Chapter 11
“Good morning everyone!” Mark Jr held his coffee in one hand and his wireless mouse in the other as he stood in front of the screen. “I hope everyone slept well last night, it’ll be a couple weeks before you see a bed again.”
Mark took a sip of his coffee as the laughter died out. “Seriously though, the expedition is three and a half days each direction. If we spend any time working on the machine it’s going to mean a second week, so pack accordingly. The majority of the cave we will have the benefits of electric lights and an even floor, with a few exceptions that is.” Mark clicked the mouse and the screen behind him switched to the map that Sophia’s computer generated. “Beyond our forward base camp, if Sophia’s scans are accurate…”
“Sophia cleared her throat, “Excuse me? They’re accurate, I just don’t know how.”
“I don’t doubt the science or the genius behind it,” Mark explained, “but how can a cave just…” he paused searching for the right word but settling on, “re-arrange itself?”
“Wait,” Gideon spoke up, “what do you mean re-arranged?”
“The last time we went down there from Camp Three,” Sam paused to make eye contact, “our forward operations camp it was just under a half day travel to the machine. The current scans look to have added another ten miles to the journey.”
“Ten miles?” Garrett Stone blurted. “I’ve done tunnel work in combat, but I’ve never been underground that long.”
“Anyone else with experience underground?” Sam asked.
No one raised a hand.
“Ok,” Sam took a deep breath as she gathered her thoughts. “First and foremost, never loose sight of the person in front of you. After a couple hours underground, even in the end we have infrastructure you will start to get disoriented, all the walls will look the same and you’ll find yourself lost before you even realize it. The trip was originally broken into three days so we have three camps set up, however beyond forward ops we don’t know what to expect. The scans show a few tight places and more than one climb, I trust you’re all familiar with rappelling?”
Everyone spoke up except Mark Sr.
“Mr. H, perhaps you shouldn’t go further than forward ops, it looks like it’s going to be a scramble most of the way after that.” Sam looked at Mark Sr.
“That’s actually not a bad idea father,” Mark Jr. Announced, “We have several computer screens, and you’ll have the helmet cam from each of us. You’ll be able to watch things better from there.”
“And that brings us to the new tech we’ll be bringing with us.” Sophia stepped in front of the screen as Mark Jr clicked the presentation forward. “Everyone needs a helmet and goggles if you intend to survive underground, countless cavers have split their heads open on stalactites that nobody noticed. The goggles are designed to create a complete augmented reality environment for you, fully equipped with an on-board HUD that will overlay the computer map and highlight any holes or side tunnels, might just keep you from falling to your death.” She let out a rye laugh.
"The headset utilizes a fully digitized, non-passthrough architecture driven by a quad-sensor fusion array. It combines an ultra-low-lux back-illuminated CMOS for near-darkness, an InGaAs SWIR sensor for atmospheric penetration through fog and smoke, and an uncooled microbolometer LWIR core for thermal acquisition out to three miles via a catadioptric telephoto zoom assembly. All feeds pass through a real-time sensor fusion and HDR tone-mapping processor, outputting to dual 4K micro-OLED displays with selectable false-color palettes and active edge enhancement.”
She paused for a moment before continuing, "And if we do get separated, they’re integrated with a full-duplex mesh comms array. It operates entirely via sub-dermal bone-conduction transducers, meaning zero external earbuds or boom mics to snag or fail—audio vibrations are transmitted straight through the temporal bone directly to the inner ear. You’ll hear everyone loud and clear, hands-free, no matter how loud the environment gets."
“We could use a setup like that!” Rachel leaned in to whisper in Gideon’s ear.
“It goes with you.” Mark Sr announced. “So long as you all come back safely.”
“I didn’t understand half of that.” Bishop laughed, “But do I know the disadvantage of dead batteries in our tech, how long does the charge last?”
“That’s the best part!” Sophia was giddy at the question. “My original design only lasted about five hours without recharging, but the R&D team and I developed what I call the Pendulum Charging System. It functions by placing ten weighted fly-wheel based generators inside the goggles, every time you move your head the fly-wheel turns and delivers a small charge of electricity. Each one is capable of delivering a sustained one watt of power, resulting in a combined ten watts near continuous power. It keeps the batteries charged and most of the time provides power to the unit while doing it.”
“Genius.” Bishop sighed.
“Thank you.” Sophia smiled as she continued. “The augmented environment can be controlled from within the HUD, you can scroll through different filters, zoom magnification etc simply by turning your left wrist toward your face like this,” she slid her goggles on and held up her arm with her wrist facing her and started tapping on the invisible display before continuing, “for example, I just activated the FLIR in mine. I can see Dominic standing on the other side of this wall. Give it a try everyone.”
The mercinaries each pulled their goggles on as a collective gasp echoed through the group.
“Can’t wait to try these underground!” Mark Jr exclaimed. “And this is the perfect field readines trial for it, it’s going to be dark, cold and dangerous for the next couple weeks.”
Mark took his goggles off and started working himself into his gear before glancing at the warriors. “It’s going to be tight in several places, too tight even for your body armor I think so dress accordingly, bring minimum essentials outside of the packs we have for you. You will find ten days worth of food, not much to satisfy an empty stomach, but enough nutrition to keep us alive and strong once we pass the forward ops camp. You will also find a first aid kit in each pack, spare batteries for your headlamps, cameras, etc, three hundred feet of climbing rope and your rappelling gear.”
He paused to make eye contact with everyone before continuing. “We have to keep it lightweight so no ATLAS ascenders for this trip, anything we climb down we will have to climb back up the hard way. Lastly each pack has a camel bag inside it that can store two gallons of water, it’s vital to stay hydrated even though you may not feel thirsty so we have water stations set up at each base camp to refill on the way in and at forward ops we have extra water to bring with us into the unknown, all of it has already been treated with electrolyte additives so forgive the salty taste.”
The meeting room fell silent as each member of the team inspected gear and loaded extra packs and bags with whatever they each felt was indispensable, leaving out the heaviest of the equipment and weaponry.
“Feels wrong not to bring you.” Tessa, the groups scout sniper whispered as she slid her high powered rifle back into its storage bag.
“Wont be needed.” Gideon said plainly, “I doubt you’ll have a shot outside of the range of your M4.”
“I wonder if you could mount something like this on the Barret fifty.” Tessa was thinking out loud. “With the zoom on these things I could take a fly off the head of a target at two miles.”
Mark Sr had a thoughtful expression as he considered the idea. “I could market that to the military for sure.” He started tapping the screen of his phone as he fell silent.
“What’s that Mr. H?” Sophia asked.
“Wyvern had a good idea, sending a note to R&D to start working on it. Nothing important.”
The next hour was spent in silence as the team finished readying themselves for the underground trek and filed out of the tent toward the portal to their underground world. They could feel the cold air rushing out of the cave as they entered, the wet dirt aroma filling their senses with each step deeper. As they journeyed in the dirt walls gave way to broken slabs of rock, twisted and mangled by the techtonic plate movement that opened the ground into the cavern system it was.
“Fist tight spot in about a hundred feet” Sam announced as she adjusted her HUD for better visibility in the darkness. “No lights for the next mile guys, be careful theres a couple drops to avoid.”
She turned sideways and started edging into an impossibly narrow crevas between two enormous slabs of rock, her chest and back scraping on both side walls as she squeezed through. One by one they all jammed themselves into the passage, extra gear being dragged along behind them for lack of room to be able to carry the bags. The darkness was all consuming as the light from the last fixture faded, were it not for the technology woven into their goggles the route would have been impossible to navigate in the darkness.
“Next part’s gonna be tricky,” Sam announced over the comms, “we’re about half way through the pinch but we have to cross a chimney.” She paused as she wriggled into her climbing harness. “You will have just enough room to get your harness on at the edge, but not enough to visually inspect it so make sure you touch every inch before you clip onto the crossing rope, your life depends on it. No one clips on until the person in front of you is off and don’t forget to use your safety line when you need to change ropes. Understood?”
She heard a chorus of agreement as she clipped her harness onto the crossing rope and slid out into the darkness. The climbing anchors clicked and groaned as she swung from side to side trying to get the momentum she needed to reach the next rope. Air rushed upward from the darkness below her as she finally found her footing and began walking across the wall, bringing with it a damp musty odor. She painstakingly worked her way across the hole as Gideon watched her every move, tiny rocks clacking their way into the abyss as dust shimmered in the light of her headlamp.
Finally Sam thought as she used her toe to pull her the rest of the way onto the ledge at the far end of the chimney.
“Alright Gideon.” Sam found herself subconsciously talking softer in the darkness of the cavern, “You’re on rope, watch your footing theres a lot of loose debris on the ledges.”
“On rope.” Was the only words Gideon managed.
Despite being a seasoned combat veteran, Gideon had always found himself uncomfortable underground. The cold and dampness were nearly always accompanied by flashbacks to some of his worse experiences in the CIA, this crossing was no different. About half way across as he was clipping onto the next rope his vision left him and panic took it’s place. Rocks dislodged by the ropes slapping the side of the chimney wall trickled onto his head, a gust of cold musty air and suddenly he found himself under the rubble of a building, pressed into the mud as what used to be a wall drove him into it with the force of the tens of thousands of pounds of rubble that lay on top of it.
As if sensing her bosses panic attack Rachel asked, “Gideon, you ok?”
The sound of her voice snapped Gideon back to the present, reminding him that he was suspended over chasm and needed to get off the rope.
“Good,” he nearly whispered, then with enough voice to transmit he added, “thanks Vixen.”
“Always, boss.” She said as she tugged her harness up around her waist.
"What was that?” Sam asked softly, Gideon was visibly shaken.
“Couple decades ago I was leading a team tracking a Russian agent.” Gideon began. “The real mission wasn’t the agent, it was her handler. We followed her to Laos, she was supposed to meeting her handler in a run down four story hotel according to the intel we had.”
“I take it she wasn’t there?” Sam asked.
“It was a trap.” Rachel’s voice rang over the comms.
“And we walked right into it.” Julian added.
“We did.” Gideon continued. “We went in with ten, I was in charge. I split the team up into fireteams of three and sent them each to a different floor, I stayed with Vixen, Ghost and a fierce woman we called Scarlet on the first floor.”
“I wouldn’t even call it a floor!” Rachel laughed as she stepped onto the ledge and unclipped from the crossing rope. “Off rope.”
“On rope!” Mark Sr called out.
“Most of the floor was rotted through,” Gideon continued, “and being the monsoon season there was a veritable river flowing under our feet. Not standing water, but the surface of the mud was flowing none the less. Floors two and three were cleared and the agents on the fourth floor reported voices from one of the rooms so I sent the teams from the other floors to assist and gave the order to breach while we finished searching the first floor.”
“And then what happened?” Mark Sr asked as he unclipped from the rope before adding, “Off rope.”
“On rope” Sophia announced as she slid out into the void.
“And then the world erupted in fire.” Gideon grimaced. “They wired the whole place to blow, and it did it’s job. The concussion knocked all four of us off our feet, I went face first into the mud.”
“Sounds awful.” Sophia said softly, “Off rope.”
“On rope,” Mark Jr’s voice rang into the comms, “last on.”
“Awful doesn’t begin to describe it.” Gideon’s expression carried the weight of lost lives as he continued. “I manged to turn my head sideways just in time to keep from drowning in the muck as the wall I was next to landed on me.”
“The wall and the ten thousand pounds of rubble that is.” Rachel added. “I grabbed Ghost and dove into a hole just in time to see it hit you, I thought you were dead.”
“Would’ve been too easy.” Gideon finally smiled, a wry and saddening smile. “Instead I found myself face to face with Scarlet, less than a foot from my nose to hers, only her body had landed on a bit of solid floor before the wall hit us. I spent the next three hours watching her suffocate as the weight of the building pressed the air from her lungs harder than she was able to pull in a new breath.” Gideon closed his eyes as a tear slipped out and ran down his cheek. “I still see her every time I close my eyes.”
“Me and Ghost found ourselves in a tunnel system, probably left over from all the wars in that region.” Rachel picked up where Gideon left off. “We ran straight out for nearly that whole three hours before Julian noticed a whiff of fresh air, he grabbed me so abruptly I almost knifed him right there in the dark.” She laughed.
“Found ourselves nearly a mile and a half from the hotel.” Julian added. “Fastest run I have ever made.”
“Made it in about ten minutes,” Rachel said, “took us another two and half hours to dig Gideon out and account for the team’s destruction. Had our x-fil team on site before we managed to get to half of the bodies.”
“Did you ever find that Russian agent or her handler?” Sam asked.
“Oh yeah, we found ‘em!” Devon announced. “We being the replacements that is.”
“The agency let me assemble a new team,” Gideon said, “I pulled from every branch of the military for the ones you now know. They walked through literal fire with me, but we got them.”
“And a hell of a lot of intel!” Kira announced. “Nothing makes up for lives lost, but we got more than twenty assets from that op.”
“And flipped nearly half!” Elena added.
“Flipped?” Mark Sr asked.
“Convinced them to work for us.” For the first time Gideon’s smile was genuine. “Through not so nice methods, but the resulting influx of assets netted us enough intel to bring down an entire secret paramilitary organization.”
“Took the bastards out of more than a dozen countries!” Jaxson spoke for the first time. “They were dug in like tics, but we rooted them out.”
“I get why you have flashbacks then.” Sophia’s tone was soft as she remembered her own flashbacks from the day they lost Victor. “I still get them from losing Victor, I can’t imagine what you went through.”
“Ah!” Sam’s voice broke through excitedly as she stepped out of the crevasse. “Finally, the other end of the pinch. Welcome to Camp One everyone.”
One by one the team emerged from the pinch to find themselves in a tall but cramped cavern, one wall lined with computer screens filled with data streams and telecommunication equipment and the other with a line of cots. A main trunk line of hoses, cables and wires bringing connection to the outside world descended from the darkness overhead. The room was brightly lit, with lights every five or six feet suspended by the wire that brought them electricity cast a shadow-less almost ghostly hue over the room.
Mark Jr dropped his pack on the cot at the end as he shouted, “Dibs!”
“Always the end, eh?” Sam laughed.
“Can’t get moving fast enough if you ask me.” Mark Jr laughed.
“Everyone get some food and rest,” Sam announced, “and don’t forget to refill your camel-back tonight, it’ll save us time in the morning.”
Sophia crossed to the end of the tables that held the computers and tugged open a crate, “Looks like it’s MRE’s today kids!” she laughed.
The evening passed in relative silence as everyone ate and rested, day one being more than ten hours old before they even reached the camp had left everyone too exhausted for conversation.
Morning came early and unwelcome.
The group started silently assembling packs and readying themselves for the next leg of the journey before the sleep was out of their eyes, the weak coffee lacking in its effort. Finally Mark Jr shrugged his pack over his shoulders and moved to the exit cave to wait for the rest of the group to join him.
“Twelve hours to the next camp everyone. Stay together and don’t forget to hydrate.”
Sam warned as she walked past Mark Jr and into the darkness fixing her goggles.
The lights through the caves were spanned about twenty feet apart, enough to barely make the ground visible to the naked eye but with the goggles they could see as though they were in bright sunlight. They journeyed through twists and turns in the cave following the map overlay in each persons HUD and picking each footstep with care, though in this leg of the expedition the cave felt more like a tunnel with smooth floors that had been swept clean by some invisible broom. The walls rose up from the floor at near perfect right angles and were smoothed by the eons of tectonic movement that had scraped the surfaces together until the gaps that now formed the cave system were created.
The silence creeped in as their minds wrestled to notice the passage of time in the darkness while reconciling the cave itself. The cave floor dropped away suddenly, plunging into a silent, bottomless maw that swallowed the beam of Sam’s headlamp as if it had never been cast.
Around them, the limestone walls grew slick and weeping, coated in a glistening, micro-thin layer of moisture that caught the HUD's active edge enhancement and traced the jagged fractures of the stone in glowing, neon outlines. Every breath came out in ragged, ghostly plumes of white condensation in the near-freezing air, heavy with the deep, primordial scent of wet shale and ancient, stagnant earth.
Above their heads, thousands of razor-sharp stalactites hung like the rusted teeth of a dormant leviathan, dripping cold water that struck their armored shoulders with rhythmic, hollow ticks. The silence here was absolute, heavier than any silence known on the surface—a dense, vacuum-like quiet broken only by the mechanical hum of the sensor-fusion processors and the steady, reassuring thump of the bone-conduction comms against their skulls.
They moved like ghosts through a tomb of deep time, boots scraping softly against the stone, descending deeper into the crushing, velvet dark where the light of the upper world was nothing more than a fading myth.