CHAPTER ELEVEN
It didn't take them long to get back on track. Abbas had recorded their previous coordinates and they soon found the path that followed the deep underground river.
What did take a long time, though, was scrubbing Vasseur's blood up off the floor of the truck. Mackenzie, Abbas, and Lowe used air pressure tools and absorbent sponges to remove the blood, but it took hours. Bell drove in silence and Jesse had quickly retreated to his lookout post without saying a word to anyone.
"Should we bury him?" Mackenzie had asked.
"No," Abbas had responded, his voice thick with emotion. "We should take his body home. To his wife."
After moving Vasseur's body into cold storage, Mackenzie longed for the day to reset. She wished they could start over, follow the river, and above all she wished she had never spotted that stupid fruit on the computer. If she had never said anything about it, they never would have detoured, and Vasseur...
A whole day passed without anyone speaking more than they had to. Lowe would report weather conditions. Abbas would issue navigational instructions. Bell stopped singing. No one heard from Jesse at all over the radio, and Mackenzie stared in gloomy silence at her terminal. Making sure they didn't lose the underground river.
When night fell, Abbas and Bell had first shift while Lowe, Mackenzie, and Jesse all slept. Though sleep eluded Mackenzie. She tossed and turned in her bunk, Vasseur's face seemingly seared onto the backs of her eyelids, appearing to leer at her every time she closed her eyes.
Finally, it was time to change shifts and Mackenzie gratefully climbed out of bed, longing to do something other than think about Vasseur.
Mackenzie tapped Bell on the shoulder, making her jump with fright.
"Oh," Bell sighed when she looked back and saw Mackenzie standing there. "I didn't hear you coming."
"Sorry," Mackenzie replied. "You should get some sleep. You look exhausted."
"Don't we all?" Bell said, offering a tired smile. She then stopped the truck and moved out of the driver's seat to allow Mackenzie to take over. Abbas, who was in the passenger seat, muttered something about bed and wandered off.
As Mackenzie settled into the driver's seat, Bell watched her.
"You did good today, Miller," Bell said gently.
"Not good enough," Mackenzie replied.
Bell shook her head. "There wasn't anything you could have done. Wasn't anything any of us could have done. We did our best."
"We were only in that field because of me," Mackenzie said tonelessly. "I was the one who saw it first, if I didn't say anything, then Vasseur would still be alive. I didn't see the akuchos in thermal imagery."
"No one could have seen them," Bell said gently. "Akuchos blood warmth matches the temperature of their environment. They're invisible to thermal imagery."
"I could have shot the akucho that killed Vasseur," Mackenzie argued. "But I was out of bullets. I couldn't stop him bleeding. If that was my best, I don't want to know what my worst is."
Not knowing what else to say, Bell placed a hand on Mackenzie's shoulder for a moment, then slowly walked away to bed.
Mackenzie drove away into the night, watching the landscape roll under the truck by the light of the headlamps. The shadow on the ground looked ghostly, like dark faces staring up at her. Despite the even temperature inside the truck, Mackenzie shivered.
Jesse suddenly appeared by her side, staring out the windows with Mackenzie. He then sat down in the passenger seat next to her, still silent. Mackenzie figured Abbas must have woken him for his shift.
"Vasseur preferred night-time out here," Jesse said wistfully, still not looking at Mackenzie. "He said it reminded him of stories his father told him about Earth. Because it all seems so much calmer at night. How everything out here just seems so much more... peaceful. Like you'd never know by looking at it that there were a thousand different hungry monsters lurking out there."
Jesse finally turned to look at Mackenzie, who kept her focus on the path ahead.
"Bell's right, you know," Jesse said. "It wasn't your fault."
"You don't believe that," Mackenzie replied.
"Sure I do," Jesse said. "Because it was mine."
"What?" Mackenzie scoffed, glancing sideways at Jesse. "How was it your fault?"
"I never even saw that akucho diving for him," Jesse sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I wasn't paying close enough attention. I should have... I don't know, I should have done something."
"There were hundreds of those things," Mackenzie pointed out. "And you're beating yourself up because you didn't see one?"
"It was the one that mattered," Jesse snapped. He suddenly sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so..."
"You?" Mackenzie offered.
Jesse chuckled. "Yeah. Me. I know I come across as kind of a prick, but don't think it's because I don't like you or anything. I just don't know how else to be a lot of the time."
They both fell silent for a while, just staring out into the night. Mackenzie didn't feel like it was an uncomfortable silence. They just both had a lot on their minds. Mackenzie kept replaying those last moments with Vasseur in her mind, just a few minutes stuck on a permanent loop.
"What Vasseur said," Mackenzie began. "Scylla? What is that?"
Jesse shook his head. "I have no idea. Never heard of it."
Mackenzie frowned. The word bothered her, mainly because of the look of worry and fear that had appeared in Vasseur's eyes when he said it.
Stay away from the canyon. Scylla. Why? What is it? And why doesn't Jesse know what it is?
"He told you not to trust someone," Jesse began, looking sideways at her. "Do you know who he meant?"
"No," Mackenzie replied, shaking her head. "No idea."
"Leave it to Vasseur to be as vague as possible with his dying words," Jesse growled. "Typical."
Again, they both fell silent for a while, neither one having much to say anymore. So they drove in silence until the sun began to peek over the horizon.
When they stopped the truck, they all stared out the windows at the sight before them.
"The river runs right through it," Mackenzie said from her terminal.
Bell was driving again and she was tapping the wheel as she thought. "Any way around it?"
Abbas was typing quickly on his navigational system. "I'll see what I can find."
Lowe and Jesse both remained silent as they studied the enormous obstacle that had slowly risen before them.
Two days after Vasseur's death, they had finally made it to the mountain ranges that had seemed so impossibly far away from Town. Mackenzie felt intimidated by just how high up they reached, but that was not the problem. The problem was that there was no pathway to enter the mountains, where the underground river appeared to flow from. Instead, they had found themselves cut off from progressing farther by a tall cliff that stretched far into the distance, left and right. There was nowhere they could see for them to drive the truck.
"We could climb it," Jesse suggested. "But that would leave us exposed and with no equipment to track the river."
"You just shot down your own idea," Mackenzie pointed out.
"Just saving someone else the trouble," Jesse replied.
"There," Abbas suddenly said, jabbing a finger at the map on his screen. "I sent out an echolocation pulse and this is the reading I got back. There's a narrow opening about half a mile east of here that looks like it leads straight through the cliff."
"You mean, like a canyon?" Mackenzie asked, feeling apprehensive.
"Vasseur said to stay away from a canyon," Lowe recalled.
"How many canyons do you think there could be out here?" Bell asked, a little annoyed. "Besides, Vasseur was in shock and dying. Who knows what he was thinking?"
"We don't really have a choice," Mackenzie sighed. "Not unless you want to give up on the river and follow another lead."
"Does anyone have another lead?" Abbas asked.
No one r
eplied, so Abbas sighed heavily as he studied the map.
"Fine," he finally said. "We'll go into the canyon, then hopefully pick up the trail of our river again on the other side."
"How do we even know we're close to a water source?" Lowe asked. "This river we're following could lead us around for weeks, for all we know."
"The current is picking up," Mackenzie quickly said. "Flowing from the direction we're driving. If the current is getting stronger, it means we're getting closer."
"That settles it," Abbas said firmly. "Unless anyone has any other concerns we should know about?"
Everyone was silent. Abbas nodded and began typing in coordinates.
"Let's go then."
They found the opening into the canyon easily, as it broke the entire cliff face in two. Looking through the opening, Mackenzie felt nervous as she was strongly reminded of the old Western films pulled from the downloaded archives of the Panspermia she used to watch with Ethan. The canyon was wide enough for the truck to fit, but the ground was rocky and uneven. Large boulders jutted out of the walls and the ground in random locations, causing Mackenzie to suspect this was going to be a long and tiresome drive. Bell was going to have to drive around every obstacle, possibly adding a whole day to the trip, maybe more.
"I don't like it," Lowe said, staring out the window at the landscape. "It's too enclosed. If we get attacked by anything, we're sitting ducks."
"We're safe inside the truck," Abbas replied. "We'll be fine."
Jesse rose from his seat and grabbed his rifle from the wall. "I'll be up top," he said, then quickly climbed the ladder to his lookout post.
"Bell," Abbas said. "Lead the way."
Nodding, Bell began driving slowly into the canyon.
As Mackenzie suspected, they drove at a crawl. There were so many large rocks and giant potholes that Bell had to spin the wheel hard in a new direction every few seconds to navigate around them all. Mackenzie tried to keep an eye on the river on her terminal, but it was almost completely out of range. She would catch a glimpse of it every now and then as it turned and came closer to their location, but most of the time it was out of sight. Every time she lost sight of the river, Mackenzie grew anxious, worried that the river had turned the other direction and they were heading away from the potential water source. She prayed that she was right to suggest following the river.
"Guys?" Bell suddenly said, breaking the long silence that had settled over them all. "Anyone else notice something strange about this place?"
No one said anything and Lowe shrugged, shaking his head.
"Well, look at where we are," Bell began. "We're in a canyon, sheltered from storms. There's shade. There's a possible water source close by. Why aren't there any animals here?"
"Should there be?" Mackenzie asked.
"This is a prime location for animals to live in," Bell said. "Assuming you're right about water being nearby, and I think you are. This canyon should be full of life. So where is it?"
"Maybe they're hiding," Abbas suggested, but didn't sound convinced.
Suddenly, Jesse reappeared through the hatch in the roof and slid down the ladder.
"Can anyone else hear that?" he asked in a hurry.
"Hear what?" Abbas asked.
"Turn on the exterior mic," Jesse said, pointing at the dashboard.
Abbas flipped a switch and the truck was immediately filled with a strange sound, like air being sucked through a straw. They all listened to it intently, trying to figure out what it was.
"It started less than a minute ago," Jesse said. "It's getting louder, too."
Lowe suddenly gasped and his eyes shot wide open.
"Gravity wind!" he cried.
"What's that?" Mackenzie asked, feeling nervous by Lowe's urgency.
"We're close to the mountains," Lowe began in a hurry. "When cold air flows down the mountainside and there's a greater air density around it than at the same altitude horizontally from the slope, it causes gravity wind. It's strong, real strong. They can reach speeds of 300 miles per hour and more! That's what that sound is! We're in a freaking wind tunnel!"
"We have to get out of here," Bell said.
"We can't, we're too far from the entrance," Abbas said. "That wind will hit us any minute."
"What about the harpoons?" Mackenzie asked. "From the sandstorm? We face the wind and use the harpoons to lock ourselves down."
"Maybe," Lowe said thoughtfully. "This will be a hell of a lot stronger than a sandstorm, though."
"Well, that's all we've got," Abbas said. "Bell, lock us down. Everyone, strap in. This could get rough."
"Firing harpoons!" Bell shouted as everyone sat down and buckled their restraints.
There was a loud bang that shook the truck and Mackenzie knew the harpoons had fired out from the chassis with enough force to punch several feet into the ground and then spread their hooks, rendering the truck immobile.
Looking up as she and the others fastened their restraints, Mackenzie saw movement in the distance, something coming closer through the canyon. At first, it just looked like a cloud of dust, billowing against the canyon walls as it raced closer, but as the cloud drew nearer, she could see that it wasn't just dust being pushed along by the strong gravity wind. There were large rocks bouncing off the walls, tumbling over the ground, crashing hard into whatever object got in the way with enough force to reduce either the object or the obstacle to nothing but dust. Stones and boulders were lifted out of the ground and began hurtling towards the truck like asteroids, moving closer at an impossible speed.
"Oh sh-" Mackenzie started, but then the wind hit them.
The wind hit so hard, the truck moved several feet, despite the powerful harpoons holding it in place, the ground being dug up by the chains as they were dragged by the wind. The truck shook so violently that Mackenzie and the others were nearly shaken out of their chairs, even with their restraints. Then the rocks that were being carried by the gravity wind struck, pelting the truck's exterior in a relentless storm of chaos, each thud sounding like gunfire to Mackenzie's ears. She looked up in time to see stones the size of baseballs come flying at the windscreen. They struck the glass hard, thudding loudly with each collision, each strike making everyone cringe. One stone hit hard enough to crack the glass, the crack then growing out in a spider's web of intricate damage.
"It's over 300 miles per hour!" Lowe cried over the noise, reading his monitors.
Suddenly, there was a loud creaking sound from beneath the truck. Mackenzie could feel, rather than see, the truck beginning to slide. The harpoons were struggling to hold on, the strength of the wind pulling against them as it tried to carry the entire truck away. The strain on the steel cables must have been enormous.
As soon as Mackenzie realized this, there was a loud, echoing, sound of snapping steel and the truck immediately began to fishtail wildly. Bell grabbed the steering wheel and held on tightly, crying out with the effort it took to hold the truck steady. The rear harpoon cables had broken and the truck was no longer completely immobile.
"If we turn sideways, the wind will flip us over!" Bell shouted. "Abbas, help me!"
Abbas unbuckled his restraints and grabbed the wheel with Bell, his arms bulging with the effort it must have taken to keep the truck straight.
Mackenzie looked past them to the outside. The larger stones had passed, having been at the front of the attacking wind, but now smaller stones and dust and debris were pelting the truck and window, threatening to break the already cracked glass. As Mackenzie watched, she saw something come hurtling around the bend up ahead and come flying straight towards them like a spear.
"Look out!" Mackenzie yelled.
Abbas looked up just in time to see the spear-shaped piece of stone hurtling directly towards them, tip first, like a bullet. He grabbed Bell's shoulder and pulled her aside as far as her restraints would allow, just as the stone arrow crashed through the windscreen and burst through Bell's headrest
, right where her skull had been a second earlier. The stone moved with such force that it went straight through the seat and punctured Vasseur's empty one, finally becoming lodged as it tried to exit out the back of it. The sharp tip came to a stop mere inches from Mackenzie's face and she gasped when she saw it coming at her. She stared in shock at the object that had come so close to ending her life.
The wind quickly rushed in through the hole in the window to fill the truck cabin, roaring louder and louder. Then the pressure completely shattered the windows and glass rained down on them all, everyone ducking low and covering their heads to avoid being shredded by glass shards or other objects that had found a way inside the safety of the truck.
Abbas and Bell had let go of the wheel and the truck immediately began to turn sideways as everyone took shelter wherever they could. Mackenzie heard another loud screee as steel began to stretch, which was then followed by an even louder clang as another steel cable snapped.
Everyone screamed as the truck began to tilt. Mackenzie could feel the truck lift up off the ground, kept from being thrown for miles in the wind by the remaining harpoons that still barely held on.
A stone suddenly flew in through the shattered windows and smashed into the wall inside the cabin. It broke into several pieces, which flew in numerous directions. Mackenzie saw one piece fall directly on top of Lowe's head and he immediately slumped as blood began to trickle from the wound in his scalp.
"Lowe!" Mackenzie cried, unclasping her restraints to go check on him.
"Wait!" Jesse yelled.
At that exact moment, the high pressure of the wind rushing into the truck's cabin needed somewhere to go, and found one. It pushed hard against the hatch that led up to Jesse's lookout and exploded the door off its hinges, pushing its way back out into the canyon. As it made its escape, Mackenzie felt the wind take hold of her and lift her off her feet, carrying her towards the open hatch.
"Ahhh!" Mackenzie screamed as the floor fell away beneath her feet.
As she flew backwards towards the hatch that would then lead her to her death, she suddenly felt a strong grip on her wrist and she felt suspended in the air, the wind still trying to carry her away, her legs kicking behind her as though she was swimming and caught in a powerful current.
Looking behind her in terror, she saw her feet kicking against the railings to the ladder, the powerful wind grabbing at her hair and clothes, trying to rip her away and into the canyon, where she knew she would be tossed and smashed against the canyon walls until she was beaten to death.
Turning away from the hatch, Mackenzie squinted into the wind to see Jesse, still strapped into his seat, gripping her wrist with one hand, a vein throbbing in his neck from the strain of holding her against the wind, his teeth clenched and his face twisted in the effort to keep Mackenzie in place. Mackenzie looked into Jesse's eyes and saw a furious determination to not let go, despite how difficult it must have been.
"Hold on!" Jesse roared at her.
The truck continued to tilt backwards, lifting into the air by the powerful wind, only the few remaining harpoons keeping it from backflipping. Abbas and Bell were sheltering under the dashboard, looking between the unconscious Lowe and Mackenzie with increasing concern as they were rendered helpless to do anything to help either of them while the wind tore through the truck. Everything that wasn't bolted down was lifted up and carried out through the open hatch. Sheets were ripped from the bunks, pillows were sucked out into the canyon, tools that had been left out became flying projectiles until they, too, vanished into the wind.
Jesse still held firm to Mackenzie's wrist, but his eyes were widening as his fingers began to slip. Mackenzie could feel herself beginning to slip away and she knew she was going to die. She and Jesse stared into each others eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
Then, as suddenly as the wind had appeared, it simply died. The noise stopped as though someone had turned off a radio, plunging the world into silence. The truck, which had been somewhat levitating several feet above the ground, crashed back down onto its wheels with a crunch. Mackenzie dropped out of the air and landed hard on her stomach, her jaw bouncing off the floor and pain shooting through her skull as her teeth smashed together. Everything was as still and calm as it had been before the gravity wind tore through the canyon.
"It's over!" Bell cried. "You two alive?"
"I'm okay," Mackenzie groaned, rubbing her chin as she rose to her knees. "What about Lowe?"
Abbas was already rushing to his side and checking his pulse.
"He's alive," Abbas said, sighing with relief. "He just got knocked out."
"Pity," Jesse growled. "I think a doctor would be pretty useful about now."
Climbing to her feet, Mackenzie looked at Jesse and gasped with shock. His shoulder was uneven, sagging lower than his other. His face was contorted in pain and he was panting heavily.
"Your shoulder!" Mackenzie cried.
"It's dislocated," Jesse said matter-of-factly.
"We need to pop it back in," Abbas said, walking between the seats to help. "Bell, take care of Lowe. Miller, I'll hold him still while you fix his shoulder."
"What!?" Mackenzie asked loudly. "But I don't know how! What if I hurt him more?"
"Trust me," Jesse began, smiling wanly. "It's gonna hurt a crap-load no matter who does it."
"He needs to stay still while we fix his arm," Abbas said. "So unless you think you can hold him down well enough, you have to take care of his shoulder."
Sighing apprehensively and biting her lip, Mackenzie nodded. She took hold of Jesse's wrist and elbow as gently as she could, still not sure what to do as she slowly lifted his arm.
"Just pull as hard as you can," Jesse told her as Abbas pinned him down. "It'll hurt like hell, but it has to be done. Don't worry. You got this, Miller."
Mackenzie nodded, feeling only slightly encouraged. Taking a deep breath, Mackenzie tightened her grip on Jesse's arm.
"On three," she told Jesse and Abbas. "One... Two... Three!"
Mackenzie pulled on Jesse's arm until it straightened out, perpendicular to his body. She immediately heard a sickening pop and Jesse jumped violently in his seat, held in place by Abbas' strong arms, and screamed at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Mackenzie cried, feeling sick and horrified.
Jesse was panting heavily, but smiled at her.
"All good," he said as Abbas took his arms off of him. "You did good."
"Lowe's waking up," Bell said, and Mackenzie then heard Lowe groaning softly.
Abbas sighed with relief. "Good. No one died. That's a win in my books."
"It was close, though," Mackenzie said. Then, turning to Jesse, she added, "Thank you. You saved my life."
Jesse nodded once, looking uncomfortable, but pleased.
"Y'all alright?" Lowe mumbled as he began to wake, his head swaying slightly left and right.
"We're fine, Lowe," Bell replied. She held up three fingers in front of Lowe's face. "How many fingers do you see?"
"Shree," Lowe slurred, but then he shook his head hard, like a dog shaking off water. Then he added, "Three."
"Good," Bell said, smiling as relief rushed through her. "You'll be fine. But there's nothing I can do about your face, unfortunately. You were just born that way and we all have to live with it."
"Ha ha," Lowe said sarcastically, then he raised his hand and extended his middle finger in Bell's face. "How many fingers do you see?"
Bell laughed as she slapped his hand aside.
"Now what?" Jesse asked, rubbing his shoulder. "Can we still drive?"
"Yeah, I think we should get out of this canyon before another wind blows through," Abbas said.
Bell returned to the driver's seat and began running a diagnostic check.
"The engine seems fine," Bell reported. "We lost a couple of harpoons, though. And the solar panels took a beating. We might be running at forty percent power once our current charge wea
rs off."
"Can we fix them?" Mackenzie asked.
"We have some supplies in the armory we can use," Bell replied. "But it's limited. Even if we do fix them up, we'll only be running at a maximum of fifty percent power. We won't be able to drive as far per day."
"Unless we detach cold storage," Abbas said thoughtfully.
"We can't do that!" Lowe cried, pressing a bandage against his bleeding head. "What about our food? Our water?"
"Hold on," Abbas said, then sat down at his navigation terminal. After a few minutes of silence, he pointed at the screen. "There. The canyon splits into a fork about 150 meters ahead. Lowe, see if you can figure out which path the wind blew in from."
Lowe worked quickly at his weather station, then reported back with, "It came from the south-west."
"Then we better take the south-east fork," Abbas said. "Bell, let's get out of this freaking wind tunnel. Then once we're in the clear, we can figure out what to do about power."