2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (22 page)

‘It looks painful. Butt of a gun, I heard?’

Sarah looked at the floor, not caring to speak any further to the man who’d been pivotal to her current incarceration.

‘Look,’ he said as he put a hand out towards her to try and regain her attention. ‘I didn’t know you had form. I thought you would just get a rap on the knuckles; no harm, no foul. How was I to know you’d already been in here for months? Everyone who lives and works in Sanctuary is selected on merit, no one is ever down here unless they’re allowed to be down here; which, by the way, is very impressive – you gaining access to a top secret facility over two miles underground – you’ll have to tell me the story sometime.’

Sarah glared at him.

‘Or not,’ he said quickly. ‘Anyway, when I heard of your indefinite term in the prison I thought I’d better act, seeing as I was the one who landed you here.’

He paused; waiting for a reaction but Sarah still sat stony faced, refusing to interact with him. Whatever he wanted she wasn’t going to make it easy.

‘I used to work in the military,’ he told her as if she cared, ‘so I called in some markers and I’ve got you released.’

Sarah’s distrust switched to disbelieving hope as she looked at Riley in a new light.

‘So you’ll be free to go as soon as the paperwork is completed,’ he said.

‘What’s the catch?’ She feared some kind of ‘but…’ coming on.

‘No catch. Well, that’s not strictly true. I will need you to commit to something for me.’

Sarah heaved a sigh; she knew it was too good to last. ‘Something?’

‘Yes. I want you to come and work at the SED.’

‘What? You want me, a level one interloper, to work in Sanctuary’s Exploration Division? Why and how!?’

Riley smiled at her. ‘The how is easy. I lead one of the elite Deep Reach teams for the SED, so I operate with a certain amount of autonomy and I also wield some clout with SED Command. As to the why, I want you on my team. It’s as simple as that.’

Her mistrust returned. ‘Nothing is that simple.’

‘Well, no, you’re right,’ he conceded. ‘There are many reasons why I, and the SED, want you working for us. First, you’ve already seen our hub of operations, which we would like to keep out of the public sphere. If you worked for us we wouldn’t have to worry about exposure. Most of our work is highly classified and if word got out that teams of people were regularly going outside the USSB and deep into Sanctuary Proper, then unrest could spread through the rank and file.

‘Secondly, according to your file, you are an accomplished climber with extensive field experience in a variety of challenging terrains. Such skills make you a perfect candidate for a Deep reach survey team. Thirdly, you are a qualified anthropological archaeologist who has not only managed to uncover ancient artefacts and remains belonging to a race that has been hidden away for generations, but someone who has managed to locate and penetrate the most secretive and secure facility on the planet. Sarah, if anyone was born to work in Sanctuary’s Exploration Division, it’s you.

‘If you want further reasons, you have helped highlight significant flaws in the SED’s security procedures, and last, but by no means least, your deployment to the SED will alleviate my guilt for getting you into this mess. Also, on an entirely more selfish note, your addition to my team will give me the edge over the competition.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked her. ‘Fancy becoming a member of one of the most exciting, dangerous and important professions in the world?’

Sarah couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head in disbelief at the sudden turnaround in her fortunes. Riley certainly put up a good case for why she should take him up on the offer. What he didn’t know was she had an even better reason for joining; it would gain her precious access outside of the USSB and much greater freedom to document, and then to potentially escape, Sanctuary itself.

Sarah gestured to his red and blue uniform. ‘Do I get to wear the helmet that goes with that suit?’

Riley grinned at her and the effect was contagious.

♦

Riley was as good as his word and later that day Sarah was released from military custody back into the general populace of the United States Subterranean Base. Amazingly, Riley had already managed to secure her a new apartment, located within a chamber reserved for SED personnel. Upon leaving the military enclave she had also had her MF Card upgraded to a clearance level of Seven Delta, a far cry from the level One Beta she had initially been allocated.

Riley himself had shown her round her new home, which was a two storey affair with over four times the space of the old apartment; although, as before, half the rooms, including her bedroom, backed onto a transport route, pedestrian walkways passing right next to her windows. Nothing was ever perfect, it seemed.

Once Riley had departed, Sarah, readjusting to her new reality, was overwhelmed to see her MF Card now contained a sizeable number of credits. An advance on future earnings, she assumed, or perhaps another bribe from Riley; either way she was pleased to have it, as it enabled her to call Trish and Jason and to arrange a meet up in the New Park district.

An hour later, the three friends sat next to a burbling stream in a picturesque café in one of the parks that surrounded the museum complex. This was the first time they’d had the luxury of an in depth discussion since they’d been in the USSB, Sarah’s latest arrest having thrown a spanner in the works of any meaningful conversation when they’d visited the museum almost a week earlier.

She filled them in on her new job at the SED and how Riley had ended up saving her bacon, a big turnaround from initially being the villain of the piece. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to disclose such sensitive information, but quite frankly she didn’t give a damn.

‘You’re a jammy bastard,’ Jason said with envy. ‘I’m stuck with refuse collection and poor old Trish is working in some kind of sweatshop.’

‘Oh, it’s not that bad,’ Trish told Sarah, giving Jason a withering look. ‘I work in a factory; we produce machine parts for the construction industry, which is expanding the base. It’s quite important, really.’

‘Well, none of our jobs matter anyway,’ Sarah said. ‘Now that I’m going to get access outside the base we can begin to plan our escape. In the meantime we can all keep documenting Sanctuary, the museum – everything.’

‘We wondered what had happened to you,’ Jason said as they sipped their drinks and nibbled on a rich selection of iced cakes Sarah had ordered for them. ‘It was only when some guy came to see us a few days later that we found out you’d been arrested by the military again.’

‘What guy? Riley?’

Jason looked thoughtful. ‘Yeah, I think that was his name. Tall chap, yeah? Seemed nice enough. Same bloke that gave you your job, I suppose.’

Sarah looked to Trish. ‘You met him too?’

‘Yes, I was with Jason when he came round. He’s rather nice, isn’t he?’

Sarah gave a shrug. ‘He’s okay, I suppose.’

‘Oh, come on, Sarah, he’s more than okay. He’s gorgeous; tall, handsome, in control and definitely charming.’

‘He looked like a bit of a twat to me,’ Jason said.

Trish frowned. ‘You just said he seemed nice.’

‘I was being kind; it’s not nice to put someone down when they’re not around.’

‘But you’d do it to their face, then, would you?’ Trish said, unconvinced.

‘I might do, if I wanted to. Anyway he was a bit of a letch, he probably only gave Sarah that job to get into her knickers.’

Sarah crossed her arms. ‘Oh, thanks.’

‘No offence,’ Jason added, with little deference.

‘Some taken.’

‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it,’ Jason continued, unabashed.

‘What is?’ Trish asked, her tone hardening.

‘Single guy. It would have been his main driving force. I’m a man—’

‘That’s debatable,’ Trish said.

‘I’m a man,’ he repeated, ‘and if I was in a position of  power—’

Trish snorted at the prospect.

‘—I’d employ young single women, not some old frump who was over the hill. It’s the way of the world. Sarah could have been some boss-eyed goon, but if she had a nice bum and a good pair of legs then she’d have got the job.’

Trish picked up a piece of cake and chucked it at him in disgust. Jason looked down at the offending projectile, picked it off his shirt and popped it in his mouth. ‘Thanks,’ he said with an insolent grin.

‘You disgust me,’ Trish said.

Jason appeared smug. ‘Just telling it how it is, way of the world ‘n’ all that.’

‘So let me get this straight,’ Sarah said. ‘The reason Riley gave me the job had nothing to do with my hard-earned qualifications or skills in the field, but because I’ve got a nice bum and a good pair of legs?’

Jason put a finger to his nose and pointed to Sarah with his other hand as he munched down another cake. ‘Correct!’ he said with his mouth full. ‘And to be honest, your legs and bum don’t even need to be that nice, as long as you’re youngish and firm you’d have got in, no probs.’

This time a whole cream cake flew into Jason’s face; he squawked in protest. ‘Oi!’

‘Nice shot.’ Trish held out her hand to Sarah, who slapped it with a resounding smack of solidarity.

‘Some people just can’t take the truth,’ Jason muttered to himself, as the two women looked at him with a mixture of amused disapproval and superior contempt.

While Jason cleaned himself up, Sarah told Trish more about her new position at the SED and how they might use it to their advantage.

‘Perhaps you could get us on the team, too?’ Jason suggested, butting into the conversation as he rid himself of the last remnants of Sarah’s cake attack.

‘It had crossed my mind.’ Sarah glanced at Jason and then turned to face Trish again. ‘If all three of us had passes out of the base, then it would make things a lot easier.’

‘You could put in a good word for us,’ Jason said. ‘We’ve got good field experience and we’re good archaeologists, too.’

‘There’s one problem with that,’ Trish told him. ‘Your legs and bum are hideous and hairy and as for your face – well. I suppose we could shave you and put you in a dress, but we want to get a job in the SED, not in a cabaret club for the blind.’

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh as Trish turned the tables on Jason’s previous outdated rhetoric.

He held up his hands. ‘Okay, perhaps I deserved that, but—’ He got to his feet and turned round to stick his bum out. ‘This is one fine piece of Welsh rump. I reckon it’d get me in, what do you think?’ He wiggled his bottom round and round and then jiggled it up and down energetically.

Trish looked mortified as other patrons of the café peered in their direction. ‘Oh my God, stop it!’

Sarah, not wanting to encourage him, turned away and put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter as her shoulders shook with mirth.

Jason sat back down again with a big beaming grin on his face, his attempt at reconciling their differences by self-humiliation a resounding success.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Trish told him.

He gave her a wink. ‘And proud of it.’

As time went on, their fleeting altercation forgotten and Jason’s misogyny forgiven, talk inevitably turned to Sanctuary, the museum and Homo gigantis.

‘Can you believe there are forty-five underground bases around the world?’ Jason said. ‘They kept that quiet, didn’t they? You’d have thought word would have got out that these places were being built.’

‘They won’t all be as big as this one,’ Trish replied, ‘but yes, you’d think there would have been rumours or leaks at some point.’

Sarah sat up straighter. ‘They must have been building them for a long time. The cost must have been monumental; so much for the governments not having much money to spend.’

‘Well, that’s probably true,’ Jason said, ‘because they’ve spent it on all these bases. Oh, and what about the induction video?’ he added, his eyes alight with excitement.

‘What about it?’ Trish asked.

‘The bit where that professor guy said put your hands up if you thought aliens built Sanctuary. I put my hand up, I said it was aliens, didn’t I?

‘Yes, you did.’ She looked at Sarah and rolled her eyes.

‘Even though I thought it probably was Homo gigantis, I said aliens, as it’s—’

‘Always aliens,’ Trish and Sarah said in unison, stealing his punchline and laughing at his perplexed expression.

A waiter came over to the table. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, addressing Jason, ‘one of our female customers asked me to bring you this drink.’ He placed a lavish cocktail down on the table.

‘Excellent!’ Jason picked it up and saluted his admirer a few tables away.

The waiter coughed. ‘Yes, sir. She also asked me to give you a message.’

‘Which was?’

‘The lady said, “You can wiggle your booty for her anytime”.’

‘No way!’ Trish said, looking at the woman in question. ‘Is she blind?’

The waiter leaned forward. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ He extended a hand and plucked a cake peanut from Jason’s hair and placed it on his plate.

‘Thanks.’ Jason picked up the offending item and popped it in his mouth.

‘All part of the service, sir.’ The waiter moved away.

If Jason’s smile gets any bigger it’s going to swallow his head
, Sarah thought.

‘Am I dreaming?’ Trish asked.

Sarah laughed. ‘No, ’fraid not.’

While Jason basked in his glory and savoured his free drink, Sarah continued the conversation with Trish. ‘I’m gutted we haven’t made the find of the century. I thought we’d found ground-breaking evidence of Homo gigantis, but with this place sitting down here it pales into insignificance.’

Trish shook her head. ‘You don’t know that. What about the pendant? You figured that out and from what Jason and I saw in the museum they haven’t figured out how to operate any of the ancient technology they’ve found. They haven’t even been able to decode any of the languages yet, as far as I can see.’

Jason sipped his drink. ‘There was also no sign of any pendants like yours in the display cases.’

‘That’s something, I suppose.’ Sarah felt a bit more upbeat. ‘That’s what we need to do as well; recover our artefacts and gear, mainly the artefacts.’