2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (11 page)

‘So,’ he said in his sharp cutting voice, which accentuated his American accent, ‘how did you access this facility?’

‘By magic,’ Sarah replied almost smiling at her own insolence.

Collins slammed his hand down on the table with a loud BANG, making Sarah jump. ‘Do not fuck with me, girl,’ he said, eyeballing her, ‘or things will go badly for you. You think what you’ve experienced so far has been hard, then think again. I can make your life unbearable in so many ways you wouldn’t believe. I’d have you begging for me to end your miserable existence in less than twenty-four hours if I wanted to, so stop fucking me about and start talking!’

Sarah looked at the man and his flat, dead eyes told her he wasn’t messing about. She dreaded to think what he was referring to and as she didn’t want to find out, she played along, as usual. ‘We found this place, this
facility
, through tunnels and an entrance we located on the surface,’ she said, her tone sullen.

‘Where on the surface?’

‘Tancama.’

The sergeant major noted something down in his red folder. ‘And where exactly is that?’

‘In the mountains in Mexico.’

Collins looked up and his eyes flashed a warning.

‘East of a small town called Jalpan de Serra,’ Sarah said, knowing full well he knew the answer.

‘And this Tancama, it’s an old ruin?’

‘Yes, it’s an archaeological site built over a thousand years ago.’

‘You’re English, why were you in Mexico?’

Sarah really wanted to say
on holiday
but knew she shouldn’t push the man; he wasn’t right in the head. She also wanted to point out to him he was an American and ask him why he was in Mexico, or should that be beneath Mexico; sadly, though, she decided on a non-antagonistic answer. ‘We were exploring the site; we’re archaeologists, that’s what we do.’

‘This entrance,’ he said, going back to her first answer, ‘how did you find it?’

‘From a map.’

He took an A4 photo from the folder and put it in front of her. It was a picture of a rectangular metallic artefact with Mayan hieroglyphs on it, a single line intersecting them.

‘This map?’

‘Yes.’

‘And where did you find it?’

‘As I’ve told you before, we dug it up in the Mayan ruins of Copán in Honduras.’

‘How did you know it was there?’

‘Using a scanner, I found it buried in one of the stone stelae.’

‘Stelae?’

She sighed. ‘Sculpted stone monuments, or statues, you could call them.’

It was quite true; the metallic map had been a wonderful find, although Sarah had to deface a priceless Mayan statue to extract it. On a sanctioned dig, breaching the integrity of the site in such a way would have been a big no-no, but as it was they were there without authorisation and Sarah had certain motivating factors which had driven her into desecrating the world heritage site.

Collins stood up and picked up the folder, turning over the pages as he read through it. ‘Have you found other ancient artefacts in the past?’

‘Many,’ she said.

He considered her for a moment. ‘Have you ever discovered bones and artefacts which you thought were much older than human civilisation?’ he said, rephrasing the question.

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘A handful.’

‘Where?’

‘In Turkey, near Mount Ararat.’

‘And where are those now?’

‘They were stolen from us.’

‘By whom?’

‘I don’t know who.’

‘But you suspect someone, an organisation?

‘The Catholic Church, but now you lot are on the scene I’m beginning to wonder.’

Collins ignored her quip. ‘Have you found anything anywhere else?’

‘A few locations,’ she said evasively.

‘Recently?’ he added, his face growing angry again.

‘South Africa.’

‘What did you find there?’

‘More bones and a canister.’

‘Were these bones human?’

‘No.’

‘What were they?’

‘I think they’re from a human ancestor or cousin who evolved on the planet over half a million years ago.’

‘And you refer to these human ancestors as—’ Collins said, pausing as he looked in the folder once more, ‘Homo gigantis, correct?’

Sarah nodded. It was the most appropriate scientific Latin name and one generally agreed upon by those who believed in its existence. She liked it; it rolled off the tongue and fitted in well with the names of humanity’s other close relatives, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalensis.

‘And what was in the canister?’ the U.S. soldier asked her.

‘A parchment.’

He glared at her.

‘A map on a parchment,’ she conceded.

He took out a piece of light brownish paper and laid it in front of her.

She picked it up, feeling its odd texture and noting the small circle indented into it at the top. It was also completely blank.

Collins’ eyes narrowed. ‘And where is that map now?’

‘I don’t know. It was on here,’ she told him, knowing full well that you had to access the images on it using her pentagonal pendant; something else they had confiscated from her.

The pendant in question was similar to another one Sarah had found over a year ago, buried deep in the ground amongst bone fragments and what turned out to be hair. Carbon dating had revealed the bone and hair to be five hundred thousand years old, raising the tantalising question that the pendant had been forged in the same era. Since humans, as they are known today, hadn’t even evolved at that point in time, it posed the question, who made it? The answer soon became apparent: Homo gigantis, a large ancient human ancestor who may have been as advanced, if not more advanced, as modern humans themselves.

The second pendant, which activated the map, Sarah had found in a curious canister she’d dug up on the Turkish plains during a quest that had ultimately led to her current location. Amazingly, this small artefact had also enabled Sarah to operate some kind of lift transportation device that had brought her deep underground. Of course she wasn’t about to disclose any of these facts to Collins and it was the one thing she’d been holding onto. She knew if the U.S. military found out about the pendant and its amazing properties she would definitely never see it again and she couldn’t allow that to happen for anything. She had made the discovery and she was damn well going to keep it. At least that was the plan.

‘I think it runs on some kind of battery,’ Sarah continued by way of explaining the oddity of the disappearing map. ‘It’s like digital paper and the power source has run dry.’

‘That’s what your friends keep telling me.’ Collins looked frustrated at receiving corroborating information which was of no use to him.

The friends he referred to, who’d accompanied her on her journey of discovery, included her best friend Trish from London, whom she’d known since university, and Jason, another archaeologist she’d met on a dig site and whom she’d also grown close to over the years. After their capture in this – for want of a better word, underground city – and prior to their separation, the three friends had benefited from some precious moments alone. Sarah had told them both not to disclose anything about the pendant and its secrets and how they’d managed to activate the ancient device that had brought them there. They’d also devised a basic cover story to cover their tracks.

Apparently Jason and Trish had stuck out as stubbornly as she had, apart from a few slip ups like letting Collins know the parchment was capable of displaying moving images. However, this new knowledge about her friends, to know they were still nearby and on her side, helped to strengthen her flagging resolve. Collins was slipping, it seemed; this was the first titbit of information he’d relinquished in all the many hours she’d had the misfortune of spending with him.

Collins sat down again and pondered his precious red folder. ‘These tunnels that brought you from the surface,’ he began, ‘how far from this facility did they bring you out?’

And there it was – the question that caused Sarah the most problems. Since she had used the ancient device to descend into the depths of the Earth, there weren’t any actual tunnels to speak of. Therefore the exit, by simple deduction, was also non-existent. The issue came when Collins and his military colleagues wanted to know where,
exactly
, Sarah and her two companions had been able to infiltrate this most secret of compounds.

‘A few miles away from here,’ Sarah said.

‘Elaborate,’ Collins demanded, his eyes searching her face, perhaps for the telltale signs that she might be lying to him.

‘When we emerged from the tunnels we found ourselves on a narrow path next to a high cliff with a deep drop on the other side.’

‘And where did you go from there?’

‘We scaled a few rock faces, travelled underneath a couple of massive carved archways and then passed through what appeared to be a long dead forest. Which is weird, as we’re deep underground, so how did that happen?’

‘And then what?’ he said, ignoring her question.

‘And we saw a light. I saw a light, and we followed it to here. That’s when your men chucked a stun grenade at us, arrested us and stuck us in here.’

Collins’ brow furrowed further as he frowned down at his folder. He rubbed his temples with his hands. In something resembling agitation, he flicked through the pages until he stopped, and then amazingly closed it altogether. ‘I want to know exactly where these tunnels came out, do you hear me? Exactly!’

‘I don’t know exactly, it was pitch-black and we only had small torches with us.’

‘Try harder,’ he said, an odd desperation to his tone accompanied by a curious twitch in his right eye.

‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ Sarah replied, her tone placating, her hands held open and an apologetic half-smile playing across her lips.

The sergeant major banged the metal table once more. ‘UNACCEPTABLE!’

Before Sarah knew what was happening he’d risen up, hurled the desk to one side and grabbed her by the throat. Sarah may have been nearly six foot tall and athletic, but Collins, although slightly shorter, was powerfully built and she found herself up against the wall while he slowly crushed her windpipe. Fighting for breath, she felt herself blacking out as she fought to prise his vice-like grip from her throat. With her vision fading to a blur, she caught sight of the guard sprinting into the room. Grabbing Collins around his neck, he grappled him to the floor as two more soldiers came running in from the corridor to subdue the out of control interrogator.

Sarah dropped to her knees coughing and gasping for air. Her lungs and face burned with heat and it took some time to get her breath back. By then the sergeant major had vacated the room, whether by force or of his own volition Sarah hadn’t seen. As long as he was no longer around, that was good enough for her.

Instead of receiving any kind of medical attention or even just an apology, Sarah was left on her own in the room for another hour. As she sat on her chair facing the now empty seat across from her, the utilitarian clock on the wall ticking away time, a noise from behind made her turn round. A man stood in the doorway. This person was new to her and he also wasn’t a soldier; at least he wore a suit and not military issue. He also had a red folder; in fact it was the same one Collins so cherished. The new arrival, however, didn’t seem to hold the brightly coloured file in the same reverence as, walking round to stand in front of her, he plonked it down in the middle of the table.

‘Look,’ Sarah said, rubbing her bruised throat protectively, ‘I’ve answered your questions for today; just put me back in my cell and leave me be.’

The man, who had also brought with him a cup of gloriously sweet-smelling tea, placed the steaming mug in front of her. Sarah looked at him questioningly.

‘Go ahead,’ he told her with a smile. ‘It’s fresh.’

A smile, what a simple thing, you didn’t realise how much emotion such a simple gesture could provide when you had been starved of it for so long. Sarah didn’t need to be told twice; compared to endless water and cold food, tea was a treat not to be passed up. Burning her lips, she sipped the drink, relishing its taste.

‘So it says here—’ the man said as he idly perused the folder on the desk while standing up, ‘you’re an archaeological anthropologist.’

Sarah nodded at the man, not sure how to take this new softly-softly approach.

‘You’re a published academic,’ he continued, ‘and have a lot of hours in the field from dig sites all around the world, although your career seems to have stalled after some outlandish claims regarding an extinct human relative you call Homo gigantis.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, her expression noncommittal.

‘And you’ve circulated on the outskirts of your chosen field’s community ever since?’

Sarah nodded again.

‘I see,’ the man said. ‘So, what with the discovery of your most recent artefacts and the revelation of this subterranean facility, it appears your theories have actually – in fact – been proved correct.’

Sarah had been looking down while picking at one of her fingernails, but on hearing this, her head shot up. ‘They are? I mean you acknowledge that they are?’

He smiled. ‘Of course.’

Sarah looked at him in stunned amazement. ‘Are you willing to testify to that fact?’

The man chuckled. ‘They told me you were a live one,’ he said, then his expression grew serious; ‘but I’m afraid my answer is no. However, it appears that my military colleagues have decided you’re not to be classed as a direct threat to this base or its objectives – their words, not mine – and as such you are to be discharged from this detention centre with immediate effect.’

Sarah’s hopes soared. ‘I’m free to go?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far to say “free”.’ He put a small object on the table in front of her.

‘What’s that?’ she said, her eyes wary.

‘
That
is a transmitter which will monitor and track your movements within this base for the duration of your stay, which I’m afraid is going to be quite a long time.’

Her hopes turned painfully inward. ‘How long?’