BEYOND THE PALE: ( The Outlander ) Page 31
“I don’t want to leave you and the baby, Audrina. I have promised Isa though, and I will not break my promise to him again. But once we get out of here together and I feel mentally rested, I plan to come back for you and my son. I have another identity now, lots of credits, and work that I can do.”
“It is not about you supporting us River. Forget what I said to you back then. I was trying to be mean to you. I don’t know why I was like that. Perhaps because I was confused by how I felt about you and because I thought you were turning my life upside down. I don’t think that way any more. I just know that I care for you.”
“I love you very much,” was River’s reply as he now felt overtaken with emotion.
“I have to go River, Dad cannot be here with me too long, or he will get in trouble,” Audrina spoke whilst continuously crying. River held on to her with demonstrative affection but Audrina broke free of his grip. “I have to go now,” and she walked outside without looking back.
As she walked out, Nathan walked back in with an outstretched hand, and looking River squarely in the eye, he asked “Are we cool? Are we still friends?”
River spurned his handshake, but pulled him towards him in an embrace instead, “Of course; you are always my friend Nathan Carlson. I didn’t reply to the messages you passed through Wendy for your own good.”
Nathan nodded acceptance and made a suggestion, “Well be safe, and maybe you will meet me one more time at that same place. Let say one year from today,” River nodded, but would not promise what he could not guarantee.
Chapter Forty Three
After the departure of Audrina and Nathan Carlson, Isa noticed that the spirit had drained out of his brother. He guessed that River was having second thoughts about going, but he respected him for staying true to his promise to leave. He knew it was a hard decision to make, but he also knew that he had to get River away from this citadel. River could not stay here and remain unchanged. The price of remaining would be his spirituality, and that should be held pre-eminent above all else. After all it was the core to real happiness and the only thing that you could take with you after this life. He felt that his brother would come around to appreciating this again some day. Isa on the other hand was happy to be leaving. There was nothing in the Blue Horse City, nor any person, that gave him any desire to remain here a minute longer.
It had been a long evening for the brothers in their confinement within this container. The fact that River had become introspective and withdrawn didn’t make him very good company, which was probably an essential ingredient, when two people were locked up together for hours on end in a dark metal can. River had a time piece, but Isa felt that his brother was beginning to resent his continually questions about the time. Thus it was with the relief of a trapped cat that Isa sprang out the door of the container, when Ramesh finally got to open it.
Ramesh had a look of urgency on his face, “Good; you two look ready. We haven’t got a lot of time. Grab all your stuff and follow me, and pull your hard hats down low on your face. I don’t want your faces seen on camera, nor anyone to recognise you. I am finished if word of this gets back to Shondran.”
River who had now stepped outside, pulled a workers satchel over his shoulder, and gave the other one to Isa. Looking at his time piece, he enquired, “It is later than you said. Have you had trouble my friend?”
“Yes, Sorry for the delay,” replied Ramesh who was leading them at a fast pace through the narrow service lanes of the underground container park. “There has been a lot of commotion down here. An engineer was trapped under some debris in an accident down 5W1 tunnel earlier. He is still there and they need to move some heavy lifting equipment down the track to free him, and then clear the track. They are saying that it was a localised earth movement that caused it; a small earthquake. There is some damage to the tunnels, and now there is an incoming train stuck the other side of the accident site, waiting to come in. It could be stuck there for a long time.” Both Isa and River showed looks of sympathy for the man but other than that nothing particularly registered. “That is your tunnel route guys. Did you forget? Now you won’t be able to travel incognito along that adjoining service tunnel. So I am taking you down to sub level six.”
“I am not sure if that will work Ramesh, my friend Anton mapped me out a route and we needed to follow the 5W1 tunnel for quite some distance.”
Ramesh saw two approaching stevedores and grew instantly paranoid, “Hold still, don’t talk, and just look at my hand held reader for a minute whilst those men walk past. Try and seem like you have a problem so they won’t want to know.” The men did walk past without paying any heed, and Ramesh led the two brothers at a faster pace towards the service lift which was only about 100 yards away.
Once they were inside the lift and going down, Ramesh continued, “There is a tunnel 6W1 which runs in a parallel path to 5W1 for about 4 miles. You should be able to find an emergency exit tunnel coming off it that will take you back up to 5W1 but it will be a steep and long climb.” Ramesh was speaking while looking over River’s shoulder as he pulled up a grid map for sub level six on Anton’s tunnel-mapper. “That is a neat device. I could do will one of those. Anyway follow 6W1 for at least a couple of miles before you try to join 5W1 to make sure you avoid the halted train in that tunnel. There will likely be Rangers deployed in the adjoining area to protect it from hijack whilst it is vulnerable.”
The lift had reached Sub Level 6, and all three got out. They had arrived at a large but mostly empty storage depot. Ramesh continued, “See the tunnel entrance way over there. That is your new route; tunnel 6W1. Good luck with your journey, but I have to leave you now and head back before people start searching for me.”
“Just one thing,” River asked his friend as he queried a read out on his tunnel mapper. “I do not see an adjoining service tunnel for this 6W1.”
“No there isn’t any. You will have to follow the main tunnel. Don’t worry; there are no trains, and it is not magnetised. The tunnel is a dead end. They ran into problems when boring it, and had to abandon it. It is just a dark four mile road to nowhere.” -Ramesh was showing his expression of urgency once again- “Look I have to go. Let’s say goodbye,” and Ramesh held out his arms and River grabbed him in a good friend’s embrace, “I will miss you my friend.”
Tunnel 6W1 was completely inoperative and desolate, just like Ramesh had implied. There were no red LED lights installed in the ceiling and the tunnel was pitch-black. Isa switched on his torch which gave off a wide beam of light, which when reflected off the structural curved steel panels that supported the walls, created weird shadows. The random shapes and silhouettes which they saw ahead in the darkness sometimes appeared alive but they were just tricks of the light. The further they progressed down this tunnel, the creepier it felt. They both had a sensation of being watched. River thought this strange, considering he paid no heed to being watched over on a daily basis during his stay in the metropolis.
After a mile and a half, they passed the first emergency exit shaft which was a vertical cylindrical shaft about four foot in diameter. Isa climbed up the fixed metal ladder reaching a few yards above the roof of tunnel 6W1 before returning. It seemed good, except Ramesh had warned them not to climb to 5W1 above them, until at least 2 miles out. River checked the hand held GPS tunnel mapper which showed their current position in this tunnel, and showed that the next emergency exit shaft was a mile and a half further along. So they continued along the same path. This tunnel still seemed an eerie place to them and there were strange sub sonic booms and creaking noises that were audible but impossible to pinpoint where they originated. About a mile later, Isa’s hand held torch started to illuminate some Major damage to some of the large curved steel panels lining the tunnel walls. Many were no longer buttressed together and some appeared to be hanging off the wall. Along sections where the panels had not been fitted, there were incidents of rock fall which appeared very recent on account of the amount of airborne dust ci
rculating in the locality. River looked concerned and explained to his brother, “There is no mention of these obstructions on the tunnel mapper. This must be recent damage from the earthquake.”
They finally reached the next exit shaft precisely where the mapper had pin pointed it, and Isa scurried up the ladder to investigate. This time he was a lot longer and when he finally came down, he looked like he had a problem.
“It has collapsed further up. It is completely blocked by a rock fall. We will not be able to use it; maybe we should go back to the last exit shaft.”
“We cannot use that other shaft anytime today. You heard Ramesh. He said that the train is likely going to be stuck there for some time. No we can wait a day here at least. We have food and water, or we can walk to the end of this tunnel and investigate on our way.” River knew his brother well. He had captured his interest on the word ‘investigate’, so they proceeded onwards. It was only about three quarters of a mile until the tunnel terminated. Along their path, they encountered more and more structural damage and rock falls. This damage had to be from the localised earthquake and earth movements that Ramesh had mentioned. At the tunnels end, they encountered a long fissure in the bed rock which cleaved a long gap diagonally across the whole diameter of the tunnel. This fault line had actually split the rock wall apart which served as the tunnels end. River studied his GPS position on the tunnel mapper and realised that he was right at the perimeter of one of the restricted zones. Those were the zones Anton had told him about, which a tunnel boring drill could not penetrate. So this was the likely reason why this tunnel had been abandoned after four miles. This made it all the more amazing that an earth movement along a fault could just cleave this impervious rock apart.
Isa was in exploration mode. He had lowered himself into the fissure which was just wide enough for a person to traverse. He had found a small mini fault line which served as a foot hold and he manoeuvred sideways gripping the tunnel floor with his hands. River shouted for him to be careful as Isa disappeared fully into the fissure gap that ran through the previously impervious tunnel end. He was a long time away, but this was normal for Isa once he had engaged his spirit of exploration. Then half an hour later, he pulled him self back up and out of the mini crevasse.
“I followed the fissure for about 100 yards, and then I noticed some dim light coming from above, so I climbed up. River you will not believe it until you see it. There are passage ways and walkways up above. They are lit dimly. The walls are like ceramic. It seems very different than the underground complex that we have come from. There is this one passage way that travels in the same direction as the fault line. Perhaps we could follow it and then find a way out.”
“Maybe,” said River as he was zooming into this zone on his GPS tunnel mapper. “This 6W1 tunnel seems to hit this restricted at its corner perimeter.” River held the device up for Isa to study, “Look here! There is a bend in tunnel 5W1 above which runs to the south west. At this point it runs adjacent by less than 50 yards. So this is the edge of the restricted zone along two axis. If we follow the fissure, it may allow us to break through the other wall and climb higher to reach 5W1 above. Are these tunnels on the other side of this wall empty?”
“I never saw a living soul,” replied Isa, “We should at least attempt to find a way through. If we fail to find an exit, then we come back here and wait until tomorrow before heading back to the first unblocked exit shaft.”
The two brothers agreed to proceed, with Isa leading the way and River carefully traversing the narrow and awkward path behind him. They both emerged into a strange all white walkway that was dimly lit with a feint ambient purple glow which had no obvious source. There appeared to be no one using it all, as if it were abandoned. Despite this belief, neither brother had the conviction to challenge this assumption by calling out. Instead they kept a low profile and stayed close to the fissure while it still followed a route inside this new underground complex. After walking about a thousand yards, the walkway made a right angled turn and they had to choose whether to leave the fissure behind and follow the passage onwards. They chose to proceed and walked an equivalent distance before reaching a section where the floor and the walls appeared transparent. They stepped gingerly on to the surface which seemed to be the same texture but just invisible as if it were a form of ceramic glass. As they walked across this twenty foot section, they realised that it was a viewing gallery. One hundred feet underneath them there seemed to be an immense concourse filled with lines of dimly lit large cylindrical tubes. The two brothers pressed their faces to the floor, and squinted to make out what they were observing in the dim green light below. There appeared to be thousands of naked sleeping humans or humanoids suspended in the liquid of those perspex cylinders. They could also make out what appeared at first glance to be medical staff tending to them. On closer inspection, it appeared that only some of these people were human. The others were taller and thinner in stature and appeared lizard like in their features. This whole vision seemed like a horrific dream to the brothers who stared transfixed at the scene below. River spoke first.
“They may be the snake-men that took our ancestors below ground when the land flooded. They were good to the Hopi. They might help us.”
“They are too tall for snake-men. They are over six foot tall and I think they are lizard-men,” corrected Isa.
“You mean the ones that tortured and preyed on the Navajo and the Lakote Sioux. They were nearly eight foot tall.”
“You are thinking of mothmen,” corrected Isa. “Geren will confirm; the mothmen were the nocturnal predators that hunted them above ground. Those things down there are lizard-men. They are sauroids too and also malevolent, but they are changelings and they can come above the ground in sunlight.”
“I think I have seen one in the citadel. It was mimicking the appearance of a man, an important man. I didn’t realise what it was until I felt it as a ‘nagus’ appear beside my bed. It was in my mind. It was not a good spirit. I wonder if they know we are here.”
Isa made the decision for both of them, “Come on, we need to get out of here. We will head back to the tunnels right now.”
The brothers retraced their steps and soon reached the right angled turn in the walk way. However as they headed back to where they had come in, they could no longer find the fissure in the bed rock which had allowed them entrance and which had run the whole length of this passage way. Both River and Isa felt the growing panic associated with being trapped. The fault line was missing, but it didn’t appear to have closed. Instead the walk way now appeared to be some different passage way. Impossible as it seemed, considering that they had stuck to the one path; they were lost. This was very unnerving as it appeared that they could not trust the local environment; it had somehow altered. They chose to investigate the walkway in the other direction and took another 90 degree turn to follow another long ambient purple ceramic walkway. This way they found they had options. They could continue straight ahead, or head for a long line of steps to their left which ascended to an opening up above. They decided to head towards the steps but when they reached them, they appeared much larger and more like the large step terraces on the side of a pyramid. They climbed for a while and found themselves on an open platform which they walked across to investigate the other side. They were totally lost for direction now. When they reached what they thought was the edge of this platform, they appeared instead to be on a mezzanine floor that ringed and overlooked a lower concourse. Here they had company. They were looking down on many others, just like those they had seen earlier in the viewing chamber. These entities with the sauroid features seemed oblivious to their presence up above. Isa pointed to some figures amongst them. These were humans who wore the uniforms of the government officials of the metropolis. Three such men were standing in a group talking with two of the sauroid entities. River then spotted other men amongst them who wore the same medical uniforms of the medical officers who had tried to experiment on him in the
CPS headquarters.
River and Isa both looked on transfixed by a growing sense of disbelief. Isa felt trapped and desperately searched the scene for an exit option. River on the other hand was lost deep in thought. He wondered if there was some measure of collusion and co-operation between the two cultures. But on closer observation he noticed how the sauroids appeared in charge. Even those men and women below wearing the markings of governmental responsibility seemed subservient to the sauroid lizard featured men. He considered the hundreds of encapsulated humanoids immersed in the tubes of fluid, which they had seen in the viewing chamber. Perhaps these men mingling with the sauroids below them were not even real humans but some kind of hybrids bred in those tubes. The thought crossed his mind that the whole power structure of the elite in the Metropolis was being directed from here. Maybe it was like a tier structure of a pyramid, except inverted. He realised that these entities and hybrids down here were the elite that managed their controlled closed world above ground.
The strangest thing was that at the precise moment that River had this lucid realisation, one of the lizard-men immediately looked up. This sauroid who was in the company of some important looking patrons of New Denver, appeared to be aware of River’s thoughts up above. It had locked his attention on River alone who felt a spine tingling sensation as if he was being mentally scanned and searched. The feeling was familiar to River and he wondered if he was being probed by the same entity that had invaded his mind before. The sauroid then turned and gestured to another, who in turn seemed to authorise a militarised response. A number of human looking guards along with a smaller number of sauroids appeared from an obscured entrance and were running to take a form of travelator to the mezzanine floor. River and Isa decided that their best option was to run. They ran back to the steps, and back down to the passage way that they had recently left, and then continued to run along its path. With Isa on point, they ran fast and for a long time mustering all their endurance. They followed the continuous path of passageway until they came across options. Then every turn or junction they came across they would take blindly hoping that it might lead them somewhere that made sense to them. They were not even sure whether they were still being chased. Eventually one particular turn took them to a space that seemed friendlier. It was a smaller annex that had familiar walls of rock rather than ceramic. They ran as far as they could and stooped down to pass through a low section which then opened out in to the more familiar environment of an underground cave. There were stalactites hanging down from the ceiling and a still plunge pool near the cave wall which they jumped into in order to hide. They were both breathless from exhaustion but alert with fear. As he crouched at the side of the cave pool and tried to catch his breath, River started feeling that same spine tingling sensation that warned him that the sauroid was remotely seeking him and searching his mind for clues as to his whereabouts. He felt a growing sense of panic and fear overcoming him, but it seemed like his fear and adrenalin were being stimulated intentionally by the sauroid who was using his fear to track him. He realised that there was little point in hiding if his mind could be read, and he warned Isa that their pursuers would soon know where they were, and that the game was probably up for them.