Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

And I know why, Nastasia told herself. She looked at her watch and carefully calculated the remaining time: five hours and seventeen minutes.

“Simon,” Max said clearly puzzled. “What are those numbers? Where did you-”

Simon shoved the pistol against the pilot’s skull. “That’s bullshit,” he grated. “You know where it is. Just…do whatever you have to do. Go to manual, override the AI’s security, whatever it takes. I don’t care. You’re taking us down there.”

“It won’t work,” the pilot said. “It’s not that simple. Look: ‘Lazarus-9905 VSO: proceed to coordinates nine point three point seven, negative four-fifty.’”

“Those are unauthorized coordinates,” the AI said very calmly. “Please revise.”

“You see?”

“Try something else.”

“Lazarus-9905 VSO: proceed to the Nest.”

“What the hell is the ‘Nest?’” Max said. “Simon-”

“9905, those are unauthorized coordinates. Please revise.”

Max thought he heard Nastasia make a sound. He glanced at her and saw her staring at Simon, almost in a trance. She knows something too, he realized. Those coordinates mean something.

“Then take us somewhere near there,” Simon said. “Somewhere that isn’t locked out.”

The pilot swallowed, his throat dry. The pain in his shoulder was obviously affecting him; he was starting to tremble from shock. “I…”

Simon shoved the pistol against his skull again “Do it!” he whispered.

“Lazarus-9905 VSO!” the pilot blurted out. “Proceed to Central Command, north quadrant!”

“Affirmative,” the AI said, sounding almost pleased. “Shall I proceed?”

The pilot sighed deeply. “Proceed,” he mumbled.

In an instant, the huge vehicle rotated 180 degrees and began a smooth and steady retreat across the slippery terrain. In a few moments they would be back at the bridge, back at Dragger Station.

Soon, Simon told himself, and forced the hand that was holding the gun to stay steady and not to tremble. Soon.

Blackburn stood in the express elevator and calculated the time it would take him to reach the Nest. Twenty-four minutes, thirty-two seconds, he decided. Then he would put an end to this, once and for all.

The five-man security team that surrounded him did not move or speak. Their faces were invisible behind flat black helmets; the polished obsidian edges glistening in the overheads. Blackburn felt the weight of his body shift upward, almost lifting him off his feet as they plunged down the endless shaft toward the Nest. He suddenly felt aware of the immeasurable tons of ice all around him, pressing in from all sides…and still he felt immensely strong, in control.

It’d been too long since he’d seen Oliver Fitzpatrick face-to-face. It was time to see him again. And he had never actually seen the discovery itself-in person, just photographs, flat-screen images, and extrapolated holographs. The scientists he had debriefed said what they had discovered was very different when experienced in person, but even in the imagery, they looked ominous and powerful. Up close, he was told, machinery malfunctioned and light itself seemed to twist and buckle…

They certainly have changed Oliver, he thought.

“Is Dr. Fitzpatrick prepared?”

“And waiting,” his second said.

“Good. And no further news on the intruders?”

“No, sir.”

“The Black Ops?”

“No, sir.”

He allowed himself a small frown. Silence was not what he wanted.

Twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds more.

He could feel it: an ending, of a sort, was on its way.

He was ready.

“I don’t remember it being this far,” Hayden grumbled as they climbed the slow, steady incline toward the Spector. He felt as if they had been walking for days.

Lucas was close behind him, his breath labored but steady. “The MagCycles are fast,” he said. “You lose your sense of space down here.”

“You’re not kidding,” Andrew said and slipped on the ice for a moment before regaining his footing.

It was cold, so cold the word itself had lost meaning. It reached into each of them with claws as sharp as broken glass.

“There she is,” Andrew said. He lifted a weary arm and pointed, and they all saw it: the magnificent curve and sweep of the Spector, surrounded by the glowing halo of its emergency lights.

“Stay back for a minute,” Lucas said, sounding strangely tense. “We’ll check it out.”

Hayden was more than happy to oblige. He stopped to rest, and his three colleagues stopped with him while Lucas and his two friends stumped across the frozen ground for the last two hundred yards, their bodies little more than silhouettes against the light from their helmets now reflecting on the Spector.

The scientists circled the vehicle, checked the feeder tunnels, and looked into the distance. Everything seemed quiet, undisturbed. It seemed suspicious that the CS23s had simply vanished-abandoned the Spector, disappeared. He knew something was wrong, but they had little time, and Lucas simply didn’t care. He turned to face Hayden and the others, and waved an arm: come on.

Ryan and Andrew didn’t hesitate. They rushed forward, focused on what they needed to do. Hayden and Samantha followed close behind, moving as quickly as they could. Everyone knew they didn’t have much time.

It was all about battery life, Hayden had explained on the trip back to the submersible. When they had shut down the dying Spector, a series of batteries automatically kicked in to keep any of the liquid or temperature-sensitive components from freezing or breaking down. It was just a little power, barely a trickle, but he was gambling it was enough to keep the twenty-below temperatures from killing the Spector forever. But the batteries, even at their lowest setting, wouldn’t last indefinitely. Now the job was to get the amphibious vehicle repaired as quickly as possible and get the central power plant up and running.

Hayden was through the hatch and inside the Spector within minutes. The bridge was exactly as they had left it-half-ruined and chaotic-and now it was dark and bitterly cold as well.

Ryan and Andrew crowded in close behind him and wasted no time; they began pulling off the few maintenance panels that weren’t already detached and hooking battery-powered diagnostic units into the circuitry. The urgency of their movements spoke the same message over and over: no time, no time.

Samantha stood outside near the hatch and looked into the darkness of the utility caves behind them. She wondered what had become of those huge Spider robots, the ones that had been chasing them. Why would they leave? She thought. If they knew we were gone, why didn’t they destroy the Spector?

Hayden turned his escape plan over and over in his head. The Spector was designed for extreme situations just like this. It was built to dig itself out of almost any situation, but he had to admit it: melting through fifty feet of ancient, compressed ice had never been part of the plan.

Suddenly Lucas and his two cohorts were crowding into the bridge, getting in the way.

“You know,” Hayden said, losing what little patience he had, “There’s an economy section in the back for tourists.”

“What?”

“Can you move your guys to the ready room? There’s not a lot of space up here.”

Lucas stared at him for a moment…then broke away with a shrug, and motioned his men to move back into the other cabin. Lucas didn’t follow them. He simply retreated to the far corner of the bridge and stood quietly, clutching his rifle more firmly than ever as he watched Hayden and his team bring the Spector back to life.