Now they were above the water, which ran like a surging river a few inches beneath their feet. Anchoring himself as best he could, Crane took Hui’s hand in one of his and guided it to the nearest rung. Slowly, gently, he helped her gain her own footing.
And then they stood there—gasping, sobbing—as the cataract screamed directly beneath them.
It seemed that hours passed while they clung to the side of the Facility, motionless, without speaking. Yet Crane knew it could not have been more than five minutes. At last, he forced himself to stir.
“Come on,” he shouted. “We’re almost there, we must be.”
Hui did not look at him. Her clothes and white lab coat were plastered to her narrow frame, and she was shivering violently.
He wondered if she had even heard him. “Hui! We have to keep going!”
She blinked, then nodded absently. The fear in her eyes was gone; shock, and exhaustion, had driven it away.
Slowly they continued to climb. Crane felt almost stupefied with cold and weariness. Once—only once—he looked down again. The rungs led into a perfect chaos of water. Nothing else could be seen. It seemed impossible they had managed to climb through that hell.
Above him, Hui was saying something, but he couldn’t make it out. Languidly, as if in a dream, he looked up. She was pointing to a spot ten feet above her, where another small platform had been set into the wall of the Facility.
With the last of their strength they pulled themselves onto it. There was another hatch here, unmarked. Crane raised his hands to open it, then stopped. What if it was sealed? If they could not get back inside, they were dead. If the rising water didn’t drown them, they would die of cold.
He took a deep breath, grabbed the bolts, and bore down hard on them. They turned smoothly. He spun the access wheel, then threw his weight against the hatch. With a squeaking of rubber, the seal parted and the door opened inward. Crane helped Hui step into the small airlock beyond, then he followed her, sealing the hatch securely behind them.
They were back inside.
56
They stepped out of the airlock into a narrow, dark chamber. Crane paused a minute to catch his breath. From beyond came the whoop, whoop of an alarm.
Crane opened the door and they emerged into an empty hallway. Here, the cry of the alarm was much louder.
“Deck eleven,” Hui said, taking a quick glance around. “Staff quarters.”
“We need to get to the conference center on twelve,” Crane said. “Dr. Vanderbilt’s waiting for me there.”
At random, Crane ducked into a stateroom, plucked a towel from the bath, and wrapped it around Hui’s shoulders. Then they ran for the nearest stairwell. The floor seemed deserted, and only once did they pass someone: a man in a maintenance jumpsuit who stopped to stare, openmouthed, as they went past, drenched and dripping.
Reaching the stairwell, they dashed up a flight to the top level of the Facility. Unlike 11, deck 12 was crowded: people stood in the corridors and in open doorways, faces tense and drawn.
The conference center consisted of a central space that resembled a lecture hall, surrounded by a few small breakout rooms. Half a dozen people stood huddled together in the central hall, talking quietly. When Crane entered, they fell silent. One man detached himself from the crowd. He was tall and thin, with red hair and a closely cropped beard. A pair of black glasses poked out from the pocket of his lab coat.
He stepped toward them. “Dr. Crane?” he said.
Crane nodded.
“I’m Gene Vanderbilt.” The oceanographer gave them a quick once-over. His eyes widened a little at their appearance, but he made no comment. “Come on—I’ll introduce you to the others.”
They walked over to the group. Crane waited impatiently through the introductions, then quickly shook hands.
“Frankly, I’m surprised to see you at all,” Vanderbilt told him. “I didn’t expect you to make it.”
“Why is that?” Crane asked. He wondered if Vanderbilt already knew he was a wanted man, that he’d never make it past the Barrier.
“Because deck eight is completely flooded. The watertight doors are all sealed, the elevator shafts closed down.”
“Completely flooded?” Crane felt shocked. So the Facility was breached, after all, he thought. Now there was no way for anybody on the classified floors to reach the upper levels.
“Some compartments of deck seven, as well. Isn’t that right?” And Vanderbilt turned to a short, swarthy machinist who’d been introduced as Gordon Stamper.
Stamper nodded vigorously. “About sixty percent of deck seven is underwater at present. Compartments seven-twelve through seven-fourteen flooded in the last five minutes.”
“Seems you found a different route,” Vanderbilt said to Crane, with another appraising glance.
“And that’s inaccessible now, too,” Crane replied. “One of the pressure spokes has ruptured, and water’s flooding in between the Facility and the dome. The emergency exit on deck two is already underwater.”
“Yes, we know about the spoke,” Vanderbilt said. “Containment crews are on their way.”
“It’s a pretty serious breach,” Crane said dubiously.
“Tell me about it,” Stamper replied. “If you all will excuse me, I need to rejoin my team.”
“Get back to me in fifteen with another report,” said Vanderbilt.
“He’s reporting to you?” Crane asked.
Vanderbilt nodded. “I’m the ranking science officer on the decks above eight.”
“What about the military?”
“Fragmented. At work trying to contain the breach and ensure hull integrity.”
Crane glanced back at Stamper’s retreating form. “You said you know all about the breach. Any idea what caused it?”
“Sabotage,” Vanderbilt said.
Crane looked back at him. “You’re sure?”
“It seems Roger Corbett stumbled upon the saboteur as she was placing the explosive.”
“She? You mean the saboteur was a woman?”
“Michele Bishop.”
Hui Ping gasped.
“No,” said Crane. “It’s not possible.”
“Corbett managed to dial his cell phone while he was confronting Bishop. Called his own intern, Bryce. He heard it from her own lips.”
Too much had happened, too quickly, for Crane to even begin absorbing such a terrible shock. He felt a deep chill that had nothing to do with his sodden clothes. Michele? No, it simply can’t be.
“Where are they now?” he asked mechanically.
“Neither one escaped deck eight. We think they were both killed in the explosion.”
As if from a great distance, Crane realized he could not think about this. Not right now. With a tremendous effort, he pushed it aside, then took a deep breath. “The breach isn’t our only problem,” he said. “In fact, it may not even be the biggest.”
“I gather that’s what you’re here to tell us about.”
Crane glanced around at the assembled scientists. “How many of you here have classified clearance?”
Two—Vanderbilt included—raised their hands.
Through his shock and weariness, Crane realized he was about to break all the security protocols he had signed. He also realized that he did not care in the slightest.
Quickly, he sketched out their current situation: the true nature of the dig; Asher’s suspicions; the medical problem and its solution; the decrypted messages. Hui interjected here and there, clarifying a point or adding an observation of her own. As he spoke, Crane watched the faces of the scientists. A few—including those who had classified access—nodded now and then, as if some of their private suspicions were being confirmed. Others looked astonished, even incredulous, and—in one or two instances—a little skeptical.
“Korolis has taken military command of the Facility,” he concluded. “I don’t know what he’s done with Admiral Spartan. But Korolis is in Marble Three now, hell-bent on penetr
ating the Moho. From what I understand, it could happen during the current dive—at any moment, in fact.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” Vanderbilt asked.
“We need to contact the surface. AmShale, or even better, the Pentagon. Get in touch with the people in charge, the ones that can put a stop to this madness.”
“That’s going to be difficult.”
Crane glanced at the oceanographer. “Why?”
“We can’t contact the surface. Not at present. I’ve already tried.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The Facility-to-surface communications gear is on deck seven. It’s underwater.”
“Damn,” Crane muttered.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
“The escape pod,” Ping said.
Everyone looked in her direction.
“What about it?” one of the scientists asked.
“If we can’t contact the surface, then we’ll just have to deliver the message in person.”
“She’s right,” another scientist said. “We can’t stay here. Not if what Dr. Crane says is true.”
“And there’s something else,” Hui added. “If they’re unable to repair the breach, the water level will keep rising outside.”
“The Facility wasn’t built to withstand the pressure at this depth,” someone added. “It’ll implode.”
“The pod will hold a hundred people, give or take,” said Vanderbilt. “That should easily accommodate everybody on the upper decks.”
“What about the people in the classified areas?” Crane asked.
“Another reason for us to get to the surface as quickly as possible,” Vanderbilt replied. “Communications are down. The faster we get topside, the faster they can get back here to effect rescue and repair.”
Crane glanced around the group. People were nodding.
“It’s settled, then,” said Vanderbilt. “Let’s start transferring personnel to the escape pod. I’ll need some volunteers to make sweeps of decks nine through eleven, send any stragglers here.”
“I’ll take deck nine,” Crane said. “I know it better than I know the others.”
Vanderbilt nodded. “Meet us back here as quickly as you can.”
Crane turned to Ping. “You’ll help with the boarding?”
She nodded.
“I’ll be right back.” He gave her hand a brief, reassuring squeeze. Then he turned, jogged quickly out of the hall, and vanished from sight.
57
In the cramped, sweat-heavy confines of Marble Three, Rafferty swiveled his shaggy head to one side. “Sir.”
Korolis glanced at the engineer.
“Sensors are registering an anomaly in the sedimentary matrix.”
“Where?”
“Less than two meters below the present dig interface.”
“How’s the tunnel-boring machine behaving?”
“A little ornery, sir. We’re dropping the checksum on every other data packet now.”
“Ease it back to half speed. We don’t want any foul-ups.”
“Half speed, aye.”
“Any specifics on the anomalous readings?”
“Nothing yet, sir. The water’s too sedimented; we need to get closer.”
“What about the ultrasound?”
“Unknown interference from below, sir.”
Korolis massaged his temples, cursing the limitations of the equipment. The closer they got to the anomaly, the less reliable their instruments became.
It was hot inside the Marble, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead before fitting his eyes to the rubber housing of the external viewscreen. He activated the spotlight beneath the Marble. Instantly, the tiny screen displayed a perfect hurricane of silt and rock: with the boring machine digging away the sediment beneath them and the vacuum tube unit sucking it up for distribution across the seabed, the water surrounding them was completely opaque. Too sedimented, hell. He snapped off the spotlight and pulled back, fingertips tapping impatiently on the viewscreen handles.
From outside there came a muffled boom, as if from a great distance away. Dr. Flyte had fitted another reinforcing band into place.
The radio squawked. “Marble Three, this is Dive Control.”
Korolis plucked the radio from its cradle. “Go ahead, Dive Control.”
“Status report on the explosion, sir.”
“Let’s have it.”
“Apparently, there was a breach in the south pressure spoke.”
“And the Facility?”
“Deck eight is flooded and almost fifty percent of deck seven is underwater.”
“Deck seven? That’s not possible—each floor is designed to be absolutely watertight.”
“Yes, sir, but because of the location of the breach, water’s been coming down through the ventilation shafts. There’s a report the explosion was caused by—”
“What about the repair parties? Is it under control?”
“The watertight hatches on the decks immediately above and below the breach have all been sealed. The inflow of water has been stopped.”
“Good work.”
“But water is rising within the dome cavity, sir. And if any more of deck seven becomes flooded, the Barrier will potentially come under stress.”
Korolis felt pain throb across his scalp. “Then the breach in the pressure spoke must be repaired, and fast.”
“Sir—”
“I don’t want to hear any excuses. Take as many repair crews as you need. Get it done.”
“Commander,” Rafferty murmured in his ear.
“Stand by,” Korolis snapped into the radio. “Yes, Dr. Rafferty?”
“I read incoming movement.”
“From where?”
“I’m not sure, sir. A minute ago, nothing. They just appeared.”
Korolis blinked. “Sentinels?”
“Unknown. If they are, they’re much larger than the others, sir. And moving fast.”
Korolis snugged his face against the eyepiece once again, snapped on the exterior light. “Secure the boring machine. I can’t see a damn thing in all this murk.”
“Aye, aye. Securing tunnel-boring machine.”
Korolis peered into the viewscreen. Slowly, the storm of sand and sediment subsided. And then they appeared, like apparitions emerging from a fog.
There were two of them. They had the same ineffable exteriors as their smaller brethren in the Facility: a dazzling, unearthly kaleidoscope of shifting colors, amber and scarlet and hyacinth and a thousand others, so bright in the black depths they threatened to overload the camera’s CCD sensors. But these were much larger—three feet long, perhaps four, with glittering crystalline tails that whipped and twitched behind them and dozens of tendrils floating out on all sides. They drifted to a stop just below and to each side of the Marble. As Korolis stared, they floated languorously, as if waiting.
He had never seen anything so beautiful. Korolis felt his headache, the unpleasant prickly warmth that enveloped him, every physical irritant, begin to fall away under their spell.
“They’ve come to greet us,” he whispered.
His radio squawked again. “Sir?”
Korolis forced himself away from the viewscreen. As he did so, the headache returned, full force, so strong that he felt a spasm of nausea. He picked up the radio with a stab of anger.
“What is it?” he barked.
“Sir, we’ve received a report from the upper decks. It appears some of the scientists are mobilizing.”
“Mobilizing?”
“Yes, sir. They are rounding up staff and crew and directing them to the staging area outside the escape pod. They appear to be planning a mass evacuation.”
At this, Flyte gave a delighted cackle. “‘Gray-eyed Athena, send them a favorable breeze,’” he intoned quietly.
Korolis held the mike close to his lips, spoke in a controlled voice. “Nobody is abandoning this Facility on my watch. Doesn’t Chief Woburn have personnel on the upper de
cks?”
“Yes, sir. They’re in the stairwells to deck eight, assisting in the damage control efforts.”
“Well, deal with the situation. Korolis out.”
“Very good, sir.” The radio gave a chirrup, then lapsed into silence.
Korolis turned back to Rafferty. “Distance to the anomaly?”
“One meter directly beneath the dig interface.”
“Can you get a read on it?”
“Checking.” The engineer bent over his instrumentation. “It appears to be composed of some super-dense material.”
“Size?”
“Unknown. It extends in all directions.”
“A new layer of strata?”
“Highly unlikely, sir. The surface appears to be perfectly regular.”
Perfectly regular. One meter directly beneath. The words set Korolis’s heart racing.
He absently wiped his forehead again, licked his lips. “What’s the status of the air-jetting system?”
“One hundred percent operational.”
“Very well. Have the tunnel-boring machine dig the lateral retaining tunnel. Then maneuver it and the Doodlebug into the tunnel and deploy the stabilizer arm.”
“Aye, sir.”
Korolis looked from the engineer to Dr. Flyte and back again. Then, without another word, he swiveled back to the eyepiece.
58
It took Crane twenty minutes to complete his sweep of deck 9. Normally bustling at all hours of the day and night, it now looked like a ghost town. The theater was a graveyard of empty seats; the library, utterly deserted. The PX was closed, its windows dark; the tables of the sidewalk café unused and lonely. Crane found a worker sleeping in a carrel in the multimedia nexus, and a lone technician in the Medical Suite, where he stopped to retrieve a portable medical kit. He sent both on ahead to deck 12.
He ducked into the laundry—empty—and grabbed another towel. Then he returned to Times Square, giving the shopfronts one last appraising glance. The stillness was eerie. The smell of roasting coffee hung in the air, and music filtered out from the café. And there was another sound, as well: a faint groaning from deck 8, directly beneath. It reminded him irresistibly of his submarine duty, and the strange—almost sinister—creaking of the ballast tanks as they filled with seawater.