Chapter 20
As the first drone's red beacon light appeared high overhead, its precious cargo dangling from the cargo clamp, the first group rearranged themselves on the minuscule shelf. Kira leaned out over the edge, the group's interlocking arms the only thing between her and the rushing waters below — the strap mere inches from her fingers.
"Jaxson, can you bring it in any closer?" she shouted.
Jaxson took manual control of the hovering drone and began easing it downward, closer to Kira's grasp — closer to safety for the team.
"Almost!" Kira strained, her fingers slipping into the loop of the emergency fill strap. "GOT IT! Release!"
The clamp opened — the raft fell.
Gas hissed out of the carbon dioxide cartridges inside the raft as the chambers filled with a sudden rush.
"NOW!" Kira shouted as she prepared to jump.
Seven adults, arms locked, jumped as one.
Victor and Caleb, the strongest rowers, were aimed at the back of the raft. They hit first. The sudden weight threw the bow of the raft into the air, slamming Sam and Sofia flat against it, then tumbling them backward into Mark and Kira. All four of them toppled inward, landing on Tessa — the smallest of the group, in charge of holding all the gear in the center of the raft.
The raft lurched forward as the current tried to rip it out from under the group, sending them careening downstream, the raft spinning in the vortices of the flash flood as they struggled to find their positions again. The second beacon light appeared as the drone slipped over the top of the slot canyon and started its descent just as the first raft full of people exploded from the mouth of the slot canyon and out into the lower basin as they finally got the first oar into the water. The raft righted itself; the current smoothed as the water level dropped, until the raft skidded to a stop in the shallows.
No sign of the other raft.
But…
"What's that?" Tessa was pointing at a brightly flashing light near the far shore — Gideon, standing on the gravel bar that had saved him from the torrent.
"That's Gideon!" Victor shouted.
Gideon stood on the bank just clear of the water, waving his arms in the air. As the team climbed out of the raft and picked it up to carry through the shallows, the second raft shot out of the canyon like a bullet from a gun — and then the current let go of it all at once. It skidded across the shallows and ground to a stop against the same gravel bar as the first, shuddering sideways as the water dropped out from under it.
Rachel came with it — or half with it. She rolled off the side and into the water beside the raft, fetching up against the tube with a grunt, mud streaming from her hair.
Devon surfaced next, ten yards upstream, thrashing against the current with one arm hooked around a half-submerged branch, his head snapping back each time the water shoved him under. He came up sputtering, got a breath, went under again.
Tessa was already moving — abandoning her grip on the first raft and stumbling through the shallows, her eyes raking the brown water for familiar faces. Rachel — there. Devon — there, barely. She counted again, her chest tightening.
Where was Julian?
A bend in the current answered her. Fifty yards downstream, where the water spread thin over a gravel shelf, a dark shape snagged and held. A body. Limp. Facedown.
Tessa's scream caught in her throat — because Gideon had already seen him. He was limping down the bank toward the shallows, each step a grimace, his right leg dragging where the boulder had caught him behind the knee. He didn't stop. He didn't even slow.
Jaxson hit the water, vaulting over the second raft's side, Garret right behind him. They high-kicked through the shallows, spray flying, converging on the still shape on the gravel. Gideon was the first to reach Julian. Pain tore a grunt out of him as he dropped onto the sandbar beside his friend and rolled him onto his back.
Not breathing. Lips going blue.
Gideon's fingers pressed into the hollow beside Julian's windpipe. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand — nothing. No breath on his cheek when he leaned close.
"Shit!" Gideon hissed. "C'mon, soldier — not today. Not here!"
Drowning…
The training surfaced through the panic — drowned, not dropped: air first. He tipped Julian's head back, lifted the chin, pinched the nose, and sealed his mouth over Julian's. Two slow breaths, watching the chest rise. Then the heel of his hand to the center of the chest — thirty compressions, counting under his breath.
Jaxson and Garret splashed onto the sandbar and dropped beside him, grabbing Julian's arms and legs, rubbing furiously at the cold skin.
"Three cycles…" Rachel appeared, her voice cutting through the roar of the water, steady as a metronome.
"Move."
Tessa slid into place as Gideon shifted to give her room, her knees hitting the wet gravel hard. She had spent nearly a decade as a trauma paramedic after retiring from the Marine Corps, and she'd assumed the team medic position the moment she accepted Gideon's offer as sniper. Now the training took over before her fear could. Fingers to the carotid — ten seconds, nothing. Chest still. Skin cold and clammy, lips cyanotic, water pooled at the corner of his mouth.
"Unresponsive, apneic, no pulse," she snapped — half to herself, half to the team. "Drowning protocol. Breaths first, thirty and two. Gideon — your rate was good. Compressions now. Hard and fast, center of the chest, don't stop for anything."
Gideon locked his arms and started again. Tessa cleared the water from Julian's mouth, tipped the head, and delivered two rescue breaths — chest rising — then her eyes flicked to Jaxson and Garret, still rubbing Julian's limbs.
"Stop that!" she barked. "You're not moving blood, you're warming your hands. Jaxson — hands on his head, keep his neck straight, don't let it move. Garret — you're next on chest. We rotate every five cycles before your arms give out."
"Four…" Rachel said. "Five…"
The team switched positions.
Tessa counted compressions under her breath, watching Julian's face for any change. Cold skin. Blue lips. Come on. Give me something.
"Did his eye just flutter?" Rachel breathed. "Six…"
Halfway through the sixth cycle, Julian's body convulsed. He exploded into a coughing fit — water and white froth bursting from his mouth as his lungs fought their way back. He gasped, choked, gasped again.
"He's back!" Tessa shouted. "Roll him — keep that neck straight — on his side, let it come up, let him clear it!"
"Julian," Tessa said, leaning into the center of his vision, "Julian, can you hear me?"
Julian groaned. "Urrgh…"
"Julian," Tessa tried again, "do you know what day it is?"
"Uhh…" His voice was still weak. "Tuesday, doc."
"Good. Now do you know where you are?" she pressed.
"In hell!" Julian laughed weakly. "Boss, it seems we have found the entrance to the underworld, and it's in Utah!"
Laughter rippled through the group, carrying a wash of relief over the exhausted team.
Julian sat up and dragged the back of his hand across his eyes. "I don't know what happened — one second my ass was on the raft, I reached for my oar and the next thing I saw was blackness!"
"Right after we made our jump," Rachel explained, "the raft surged toward the ledge and you hit your head."
"He hit his head?" Tessa's eyes snapped back to Julian as Jaxson looked at his bloody hands for the first time. "Show me where it hurts, soldier."
Julian turned his head and ran a finger through his matted hair. "OUCH!" he barked.
Tessa parted the blood-matted hair to get a clear view. Useless — in the dark it was all one black smear.
"Try filter three," Sofia said from behind them. "I put all the medical assets at the front to make them easy to find."
Tessa thumbed the dial on her HUD —
— and the night went gray.
The world dropped into monochrome. The HUD tagged it: NIR Nine-Four-Zero. Julian's scalp bloomed across her vision in shades of ash, and where the blood had soaked through, it drank the infrared and showed black — a dark delta spreading from a ragged six-centimeter laceration along the parietal bone, every vessel branching beneath the skin like cracks in ice.
"Oh, that's just cheating," Tessa breathed with a smile.
"Posterior margin's still oozing," she said, louder, for the record. "The rest has clotted. No step-off that I can feel, no clear fluid — that's good. Pupils…" She tilted his chin toward what little light bled from Gideon's beacon. "Equal and reactive. You've got a concussion, soldier, and a scalp lac that bleeds like a stuck pig because heads do that. You stay where I can see you."
She flipped back to standard view and stared at Sofia. "You built trauma imaging into geology goggles?"
Sofia shrugged, all innocence. "Hemoglobin has a beautiful absorption band at nine hundred-forty nanometers. Same physics as telling hematite from magnetite — I mapped it for the mineral survey stack." A beat. "I front-loaded the medical presets because, in my experience, field equipment treats injuries more often than it identifies rocks."
Tessa shook her head slowly. "The vein finders on my rig cost eleven thousand dollars and didn't do half of this."
"Then your rig was overpriced," Sofia said with a soft laugh.
"We need to get out of this creek before the next surge turns this flat into a lake." Caleb was studying the mouth of the slot canyon they had just emerged from.
"Caleb's right. Julian, can you move?" Garret breathed.
"Yeah…"
"No!" Tessa barked. "And you're not going anywhere until I get a look at that knee either, Boss. Drop your pants and sit back down."
"Yes, Doctor." Gideon pouted sarcastically — he knew better than to argue with Tessa.
Gideon unhooked his belt and let his pants fall into the water as he sat on the edge of the raft and pushed his injured leg out in front of him.
"You're not going to get far on that thing." Tessa pressed her fingertips into the swollen kneecap; Gideon yelped in pain. "Not broken, but you bruised your kneecap. That's not going to heal overnight."
"What's our plan, Boss?" Caleb asked.
"We move as a team." Tessa wasn't waiting for Gideon to over promise what his body was capable of. "Two help Julian — he's liable to be dizzy here and there, and we don't need him falling over. And two on Gideon." She paused as Gideon started to argue. "No arguments! If you don't like the plan, Boss, we make camp right here in the water. But you two aren't going to get very far before you find it impossible to go further, so let's make the right choice the first time."
"There's a flat spot on top of that rise." Jaxson pointed toward the beacon light on one of the drones he had used to drop the rafts, hovering about a hundred meters away. "I say we make camp up there. We can carry you up the hill if your knee gives out, Boss."
Gideon's face flushed. "I have never had to be carried before," he muttered. "But we have to get out of this water. Let's go — if I need the help, I'll ask." He looked over at Tessa and added with a grin, "I promise!"
Camp was set in complete silence, each person wrestling with the quiet as inner doubt crept in. Gideon sat on a log at the edge of the fire, broodingly scratching notes into his tablet as he watched the flames dance into the night.
"Whatchya got there, Boss?" Julian slid onto the log beside Gideon, glanced at the tablet screen, and added, "Mapping the route for tomorrow? Thought we already did that."
"Not the route for tomorrow," Gideon said quietly. "This is the map of the city we were in when we went through the gateway. Look — if the ground level there was supposedly built on top of the mineral deposit, and we use standard multiverse theory, it should sit in the same place in our world."
"Yeah?" Julian grinned. "But we already figured that out, I thought I was the one with the head injury. What's got your focus now?"
"Well…" Gideon was thoughtful for a long moment before answering. "Look around us — and at the topos, for that matter." He swiped his screen, and the map changed to a topographical view of the region showing the deposit's location. "It's sitting right on the face of a cliff."
"Again, Boss, we already discovered all this." Julian was truly puzzled. "What's changed?"
"Did you see any cliffs when we exited that door factory place?"
"Torture Central?" Julian corrected with a laugh. "Come to think of it, no. The whole city was as smooth and level as a pool table."
"Exactly!" Gideon exclaimed. "So where's the cliff the mineral deposit is in?"
"Maybe we interpreted the data wrong, and it's actually outside the walls?"
"That's the mystery." Gideon frowned. "Whatever shot down our drone kept us from seeing what's outside that wall altogether. We have no idea if the city terrain is about its geographic location, or if whatever bomb Rubix dropped just leveled the whole damn place."
"We'll be going in blind when we go back" — the puzzle finally clicked together in Julian's mind — "unless we figure out the answer from the intel we collected before we go back."
"It's been months, and Sam and Sofia haven't even translated half of that haul." Gideon locked eyes with Julian. "We won't have time to finish the translation and study the intel before Halvorsen wants us to go back."
"Incomplete mission parameters," Julian recounted, "incomplete intel for insertion, and a complete lack of understanding of the technology that makes the trip possible in the first place." He laughed. "I get the worry. You think Halvorsen would spring for a team of linguists?"
"It might speed things up.” Gideon frowned, “If only I knew the region around that wall." He returned his tablet to the map of the city they had visited. "We just didn't get the footage I need."
Julian was quiet for a couple of minutes as Gideon manipulated his map in silence.
"What about that globe we found?" Julian's eyes lit up. "That thing zoomed in far enough to see a ground squirrel, from what I saw. When we get back to Nevada, we can start that thing up again. Maybe it'll give you the answer you're looking for."
The two men fell into silence again — Gideon's focus returning to his tablet while Julian's mind drifted, filling with the puzzle his boss had been wrestling with. It showed on his face as worry began etching his brow.
"Hey, Sof!" Julian called out across the fire, where she was setting up her tent. "How many of those computers did your team bring?" He paused. "The ones we brought back from the away mission."
"I have three." Sofia shrugged. "As thin and lightweight as they are, I didn't see any reason not to bring a few. Why?"
"I'd like to borrow one, if I can." Julian stood and crossed to where she was standing. "We're looking at the geography of the area — do you know if any of them have maps that might help?"
"From what I've seen, the ones from the schools all have the same basic curriculum, including geography data, storage seems pretty infinite on these things." Sofia pulled one of the computers from her pack. "This one's from a school — the other two are from a bank and a manufacturing place you guys searched. I thought I might have time to study a little in our downtime."
"On a two-week hike through rugged backcountry, and you expect to have downtime enough to study?" Julian scoffed.
"Don't underestimate this one." Victor's accent was thick in the small hours as he laughed. "I've seen her try to use her computer dangling from the end of a rappelling rope before. Education is more of a driver with her than her own safety!"
Julian chuckled as Sofia handed him the laptop. "Oddly enough, I believe it!"
Julian opened the lid and the screen instantly flashed to life.
"No boot-up time on these? Nice." Julian grinned as he sat next to Gideon. "I learned just enough of the language from Sofia when we were still in Nevada — I should be able to find what I'm looking for."
Julian clicked through folder after folder on the computer until he finally found the one he was looking for.
"Here it is, Boss — check this out." He slid Gideon the computer with the map on the screen. "I found a geography curriculum, complete with maps the first time I messed with one of these!"
Julian slid his finger across the screen to center the map, then pinched his fingertips together and spread them a couple of times to zoom in as far as he could. The wall started coming into focus as he slid the map around the city. He slid a little further and it passed off the bottom of the screen, the image resolving into a densely populated city pressing against the wall around the entire thirty-one-and-a-half-mile circumference — despite the sudden shift in landscape from the perfectly uniform ground level inside the wall into the slot canyons the team was currently struggling to cross on the outside.
"Now that's odd," Julian whispered.
"What's odd?" Tessa appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and knelt beside Gideon to inspect his injured knee. "Swelling's already coming down, Boss."
"Look at this map." Julian handed the laptop to Tessa, who had already moved on to checking his head.
"We're definitely in the right area," she said softly, "but I do see what you mean. That landscape is way wrong." A beat. "Your head is knitting back together nicely, by the way."
"Thanks?" Julian grinned. "And yeah… way wrong! Another mystery to solve before we get the puzzle pieces to solve it with."
It took another two and a half days to finish the hike in, Gideon fighting an ill-fitting splint on his leg, which combined with Tessa's collapsible crutch made it impossible for the team to move at the intended pace. When they finally did arrive at the mine site, they were unprepared for what they found.
This wasn't just going to be hard. It was going to be impossible.
"We don't have a goddamn choice!" Gideon leaned against his crutch, cursing under his breath as he watched Jaxson's drone recording LIDAR data.
"Heard that," Jaxson said, eyes still on his controller. "Talk to me."
"That airdropped drill is our only way up the cliff face." Gideon jerked his chin toward the sandstone. "If it doesn't bite, that rock won't hold a climb — it'll crumble right out from under us."
"So then what?"
"Then we go in from the top." A muscle worked in Gideon's jaw. "No way around it."
Jaxson had been flying an overlapping grid pattern, recording the constant data stream from the Light Detection and Ranging system mounted to one of his drones. He'd initiated the flight path just before sunrise, and the two men had been watching the process unfold as the data streamed onto Sofia's laptop. Though the LIDAR data hadn't begun compiling yet, Sofia already had a complete map of the area's subsurface composition from the SPS transceiver she'd had Jaxson place in the cliff face with his drone.
"Jaxson," Sofia looked up from her computer for the first time in over an hour, "can you place a set of twelve trail marker pogs for me? I want to see if I can make a Yagi."
"Sure thing, Boss!" Jaxson's enthusiasm showed in his smile. "Where at?"
"Ring the transceiver — full circle, even spread, ten feet out."
"Roger that!" he pulled a new drone into his HUD as he crossed to the landing zone to attach the first pog to the insertion arm.
"Not getting the amount of data you're looking for?" Sam dropped into a chair next to Sofia. "Looks complete to me."
"Oh, I've got the complete subterranean composition for everything within about a hundred miles," Sofia laughed, "but there's a giant hole right where the deposit is supposed to be."
"A hole?" Elena's interest was sparked. "Like — you mean the mineral is missing?"
"No—" Sofia caught the words before they could escape her mouth. "No. The mineral might or might not be exactly where it's supposed to be. What I mean is that there is no data. Something is there, but I can't penetrate it or get signal continuity through it." She looked up at the gathering group around her. "My SPS is designed to communicate through any subsurface composition — using mycelia root systems to pass high-speed electrical signals where possible, and hijacking the nominal electrical current of the substrate's molecular structure where it lacks roots."
"Nice recap, but what's the issue then?" Kira asked softly. "Shouldn't it be able to hijack the same molecular energy from the mineral we are chasing?"
"That's the thing." Sofia was truly puzzled for the first time since the soldiers joined the team. "It should. It just can't, for some reason — it's as if the mineral itself has no electrical signature. I just can't see into it." She glanced toward the cliff. "Hopefully the new pog array will act like a Yagi — a directional antenna — and focus the stream enough to push through."
Sam stared at the screen, focusing on the whole picture for a long moment before anyone spoke.
"You remember that astronomy professor from our freshman year?"
"Dr. Robitussin?" Sofia asked with a laugh.
"Dr. Robinson." Sam corrected her with an elbow to the ribs. "Just because he made it impossible for you to stay awake doesn't mean I didn't love the class."
Sofia laughed. "What about him?"
"Do you remember the month we spent on black holes — how to spot them, and how they form?"
"Of course." Sofia grinned. "When have you known me to ever forget anything?"
Sam laughed. "Right. Well, he said when you're looking into space, you might be looking at a black hole and not even realize it — the way they suck in even the light of the stars around them. He told us to look at the space around a suspected hole, remember?"
Sofia's expression lit as her eyes dropped back to the computer, her hand instinctively manipulating the image vector to show a different angle. "Why on earth did I not think of that?"
"You are an encyclopedia, my love," Victor whispered softly, "but you sometimes need a road map."
"Asshole." Sofia scoffed. "It looks like a bowl of magnetite holding whatever it is."
"Look at that." Sam pointed to a spot just above the bowl. "U-O-two all over the place. That's uranium."
"Uraninite." Sofia corrected reflexively.
"Since when is magnetite found in sandstone?" Elena breathed.
"Since never." Sofia's tone was flat with disbelief. "If I wasn't looking at the data myself, I wouldn't believe it was accurate."
"So — a magnetite bowl filled to the rim with a mystery, perched under a death trap." Devon laughed. "Sounds like pretty much every mission we've ever been on."