2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (70 page)

Trish sighed and Sarah shook her head.

Jason beamed foolishly. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘all things considered, it’d do my eyes a favour if you both ended up in prison.’

‘Funny,’ Trish said, ‘not. I think you’re losing your touch, Jas. Don’t you think so, Sarah?’

‘Yeah, although I did hear ugly people do suffer from bouts of stupidity.’

‘In Jason’s case, make that a lifetime.’

‘I suppose he quantifies the theory that the uglier you are, the longer the duration of denseness.’

Trish laughed. ‘That would explain a lot.’

‘Unusual features are a sign of a varied gene pool,’ Jason said, ‘I can’t help it if I’m a product of superior beings.’

Sarah sniggered. ‘Superior beings; I suppose that’d be an amoeba in your case?’

Trish chuckled while Jason did a good impression of a bemused cuttlefish.

‘What’s this, pick on Jason day?’

‘You started it, fugly,’ Trish said, unsympathetic.

‘So where are we on the plan now?’ he asked, changing the subject and devouring another sandwich like he hadn’t eaten for weeks.

Doing her best to ignore his open-mouthed mastication, Sarah considered the question. ‘Well, you two can sift through the air-shuttle manual I printed out and find out if it’s even possible to steal a shuttle. The shaped charges are done and dusted for when we get to the surface; supposing we need to blast our way out of a sealed cave, that is. And we have three waypoint beacons to help us find out where an Anakim transportation device will take us; plus some Deep Reach uniforms to help you blend in.’

‘That’s a pretty good haul,’ Jason said in appreciation.

Trish looked up from the thick wodge of paper she was reading. ‘From what I’ve read so far,’ she flicked through the air-shuttle manual, ‘it seems most of the system is automatic. I’ll have to go through it all, but it looks optimistic.’

‘Where does that leave us, then?’ Jason asked. ‘Less on a wing and more on a prayer, by the sound of it.’

‘I’ve also got the Deep Reach maps for the temple you found containing the Anakim transportation devices,’ Sarah told him. ‘They’ll tell us which air-shuttle track we need to take out of the SED and the exact route to the temple once we’re in Sanctuary Proper.’

Trish put down the manual. ‘So all that leaves is the most crucial part of the plan.’

Sarah nodded. ‘My pendant.’

‘And that’s going to be down to your boyfriend to sort, I take it?’ Jason said.

Sarah’s eyes narrowed while Jason looked back at her innocently. ‘Riley said he’d take me on a tour of the Smithsonian’s vaults,’ she said, refraining from rising to the bait. ‘If the pendant’s anywhere it’ll be there. I’ll ask the question about our possessions while we’re inside. We’ll have to hope he can find them for us, otherwise the whole plan goes up in flames.’

‘When will you ask to go?’ Trish asked her.

‘Considering the military could still slap another tracking bracelet on me at any minute, I was thinking tonight.’

Jason brightened. ‘Excellent. I’m beginning to get bored with this place. My job’s crap, I can’t go into Sanctuary Proper, there’re too many rules and regulations down here and way too many army bods enforcing them. Bring on the surface, that’s what I say.’

Trish raised her glass. ‘I second that.’

Sarah didn’t respond, her own view on Sanctuary seemingly vastly different to that of her friends. She loved her new job and enjoyed the company of most of her new colleagues, and then, of course, there was Riley.

‘Sarah?’ Trish said.

‘Yes,’ Sarah raised her own glass in salute, ‘to the surface.’

Chapter Forty Eight

After ironing out further wrinkles in their Sanctuary escape plan, Sarah regaled Trish and Jason with tales of the mysterious treasures she’d witnessed being brought back to the SED.

Jason sighed. ‘I never get to see the good stuff.’

Sarah suddenly remembered the picture she’d taken that had sparked her flight from General Steven’s troops. ‘Actually you can,’ she said. Taking out her phone, she opened up the large display and brought up the single image, before passing it to Trish.

Jason shuffled closer to get a better look. ‘It’s huge. Perhaps it’s the Anakim’s version of a nuclear reactor?’

‘How old did you say it was?’ Trish asked her.

‘Riley said nearly as old as Sanctuary itself.’

Trish’s eyes widened. ‘Nine hundred thousand years old, that’s incredible. And there’s still power running through it?’

‘According to Riley, yes.’

‘Amazing,’ Trish said.

‘And those three circles , sunk into the metal casing around the glass chamber,’ Jason said to Sarah, ‘like you said before, they must be how it’s activated. If you had your pendant, we could power it up.’

Trish gave him a withering look. ‘And that’s something only an idiot would say.’

‘What?’ Jason frowned at her. ‘Why?’

‘Because it could be a bomb for all we know, you could blow us all up. It could blow up the whole sodding planet. We have no idea what we’d be dealing with.’

‘And the military do?’

‘They’ve got scientists,’ Trish said, ‘lots of highly trained professionals versed in the appropriate fields.’

‘That’s worse.’

Trish looked at him in exasperation. ‘What, how can that possibly be worse?’

Jason looked to Sarah and rolled his eyes. ‘Trish, Trish, Trish,’ he said sadly, shaking his head from side to side, ‘don’t you listen to anything I say? Actually,’ he said when Trish began to respond, ‘don’t answer that. But yes, it’s much worse. These physicists and what have you are like trained monkeys with an array of wooden sticks. The monkey takes a stick from the pile and puts it in a plug socket, it repeats this process systematically until it comes to the single metal stick that electrocutes and kills it.’

Trish looked unimpressed by Jason’s rhetoric, but Sarah thought she could see what he was getting at. ‘Are you talking about that weird theory? That we’ll keep pushing the limits of science until we do something spectacularly stupid?’

‘It’s not weird,’ he said, ‘and yes. Basically the concept is that the reason mankind has never made contact with sentient beings from another world is because as soon as a race reaches a certain technological boundary, they invariably blow themselves to pieces. In fact, there are areas in space that may indicate where these advanced civilisations once existed.’

‘Like where?’ Trish scoffed.

‘Like black holes, or unexplained voids within other star systems.’

‘So basically,’ Trish said, ‘you’re saying we shouldn’t do any more science at all in case we destroy everything?’

‘It’s one option, or alternatively, until we have a proper worldwide voting system on what science projects we allow to go ahead and what ones we deem too risky to be worthwhile.’

‘He’s a got a point,’ Sarah said, ‘it’s almost inevitable that someone will devise something in the future that will turn out to be uncontrollable, the law of averages means it’ll only take one madman to end us all; which actually might be the reason why the Anakim died out, wiped out by their own scientific advances.’

Jason waggled a finger at her. ‘Exactly.’

‘That’s all very well,’ Trish said, ‘but it’s still a load of old bollocks, as I’d rather have a raft of trained monkeys dealing with something than one untrained one, like you.’

Jason nodded sagely. ‘Also a valid point.’

The conversation continued until Sarah decided she couldn’t put off calling Riley any longer. After their earlier steamy encounter she was reluctant to add fuel to the fire, but she needed her pendant and she needed it now, so she was left with little choice.

The phone rang for some time before Riley answered. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ He sounded no different from usual.

‘I need a favour.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Do you remember promising me a tour of the Smithsonian’s vaults?’

‘I do.’

‘How about tonight?’

‘So soon after what we just went through? I’m beginning to think you’re an adrenaline junkie.’

Sarah chuckled. ‘So am I.’ She suddenly realised Jason and Trish had stopped talking and were listening with great interest. Jason grinned at her and raised his eyebrows, making her frown and look away. ‘How about it then? Fancy showing me this Boneyard?’

Jason burst out laughing and Sarah got up and walked away.

‘Someone sounds like they’re enjoying themselves?’ Riley said.

‘It’s just Jason being an idiot as usual, so are you up for it or not?’

‘Sure, the vaults are totally separate from the SED and over the other side of the Smithsonian’s Museum complex. The heat we generated last night shouldn’t have any impact there whatsoever.’

‘Excellent.’ She turned round and looked back at Trish and Jason, now twenty feet away. ‘Where shall we meet, in the museum?’

‘Yep, down in the basement by the back entrance to the SED.’

She looked at her phone. ‘What time?’

‘Midnight should do it. You’ll have to make sure you get in before closing unless you plan on entering by the SED, but I think only one of us should go by that route to divert any suspicion. I’m sure General Stevens will still have a strong presence down there after our escape. I wouldn’t want to be in Locke’s shoes today.’

‘Won’t Locke know it was you, though?’ Sarah said. ‘He did send you there.’

‘Oh, he’ll know it was me alright, and he’ll tear me off a strip when he gets the chance. You’re the one that should be worrying in case he guesses you were the one with me.’

‘You won’t tell him, will you?’

‘Of course not; I’ll just say someone else was down there and that I didn’t get a good look at who it was. If I say they were short with dark hair it should counter any theories he has on the issue. Besides, the lights were low, that’ll be my excuse anyway.’

She was encouraged by his optimism. ‘Right, I’ll see you tonight, then?’

‘Yep, don’t be late,’ he said and hung up.

Sarah returned to Trish and Jason, who looked at her expectantly. ‘It’s a go,’ she told them, retaking her seat on the rug. 

‘Don’t forget to film it,’ Jason said, ‘I really want to see what they’ve got stored away in there.’

‘Me too.’ Trish picked up the air-shuttle manual. ‘And we can use it to add to our growing pile of evidence to show people back in the real world this place actually exists.’

‘Good idea,’ Sarah said, distracted, her thoughts about exposing Sanctuary mixed.
Why does life have to be so damn complicated?
she wondered.

♦

Later that night Sarah found herself waiting in the dingy lower floors of Sanctuary’s museum. Last entry was seven o’clock and after she’d looked around some of the exhibits, which were very interesting, she had to while away one hundred and eighty tedious minutes before the witching hour was upon her.

Sarah checked her computer phone again; quarter past twelve, he was late. Standing up, she paced around the barren corridor on the museum’s lowest floor, her footfalls echoing eerily against the oppressive silence like the manifestation of a disturbed apparition. In the wall behind her was the secure entrance to the offices where Dresden Locke had beefed-up security after her first incursion into the SED many weeks before.

Finally, another twenty minutes into her enforced wait, the door leading to the SED opened and Riley emerged.

‘About time,’ she said.

‘Sorry, I’ve been getting grief all day. We really stirred up a hornets’ nest last night. To say General Stevens is furious is an understatement. He’s ordered Locke to interrogate every employee in the division to find the people responsible for assaulting his men. Personally, I think he’s far more pissed off his late night activities were compromised than he cares about the welfare of his troops. Still, Locke was not impressed and gave me a severe dressing down.’

‘Shit, perhaps it’s me who should be sorry then,’ she said, feeling bad for getting him into trouble.

Riley screwed up his face. ‘Nah, water off a duck’s back. Besides, Locke was quite pleased in some respects, it gave him ammunition against the General’s covert operations. He even told him that if he hadn’t turned off all the cameras they’d have been able to catch the people involved.’

‘I bet that went down well,’ Sarah said.

‘Not really, I could hear the slanging match two rooms away.’

‘I take it my name didn’t come up in the conversations?’

‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘but give it time. With your history it won’t be long until you’re hauled over the coals.’

‘Great, I can’t wait.’

‘Don’t worry, just plead total innocence. There’s nothing they can do, short of drugging you with a truth serum.’

‘What, they’d do that?’ Sarah said, alarmed.

Riley laughed. ‘No, don’t be silly. They’re the army not the CIA. Come on,’ he said, walking off, ‘let’s go take a look at these vaults you’re so keen on seeing.’

Sarah followed Riley down the corridor before they worked their way through various types of doors, some sealed by sturdy locking mechanisms, the large wheels adorning them akin to those seen on the hatches of submarines. After passing through yet another one of those gateways, Riley unlocking each one with his multifunction card, Sarah let out a yelp of surprise when a woman appeared, standing waiting on the other side.

She held out a well-manicured hand. ‘Hi, you must be Sarah, yes?’

Sarah looked to Riley who followed behind. ‘Err, yes.’ She shook the outstretched hand.

‘Sarah, this is Petra,’ Riley told her, introducing the inordinately good-looking, full-figured woman. ‘She’s going to get us into the vaults tonight.’

‘I thought it was just going to be the two of us?’ Sarah whispered to him.

‘If you’d chosen another night,’ Petra said, overhearing, ‘you wouldn’t need me. But the army have been up to their old tricks recently and we’ve had to lift up the bridge.’

‘Bridge?’ Sarah followed their new companion as she led them down a large, brightly lit corridor.

Petra looked back over her shoulder as she walked. ‘The Smithsonian’s vaults are highly secure, civilians can only gain access via a bridge. But the general has been bringing some large objects in to the military’s vaults, which are adjacent to ours, and we had to lift it up.’