CHAPTER 11
Two Miles Below Immari Operations Base Prism
Antarctica
Dorian held his arms up, letting the case crash into the hard snow below. What did he expect his Immari comrades to do? He had just walked out wearing an Atlantean suit, holding a mysterious case. He would have already thrown the switch on the nukes.
The visor in the helmet was mirrored—they couldn’t see Dorian’s face inside. He needed some way to communicate with them, some method of sending a message. He scanned the ice room for something he could use. He couldn’t scratch a message in the ice—it was frozen solid. With his hand, he began motioning in the air, writing the letters: D - O - R - I - A - N. A second set of lights on the nukes came on. He traced the letters again. It wasn’t working. He cast a glance around the room, desperately trying to find anything that could—
A body, almost buried in ice, lay against the wall. Dorian rushed to it and punched the ice around it, trying to dig it out. Maybe he could activate the suit’s radio. He wiped the ice from the helmet and instantly reeled back in shock. His father. Rivers of frozen blood framed the face. The cold had preserved him perfectly. They had killed him—left him here to the Bell. Why? Who? Dorian sat there, staring at his father’s dead body. He didn’t care about the bombs anymore.
At the end of the corridor, the sound of steel slamming into ice echoed through the chamber. Dorian turned. Beside the bombs, an iron cage sat waiting for him. The lights on the bombs stayed active, but they didn’t advance.
Dorian freed the rest of his father’s body from the ice, hoisted him up in his arms, and walked to the basket. He set his father down gently and stood over him. The basket began rising to the surface.