want to leave? Were there worse things waiting outside?
Alexis didn’t have to deliberate on her choice very long. Instead the door handle turned and a man walked in. He was slim with a trimmed gray beard. Deep lines creased his old face as he smiled warmly.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re on The Island.”
“The Island? Which one? Why have you brought me here?”
“Just — The Island, I’m afraid. And I’ve brought you here because I’m afraid I need your help.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
With his hands at the controls of the Sikorsky MH 60 Nighthawk, Tom glanced at the sea below, where the Maria Helena rested completely still in the ice-filled Dumont d'Urville Sea. He pushed his left foot pedal to the floor and swung the helicopter around so that the ice sheet of East Antarctica came into view like a frozen pond that stretched infinitely toward the horizon. A moment later he moved the cyclic stick forward and dipped the nose of the helicopter, allowing the Sikorsky to fly at its most aerodynamic and fastest speed. He slowly increased his height to an altitude of one thousand feet and headed south.
Next to him, Sam stared at the topographical map trying to achieve the impossible task of finding a visible landmark or reference point to navigate from. After about five minutes Sam shook his head and folded the map away.
Tom chuckled. “Couldn’t work out where we’re going in all this ice?”
“Sure I could. Just keep the Trans Antarctic Ridge on your left and when you start to see some big caverns open up below it means we’re close.”
“How many are there?”
Sam sighed. “According to Pier’s notes from the Pegasus, there should be about a thousand of them.”
“Any one of them in particular?”
“There should be five small ones lined up together, followed by a massive one. It’s the massive one we’re after.”
Tom lined the Trans Antarctic Ridge up to a reference point on the left corner of the windshield and kept it there. “Okay, so we’re looking for five needles in a frozen haystack?”
“That’s sounds about right,” Sam conceded.
“So how do we pick which one we’re looking for?”
Sam grinned. “If they built the world’s largest Hadron Collider inside, I would guess it will be one of the largest caverns. And even if I’m wrong, one thing’s for certain — there will be large roads from the snow cats required to move all the materials to build it.”
“Are you sure?” Tom asked. His face hard and focused.
“No, I’m just guessing, why?”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“You told me Alexis said something this size would have taken an army of engineers nearly two decades to build. That means ships coming and going, and large convoys of heavy snow vehicles moving complex equipment.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then why were the scientists of Pegasus the first to discover it?”
“I’ll be damned. You’re right. They must have had a better way to cover it up. That sort of operation couldn’t have gone unnoticed for twenty years.”
Thirty minutes later they reached the spot they were looking for. From the air, Tom could clearly make out the five ice crevices lined up in a row, each one pointing towards the largest of them all. There were no snow tractors, or obvious signs of manmade construction, but the image fit the description Sam had given him.
He moved the cyclic to the right and then dipped the nose of the helicopter downwards to make a large circle of the area and allow a clear vision of the ice world from the cockpit.
Sam removed the map and double checked the markings. “This is it,” he confirmed. “See, I told you we’d work it out once we got here.”
“That’s great, Sam. Now, where do you want me to put us down?”
Sam studied the landscape in a glance and pointed to a large flat area. “How about there?”
“I’ve got it.”
Tom gently lowered the collective and dipped the cyclic stick forward to start their descent — a moment later, everything went dead. There was no flash, no sound of gunfire or explosions. Simply every instrument on board and the engine failed simultaneously.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The Sikorsky held its position in the sky for a split second before losing its battle with gravity. Tom felt the cyclic stick lose all resistance as the main rotor blades lost RPMs and no longer created lift, meaning his controls were useless. The altimeter, which was based on air pressure, showed they were falling at a rate of two thousand feet per minute.
“Power’s gone!” Tom said, as he lowered the collective all the way down, which allowed the main rotor blades to spin freely and pick up RPM speed and at the same time maintain a normal angle of attack similar to a glide position in a fixed wing aircraft. He then shoved the cyclic stick as far forward as it could go. With his right foot he pressed hard on the pedal in an attempt to counteract the sudden loss of torque normally provided by the engine, preventing the helicopter from entering a death spiral. The immediate result was that instead of an uncontrolled fall, Tom maintained control of the helicopter, as it fell rapidly from the sky in a process known as autorotation.