D. Thomas - Backlash

“You did it!” Gonzalez hollered as she gave Lewis a warm hug.

He let out his breath and enjoyed the embrace before finally speaking. “Easy peazy lemon squeezy.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but his trembling hands gave him away. Nothing in life was a guarantee.

The water drained quickly, dropping a foot every ten seconds or so. The suction below would make it much too dangerous to get in the water as it drained, so they simply stood on the edge and watched the water go down. In a matter of minutes, the cave was empty. Now the question was how to get back down from the alcove.

Lewis re-examined the stretch of rope he had tested from the bottom of the pit. It had certainly seen better days but maybe it would hold if he could find some small foot-holds to support some of his weight. Slowly working to pull the entire length of rope up so he could inspect it, Lewis was disheartened when Gonzalez burst out laughing after the rope simply fell in half under its own weight less than halfway up.

Lewis laughed at himself as well. “Maybe we could tie our clothes together to form a rope,” he said with a sly smile.

“Then I’d have to wear this for the rest of the day,” Gonzalez replied as she pulled her backup cave reel from the pocket on her dive harness. “The cave line might be hell on the hands but it will hold 300 pounds if we keep it away from any sharp edges.”

“You are my kind of woman, Gonzalez!”

Gonzalez un-spooled the braided nylon cord, making sure it would reach the bottom. Meanwhile, Lewis looked for a way to tie off the end of the line. There were two anchor point options: the loop of metal in the floor that currently supported the rotten rope Lewis had just tested; or, one of the thick ropes that were part of the control mechanism. Lewis tested the metal and found it to be sturdy. He didn’t really like the idea of trusting something he knew so little about, but he didn’t want to risk setting off a trap by messing with the ropes either. Lewis tied off to the ring and mentally crossed his fingers.

“It comes to within a couple feet of the floor,” Gonzalez said as she turned away from the edge. “That should be close enough.”

Lewis looked over the edge to see for himself, and then picked up the thin cord and looked at it in his hands. There was obvious skepticism in his voice when he asked, “Won’t this cut our hands in half?”

Gonzalez held up her index finger, signaling Lewis to wait one minute. Lewis just watched as Gonzalez pulled the cave line back up into the alcove. She then made three neat loops between two of the metal D-rings on her dive harness, creating a makeshift rappelling device.

“You really are a genius,” Lewis said with a whistle, clearly impressed with Gonzalez’s ingenuity.

Gonzalez smiled back, replying, “Not all the caves back home have ladders.” She paused to look over her harness again. “Getting back out of those caves is a whole different story though.”

Lewis grabbed his harness and set it up in a similar fashion, adding a fourth loop to account for his extra weight. “It looks like I have to go first,” Lewis said, noting the fact that Gonzalez’s harness threaded on first, making it further up the line than his.

“I initially figured you would wait and watch me go, then rig yours up and follow,” she responded with a shrug. “This way does seem to enhance my genius status though.”

Lewis could only nod. He slipped his harness on and worked the cord through the D-ring system as he walked backwards to the edge, tanks banging into his legs as he moved. When he got to the lip, which Gonzalez had padded with the remains of the old hemp rope, Lewis leaned back and let his body pivot until he was completely horizontal, essentially standing on the wall. He then walked backwards down the wall, letting the friction of the rope through his harness control his speed. The descent turned out to be incredibly smooth, and didn’t have any of the near disaster aspects that Lewis was half expecting. Once Lewis’s weight was off the rope, Gonzalez repeated the process, even adding a couple dramatic jumps from the wall just for show.

The underground river was now just a trickle, and the floor of the triangular room had somehow sunk almost 8 feet, matching the bottom of the river channel. The lowering of the floor had revealed a new exit that Lewis hoped would lead to safety, but first, it was time to go get the others.

Lewis and Gonzalez left their dive gear near the newly-exposed tunnel and began walking back towards the others. The walk was much less exciting than the wild ride that brought them down. Impersonating a boring tour guide, Lewis pointed out multiple large protrusions he believed he had hit with various body parts on their initial trip. It took almost an hour to hike back up something that had taken them just minutes to rocket down.

They rounded the final corner to see Samantha rappel down through the pit that once housed the calm pool, smoothly landing in the tunnel. The mining engineer quickly unclipped from the line and ran to hug both Gonzalez and Lewis. “You saved us!” she screamed.

Pierre’s head immediately appeared in the opening above. “Thank goodness you’re back,” he said with apparent relief. “We were about to come searching for you. Did you find a way out?”

Lewis and Gonzalez described what they had been through, ending with the new passage that was revealed when the Curators’ control system lowered the floor of the triangular room. Lewis also noticed that a slab of rock had slid into a carved groove on the other side of the pit where they now stood, blocking the inflow of water except for a few small leaks. The whole system was a true engineering marvel.

By the time the dive team finished their story, Craig had joined Pierre at the top of the pit. “All our gear is ready,” he announced. “Where’s Miller?”

Lewis and Gonzalez exchanged a dumbfounded stare before Gonzalez replied, “How should we know?”

Samantha looked stunned. “We thought he went to find you after the water drained,” she stammered. “You haven’t seen him?”

Gonzalez shook her head. Lewis did the same, saying, “Not since we left him with the three of you.” It came across sounding more accusatory than he intended so he quickly added, “When did you last see him?”

Craig and Pierre went back and forth, describing what they knew. They had all been working on transporting the remaining gear. At some point Miller mentioned something about solving part of the mystery and ran ahead, leaving the others to jockey back and forth transporting the equipment. When they finally got everything here, they found that the pool was empty and the professor was gone. The discovery of the rope hanging to the bottom of the pit led everyone to assume Miller had found the water drained, and descended to check on Lewis and Gonzalez.

“Did you search for him up there?” Lewis asked when they were done.

“He couldn’t have gotten back past us in the passage,” Samantha offered. “Craig and I searched back towards the entrance a ways, but we didn’t find any sign of him.”

“We’re down to Samantha’s dive light and Pierre’s head lamp for lighting so we couldn’t search too far,” Craig added.

Lewis had noticed that his dive light was getting pretty weak as well. They had traveled back with Gonzalez’s turned off, but hers couldn’t have much left either. “Maybe he went by while we were rigging up the rappel,” Lewis said hopefully. “Either way, we need to get moving before we are out of light.”

They decided to leave most of the gear at the top of the pit, including supplies and a note for Miller in case he somehow came back from the other direction. Pierre brought down the last chunk of their climbing rope: a 60-foot piece. They would have to come back and de-rig some of the rappels if they needed more. Craig and Samantha grabbed the first-aid kit and a small sack with some climbing hardware. Lewis and Gonzalez were famished, so they concentrated on some food and water supplies. With no further time to waste, they headed off in hopes of finding both Miller and a way home before their batteries ran out.