The Amazon Code (44 page)

73

BEN’S HAND WAS SWEATING, BUT he didn’t dare move it. Her fingers were wrapped tightly between his, clenched into a death grip. He wasn’t sure he
could
move it, even if he’d wanted to. He’d originally grabbed her hand as their plane left the Manaus airport, ostensibly because ‘he hated taking off.’
 

It was true he disliked flying, but he was starting to come around to the fact that he actually disliked not being in control. Ben was a man who wanted to control not only the situations that he — either purposefully or inadvertently — found himself in, but also control those situations that weren’t even possible to control.
 

Love was a great example of that.
 

As Julie’s head rolled sideways and found the perfect-sized nook between Ben’s head and shoulder, he inched backward in the uncomfortable airline seat and tried to make the best of the situation.
 

It wasn’t hard. Besides having zero control over the pilot’s and copilot’s decisions far up in the cockpit, the situation he currently found himself in was something he couldn’t have designed for himself in a million years. He was more in love with the woman sleeping on his shoulder than he’d ever dreamed possible, and it didn’t hurt that he was more attracted to her than anyone he’d ever met.
 

As if that wasn’t enough, there was currently no one trying to kill him.
 

Dr. Amanda Meron and her new fling, Paulinho, returned to Manaus, then Marabá, along with a few of the ‘golden fruits’ they’d snuck out of the valley, to continue the research she’d started. She had some ideas about the fruit, and how it could help ‘unlock’ some of the powerful mechanisms she thought might still be hidden in the human brain. Paulinho had promised to use his connections in the government to provide her the legal protection she would need to start a new firm, away from the watchful gaze of Draconis Industries, or Drache Global, or Drage Medisinsk, or whatever it was called.
 

Reggie, a man seemingly as mysterious as Ben had always wanted to appear, provided him with a simple answer when Ben had asked him what was next.
 

He shrugged.
 

Ben laughed, then repeated the question.
 

Reggie just gave him the same goofy grin, too wide to be genuine, but with enough authenticity in his eyes that the smile couldn’t have been completely fabricated, and turned around to catch a bus back to his home. His ‘bunker’ had been attacked by the Draconis soldiers, but as he’d explained on the canoe trip back to civilization, ‘if it couldn’t stand up to a few idiot radicals, what’s the point of building a bunker?’

Dr. Archibald Quinones was a little more reserved on the trip back to Manaus, and when Julie had pressed him on it, he’d given a non-response. Ben had let it slide, but Dr. Meron had eventually backed him up against a wall and asked the same thing. He was still reserved, but he did vow to help Amanda in her research, and even mentioned an inheritance he’d been sitting on for some time that would be put to good use by investing in whatever she had in mind.
 

Finally, he thought about Joshua Jefferson, the son of a man intertwined in the dealings of an organization Ben had vowed to bring to justice. Joshua seemed to be a man of his word, albeit one who had been led astray by his own father, under the guise of doing good in the world. Joshua told Ben and the others that ‘there would be more,’ and left Ben to wonder what exactly that meant. Joshua had given Ben his word that he’d be in touch — he had to find his father first, but he did tell Ben he had plans to go after the company that had double-crossed his family and pitted them against one another. When he was ready, he said, Ben would hear from him.
 

Their ragtag group of unlikely adventurers had somehow morphed into a band of experienced explorers, and Ben was ever prouder to be named one of them. He needed a break, and he desperately wanted some ‘downtime’ with Julie, but he knew there was more to the Draconis story than he’d discovered in the jungle. They were working on something, and he wanted to know what it was.
 

The little he knew about the organization told him all he needed to know: they were not interested in altruistic applications for their advanced research. Draconis was cunning, without moral obligation, and interested in expending any amount of resources to achieve their goals. He didn’t know what those goals were, but he knew they wouldn’t lead to good. He had renewed his vow to bring them down, and he knew Joshua would help him see it through, somehow.
 

For now, though, he would try to enjoy the success they’d had: they had found the mythical lost city of El Dorado, and though its ‘gold’ was not what anyone in history had expected, they had finally uncovered its secret.

As the flight attendant passed by and delivered his rum and Coke, he smiled, closed his eyes while sipping the drink, and tried to talk his mind into believing that the plane wasn’t going to go down in a fiery blaze.
 

D
O
M
E
A F
AVOR
?
 

DO ME A FAVOR...

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write a review or rate it
. You might not think it makes a difference, but it does.
 

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actual
currency (money), the currency of today’s writing world is
reviews
. Reviews, good or bad, tell other people that an author is worth reading.
 

As an “indie” author, I need all the help I can get. I’m hoping that since you made it this far into my book, you have some sort of opinion on it.
 

Would you mind sharing that opinion
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Thanks,

Nick Thacker

P.S. You should connect with me on Twitter: @NickThacker or on my websites:
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.
 

The Ice Chasm

a novel

NICK THACKER

1

ROALD MONTGOMERY FUMBLED WITH THE zipper on his Canada Goose expedition parka, trying to force it the remaining two inches to the bottom of his chin. Even with the five-fingered ski gloves that allowed enhanced maneuverability, it was nearly impossible to grip the small zipper.
 

He stopped, his boots packing the soft layer of snow down into a compressed block beneath his feet. Roald inhaled, careful to breath in the frigid air slowly through the layers of protection offered by the balaclava and neck gaiter that he wore over his face.
 

He checked the thermometer on his watch.
 

-68. Fahrenheit.
 

His body didn’t need a reminder of how cold it was outside, but seeing the number seemed to give him an extra boost of energy, and Roald finally pulled the zipper up to its topmost position. Satisfied, he started moving forward again.
 

Trudging
was a better word. He’d only walked about 200 yards, and he was already feeling the strain of exertion. Part of the problem was the wind.
The damn wind,
as the others back at the station said. He’d never thought walking in a straight line could be so complicated, but then again he’d never been to Antarctica.
 

Until now.

Roald had joined his older brother, Scott, only a month ago at the research station, taking a 6-month assignment that he’d fought tooth and nail to earn. It was difficult to get a job at the bottom of the planet, and it was even more unlikely there would be two siblings stationed there at the same time. It didn’t mean anything, except that Roald felt even more scrutinized because of it — he couldn’t mess up. They’d expect him to do his job exceptionally well.
 

And he intended to. He’d left the Mars-1 Humvee running, as per protocol, but left it at the center of his 100-yard-radius circular route. His mission was simple: walk around and take notes on anything he saw.
 

It was, admittedly, one of the more mundane tasks the scientists were required to check off their daily to-do lists, but he’d drawn the short straw today. Choose a location, drive the Humvee to it, then park and walk around the vehicle in a pre-defined radius. Then observe the surroundings — weather, snow drifts, anything that catches the eye — and record the verbal data by talking it into a recording device in his jacket pocket.
 

He’d already taken measurements on barometric pressure, temperature, wind speed, and snowfall since the prior day, and none of that would change by the time he finished his circle and headed back to the monstrous vehicle. He was already looking forward to the heat of the Humvee’s cabin and his sleeping bunk within. His return trip would be tomorrow, first thing in the morning, as he would need to perform the same circuitous route around the vehicle once again twelve hours from now.
 

Roald picked up his pace. There was no benefit to dragging this out, and the sooner he returned to the Mars-1 the sooner he could strip down to his under layers and jump into the computer strategy game he’d been consumed with lately.
 

He focused on the crunching sound of the snow. It was a beautiful day — the sun was out, no clouds in sight, and the wind was relatively stable. Not light, but stable. He found himself walking to the tempo of the game’s soundtrack, all the while listening for the
crunch, crunch
of each boot as it landed —

Thud
.
 

The sound was different this time. His left boot had landed with a crunch, but there was a deeper sound that came with it. A
hollow
sound. Roald frowned.
 

He looked down at his feet, one in front of the other, and lifted his left boot once more. He stepped down, faster this time, and the
thud
was there, even more noticeable.
 

“What the —“

The data recording log would have to parse out the speech that wasn’t specific to Antarctic atmospheric conditions, but he didn’t care. How else was he supposed to respond to that type of sound?
 

He stomped twice more, just to be sure, then bent down and started brushing away the top layer of snow. Within a few seconds he reached the hard-packed snow beneath, and knelt down further to start breaking it away.
 

He worked silently, his breath and the scraping sounds the only noises in earshot. He’d dug a hold nearly a foot deep when he saw it.
 

Something dark.
 

In the ice, just beneath the snow.
 

Roald stood up again and reached around in his pockets for the knife he was carrying. It was a small blade, but it would have to do. He jammed the point into the ice and continued breaking away the layers. He fell to his knees, fully engaged in the task.
 

The log will wait.
 

He would have plenty of time to debrief and record an analysis of what he was doing here, but right now he needed to focus on freeing whatever object lay beneath the ice.
 

Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, and Roald found himself staring down at a large, square metal plate. He still hadn’t reached the edge of it, so he continued working for another hour until the sun began to sink further down on the horizon.
 

He only had an hour left, and it didn’t seem as though he was making any progress. He dug, pried, and broke off chunks of ice and lifted mounds of snow up and off of the plate, and still it felt like the metal scrap was a never-ending section of the ground itself.
 

He labored in the dwindling light, checking every few minutes to make sure that his Humvee hadn’t inexplicably wandered off on its own. It was a nervous reaction to the isolation and cold, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Antarctica often brought out the hidden habits and quirks of her inhabitants, for better or worse.

Finally he reached the edge of the square of metal. His knife lifted off a large sheet of ice and revealed a straight, man-made edge, and he stopped for a moment to revel in his work. His fingers were sweating inside the ski gloves, but he thought they could still feel the extreme cold just beyond the fabric as he brushed the metal surface clean. He changed directions, opting to follow the edge of the metal square up and away from him.
 

A few more minutes passed and he reached a corner. A few more after that, another corner.
 

He stood and looked down at his work.
 

It’s a…
 

He didn’t want to think it, because it made absolutely no sense, but he couldn’t help it.
 

It’s a door.
 

2

THERE, LYING IN FRONT OF Roald Montgomery, at the edge of the Antarctic continent at the bottom of the planet, was a
metal door.

He saw a massive hinge mechanism strapped to the side of the door, poking out from beneath an area of snow and ice he hadn’t yet uncovered, but it was easy work to free the hinge — and the two others like it — from the frozen ground.
 

The door was now fully exposed, a full three-by-six foot slab of metal. A small door, compared to a ‘typical’ doorframe, but a door nonetheless. Besides the hinges on one side and edge of the door, there was nothing on the surface of the metal. No markings, descriptions, or anything else that might identify why there was a door here.
 

He stood at the foot of the door for another two minutes before a strange thought occurred to him:
 

Doors lead somewhere.
This
is a door.
 

He briefly wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before, but this was, without a doubt, a door, and that meant there was something on the
other side
of it.