2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (80 page)

‘You did what!’ Trish said. ‘You nearly blew us all up!’

‘Yeah, I might have detonated it too soon.’ He grinned. ‘But that’s hindsight for you.’

‘You idiot! You fucking idiot!’ Trish whacked him round the head.

‘Ow! I’m sorry, okay!’

Sarah shook her head and went to retrieve their gear from the rear of the shuttle while Trish continued to rail at him.

Jason, trying to escape Trish’s wrath, soon came to join Sarah and the verbal tirade came with him.

‘Of all the crazy things you’ve done, this takes the prize. My sister’s dog has more sense than you and it’s dead!’

Jason looked thoughtful. ‘Wasn’t that dog really clever, though, butt ugly, but clever, it won prizes for playing the piano didn’t it?’

Trish glared at him ‘That was my niece. And no the dog wasn’t clever; it liked to chase cars and got run over. The dog was dumb, perhaps the dumbest dog ever, but compared to you it’s friggin’ Einstein!’

‘If you say so, but come on, you must admit, just disabling their console wouldn’t have kept them at bay for long; they’d have repaired that quick-time. At least with my way we’ll have a good head start. By the time they rebuild the track we’ll be long gone.’

‘He does have a point,’ Sarah said.

Trish gave her a hot stare.

‘Well he does,’ she said in answer to her friend’s expression.

‘You could have told me,’ Trish said to Jason.

‘I didn’t think you’d go along with it, you’d have started panicking.’

‘With good reason,’ Trish said, ‘you nearly killed us!’

‘True, but I didn’t, did I?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Pretty much is,’ he told her. ‘And besides, you nearly killed us by entering the wrong parameters for the launch, so that makes us even and you a hypocrite.’

‘Piss off, Jason,’ Trish said, the argument taking a serious turn.

‘Perhaps it’s the dog that has more sense than you.’ Jason’s tone was scathing. ‘One thing’s for sure, being a squashed dead dog, it’s gotta be better looking.’

Enraged, Trish fronted up to him. ‘Are all Welsh men ugly, cowardly pricks, or is it just you?’

‘Are all London women cold-hearted vicious cows that look like they’ve got a cork stuck up their arse? Oh no – wait, that
is
just you!’

Sarah banged the side of the shuttle. ‘Shut up! You’re acting like children. Stop bickering and grow up! We need to get going; we have a finite amount of supplies. We’ve got out of the USSB and we have the pendant, but the hard part’s still to come; we need to concentrate and get serious. What’s done is done. We need to pull together and press on.’

Trish folded her arms. ‘As soon as we get to the surface I’m getting as far away from him as possible.’

‘Likewise,’ Jason said, earning himself an evil stare from Trish.

‘I don’t know what’s with you two,’ Sarah said, ‘but now is definitely not the time. When we get to the surface you both do you what you have to do, but right now, right here, we’re in a dangerous, unknown environment with no back-up and no idea of what lies ahead. If we don’t work together as a team we’re as good as dead.’

‘And if help did come,’ Jason said, ‘it’d be to throw us in prison.’

Sarah held out an upturned hand between them. ‘Correct. So right now we’re a team, a unit, working and thinking as one, we need to put away our petty differences, okay?’

Jason put his hand on hers and clasped it. ‘Okay.’

Sarah looked to her friend. ‘Trish?’

‘Okay,’ she said reluctantly, placing her hand on Jason’s.

‘Good.’ Sarah bound them together with her remaining hand and then stared at them with stern eyes, her face grim. ‘Now let’s get the fuck out of here.’

Chapter Fifty Eight

Unseen droplets cascaded down into shallow stagnant pools of inky blackness, their steady plip-plopping mournful trill of solitude echoing through the cracked and decaying chamber system of Sanctuary Proper. A bitter taste of acidic minerals cajoled the senses of those travelling along the paths of a long forgotten civilisation, prehistoric and even – prehuman.

Such was the age of the area in which they trod, Sarah found it hard to comprehend the sheer enormity of the time that had passed since these places had last been inhabited. Even Sanctuary’s latterly constructed architectural creations were tens of thousands of years older than humanity’s first attempts at a centralised existence. To try to piece together a history of this place would take a hundred, a thousand, lifetimes, maybe more. The prospect of such an undertaking excited Sarah, as did the work being done by the SED. Everything down here was a marvel, but where before it had been a ray of light stimulating her with an elixir of intoxicating energy, it now elicited anger; a simmering fury reignited ten-fold since seeing her map on display in the military’s secret vault.

If she’d been determined to reveal the existence of Homo gigantis – the Anakim – to the world before entering Sanctuary, it was nothing to how she felt as she tried to exit it. This single-minded goal had been the sole reason she’d decided to retrieve the orb. Despite its power to immobilise and in Cora’s case, kill, the Anakim device was proof positive of the lost race. On its own it was powerful, but alongside the other evidence they’d managed to collect, including her recently acquired artefacts, it was undeniable, unequivocal and definitely one hundred per cent box office. If she wanted to court worldwide attention and maintain it, then she had everything she needed and more.

‘Watch it!’ Trish’s voice sang out into the chamber, bringing Sarah back from her reverie.

‘Then don’t stand in the bloody way then!’ Jason reversed the bright yellow, remote-operated, all-terrain supply vehicle so he could manoeuvre it around Trish, who stood in its path. ‘This thing isn’t as easy to control as it looks,’ he added.

‘I’m still getting used to seeing through this helmet’s visor,’ Trish said, aggrieved.

Sarah stopped and turned. ‘Just stick to the second setting on the third spectrum combination, it’s the best for seeing in the dark. We need to conserve battery life, so no torches unless absolutely necessary.’

‘Can I at least turn the lights on this thing on while I get used to controlling it?’ he asked.

‘They call it the Centipede,’ she told him. The nickname was apt for the sizeable twenty-wheeled machine which moved over rough terrain much like a multi-legged insect, hugging the surface but able to bend its spine at ninety degree angles.

‘It can be called bloody Humphrey sodding Bogart for all I care, if I can’t tell where the damn thing’s headed it’s gonna end up at the bottom of a crevasse, along with all our food and water.’

‘Okay, switch them on,’ she said, ‘but be frugal.’

‘I’ll give you frugal,’ Sarah heard him mumble as she walked off.

Declining to comment, Sarah saw the twin lights on the Centipede blaze forth, altering the colour of the terrain ahead through her visor’s enhanced display. Pressing a button on the side of her helmet, she loaded the next section of the Deep Reach map on her visor. A graphical representation of their current position appeared, the image incorporating a plotted course to the next waypoint beacon previously laid down by the team that had first found the Anakim temple complex to which they headed.

Now an hour out from the SED outpost, their progress was slow, but when Trish and Jason had properly acclimatised to the new equipment Sarah expected them to be able to pick up the pace. Looking at the maps, she deduced they should be able to utilise the Centipede for almost half the journey before they needed to unload the aerial drone, the UAV the perfect companion when attempting to ferry supplies over the deep fissures that occurred throughout Sanctuary Proper.

It was late afternoon when Sarah called a break to proceedings, all of them in agreement to make camp for the night due to the fact that they’d all been up for over thirty-six hours. With weary limbs resting on uncomfortable ground, Sarah was left to her own thoughts while Trish and Jason sat in stony silence nearby. Usually such an uncomfortable atmosphere would have bothered Sarah, but her current dark mood meant she paid it no heed. Also, her face throbbed painfully from the brutal impact dealt by Cora back at the USSB. No longer wearing her Deep Reach headgear, Sarah reached up and gingerly touched the end of her nose. According to Trish it hadn’t been knocked out of shape, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. She withdrew her fingers, the area still far too sensitive to accept any further investigation.

With her thoughts returning to process recent events, the ancient dark wood they’d retrieved from close by sparked and crackled within the small campfire, its dense, sweet-smelling smoke drifting on a silken breeze. The occasional pop and sizzle punctuated the quiet as the burning fuel ran low, the embers mimicking volcanic lava by glowing a deep, bright orange.

‘It’s strange how no one was waiting for us,’ Jason said quietly, breaking the silence, ‘at the SED outpost I mean.’

Sarah looked over at him. ‘They couldn’t have been expecting any shuttles to come in and must have returned to the SED.’

‘We were lucky,’ Trish said.

Jason nodded while Sarah murmured her agreement.

The light of the fire grew lower still, the shadows it cast long and still, no longer moved by flickering flames. No one said anything for another minute until Jason spoke again.

‘What happened to that woman, Sarah? The one in the Control Station.’

Sarah saw Trish looking at her too, waiting for an answer.

‘That was Cora,’ she said after a lengthy pause.

‘Riley’s second in command?’ He sounded surprised.

Sarah nodded, recalling the events from the previous night. ‘I found something in the military vaults. At first I couldn’t believe or accept what I saw—’

‘Which was?’ Trish said, when Sarah failed to continue.

‘One of the maps that I last saw in my mother’s house.’ She stared into the fire.

Jason and Trish swapped looks. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘After seeing it, I lost the plot,’ she continued, ignoring his question. ‘I tried to take an Anakim shield, but my pendant activated it and some kind of energy wave blew out all the circuitry in the area, cutting off my escape route.’

Trish looked shocked. ‘How did you get out?’

‘Blind luck. I found an emergency exit and managed to get into the military’s laboratory complex as all the security systems were also fried. I wandered around looking for a way out, but ended up in some top secret area and inside I found this—’

She opened a side pocket on her trouser leg and withdrew a chunk of white cloth, which she opened out to reveal the orb within.

Trish and Jason leaned forward to look at it.

‘What is it?’ Jason asked.

‘I have no idea, but when I held it I had a seizure and blacked out. And when Cora held it – well – you saw the results.’

‘You should have left it behind.’ Trish eyed the twelve-sided object with fear, its metal sheen glinting darkly in the subdued light.

‘Shouldn’t you put it in something a bit more secure?’ Jason said.

Sarah gazed at it. ‘It’s fine as it is. It saved my life.’

‘After almost killing you,’ Trish said.

Sarah didn’t reply, her mind returning to Riley. How could she have been so wrong about him? He’d seemed so – perfect. He’d made her happy, but he was just like everyone else in the USSB, devious, manipulative or skilled at turning a blind eye. He was part of the very fabric of the SED and the military operation that oversaw it. Everything about that place reeked of hypocrisy. They weren’t there to secure knowledge for the rest of mankind; they were there to make sure it never reached the light of day.
And to think I considered staying there with him
, she thought. Staying and living amongst those who were willing to murder innocents on the surface in order to protect their secret and expand their knowledge of the Anakim. The whole place stank to high heaven and the guilt she’d felt about taking his card and going behind his back now seemed ludicrous to her, obscene in its naivety. Of course part of her still ached for Riley’s embrace, a part of her bereft at his passing from her life, but she knew such feelings would pass – they always did.

The evening drifted on and Trish and Jason chatted to one another in hushed tones, perhaps reconciling whatever problems existed between them. Eventually they grew silent, falling asleep to leave Sarah alone with her thoughts, the small orb placed before her. She reached out a hand to caress its surface, her touch lingering for a moment before she withdrew it.

Her eyes drooped closed, her breathing becoming steady and relaxed as sleep took her. In her dreams images of the map returned to haunt her and the smell of the nearby campfire induced the nightmare that still lurked in the recesses of her mind. Deeper and deeper she fell, down into a darkness that refused to relinquish her from its eternal embrace. Fire blossomed into being, the torment once again taking hold, her mother’s dying cries searing pain into her soul.

Epilogue

‘Where are we again,’ Jason asked, ‘west or north of the USSB?’

‘South,’ Sarah said, surveying the scene ahead with her Deep Reach helmet’s visor, Trish and Jason by her side.

‘This place is friggin’ awesome,’ he said, marvelling at the ancient crumbling ruins that surrounded them, the immense vestiges of the Anakim’s long hidden legacy undeniable in their timeless majesty.

Sarah pressed another button on her helmet. ‘You’re not wrong.’

Trish was similarly awestruck. ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing.’

‘Believe it, and this is only the beginning, a tiny fraction of what’s still to be explored.’

Jason shook his head. ‘Fantastic.’

‘We should get moving,’ Sarah told them, ‘otherwise we’ll never get to those Anakim transportation devices.’

‘Two days in,’ Trish said, ‘two weeks to go.’

‘It’s like death by chocolate,’ Jason said, ‘but this is death by archaeological architecture.’

‘Come on.’ Sarah moved off into the vast chamber ahead, its every surface bristling with weird and wonderful structures of millennia past.