“Interesting,” David said as he grabbed the end of the spear. He pulled at it, and he felt the door move, if only slightly. He pulled harder, and the spear came free. He dropped his cane and lunged through the door as Craig pulled his gun out and began firing.
CHAPTER 118
Immari Research Base Prism
East Antarctica
“No, don’t shoot them!” Dorian yelled into the radio, but it was too late. He watched the second man take two shots to the chest, and the third fall from shots to the shoulder and abdomen. “Stop firing! I will shoot the next idiot who pulls the trigger!”
The gunshots ceased, and Dorian walked out into the open space toward the last man. At the sight of Dorian, he began crawling for his gun, leaving a trail of thick blood as he went.
Dorian jogged to the gun and kicked it to the far wall of the lab. “Stop. I don’t want to hurt you. In fact, I’ll get you some help. I just want to know who sent you.”
“Sent me?” The man coughed, and blood ran down his chin.
“Yes—” Dorian’s ear piece crackled, and he looked away from the dying man.
One of the station techs came on. “Sir, we’ve ID’ed the men. They’re ours — one of the drill teams.”
“A drill team?”
“Yes. They’re actually the team that found the entrance.”
Dorian turned back to the man. “Who sent you?”
The man looked confused. “Nobody… sent us…”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I saw…” The man was losing more blood now. The shot in the gut would do him in soon.
“Saw what?” Dorian pressed.
“Children.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Dorian said. What was the world coming to? Even oil rig operators were bleeding-heart softies these days. He raised the gun and shot the man in the head. He turned and walked back to his Immari Security unit. “Clean this up—”
“Sir, something’s happening in portal control.” The soldier looked up. “Someone just launched the basket.”
Dorian’s eyes drifted toward the floor, then darted back and forth. “Martin. Send a team — secure the control station. No one leaves that room.” A thought ran through Dorian’s mind: the basket was launched. Kate. “How much time?”
“Time?”
“The bombs the children are carrying.”
The Immari security agent took out a tablet, tapped at it, then looked up, “less than fifteen minutes.”
She might still reach them. “Cut the cord on the basket,” Dorian said. It was a fitting end. Kate Warner — Patrick Pierce’s daughter — would die in a cold dark tunnel, just as Dorian’s brother Rutger had.
CHAPTER 119
David fell to the floor as the bullets ricocheted off the iron wall behind him. He spun around, crouched, and held the spear point-forward over his shoulder, like some prehistoric hunter ready to stick his prey when it emerged from the sliding door.
But the door didn’t open. David exhaled and sat down on the floor, giving the wounded leg a rest. He didn’t see how Patrick Pierce had done it — all the walking around down here.
When the pain subsided, he got to his feet and took in his surroundings. The room was similar to the one he had just left — the iron-ish gray walls were the same and so were the lights at the top and bottom of them. The room seemed to be a lobby of some sort. It had seven doors in all, fanning out in a semicircle, almost like a bank of elevator doors.
Other than the seven oval sliding doors, the room was almost empty, save for a chest-high table opposite the bank of doors. A control station? The surface was covered in dark plastic or glass that matched the controls in the previous chamber.
David stepped up to the desk and leaned the spear against it so he could use his good hand. He held his hand over the surface, like he had seen the Atlantean do in the hologram. Wisps of white and blue fog and light whirled around his hand. Tiny electric pops and shocks tapped at his hand. He wiggled his fingers and the light and fog changed radically and the pops and slight electric impulses swirled all over his fingers.
David drew the hand back. Talk about out of your element. He had half-expected, or rather hoped, that some sort of help would pop up.
He picked the spear back up. Stick to what you know: your hunter-gatherer ways, he told himself. There was another door, set off by itself, next to the control station. An exit? He walked to it and it slid open, revealing more of the Star Trek-type iron corridors that had led to the tunnelmaker’s secret chamber. His eyes had now fully adjusted to the faint LED lights that ran along the floor and ceiling.
If the Atlanteans had run to this room when the ship had exploded 12-15,000 years ago, it stood to reason that this was some kind of escape pod or maybe a fortified section in the middle of the ship. Another thought popped into David’s mind: if they had come here, some of them could still be here. Maybe they had hibernated here, in other tubes.
David looked around. There were certainly no signs of life.
The elevator room opened onto a T-intersection. Both directions ended in another oval door. He chose the shorter path and limped along, using the spear as a walking staff. It helped immensely.
At the end of the corridor, the door slid open automatically, and David stepped through.
“Don’t move.” A man’s voice. It was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while.
David heard a footfall behind him. Based on the echo, the man (or Atlantean) was about his size. David raised his arms, still holding the spear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I said don’t move.” The man was almost upon him.
David turned quickly, catching a glimpse, a flash of the man, or whatever it was, just before he felt the electric prod dig into him. It sent him to the ground and into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 120
2 miles below Immari Research Base Prism
East Antarctica
The iron basket wobbled as it hurtled down the ice shaft. It drifted over and cut into the smooth ice wall, spraying shards of ice all over Kate’s suit and visor. She raised her arms to cover her helmet just as the basket lurched back, almost throwing her out. The heavy cable that had bunched above the basket was weighing on it, tipping it end over end. The basket steadied for a moment, then tipped in one quick motion. Kate grabbed a bar at the top of the basket and dug her feet into the iron mesh floor, locking herself in like an astronaut in a zero-g training hoop that flipped end over end and side to side. The motion was sickening. She closed her eyes and pushed against the basket with all the strength she could muster and waited. More ice sprayed around her as the basket bounced against the sides of the tunnel. The impacts were slowing the fall. Then the walls disappeared and two long seconds passed and… crunch. The basket dug into a mound of snow, and Kate was plowed into the ground, knocking the wind out of her.