What could possibly go wrong?
Adonia would have felt much better right now if at least the old-fashioned push-button intercom worked. Something had to be stable in this topsy-turvy underground site.
She turned away from the wire mesh speaker. “We’re on our own. Everybody, through the door and to the left — as fast as we can. Watch out for all that construction material. Shawn, take the rear and make sure no one falls behind.”
“Copy that.”
She looked at Pulaski. “Need any help, Senator?”
“I’m fine, as long as I can get out of here.” Senator Pulaski took a few uncertain steps and then pushed forward, walking by himself now. The others followed.
Adonia called, “Stay together. Once the sensors detect that we’ve entered this connecting tunnel, we don’t know how long the vault door will stay open.”
“Be prepared to cover your ears,” Shawn added. “We may set off additional sonic countermeasures.”
“I can’t wait,” Garibaldi said.
The Senator stepped ahead, and Adonia heaved a sigh of relief when his footsteps triggered no further alarms. “See? Home free.” She motioned for the rest of them. “All right, let’s go!”
Ahead down the long tunnel, a bright light shone at them like an oncoming freight train. She guessed that from there another vault door should lead back to the main corridor, offering them a way out, but the powerful beam didn’t look like a welcoming light. The beacon grew brighter and brighter as they hurried toward it, like a wall of intense glare.
A dark silhouette in front of her, Pulaski shielded his eyes against the brightness. Behind him, Doyle paused, placing her hands on her narrow hips as she squinted ahead, wary. The light began to pulse, each time growing brighter… and brighter, burning their eyes as if the glare itself intended to push them backward.
Garibaldi said, “Well, what surprise do you have for us now, van Dyckman?”
“These aren’t my security systems.” He sounded rattled. “I’ve never seen this before.”
Shawn came up behind Adonia, peering down the tunnel with its intense throbbing lights. “That looks like a warning to me. I don’t think that’s the way to go.”
“Of course it is!” van Dyckman insisted. “That’s the way out. The exit door can’t be more than twenty or thirty more yards straight ahead. I’ve used that entrance dozens of times. Valiant Locksmith transports high-level waste down to the lower level through this very passageway.”
Adonia’s ears were still ringing from the sonic alarms, and she shook her head. “Common sense tells us to go that direction, but it’s also clear the countermeasures are trying to push us away. It’s another deterrent.” She turned around, dreading what she had to do. “We have to go the opposite direction, or it’ll just get worse.”
16
The wall of blinding light down the tunnel was not only intense, but it had grown more ominous. The others grew uneasy, too, even van Dyckman. The throbbing accelerated from a slow, rhythmic pulse to a jerky, random staccato, as if it was designed to disorient and confuse.
Adonia covered her eyes, flinching. Shawn said, “I’ve heard of this, I think. It’s an optical deterrent, just like the sonic one. The system is trying to herd us in the opposite direction, down the tunnel incline.”
“But that’s not the way out!” van Dyckman insisted. “We can’t go backward. We need to get out of here.”
Garibaldi sounded pensive rather than frantic. “Hydra Mountain must have multiple layers of independent, active defensive systems. They’re targeting our senses, first assaulting us by smell with that noxious tear gas, then by sound, and now with white light.” He paused for a beat. “I bet this isn’t the only countermeasure. Other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum could be far worse.”
Shawn nodded. “It would stop an intruder cold. Anything to protect the nuclear warheads that used to be stored here.”
“But we’re not intruders!” Pulaski snapped. “This is my own damned program!”
Garibaldi looked down his nose. “Apparently, the automated countermeasures are not convinced of your wholesome intentions.”
“Maybe the Senator should make another phone call and file a complaint,” Doyle said with clear sarcasm.
“Let’s not wait around to find out,” Adonia said.
“But we know we don’t want to go in the direction the active measures are pushing us! This is the way out. The system works!” Steeling himself, van Dyckman put his head down and stubbornly marched toward the bank of pulsing, intense lights. “Just close your eyes! It’ll be fine.”
He pushed past the Senator in his haste to prove his assertion, knocking the disoriented man out of the way. In the cycling, random lights, Pulaski stumbled against the pipes of a disassembled scaffold, lost his footing. He cried out in pain and held on to the granite wall for balance. “Damn it!”
Shawn ducked his head and refused to let the changing lights confuse him. He made his way to the Senator and stabilized Pulaski, taking some of the big man’s weight as he brought him back toward Adonia.
“It hurts!” Pulaski said. “I twisted my ankle.”
Garibaldi looked at him with a withering expression. “Don’t expect me to carry you.”
“That’s enough. He’ll make it, and we’ll all pitch in when necessary.” Adonia could feel growing antagonism among the others, as if they considered Pulaski too high maintenance for the crisis, and Garibaldi’s sarcastic edge didn’t help. She turned to the Senator. “Try not to put much weight on it, sir.”
Still pushing toward the bright pulsing light like a man trudging against a driving storm, van Dyckman approached the end of the tunnel. The glare shimmered and throbbed like a fusillade of bright flashes. He seemed determined to defy the countermeasure and bulldoze his way to the exit. But as he grew closer, he must have triggered another sensor, as a succession of bright circles of light shot down the tunnel wall from rings of high-power strobes embedded in the walls.
Dazzling waves hurtled toward him as if converging on his head. The glowing circles dissipated once they flew past, but they shot out faster and faster, brighter than sunlight. Van Dyckman ducked his head and covered his face in the crook of his arm. Off balance, he veered away from the center of the passageway, lurching toward the left wall, but he kept going, fighting against an imaginary headwind.
As the Senator leaned against the wall, keeping one foot off the floor, Adonia watched the strange bombardment surrounding her boss.
“Now what are they throwing at us?” Doyle asked. “Some sort of… optical special effect?”
Doggedly plodding toward the exit door, van Dyckman reeled. The throbbing rings of light in the walls changed color, melting from white to violet, circle after circle, cycling down the spectrum from blue to green to yellow to orange, and even deeper, until it became a dark red so intense that it was almost impossible to see.
Garibaldi straightened, his eyes wide. He shouted, “Van Dyckman — turn around, now! Or you’ll be fried.”
Pulaski looked down the tunnel. “The bright light is fading. Does that mean it’s safe?”
“It hasn’t faded, just shifted down in frequency,” Garibaldi said. “And if it’s dropping to the infrared, our eyes won’t be able to see it anymore. But he’s about to experience it as heat — big time.”
It was the next phase of the active defense, Adonia realized. “Like being in the middle of a giant convection oven.” She bolted after her former boss, calling back to Shawn, “Stay with the Senator. I’ll bring him back.” She ran barefoot toward van Dyckman, and the pulsing rings of white light swept past her as well, wave after wave, increasing in intensity. “Stanley! Come back.”