2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (73 page)

‘Do I secretly welcome death?’ she asked herself, wondering if that question might yet become a self-fulfilling prophecy summoned from the dark recesses of her mind, remaining unanswered until she resolved her deepest, darkest fears; fears so repressed and integral to her psychosomatic being she might never unravel their self-destructive curse.

‘Sarah?’ Riley’s voice came from the bedroom.

Sarah barely heard him.

‘Sarah,’ he said again, coming into the bathroom as brazenly undressed as she herself, ‘are you okay? I thought I heard you talking.’

Sarah straightened up and brushed past him.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked as she picked up her underwear.

Avoiding looking at his toned body, she slipped on her knickers. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’ He moved towards her and caressed her hand.

She snatched it away, lifting her arm up for him to keep his distance.

‘Have I done something wrong?’

She pulled on her remaining garments. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Then what?’

‘I need to clear my mind.’ She walked out into the lounge.

He watched her put on her shoes. ‘Do you want me here when you get back?’

‘I don’t know.’ She opened the door and looked back at him. ‘I’m sorry.’

Closing the door, Sarah moved out into the street, her emotions conflicted, her direction unclear. She needed to get some clarity. Her walk turned into a jog and gradually she increased her speed until she was running flat out, the physical exertion a welcome distraction from her internal turmoil. Eventually she tired and came to stop atop a bridge over a transport channel, looking out as cars whizzed by underneath and the monotube flew past above. She’d never felt as alone as she had in that moment and she was unable to keep a tear from rolling down her face, the salty droplet of water settling between her lips. Refusing to break down, she stood staring out into space, gritting her teeth against a building flood of tears.

‘I don’t have a death wish.’ She gazed down at the black road far below, the welcoming void between her and it beckoning to her with insidious hands. ‘I don’t,’ she said again, another tear streaking down her cheek.

Chapter Fifty

The door to Sarah’s apartment closed behind her, the latch clicking into place. ‘Riley?’ she said, moving through the rooms.

No answer was forthcoming; he’d left. Heaving a sigh she decided to contact Trish via her wallscreen and arranged to meet her and Jason back in the New Park district. She then took a much needed shower, the hot water helping to dissolve a melancholy that seemed to cling to her aura like a malignant parasite; its suffocating and pervasive embrace temporarily held at bay. After drying her hair with a towel she pulled on her grey USSB uniform before heading out to meet her two friends.

Returning to their previous meeting place, a sun-drenched meadow under the great dome, Sarah saw Jason and Trish had beaten her to the destination. The two archaeologists lay side by side on a rug looking up at the stunning technological masterpiece that was the artificial sky. Jason pointed something out to Trish, who leaned in to follow the direction of his extended arm and finger, seeking out his intended target.

‘Hey, Saz,’ Trish said as Sarah plonked herself down next to them.

‘Sazza.’ Jason acknowledged her. ‘How’d it go?’ He propped himself up an elbow.

‘Pretty good, I’ve found where they’ve stashed our artefacts.’

‘Including the pendant?’

She nodded.

Trish sat up. ‘You don’t look very pleased about it.’

‘With good reason, they’re locked up in one of the military’s vaults.’

Jason swore. ‘That’s it then, the whole sodding plan, out the window.’

‘Not quite,’ she told him, ‘there might be a way inside. It’s risky, but since we haven’t any other options—’

‘Don’t leave us hanging,’ Trish said in exasperation, ‘spill.’

‘According to Riley there’s a way through from the Smithsonian’s vaults to the military’s.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ Jason said, his hopes of getting back to the surface reignited, ‘isn’t it?’ he added, when Trish didn’t match his enthusiasm.

‘What do you think?’ Trish’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Jason looked at her blankly.

Trish groaned. ‘Sometimes I worry about you.’

‘What, why?!’

‘Never mind. I take it there’s a lot of security around these vaults?’ she asked Sarah.

‘Like you wouldn’t believe, cameras and security doors all over the shop. You need a special level eight activation on your multifunction card just to get to the Smithsonian vaults. Plus you need a code to enter the vaults themselves, although that won’t be a problem as long as it’s not changed frequently.’

Trish’s eyebrows rose. ‘How so?’

‘I made sure to memorise the code Riley used to access them, just in case.’

‘Nice,’ Jason said.

‘It would be, except the only way I figure I can get in there is to steal a card capable of opening all the doors.’

‘Like Riley’s?’ Trish said.

Sarah puffed out her cheeks. ‘There’s no other we know of that would work.’

‘And even then you’d have to break into the military vault,’ Trish said, ‘and God knows what kind of security systems they use inside them.’

‘Getting in might be possible,’ Sarah said, ‘but stealing the pendant and getting out again would be an entirely different ball game. Even if I did manage to make it back out they’d hunt me down, and fast. There’d be nowhere to go where they couldn’t find me.’

Jason looked thoughtful. ‘That’s not strictly true.’

‘Here we go,’ Trish said.

Ignoring her he looked to Sarah. ‘What if we were outside the base, outside the USSB? They couldn’t find you then, could they?’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Trish told him.

Sarah perked up. ‘No, I think he might be onto something, go on, Jas.’

‘Err,’ Jason said, put on the spot, ‘well, I was thinking, if you could make it out with the pendant then the best way to escape anyone chasing you would be to get out of the base.’

Trish made a noise. ‘You already said that.’

‘
And
,’ he said emphasising the word, his face a picture of concentration, ‘the only way to do that would be—’

‘To steal an air-shuttle!’ Sarah said in excitement.

‘Yes.’ Jason pointed at her. ‘Yes! So the plan would be you steal the pendant and then we make our escape straight after on the same night.’

Sarah’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s genius!’

‘Ha ha, in your face!’ He shoved an open palm towards Trish and rubbed it into her nose.

‘Argh, gerroff!’ She fought him off; he continued to plague her until she kicked him in the shin.

‘Ow!’

‘So that’s it then,’ Sarah said, ‘we take the pendant and escape the base all in one go, in and out, literally.’

‘Smash and grab, baby.’ Jason grinned.

Trish looked at them both as if they were mad. ‘I don’t like it, too much could go wrong.’

‘You just don’t like it because it’s my idea,’ Jason said.

‘That’s not it at all.’

‘It’s not a case of any of us liking it,’ Sarah said, ‘if we want to see the surface again it’s all we’ve got.’

The three of them sat in silence for a while as they each digested the idea of a permanent existence in the subterranean base. Despite the dust cloud currently wreaking havoc on the surface, they all knew the sun would return and life would continue as before. To leave that behind was almost inconceivable, although for Sarah the alternative was far from lacking in appeal.

‘Tell Sarah what we found out about the air-shuttle,’ Jason said to Trish, breaking the spell.

‘Well, we’ve read through the manual you gave us a few times and I have to say it looks quite promising.’

‘It’s more than promising,’ Jason said.

Sarah sat up straighter. ‘It’s possible to steal one, then?’

‘In theory,’ Trish said, ‘more so after what you’ve just told us, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The first thing we’d need to do is to select an air-shuttle that’s already prepped for launch. This is critical. As far as we can tell, as the launch manual doesn’t go into much detail on it, the process of preparing a shuttle is beyond what we’d be capable of doing; the task normally requires a team of people working for a whole day to complete.’

‘Prepped shuttles shouldn’t be an issue,’ Sarah said, ‘they normally have at least two ready to go at a moment’s notice in case of emergencies out in the field.’

Trish looked pleased. ‘Good. From what we understand, the launch procedure for a shuttle is pretty much automatic. We’d just need to prime the appropriate mechanisms using a series of procedures which are reasonably complicated to follow, but not impossibly so. The three of us should be able to sort it.’

‘Doesn’t it require codes to activate it?’ Sarah asked.

Jason nodded. ‘Yep, but they’re all in the manual.’

‘Seriously?’ Sarah was taken aback.

‘It’s not that surprising really,’ Jason told her, ‘think about it, the SED is a secure facility inside a secure base. It’s probably never even occurred to them someone might want to steal a shuttle. Even if someone did they’d know they wouldn’t be able to get to the surface as their elevators are locked down.’

‘But they didn’t reckon on anyone using an Anakim transportation device,’ Sarah said.

He gave a wink. ‘Exactly.’

‘A shuttle launch also requires the use of two multifunction cards with SED level seven clearance or above,’ Trish continued, ‘which means if we do get the pendant and shuttle, one after the other, if you have Riley’s card that particular problem is solved as we can use it in conjunction with yours.’

‘Okay,’ Sarah said, ‘what about controlling the shuttle after the launch?’

‘Once the shuttle is underway,’ Trish told her, ‘the onboard computer regulates its speed and rocket burns.’

‘We can just sit back and enjoy the ride,’ Jason said.

Sarah looked dubious. ‘You won’t be saying that after you’ve ridden one.’

He grinned. ‘Wanna bet?’

Sarah couldn’t help but let a small smile creep onto her face. If anyone could lighten someone’s mood it was Jason. ‘Is that it?’ she asked Trish.

‘There is one thing we don’t really know about, the shuttle will come to a stop by itself, but we’ll have no clue who’ll be waiting at the other end.’

‘We should expect a number of ground crew to greet us,’ Sarah said, ‘but we’ll all be wearing Deep Reach gear so I can blag us past, say we’re on an emergency recon or something. With an unscheduled arrival it’s possible we won’t see anyone.’

Trish crossed her fingers. ‘With any luck.’

‘Something we’ll need a lot of,’ Jason said.

Sarah murmured her agreement.

‘How do you feel about using Riley’s multifunction card?’ Trish asked her.

Sarah stiffened. ‘Fine.’

‘Are you sure? You’ve obviously become quite close since you joined the SED and stealing his card to use in our plan will cause him a lot of problems.’

‘Big problems,’ Jason added.

‘I know,’ Sarah said, ‘but it won’t be too bad for him. He’s got the support of Dresden Locke and his father, General Ellwood. Sure, he’ll get a firm reprimand, but it won’t be like he helped us or anything.’

Trish and Jason seemed to accept her reasoning, which was sound. However, the prospect of betraying Riley did make her feel physically sick; especially now they’d consummated their feelings for each other, feelings which, for her anyway, were very strong indeed. If she’d met Riley at any other time in her life, who knew what could have happened? But as it was her loyalties were firmly divided and it was a subject, quite frankly, she could do without dwelling on.

As their discussion continued, talk turned to what had been contained in the vaults; Sarah wowing Trish and Jason with the things she’d witnessed during her tour. Almost inevitably, though, their thoughts returned to the escape plan, the finer points being argued over and worked out detail by detail.

‘So, according to your Deep Reach maps,’ Jason said, ‘how long will it take us to get to my Anakim temple containing the transportation devices?’

‘I’ve already done a quick check on the route to the temple and it should be a two week trip,’ Sarah told him, ‘give or take a day or two. The route’s already been laid and waypoint markers deployed so what would have taken the first team months to find will take us a lot less. I’ve given them to Trish so she can work out what air-shuttle track we need to take out of the SED.’

‘You didn’t tell me she’d given you the maps,’ Jason said to Trish, aggrieved.

‘You were in the toilet, I forgot, deal with it. What about food, water and other supplies?’ she asked Sarah.

‘The air-shuttle will be loaded with everything we need and more.’

‘Two weeks,’ Jason said, ‘that’s a lot of water.’

‘There’ll be a remote controlled supply vehicle and an aerial drone, which can carry most of the load,’ Sarah told him. ‘It’ll be challenging but trust me, we can handle it.’

‘If you say so.’

‘We can collect our Deep Reach gear on the night of our escape,’ Sarah continued, ‘along with anything else we think we’ll need.’

‘So that’s it then,’ Trish said, ‘we’re almost set to go.’

Sarah gave a shake of her head. ‘No, we
are
set to go.’

Jason looked at Sarah and then Trish. ‘So we’re actually going to do this?’

‘Err, hello,’ Trish said, ‘what have we just been planning, a tea party?’

‘When do we go, then?’ He sounded anxious.

Sarah made a decision. ‘Tonight.’

‘What?!’ Trish and Jason said in unison.

‘The longer we leave it the more likely it is we’ll never get out of here,’ Sarah told them. ‘General Stevens will want to interview me after the incident at the SED and when he finds out my tracking bracelet has gone I’ll be screwed. Secondly, Riley’s code for the vaults is more likely to change the longer we leave it. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I want to get on with it before my bottle goes.’

Jason rubbed his hands together. ‘Fucking hell, this is going to be epic.’

Trish looked worried. ‘Or a total disaster.’