Philip Hemplow: Sarcophagus

The sight of a shadowy figure darting across the road ahead made her breath catch in her throat—but it was okay, it was the figure of a man. Not nine feet tall, not cowled: just a man. Others followed, bent double and looking furtively around. She counted nine of them, vanishing one by one into the woods on the other side of the road. Beyond those woods was open ground, and if they carried on in the direction they had been running, they would arrive at the Carapace, and the reactor.

It could have just been the VV , she reminded herself, on some patrol or other. Except that they hadn’t been carrying guns. Also, she was pretty sure she recognised the figure that had been leading them—and Adam Swan wasn’t in the VV

Before she could reach the reactor site, her radio began to crackle non-stop, as both Osterberg and the VV commander tried to draw her into a bitter and incoherent argument they were having. Between the static and the cursing she couldn’t tell what had happened, only that it seemed to revolve around something Swan had done.

When a VV troop carrier came rumbling down the road towards her, it’s giant, partially deflated tyres carving easily through the snow, she blocked its path and got the commander on the radio to put it at her disposal. The crew obediently opened a small hatch in the side, and she was pulled into a cramped cabin full of scowling guardsmen and given a seat by the door. The whole vehicle vibrated madly as the driver gunned the engine. Victoria clung tightly to a small handle in the bulkhead as he swung it offroad to drive back towards the reactor site.

She couldn’t hear her walkie-talkie over the roar of the engine, so she turned it off and concentrated on not inhaling too much of the sour fug of sweat, grease and flatus that filled the compartment. Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before the APC rolled to a halt at the rear of the reactor.

She ducked out of the powered hatchway as soon as it opened, shielding her eyes against the steadily falling snow. They had parked next to one of the two giant winches that would pull the Carapace. The winch housing was twice as long as the APC, and twice as tall, and it was already in operation, rumbling and whining as it strained. Inside it, giant metal teeth gripped onto steel cables as thick as her leg, drawing all 30,000 tonnes of the structure down the rails to its resting place.

Osterberg and the VV commander were standing next to it, shouting at one another in Ukrainian. Guardsmen and workers stood around, looking tense and waiting for orders. Victoria pushed past them, wondering what the hell was going on. Osterberg rounded on her as soon as he saw her.

" …i ya vidpovidalniy za bezpeku, chort zabyrai! Geh zum Teufel! Victoria! Tell him! This psychopath wants to position the Carapace while there are men still in the reactor!”

“What?” Victoria stared at them both. Osterberg was beside himself with anger. The VV captain just glowered and didn’t respond. “Why are there still men in the reactor? Wolfgang, we have to get it moving, now! Look at the snow!”

Osterberg grimaced, and swiped at the air in frustration. “Your lunatic friend, Swan! He led eleven men inside, without protection! They are still in there somewhere!”

Victoria shook her head, trying to clear it. “Swan? What the hell is he thinking? We have to get them out!”

“They have no radios. They could be anywhere inside! God knows what they are doing. If they’ve gone walking into hotspots, they probably already have fatal doses.”

“Which is why it does not matter if we shut them in,” interjected the captain in crisp, barely-accented English. “They are dead, anyway.”

“They might not be! Maniac!” Osterberg jabbed a forefinger into the Ukrainian’s chest. “You would leave a madman, unsupervised, in a building full of radioactive materials? Is that what you call security?”

“My orders are to ensure that the reactor is walled away. If they are in there, they are not coming out.”

“Two of them are your men! They are VV ! You wish your own men to die?”

Victoria interrupted, physically placing herself between the two of them. “Wait, Wolfgang! Quiet! How long will it take to move the Carapace?”

Osterberg sniffed. “It is already moving. With these winches, it will be in place by eight a.m. unless we stop it now. Maybe nine.”

“We can’t stop it,” insisted Victoria. “Not unless this bloody blizzard stops first. So that gives us five hours. We can go in and try to find them. Bring them out.”

“Nobody goes inside!” barked the captain. “This is as close as is permitted.”

“It’s a bit sodding late for that, Captain.”

“You have twelve people in there,” added Osterberg. “Twelve people who may be dying while we stand here. Your men have protective suits—I can lead them safely in there. They will be safe with me.”

The captain closed his eyes and shook his head imperiously. “Nobody else is to go inside. I have my orders.”

Victoria heard Osterberg draw a sharp breath, and knew that he was about to explode with rage. She interrupted quickly, before he could.

“Remotes! We’ll send in one of the robots, then. Strap a radio to it and send it in to find them.”

“What if they are somewhere the robots cannot get to? What if they are up in the roof space? How will you find them in there? What if they are not together? The building is huge! We have not even mapped it all. They could be anywhere.”

“Well then, they’re fucked, Wolfgang, aren’t they?” snapped Victoria. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“I have a better idea. This… strutting puppet can stand aside and let us do our job!”

As he spoke a shower of snow fell from the roof of the Sarcophagus, accompanied by an ominous and unmistakeable creak.

“Great idea, Wolfgang,” retorted Victoria. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we have any more time to discuss it. Do you?”

It took a full hour for Victoria and Yosyp to assemble one of the modular Remote Inspection Vehicles and prep it for insertion. They worked feverishly under a lean-to shelter against the wall of one of the reactor’s countless outbuildings. The shelter’s canvas roof already bulged downwards beneath a growing weight of snow. Osterberg continued arguing with the captain until an alarm on one of the winches began to sound. The Carapace’s wheels were slipping, introducing torsion and threatening to tear the structure apart as it advanced. From then on he remained at the controls, micromanaging the leviathan’s progress.

The RIV’s chassis was sleek, black, and plastered with radiation decals. Four fully-articulated caterpillar tracks enabled it to scramble easily over rubble, and navigate staircases. Powerful pincers could clear debris or retrieve samples, and a central turret bristled with video cameras, microphones, spotlights, and infra-red illuminators. While Yosyp ran a cursory test of the electronic systems, Victoria found a space among the hardware clutter to tape a walkie-talkie to the undercarriage.

The wind had picked up, driving the snow at them now as if it was trying to bury them alive. The VV had shepherded the work crews back to camp, a column of SUVs and trucks following in the tyre tracks of a personnel carrier. Osterberg had a couple of men helping him monitor the winches, under the watchful of eye of the VV captain and his troops, but otherwise they were alone.

With his laptop plugged into the RF antenna that controlled the robot, Yosyp checked its steering and motor functions, driving it around the shelter in short, controlled bursts of movement. His checks complete, he looked to Victoria for permission to dispatch it and, when she nodded, accelerated it into the snow.