The USS Texas rocked heavily under the changing sea. Elise held the edge of the bridge to steady herself. For a few seconds the majority of the Island became visible. A massive conglomerate of ice, volcanic stone, and machinery floating high in the seawater. The frozen surface, like an iceberg, concealed the size of the main livable part of the Island. The depth charges and Thor Rocket had shattered most of the ice into fragments. Elise stared in horror as those fragments now pulled away from each-other. The ice made up two thirds of the size of the Island, and almost all of its buoyancy.
Elise looked at Margret. “It’s breaking apart!”
Chapter Eighty-Five
The third distinct sound Sam heard was the bulk of the ice separating from the Island. With the removal of the top of the Island, air was no longer trapped inside, and water was free to gush into the tunnels from below. They were now blocked from their dive equipment and any chance of escape. Air whipped through the surrounding tunnels around them. The tunnel they currently occupied would protect them for a while from the influx of water, but as the Island sank, the pressure would increase and break through the watertight doors.
Sam looked at Tom and Robert — their hardened faces told him they recognized the sound and knew their time was nearly over. Sam squeezed Alexis’s hand. “I’m sorry. This is it.”
She squeezed it back and smiled kindly at him. “It’s okay. Not your fault.”
Robert Cassidy broke their embrace. His eyes were wide and filled with adrenaline. “Follow me. There may still be time.”
“Time for what?” Sam, Tom and Alexis said in unison.
“To survive, of course!” Robert grinned madly as he began moving along the tunnel. “Sam Reilly, I believe you must continue my research. You understand how important it is? Mankind must not be allowed to keep making the mistakes the way they have.”
Sam had no idea what Cassidy was talking about. It seemed outrageous the old man wanted him to try again with the Cassidy Project. Even so, telling the only person who knew of an escape route that he was a fool seemed like a poor decision. Consequently, Sam simply nodded and followed.
“Mankind must be allowed to carry on!” Cassidy continued.
“Yes,” Sam replied, “of course!”
It took nearly five minutes of hard running before they reached the next door. Sam felt his ears pop several times. He equalized them by opening his jaw and then looked at Cassidy. “We’re sinking, aren’t we?”
“Yes. And fast.” Cassidy looked kindly at them, quickly unlocking the bolts in the watertight door. “We’ll be nearly to the bottom by now. Almost a thousand feet.”
“There’s no way we can reach the surface from there.”
Robert shook his head. “No way at all. It’s a good thing the three of you aren’t going to the surface.”
Chapter Eighty-Six
The door opened and the four of them raced into the next compartment. Sam grinned in pleasure. A small tunnel vehicle, similar to the one he and Tom had discovered in the subterranean Hadron Collider, made of glass and ceramics stood at the water’s edge. It had four sets of three angled wheels. Each one mounted on the edge of the futuristic mine cart. The type he’d imagined were placed on a rollercoaster to protect it from falling off despite the severe speeds being achieved. It was attached to the quad yellow lines. Sam recognized them as the same ones used by the workers inside the Hadron Collider when they escaped earlier.
“Well, friends — what do you think?” Robert opened the hatch. “This is how we built the subterranean Hadron Collider. This will take you inside the bowels of the ice cavern in the main work station.”
Sam knew the place. He’d been there less than twelve hours earlier. “Why didn’t the tracks break?”
“They’re made out of a high tensile and flexible composite material we developed. Even though the Island has spent the last decade locally, in these frigid waters, it often rises and falls with the tide. It was important for us to have a stable means for accessing the Hadron Collider. I’d love to explain it all to you, but the line is only so long. If we sink much further the track may snap under the strain!”
Sam looked inside. There were only three seats, and even then it was going to be difficult to fit three adults inside. “It doesn’t look big enough for the four of us.”
“No.” Robert smiled effortlessly. “But the three of you should be able to squeeze inside.”
“You’re not coming with us, are you?” Sam asked.
Robert Cassidy shook his head, his gray beard surrounding his kind smile. “No. I’m old. I’ve been fighting this war against the stupidity of the human race a long time. My solution may have been radical and may have been wrong, but it was the only one I had and I believed it was the best way for the rest of the inhabitants of this planet to survive, as well as for mankind. I still do. The battle’s lost, but I believe the three of you should take up the next generation of fighters. My time is over.”
Sam looked at Cassidy. The man may have been crazy and spent his life trying to achieve the destruction of the human race as we know it, but his beliefs were honorable. Sam held out his hand. “We’ll try our best.”
Cassidy took it and gripped it warmly. “God speed, friends.”
Alexis and Tom climbed into the middle and back seat. Sam climbed in last and closed the hatch.
“One more thing!” Robert said. “If you follow the green line you’ll find the rest of the residents of the Island, the surviving crew from a B52 Bomber who unfortunately landed here in 1983, and the rest of the crew from the Antarctic Solace.”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Two weeks later Alexis worked on her laptop on board the Antarctic Solace. She had been given the green light to manage the Massive Hadron Collider. There would be a lot of legal red tape as well as feasibility studies to overcome before it could be used again. In general though, all members of the Antarctic Treaty System were unanimously in favor of continuing its work with her in control. There was a lot of work to be done, but she’d never shied away from hard effort.
She felt the Antarctic Solace rock as another ship pulled along her portside. Alexis got up and stepped out to see if the man she was waiting for would come to her. Sam Reilly had been consumed by the rescue response and she hadn’t seen him since the fateful night the Island sank.
A man in his mid-fifties walked up the gangway, slowly moving towards her. He’d only just arrived from the latest trip made by the Maria Helena which had spent the last two weeks ferrying the rest of the survivors from the Island in East Antarctica back to the Antarctic Solace. It was the last trip the Maria Helena needed to make, and she watched with disappointment that it wasn’t Sam Reilly who walked up the gangway. All the passengers from the Antarctic Solace were already aboard, and the original scientists and small community from the Island had all been taken to the USS Texas for investigation into their potential involvement in the Cassidy Project.
So the question nagged at her mind — Who is that man? And where did he come from?
The answer to that question was going to arrive shortly as he approached her. Despite his age, he looked at her with the uncertainty of a man unaccustomed to talking to a young, beautiful, woman.