James Tabor - The Deep Zone

“This is a beautiful thing.” Cahner eased up and played his light over polished bronze walls so smooth they gleamed. “Think of the water flow it took to carve such an abyss. Unimaginable.” There was pure awe in his voice.

“Do we take a break here?” Arguello was already dropping his pack to the floor. “I could use a snack. And some water. It will take you an hour or so to rig the rappel rope here, will it not?”

“We won’t be rigging rappel ropes. Remember I mentioned that back at BARDA?” Bowman cast his light around, assessing the area.

“I had forgotten. But I will just grab a snack in any case.” Arguello started munching a Hershey bar with almonds. Hallie considered saying something about conserving their rations, not gobbling stuff this early into the expedition, but decided it would be better to mention it to Arguello when she had a chance to be alone with him.

Haight was focused, gleefully, on the down-climb. “ I hadn’t forgotten. I’ve been dying to find out what y’all have up your sleeve.”

“In my pack, actually.” Bowman dropped his backpack and began digging through it. “I couldn’t release these until we were in the cave, with zero chance of security breach.” He handed each of them small bags that resembled zippered toiletry kits. “Otherwise, you would have been carrying them yourselves, believe me. Drop your packs, look at this gear. We’ll be here awhile.”

Inside her bag, Hallie found two gloves made of what appeared to be thick neoprene, the material used in divers’ wet suits, and two other things, made of the same material, that looked like the black rubber overshoes men used, once upon a time, to protect their dress shoes. She slipped her left hand into one of the gloves and jumped back.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Bowman! What’s it doing?”

The glove was moving like a thing alive. Enlarging, molding to her hand. At first, it was like a blood pressure cuff tightening, but then it stopped. It felt to Hallie like she was wearing a new layer of flesh.

“Don’t worry.” Bowman was smiling, obviously enjoying her discomfiture. “It won’t hurt. Performing as designed.”

“How in God’s name did it do that?”

“The rest of you put on your gloves and I’ll explain.”

They did, with exclamations ranging from Arguello’s “Madre de Dios” to Haight’s “Unbelievable, y’all.”

“These gloves and shoes come to us from DARPA.” The ease with which he donned his gloves indicated that Bowman had done this before.

“The supersecret black ops place?” Haight was turning his hands over and over, like a boxer examining a taping job.

“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, yes. They do high-risk, high-reward work.”

“Like?” Haight asked.

“Stealth aircraft. An antigravity-force project. Superheal—biotechnology that accelerates the human body’s healing process. I could go on for a long time. But you get the idea.”

“It sounds rather like science fiction.” Arguello was tugging at one of his gloves.

“So about these things here?” Haight was making fists, punching air.

Bowman’s helmet light bobbed up and down. “DARPA was asked to develop a system that would enable soldiers to climb and descend vertical surfaces.”

“Wait a minute.” Arguello sounded worried. “You are not suggesting that we are going to climb down into that pit using these things?”

“How do they work?” asked Hallie, intrigued.

“DARPA calls them z-man tools, but I like gecko gear. Rolls off the tongue better. DARPA first tried suction devices, but they weren’t powerful enough. Then they investigated how geckos and spiders climb and stick.”

“Magic.” Arguello’s voice was low.

“No, very much science. They found that certain lizards and spiders use something called van der Waals forces. There’s some very sophisticated nanotechnology involved, but I’ve climbed with these things, and all that matters is that they work.”

“Hold on a sec.” Now even Haight sounded hesitant. “This pit’s walls are wet rock. How’re these things ever going to get a seal on that kind of surface?”

“It’s not suction, Ron. It’s more to do with molecular linearity.”

The two scientists, Hallie and Cahner, and the doctor, Haight, were at least somewhat familiar with van der Waals forces, which they had learned about way back in graduate and medical school. Arguello, who was not, looked at the two gloves on his hands like they were snakes.

This is going to be interesting , Hallie thought. Getting them to trust these things going down a five-hundred-foot wall. Good test of a leader .

Haight spoke with unusual sharpness, all trace of backwoods Tennessee gone from his voice. “Wil, I’ve been caving and climbing most of my life. I’m still alive because I am very careful about my equipment. That means not using something I don’t understand, especially experimental Buck Rogers stuff.”

“Absolutely right.” Bowman nodded. “Bear with me for a minute. We’re all familiar with how lasers work, I’d guess?”

“They organize random light energy into a coherent, focused beam,” Arguello said, sounding distracted. He was trying to remove his gloves, without success.

“These tools work the same way,” said Bowman. “They organize random molecular bonding energy—those van der Waal forces—into coherent beams. When they meet other random molecular energy, say from a pane of glass, they pull that energy into coherent attraction.”

“Like two magnets?” Hallie was trying to take a glove off, too. It was like trying to peel away her own flesh.

“Yes. But many times more powerful.”

“But are they going to work on rock that is slick and wet?” Haight still sounded skeptical.

“Even better. Moisture enhances the van der Waal forces’ flow. And a slightly rough surface like rock is better than a smooth one because it presents more total bonding area.”

“But how are they able to change themselves to mimic the forms of our hands?” Arguello asked. “And why can’t I get them off?”

“Once again, thank DARPA.” Hallie could hear impatience creeping into Bowman’s voice. But he continued: “It’s called ‘jamming skin enabled locomotion.’ DARPA’s molecular engineers made certain substances, including flexible plastics, capable of changing shape to create motion. It could be helpful moving around on other planets with surfaces that might be impassable by conventional vehicles.” He moved his light toward Cahner, then Arguello. “They don’t come off that way. They meld with, rather than mold to, surfaces.”

“So they’ve literally merged with our bodies?” Haight sounded incredulous.

“More or less. Now watch.” Bowman walked to the nearest vertical section of rock, about twenty feet to their right. He slipped the “overshoes” onto his caving boots, where they molded to the shape of the boots as the gloves had to their hands. It was an incredible thing to watch, the inert black material suddenly appearing to come alive, moving and changing, flowing around the caving boots. He pressed the palm of his right hand onto the wall just above his head, then the left. He placed one foot against the wall, then the other. There was a barely audible sound, something between a hiss and a gulp, and suddenly Bowman was attached to the wall.

He started climbing. It was like watching someone crawl along a floor, except Bowman was doing it straight up.

“Dracula,” Haight whispered.

Hallie didn’t like that comparison. “Spider-Man,” she said. Whatever you called it, Bowman’s demonstration up there was amazing. It wasn’t only the Gecko Gear. A climber herself, she knew how much strength it took to go straight up a wall like that, sticky hands and feet or no.