You’d think that a face couldn’t show any more terror than his did. But as he looked up at something off camera, his face contorted into something more primeval than mere terror. Like something a small animal’s feeling as it’s about to be torn apart by a hawk.
And then the image dissolved into snowy static.
The men in the chopper looked at one another.
“We got a quarantine situation on Olduvai,” Sarge said. “They sent that message before the research team stopped responding to communications.”
“Olduvai…?” Portman said.
Sarge nodded. “Three-and-a-half hours ago. UAC has shut down the lab. We go up there, locate the team, eliminate the threat, and secure the facility.”
“What threat?” the Kid asked.
“Goes like this, see,” Duke said. “If it’s trying to kill you, it’s a threat.”
They hung in their harnesses, absorbing the briefing — and each one came to a stop on the name Olduvai. They were going to that mysterious region on the planet Mars. And that meant…
The Kid leaned over to whisper to Duke. “We’re going through the Ark?”
“Don’t worry, Kid,” Duke said. “You’re gonna love it.”
The ironic smiles on the faces of the other men, at that, didn’t make the Kid feel any better. The Ark was some kind of wormhole to another world — and maybe the scariest thing was, it was an alien technology. The compound’s end of the Ark had been retroengineered from something found in the digs on Olduvai, Mars. An alien doorway to an alien world.
A long trip, mostly through darkness. They were flying over the sprawling, intricate city: all that remained between them and their first destination; they flew between shimmering towers, past gracefully sweeping buildings of synthetic steel and intelligent glass glimmering with the soft light impregnated into their very girders; over interlacing freeways, chains of glowing computer-guided vehicles. There were no brake lights, no headlights, just interior lights because the cars drove themselves. They never jammed, never crashed.
It was coming up to dawn, and the chopper was almost to the Nevada teleport facility when Sarge unbuckled himself from his harness, went over to sit by Reaper.
“How long’s it been?” Sarge asked, leaning close to Reaper.
Reaper reluctantly answered, “Ten years.”
“You sure she’s even still there?” Sarge persisted.
Reaper looked at him coldly. “You gotta face your demons sometime.”
Sarge wasn’t ready to drop it. Sarge had no comprehension of small talk at all. He never spoke unnecessarily — but when he did speak, he dropped a subject exactly when he was done with it, not a second before. “This better not spoil my day.”
He slapped Reaper on the shoulder, stood, and moved carefully to the front — sometimes, when the chopper shifted in the sky, he looked like a man walking a tightrope. He turned to address the whole team.
“I want this spit and polish, no bullshit!” he told them. He spotted Portman listening to something on headphones. Might be music, might be soundporn. “Portman, get that crap out of your ears. LZ approaching…” Sarge braced himself, looking at the altitude indicator as the chopper eased down to a landing. “T-minus fifteen. Fourteen…”
The Kid looked out the window — they were approaching a great swatch of shadow on the far side of the town they’d just passed. The sky was graying with first light, but the ground down there was still dark. It looked like they were going to crash into that bleak opacity — but then lights flicked on, outlining the landing pad, and the chopper settled onto it.
The doors opened. Cold air gushed in; their breath steamed as they grabbed their gear and jumped out into the icy prop wash.
Nothing out there but the landing lights, and the distant sparkle of the city’s skyline.
“Double-time!” Sarge shouted. “We’re on the move!”
They ran across grass now, jogging over the otherwise-empty field in formation, leaving the landing pad and the chopper behind.
Where, the Kid wondered, are we double-timing to? There’s nothing out here. We’re just running into the goddamned darkness…
Suddenly the ground began to elevate itself, in front of them: an illuminated block of stainless steel rose up, humming, out of a subterranean shaft, in the midst of what a moment ago had been an empty, grassy field. The Kid lost his double-time rhythm in his surprise, slowing to stare, blurting, “Holy shit…”
Passing the Kid, Portman slammed a shoulder into him — theoretically a reminder to stay in formation but really it was about Portman getting off on slamming the Kid.
The Kid was the last one to hustle onto the elevator that would take them down — down, only to be projected upward into the sky, when the moment came.
Seeing the Kid come into the elevator at the last possible second, Sarge told him: “You hesitate, people die.”
The doors irised shut…and the elevator dropped like stone released into a mining shaft.
Fourteen levels down…
Like so many other nightmares, it really started with a slick, corporate lobby. They could’ve been waiting to audition for a viddy commercial, Reaper thought, as they stepped out of the elevator and looked around.
United Aerospace Corporation logos were arranged symmetrically with wall-mounted plasma screens; the screens played UAC infomercials maundering on about the company’s globe-spanning services.
A slender man dresssed as slick as the lobby was striding toward them, extending his hand. His face was frozen in a public-relations mask of friendliness, only his eyes showing how intimidated he was by the big, heavily armed men in the strike squadron.
Here comes the suit, Reaper thought.
“Sandford Crosby, UAC public relations,” said the suit. “On behalf of UAC, welcome to the facility. If you could follow me, please.”
He turned on his heel, almost spinning in place, and led the way, in a hurry. The squadron exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed.
“Has anyone passed through the Ark since the emergency?” Sarge asked.
Sandford glanced back at Sarge. “Oh, no no, Sergeant.” He indulged in a carefully measured laugh. “This isn’t an emergency. I believe what we have on Olduvai is officially a situation.”
Sarge snorted but said nothing.
“Should the ‘situation’ deteriorate,” Reaper asked, as they almost trotted down a corridor, “has a plan been drawn up to evacuate the civilians?”
He was as concerned about getting them out of his hair as much as getting them to safety. Civilians pretty much just got in the way of getting a job done. And then there was that certain civilian…
Sandford seemed to pick up speed, gesturing for them to hurry along close behind him. “The guys at corporate feel that won’t be necessary. What you’re doing for us here is really a ‘fact-finding mission.’”
“Through here, please,” Sandford added, gesturing toward the door with a limp hand.
“How many people up there?” Reaper asked.
“UAC employs eighty-five permanent research staff on Olduvai,” Sandford replied, crisply.
They passed through the door into the Ark Chamber Prep Room. Sandford frowned, noticing that Duke, as usual, was smoking. “Please extinguish the cigarette. The Ark is an ultrahigh-frequency fusion reactor. One spark and —”
“Gettin’ so you can’t smoke anywhere anymore.” Duke stubbed it out in the callused, blackened palm of his hand — making Sandford blanch.
Sandford guided the squadron to the base of a mirrored cylinder protected by armed UAC Security Personnel. The armed guards here were more than security guards, but less than the level of soldier represented by the squadron, and they knew it. They gave Sarge and his men flat looks that seemed to say, I could take you. Only, they couldn’t, and they knew that, too.