Protocol 7

THE PASSAGE

There was no time to think. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.

The door depressurized with a hiss, and the armed men outside moved back a pace, their rifles still high. The temperature isnside the Spector plunged as the arctic air invaded, rushing in with a crackling sound as everything that could freeze in an instant did exactly that. The only other sound was the ominous, rhythmic rush of heavy breathing through the masks that everyone wore, friend and foe alike.

“Identify yourself!” shouted the man in front of the foot soldiers as the beams of light from the laser-guided rifles penetrated the Spector. The illumination created an eerie glow on the ice, on the dying instrumentation, on the flat glassy surfaces of masks and goggles.

“We mean no harm,” Simon said loud enough to be heard but—he hoped—quiet enough to sound reasonable. He was still out of sight, his back pressed against the inside of the vehicle.

The man standing just outside the hatch responded, “Show yourselves!”

Simon knew this was his chance. Either he would be shot, or this would be the beginning of their journey. He looked at Max across the open hatch. His oldest friend nodded in silent agreement. Simon slowly turned and moved sideways into the open doorway, exposing himself to the enemy, first his hand, then the rest of his body with arms lifted and hands empty.

He felt the chill of the tunnel as half a dozen laser-guided rifles moved to point straight at him. He squinted into the glaring lights and heard a voice ask him, “Who are you? You’re clearly not Vector5.”

“Who’s Vector5?” he asked.

Max, close behind and to one side, moved toward the door with his pistol up.

“Drop your weapon!” screamed one of the men—not the one in front but one of the men behind him who was gripping his odd rifle so hard it trembled.

Nervous, Max thought. Nervous men are dangerous. Very gently Max lowered his pistol and set it on the deck of the Spector. When he rose again, his empty hands were up and in front of him, fingers spread wide.

The leader shouted again, “Identify yourself!”

“We’re scientists,” Simon said, loudly and carefully. He wanted everyone to hear. “We’re not soldiers. We’re looking for my father.”

For one long second, everything froze in place. Then the tip of the rifle held by the man in the lead slipped down. He gestured for the others to drop their weapons as well.

Simon let out a tremendous sigh. He wasn’t even aware he’d been holding his breath. The lights from the robotic Spiders still cut through the tunnel, randomly illuminating the bodies of the men standing outside the Spector.

As the man in the lead moved closer, Simon heard him ask another question through the filter of his mask, “Who did you say you were here for?”

He was a tall and stocky gentleman with layers of clothing that made him look heavier than he really was.

“My name is Simon Fitzpatrick. I am looking for my father, Oliver.”

The man seemed frozen for a long moment. Finally he said, “Oliver Fitzpatrick?”

“Yes. My father.”

There was another long pause. Then the man seemed to shake himself out of a dream. “How many are you?” the man asked.

“Eight, including myself.”

“How the hell did you get here?” It was hard to decipher exactly what he was asking through the heavy mask.

“It’s a long story,” Simon said, almost smiling. “Who are you?”

The man snapped open his mask to show his face. He was a gentleman in his fifties with gray hair and pale skin. His sharp, bony features looked like they had not seen sunlight in years. “I’ll ask the questions for the moment,” he said, careful to keep from inhaling too much of the fatally frigid air. “If you don’t mind.” After a moment, he let the heated air of the mask blow back against his mouth. “Come on out.”

He shuffled back two paces, and Simon and Max stepped out of the Spector and stood on the tunnel’s ice for the first time. Behind them, the others crept out of the ready room, arms up, legs moving very slowly and carefully.

The leader casually switched his lowered rifle to his heavily gloved left hand and stuck out his right one. “I’m Lucas,” he said. “Thank god you’re here.”

Not too far in the distance, they all heard the screeching of the robotic Spiders tearing a path through the passageway.

“Those are the CS-23s that are after you, you know.” Lucas pointed to the tunnel they had just come through.

“CS-23s?” asked Max.

“Crevasse Spiders,” Lucas said, looking grim. “One of the most dangerous vehicles in Vector5’s arsenal.” He looked back in that direction with an expression that was half eagerness, half dread. “If we could get hold of one of those things, we could actually get out of this hell hole,” he said.

Simon found himself nearly hypnotized by the steam rising from Lucas’ breath. It all seemed so impossible.

Max cocked an ear. “But that’s not them hissing in the background. What’s going on?”

“It’s the hydrogen generators,” he said. “Fuel for the cycles and other things. Hidden in places too small for the Vector5 people to detect or destroy.”

Lucas turned suddenly to his men and called out, “Let’s get the rations out of the vehicle,” he shouted, and then turned to Simon. “Get your team ready to go quick as you can. And have them travel light. We don’t have room for all of them as it is.” He turned away again, intent on looting the Spector, and threw his last orders over his shoulder. “Hurry. We have little time. They will cut through this tunnel in a few hours to reach this thing.” Lucas said, referring to the Spector.

As if in response, the not-so-distant Crevasse Spiders cracked a pillar of ice in half and stumped another ten yards closer.

Simon’s team scrambled back inside the vessel, trying to grab their meager personal belongings while Lucas’ men methodically and rapidly stripped every useful thing from the inside of the Spector. The men wasted no time, dragging the cases of food along the icy floor of the tunnel toward their vehicles, still brilliantly lit with their own spots.

Hayden was in a daze from the gunfire, the sudden turn of events, the looting of his precious invention. “What about the Spector?” he asked Simon, sounding lost and a little shaky. “We can’t just leave it here. It’s…we can’t just abandon ship, can we?”

Lucas didn’t look at Hayden; he spoke to Simon directly—and firmly. “Listen, this thing can’t go down much further. These tunnels get pretty narrow and dangerous. Not to mention, it’s a sitting target. And it won’t stand a chance against the dense ice and fire from Vector5’s heavy weaponry.”

“Heavy weaponry?” asked Hayden. “Here?”

Lucas dropped what he was doing and turned to look Hayden straight in the eye for the first time. “You have no idea. You need to get out of here.” Hayden gaped at him, stunned to silence, until Lucas turned away in frustration and helped Samantha carry a large bag of medical supplies out of the Spector.

Simon put a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. Suddenly the inventor seemed frail. “We’ll come back for her,” he said gently. “I’m sure we’ll need the fuel cells.”

“If it’s still here,” Hayden said hollowly. He looked up at the walls, turned to look at the console. “If we’re still here. If anything…” He trailed off, overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

We can’t afford this, Simon told himself. He took Hayden by the shoulders, turned him so their faces were very close together.

“Hayden,” he said severely. “Hayden! Focus! Remember why we’re here! You are a brilliant man, and I appreciate how your incredible invention brought us here. It was a miracle. I mean it. But right now, we can’t care about what happens to the Spector. Something is very wrong down here. Very wrong. We need to find Oliver and get the hell out of here.”

Nastasia passed close to him on her way out, clutching her satchel as if it was a life preserver. Ryan was frantically grabbing at anything that wasn’t bolted down. Max stood off to one side, grimly amused at the chaos. He turned to see Lucas watching him from the hatchway. Clearly, the leader of the men in white had identified him as different than the others.

You have no idea, he thought, but he said nothing aloud. He just smiled and touched a finger to his brow—a little salute between friends.

“We’re out in one minute, people!” Lucas called as he backed away from the Spector. “No stragglers!” The clanking roar of the CS-23s was growing louder, their lights more intense than ever.

Moments later, Simon and Max joined Lucas on the ice, gulping at the heated air from their suits, feeling the cold seep through the insulation with sharp, cutting fingers. The Spector was a dark and broken husk behind them.

Max noted how awkwardly Lucas handled his strange rifle. In that moment, he was reminded how little he knew about these people—where they had come from, what their agenda might be. Still, he told himself, they were lucky to find them and they may have something to offer: energy, rations, knowledge…hope.

They walked up to the massive cycles and stood in front of them, frankly astonished.

“What the hell are these?” Andrew asked.

Each cycle had a huge cockpit—comfortable for two, a squeeze for three—with a cargo hold and some sort of engine compartment. It seemed to be built to fit around a massive wheel and knobby tire, twelve feet tall, but the cockpit and cargo hold didn’t actually seem to touch the wheel at any point. The two components seemed to be held together by some type of magnetic force-field—a field that was deactivated at the moment, so the cockpits sat crookedly on the ice itself, waiting to be lifted up and borne away.

“These are MC-7s, or better known as Mag-Cycles,” Lucas said as he approached the nearest upright wheel. It towered over him, almost twice his height. “They are the old-generation Vector5 tech. Used to be standard issue for fast ice transport.”

“MC-7s?” asked Andrew. He’d never heard of such a thing. “How did you get them? How do they work?”

There was an ominous thoom from deeper into the passageway. They all turned to see the lights blazing brighter than ever.

The Crevasse Spiders were on their way.

“Later,” Lucas said. “Let’s get moving.”

As one of the cycles fired up with a thundering, sizzling WOWWing sound, Simon smelled the tang of ozone in the air, despite the frigid temperature. A blue glow radiated from the wheel housing, and Max and Simon stood in awe, their faces lit by the blue light of the MC-7 as the cockpit levitated, floating rapidly to ten feet above the icy ground, and hovered just above and behind the upright wheel. There was a breathless pause—just an instant—and then the wheel spun madly, dug into the icy floor, and sped away. The cockpit rode high above it in complete silence—except for the deep vibration of the ice itself, the vibration that Simon’s team had felt in the Spector just moments before when the cycles first approached.

The first cycle to leave had been stuffed with provisions and equipment, so completely filled there was barely space for the pilot. But it was clear that two passengers and the pilot were all a MC-7 could handle—and there were only two cycles left. Simon saw Nastasia being helped into one of the remaining vehicles already, by a pilot who kept looking nervously over his shoulder at the Crevasse Spiders as they broke barrier after barrier, still slowly approaching.

Simon gestured to Samantha and Ryan and pointed to the cycle nearest to them. “You go ahead,” he said. He looked at Sam for a moment, then looked at Max. “Andrew can handle a little exercise,” he said. “He and I will go on foot along with Lucas. Will you take Sam with you in that last cycle?”

Max looked positively offended. “What the f*ck are you talking about? You know I’ll have nothing of that. I go where you go.” His expression was fierce, even angry. Simon had seen that look before; he knew there was no arguing.

He sighed. “All right then. Sam, why don’t you go with Andrew, and we’ll join you on foot.”

Samantha looked back at the rapidly approaching Spiders. A few more barriers, a few more twists and turns, and they would be right on top of the Spector. Then she looked forward at the darkness beyond the down-sloping passageway—more unknowns, more danger.

She really didn’t have any choice, and she knew it. Andrew pulled gently at her arm, helping her into the cockpit of one remaining cycle, while the one next to them glowed brightly and roared to life. As they were about to enter, the man in front of the cockpit said, “Bit tight in here. These aren’t made for three.”

Seconds later however, the hatch had closed over them, and Simon caught a glimpse of Andrew holding Samantha tightly in his arms as the cockpit lifted up into the air. Before they knew it, the cycle shot away, screeching as it barreled down the passageway and disappeared into the black tunnel ahead.

The first of the CS-23s forced itself past the final mountain of ice and stone. There was nothing between them and their quarry but an icy clearing as long as a football field.

Simon eyed the strange weapon that Lucas had been firing at them mere moments before. “You have any extras?” he asked.

Lucas grinned and called to one of his lieutenants, who threw him a new weapon. “This do?” he asked.

“Perfect.”

The other foot soldiers melted into the dark, out of sight and beyond the scanners of the Crevasse Spiders. The last three men—Lucas, Simon, and Max—confronted the black tunnel ahead them.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Lucas said.

They moved forward into the icy darkness.





TUNNEL 3

“How deep does this thing go?” Max asked.

“Do you mean how far?” replied Lucas. “For miles in all compass directions, a thousand feet above us and thousands of feet below us.”

Despite everything he had seen so far, Max was still shocked at the answer. Simon said nothing, at least not at the moment; he was content to listen carefully as they walked, the icy floor crunching and whispering beneath his boots.

“Actually, this particular passageway starts to wind down in a tight spiral just a mile ahead and then drops into a fissure called the Gorge. We’ve managed to gather our belongings into a little safe house tucked below the bend. We’ll meet the cycles and your people there.”

Simon shook his head mutely. It was hard for any of them to comprehend the vastness of the world below. “Please tell us,” he said, trying to sound reasonable and patient as he boiled inside. “Please. Who are you, and what are you running away from? I mean, why do you guys have these strange rifles and vehicles deep within the ice? And who the hell is Vector5?”

Lucas stopped for a moment, turning back toward Simon and Max, who were following two steps behind. With the bright light from his helmet shining right into Simon’s face, he asked, “You mean you have no idea what the f*ck is going on down here?”

“Absolutely not,” replied Simon.

“Then how did you bring this amazing vehicle three thousand feet below the ice? How did you possibly escape from the CS-23s?”

“Would you mind?” said Max, referring to the beaming light from Lucas’ helmet that was blinding him.

“Yeah, sorry.” Lucas flipped the light mechanism upward, which illuminated the ceiling of the tunnel.

Simon didn’t really know how to begin. “We were heading to Station 35, thinking that maybe we would find some sort of clue as to where my father had been taken.” He didn’t want to give up too many details—the journal, the message, the coordinates given to him in Corsica. Simple is better, he thought. And safer. “The submersible started to malfunction, and we got lost, only to find ourselves in a long underwater tunnel. It led us to the gigantic dome under the ice.”

Lucas nodded, knowing all too well what Simon was referring to—the submarine drop-off at Fissure 9.

“The next thing we knew, we were being chased by these strange whatever-the-hell-they’re-called, and then you started shooting at us.”

Lucas looked stubborn and embarrassed at the same time. “Well, you looked like new Vector5 tech at first. You understand. But as soon as you showed yourself—”

“—you mean ‘didn’t fire back,’” Max said acidly.

“—then we stopped.”

Max held his hand in front of Simon for a second and interjected, “Before Simon continues, I should ask who the hell you are and what the f*ck is going on down here.”

“All right guys.” Lucas picked up the case he had dropped. “Let’s keep on walking before we all freeze. I’ll explain.”

He had barely taken a few steps before the words came out of his mouth. “This is the greatest secret ever kept. We were lucky enough to escape from the people who control it just a few weeks ago, and we’ve been trying to navigate through this maze ever since, hoping to reach the very fissure through which you entered. But we’ve never been able to find it.”

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” Max said. “All the ocean-to-dome entrances in the Fissure are underwater for a significant portion of their length. You’d need a submersible or gills to escape the continent that way.”

Lucas looked crestfallen. “I know that now,” he said. “Just from what I learned talking to you and glancing at your data-logs. It’s very…disappointing.”

“Escape from what?”

“From here. From the underworld of Antarctica. We escaped from the Vector5 installation after being imprisoned for years, but we never could figure a way off this damn continent, not even during the crazy quarantine evacuation.”

“You keep talking about them—about this ‘Vector5.’ I’ve never even heard of them.”

“Not surprising,” Lucas said. “In fact, I’d be surprised if you had heard of them. I don’t really know their exact origin. They’re a military force, an intelligence-gathering operation, and a global smuggling cartel. They’ve used advanced technology to penetrate thousands of feet through the ice, and they’ve been extracting valuable minerals and resources from Antarctica without anyone’s knowledge for almost twenty years.”

“But that’s impossible,” Simon blustered. “You mean, no one knows this has been going on? With all the satellites, telescopes, and scientific explorations on the continent in the last two decades?”

“If anyone found out, the whole world would turn upside-down.”

“So how did you end up here?” Max asked. “What makes you so special?”

Lucas turned for a quick glance back at Max while he kept on walking. “They still need scientists and technicians. Always will. I was recruited for a legitimate job as a chemical engineer by one of their shell companies and brought to Antarctica to work at one of the topside stations, thinking I was going to assist in a mining robotics research project.” He stopped and swiveled his flashlight left and right, looking for some sort of landmark or signpost. He must have found what he was after; a moment later he turned forty degrees to the left and trudged off, obviously expecting the two men to follow.

“I must have impressed them,” Lucas said. “After three years, I was taken captive and dragged below, where I’ve lived for over eight years. My wife and kids have probably forgotten about me by now. They think I’m dead.”

The last few words pierced Simon like a dull knife. He and Max exchanged a quick glance, both of them realizing how similar Lucas’ story was to Oliver’s.

Simon took a long step forward, clapped a hand on Lucas’ shoulder and pulled at him. “Stop,” he ordered.

Lucas halted without resistance, as if he was expecting it. He turned to face the other two men, his mask unbuckled and blowing warm air again, so at least they could see his pale, haunted eyes.

“Do you know my father?”

Lucas’ smile was as cold as the terrain. “Everyone knows your father, Simon. He’s a very important man to Vector5. One of their prized possessions.”

The response sent chills down Simon’s spine, totally unlike the penetrating cold of the arctic caves. “Have you spoken to him? Can you get a message to him? Where is he?” He wanted to shake the truth out of Lucas. He wanted to know, now!

Lucas put his gloved hands in there air. “I only had one chance to speak to him, and that was months ago,” Lucas said. “Just before we broke out. I tried to convince him to come with us, but…but you know what? He said we’d get free of the prison, but never get off the continent.” His smile grew bitter and dark. “He was exactly f*cking right.”

“What did he say? Where—”

“He mentioned your name to me.”

Simon was absolutely stunned. “What?”

“In those few minutes, when he knew we were going to try and escape, he made sure to mention his boy Simon and made me promise to tell you everything if we ever met.”

Max gaped. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

Lucas shrugged inside his well-insulated coat. “Neither do I,” he said. “But here we are.”

“Then what…” Simon began. “Where…?”

“He’s being held in the special facility—the secret one that everyone knows about, almost five thousand feet below where we stand right now. Part of it is secret, though. No one really knows what Vector5 is doing down there, but everyone knows its name: Ground Zero, sometimes called ‘The Nest,’ though I’m not sure why.”

Simon stood stock-still, surrounded by the freezing dark, as Lucas continued.

“That’s where I last saw him, anyway. It was almost a year ago. I and the rest of the guys you saw today had been working on the eastern side of the continent on coring machines that had mysteriously stopped working. We were called in but couldn’t find a thing wrong. That’s when they brought Oliver in—under armed guard, no less—to take a look, since he’s the spook expert.”

“‘Spook expert?’” Max echoed.

“Something weird happens, call Oliver. Somebody sees something scary, or goes crazy, or starts talking about the elder gods eating the earth? Call Oliver.”

He looked past them now, deep into the endless darkness. “Simon, Vector5 is one of the most secretive military forces ever assembled, and the fact that they have created this world is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. But listen to me carefully—there is something far stranger down here. No one knows anything about it, but your father was brought down here when certain…unexplained things…started to happen at the lower depths. Geophysical anomalies and such. These are just rumors. I’m just an engineer specializing in heavy machinery, so I’ve never been allowed in Central Command, but believe it or not, this is only part of the mystery.”

Max’s eyebrow lifted as soon as he heard the words. “The tip of the iceberg, so to speak,” he said.

Simon had been listening very carefully. “So there is a central command?” he said.

Lucas nodded. “That’s where the whole operation is controlled. Down on Shelf 3. Deep. So deep even the air is thin.”

Simon hunched his shoulders inside his suit to try and trap just a fraction more heat. Max wrapped his arms around his torso and squeezed. They both knew no matter how good the exo-suits were, it was cold in these tunnels. And the topic of discussion was chilling them in an entirely different way.

“I can’t believe they’ve kept it a secret all this time,” Simon said, still trying to get his mind around the idea.

“That’s the biggest miracle of all, isn’t it?” Lucas said. “But it’s all about the control of information. Vector5 has been monitoring activity on and around the continent for three decades, making sure that no radar would discover their tunnels, especially the obscure entrances to Fissure 9. That’s why your submarine started malfunctioning as it approached; they can manipulate sound waves, radio waves, even light. Makes you wonder what the theories around the Bermuda Triangle were all about, eh?”

They were moving again, heading downhill toward an almost perfectly circular side tunnel lined with ice and permafrost. Simon thought he could detect the slightest hint of light glowing deep inside it.

“They control information, too,” Lucas continued. “No messages can enter or leave this land mass without Vector5’s watchful eye. You cannot send information to anyone outside the surface of the ice. Even the vehicles that Vector5 uses are designed to escape radar detection by some accidental fly-over or rogue intel-gatherer who happens to try a deep scan.”

“You mean, this whole continent has been under Vector5’s surveillance and control for over twenty years?”

“Longer,” replied Lucas. “But I’m afraid it goes further than that. Information around the world has been controlled to allow this operation to take place. It’s the only way they could have remained secret for so long. I’m positive that high-level members of all the most powerful nations are part of it. How could they not be? And they are benefiting from the steady flow of energy resources, strategic metals, and innovation out of this place.” He clapped his hands together and suppressed a shudder as he trudged forward. The cold was starting to get to him, too. “I hate to admit it, but I’m sure some of the scientists that have been working on the surface are connected in some way as well.”

Lucas continued, struggling to breathe and still speaking through the thick mask covering his face.

“We’ve been trying for years—years—to transmit information to the outside world, but our efforts have been futile. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that eighteen scientists including myself escaped the Dragger Station, approximately two thousand feet below where we’re standing.” They were inside the branching tunnel now, traveling over a sheet of ice so hard they left no footprints at all. “Frankly, it was a miracle that we escaped at all. It took literally months of planning—stealing supplies, hiding and even building weapons. There were forty-eight scientists, researchers, and support staff all together. Eighteen of us got out. The rest…dead. And we’ve been surviving on stolen tech and leftovers ever since.”

He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I never imagined I could be capable of cold-blooded murder,” he said quietly, not looking at either of them. “But I had no choice. None of us did. All we wanted was to get out of this icy hell! That’s all we wanted.” He paused to contemplate what he had done for a moment and then continued, “Anyway, it’s done. We seized an opportunity and capitalized on it. Since then, we’ve been on the run. Luckily, we found an old repair station that was connected to one of the utility tunnels. Thank god, with the group of scientists and engineers that we had, we were able to re-activate some of the old vehicles that had been abandoned. We are only traveling in adjacent tunnels at the moment, the ones that were used for ventilation and removal of ice during the coring process years ago. Vector5 can’t reach us—at least not at the moment. It’s not worth their time. But if and when they really want to dig us out, believe me, they can. And that will happen sooner than later, I’m afraid. Unless we can finally find a way to escape Antarctica completely.”

“So these aren’t the main tunnels?” Max said, looking up into the endless dark, remembering the massive domes, the high arches all around, the incredibly complex map they had seen in the Spector. “These are the utility tunnels?”

“Max,” he said with a wicked smile, “Believe me, you wouldn’t stand a chance against the machinery that travels through the main tunnels.”

Simon pushed it away. It was too much, just…too much. But he still had only one question; he still wanted only one answer. “Where, exactly, is my father, Lucas? How do I get to him?”

Lucas slowed down for a second and hunched over, putting his hands on his tired knees as he tried to catch his breath. Then he said in a very different voice—one far older, far wearier than the one that had begun his story.

“Simon,” he said, “there are a few hundred scientists that are held captive. I’m not positive exactly how many. But those that are finished with their task are terminated very rapidly and without remorse, or a sense of humanity, or even the remotest inkling of guilt. No one down here is certain if they will live from one day to the next. I can’t tell you if your dad is still alive, but I’ll tell you something for certain: entering this world is suicide. Suicide. And I, for one, will not face Vector5 again!”

He straightened up and looked forward—at the tiny, glowing light that was the scientists’ current refuge.

It was a robot graveyard. There were wheels, legs, pistons, printed circuit boards, hydraulics—all the left over pieces of two generations of technology, from vehicles to computers to discarded AIs. They filled the narrowing cave from side to side, a tangle of metal and wire and fiber-optics that would never be untangled. A set of inflatable tents, luminous domes, cones and ziggurats was attached to the ice as the floor curved up into a wall—living quarters for the renegade scientists.

They had nearly reached their destination. Lucas was nearly home.

“We are almost out of this hell,” he said. “And whether we make it the rest of the way or die right here, I don’t care, you are not dragging me or any of my people down there.”

He risked a glance at Simon only when he had finished. All he saw there was grim determination. No fear, no weariness, no fatigue, just resolve.

Simon gave Lucas the hardest look he’d ever seen. “Fair enough,” Simon told him. “You’ve made yourself clear. Now you listen to me.” His head lowered. His eyes seemed to burn with a fire all their own. “I don’t give a f*ck who is here, or how dangerous they think they are. I will find my father even if I have to climb all the way to the bottom of this hellhole myself. And all you have to do is tell me how to get to Central Command.”

Lucas’ chin came up defiantly as if he was about to challenge Simon’s demand. Max saw the worst possible outcome. He put a hand on his best friend’s shoulder and squeezed, very gently, ready to counter an angry, reflexive blow. He knew that Simon could kill this man with a single blow if he wanted to. But Simon didn’t move. His shoulder felt like solid stone inside his suit.

“Simon,” Lucas said in a surprisingly measured tone, “I don’t care what the hell you do. But don’t count me in. I’ll tell you how to get there. I have no reason not to. You haven’t got a clue where you are, and I’ll make sure you couldn’t lead Vector5 back here even if you tried. So you’ll get your intel and all the supplies you need, and that’s where we part ways.” He turned away from him and crossed the last few steps toward the encampment.

“This is your hell now, not mine.” Lucas said. “I would rather die of hunger and hypothermia than to go down there again.”

He pulled away from Simon and moved steadily, determined, toward the tents.

There were shadowy figures near the tents, moving slowly in the bitter cold. One of them detached itself from the group and came toward Simon. It took him a moment to recognize Samantha as she approached.

She smiled as the light from his flare and flashlight connected them. “I’m glad to see you,” she said. “We were getting a bit concerned.”

Simon shrugged, trying to put on as casual a demeanor as he could manage. “Just talking a bit,” he said.

She gave him a huge hug, put her head on his shoulder, and sighed. “Simon,” she whispered. “This is crazy. What the hell is going on?”

Simon shook his head. “Right now, Sammy, I must tell you…I really don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”

He gently turned her around, put his arm around her padded waist, and walked her back toward the tents and the rest of the team. “So tell me,” he said, “did Ryan get that case of Macallan out of the Spector?”