Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (41 page)

One minute, fourteen seconds.

As his vision blurred at the edges, his lungs screamed for release, but he refused the order, allowing his mind to drift.

It could have been worse, he thought. At least in this circumstance he didn’t have to suffer the agony of choice. There was only one thing he could do—keep his mouth sealed. The guy whose brainrush was ultimately responsible for the death of so many—if not the end of the world—ought to be able to do at least that.
Right?

Two minutes, five seconds.

A dizzy part of his mind wondered if Jonesy had any duct tape in his pack. Too bad he hadn’t checked before he dove in. He could’ve used it to seal his mouth and nose closed. That would’ve helped. Then, when his kids found his dead body, there wouldn’t be any water inside it, and they’d know he’d done everything he could to survive.

Jake’s chest began to heave involuntarily, expelling the CO
₂
from his lips in fits and spurts. The organism demanded air. It wrestled for control, and the urge to suck in drove away all
thought. He clasped his hands over his mouth and nose, refusing to give in, dimly realizing he’d dropped the flashlight. Darkness enveloped him.

Suddenly, the tube swerved to the left. His right elbow scraped against the wall, shredding uniform and skin. Then the flow straightened and he sensed that his speed had slowed. Shadows flickered on the curved walls surrounding him. He craned his neck to look forward, and that’s when he realized he was floating upside down. He spun around. It took him half a beat to realize he was drifting in an open canal—surrounded by volumes of air. He jutted his head upward, removed the death grip from his mouth, and sucked in the sweet-tasting breath of life. His body reeled in relief as he drew in one breath after another. He ripped off his mask, floating through a well-lit space as vast as a jumbo-jet hangar. It looked like the inside of a power plant.

The lip of the concrete culvert was out of reach. It restricted his view, but he could still see the tops of three garbage truck–size cylindrical turbines. They dominated the space, each surrounded by a family of catwalks, piping, and ancillary equipment. Crane tracks and rows of metal halide lights dropped from the ceiling.

The water propelled him forward, and he passed beneath more catwalks and rows of high-pressure pipe. Up ahead, the water flowed beneath a low walking bridge. A loud sucking noise emanated from beyond it, and he realized that the water from the culvert was being drawn into another enclosed tube. He shuddered at the prospect.

Just before reaching the bridge, Jake dove down and springboarded off the bottom. He surged upward and clasped onto the rail supporting the walkway. Two more kicks, and he heaved himself out of the water. He ran in a crouch off the bridge. That’s when he noticed there was a parallel culvert that flowed in the opposite direction. It exited the building at a different point than the entry flow. Steam drifted from its surface.

Cold water in. Hot water out.

His soggy boots squished with each step. He flattened himself behind a nearby pillar, water dripping from his clothing and backpack.

A constant thrum filled the space. The sound reminded Jake of a muffled jet engine. There was a gaseous taint to the air. He peeked around the pillar and saw three men in coveralls and yellow hard hats working on a raised catwalk beside the center turbine. Two armed guards walked casually at the other end of the main floor. Studying the layout, Jake identified manifolds, gas and steam turbines, condensers, and power generators. This was a fully automated geothermal power plant—drawing heat from magna conduits to power the turbines. Instead of a tower of air-cooled ventilators, the system used water for cooling purposes—fed by the pool at the base of the falls and discharged elsewhere.

Clever, Jake thought. Fully self-contained and hidden from the world. The system could output enough power to support a small city.

Or a new world order.

Grid Countdown: 1h:32m:30s

The Island
5:59 a.m.

H
E HAD A
clipboard. They had pistols.

Jake peered through the door’s mesh window as the guards headed his way. They wore blue uniforms and baseball caps. From their casual demeanor, it appeared as if they hadn’t been alerted to the firefight outside. Jake was in a locker room behind the first turbine. He’d exchanged his wet uniform for a set of coveralls and a hard hat. His boots were still soggy.

One of the guards hesitated beside the walking bridge. He swiped his boot back and forth in the puddle Jake had left when exiting the culvert. His gaze followed the trail of wet footprints…

Jake pushed through the door. He raised his clipboard overhead. “Be careful over there!” he said, waving them over. “It’s slippery. Maintenance is on the way to mop it up. John had a little accident. The idiot fell in!”

The two guards approached. Neither of them went for his weapons. But Jake sensed their tension. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. He glanced past them to confirm that they were beyond the sight line of the hard hats working on the second turbine. “He’s okay,” he added, motioning toward the locker
room. “Toweling off inside. He feels pretty stupid.” He shook his head. “I’m still going to have to write him up.”

One of the men eased up. The other didn’t. “I don’t recognize you,” he said, unfastening an electronic wand from his belt. He turned it on, stepped forward, and waved it over Jake’s shoulder. The device beeped. One of four multicolored plastic nipples lit up. It was blue. The guard’s eyes narrowed. He pressed a button, and a touch screen on the device flashed on.

Ignoring the man, Jake moved past him and pointed toward the culvert. “He slipped right over there.” The second guard followed his gaze.

“Hey, wait a minute,” the man behind him said.

Jake continued talking as his right hand slipped into his left pants pocket and grabbed the end of the pipe wrench he’d stored there. “If you ask me…” He twisted around and yanked the wrench out like a fencer would a foil, swinging it in an arc that connected with the man’s temple. He went down in a heap, dropping the wand. The second guard spun around. He unholstered his weapon.

That was his mistake.

In the split second it took him to bring the pistol to bear, Jake swiveled around, hammering the heavy tool onto the crown of the man’s skull. Bone gave way in a sickening crunch. He died instantly.

Grimacing against the brutality of the attack, Jake dragged the bodies into the locker room. Then he retrieved the fallen clipboard, pistol, and wand. When he was back in the relative safety of the room, he studied the scanning device. The face that was displayed on its four-inch screen didn’t look anything like Jake. His job function was listed as
BLUE TEAM–SECURITY OFFICER–LEVEL
3. Jake massaged the spot on his shoulder where the ship’s doctor had implanted the
RFID
chip. It was the one Tony had taken from the body at the morgue in Geneva. Staring at the man’s brutish face, Jake understood why Tony had referred to him as
Pit Bull. The man’s real name was August Schmidt. Bringing the chip had been Timmy’s idea. He had figured the identifiers would be incorporated into whatever systems the Order had in place for its new utopian community. It was a bit of a Hail Mary, but Jake had agreed it was worth a try. It had worked. That is, until the guard noticed that the blue designator light on the wand—which was apparently reserved for security types—didn’t correspond to the coveralls and hard hat Jake was wearing.

He used the wand to scan the downed guards, memorizing their names and info. After trading his coveralls for one of their uniforms, he folded the bodies into lockers. Jonesy’s pack was wet, but it no longer dripped. He slung it over his shoulder. Then he adjusted his holster, tipped the blue baseball cap low on his forehead, and marched into the facility as if he owned the joint.

The three hard hats were still working on the second-story catwalk surrounding the middle turbine. As Jake approached them, his eyes studied the freeways of pipes and valves leading to and from the machine, cataloging every detail, nurturing the seed of a plan in his mind. He cupped a hand beside his mouth and shouted louder than was necessary. “Hey!”

The three men turned as one.

“I’m looking for Cody and Molsen,” Jake said, using the names of the guards he’d encountered. His voice was gruff. “You seen ’em?”

One of the men pointed toward the far exit. “They were headed toward the east exit a few minutes ago.”

“No, I just came from there, dammit. They were supposed to meet me outside the control room. But they were a no-show.”

At the mention of the control room, two of the men glanced unconsciously toward a doorway at the far end of the facility. That was the sign Jake needed. The third man shrugged. He said, “Maybe they—”

“Never mind,” Jake grumbled, placing a finger beneath his earlobe as a pretext that he was receiving a message. He nodded
his head, turned on his heels, and headed toward the control room.

A minute later, Jake pushed through the double doors. The space was the size of a three-car garage. Electronic control consoles spread corner to corner along three walls. Rows of switches, breakers, meters, and displays rose from the operators’ desktops to the ceiling. The third wall featured a huge backlit display that depicted power flow across the entire island complex. It was divided into four sections. Three were dedicated to the vast underground levels. The fourth was an aboveground area the size of a university campus. Jake was taken aback by the immensity of it all. How had they kept this hidden? His eyes snapped like the shutter of a camera, signaling his brain to capture every detail.

There were two younger men seated at the consoles. A stout woman with graying hair stood behind them. She wore coveralls, a hard hat, and a stern expression. “Can I help you?” she asked in a thick German accent.

Jake elected to take a different approach than he’d used outside. He walked over and extended a hand, switching to German. “I just arrived,” he said with a face that was filled with glee. “I’m waiting on…” He glanced at his clipboard. “Cody and Molsen.” He paused before adding, “I—I just can’t believe it’s finally going to happen!”

The two techs glanced over and smiled. The woman was also disarmed by his charm. She took his hand and gave it a firm shake. “I am Frau Schultz. Welcome. But you really shouldn’t be inside the control room. Would you mind waiting outside?”

“Of course not!” Jake said apologetically. But he needed one more bit of intel before leaving. He turned to go, stopping to give the wall schematic a wide-eyed stare. He focused on a section depicting the lowest level of the facility—where he was located now. There was a series of icons along the right side of the quadrant. He identified the one labeled
MAGNA CONDUIT.
If his plan was going to work, he needed to avoid it. He wanted to create a diversion, not bring down the mountain.

“This is brilliant. We’re somewhere around here, huh?” he asked, absently touching the screen. The display shifted to a schematic of the geothermal flow and control system. Jake blinked his eyes. “Oh, sorry!” he said, backing away.

Frau Schultz stepped forward and took his arm as a mother would a child’s in a china shop. She escorted him out the door. “I’m sure your associates will be here shortly,” she said stiffly. The door closed behind him, and he heard the lock engage. Jake’s smile vanished. It had been hard for him to keep his cool in there. They’d seemed so calm. So pleasant. Cocooned in their self-contained world—while the rest of the globe sat on the brink of extermination.

They called themselves the
Order
, Jake recalled. Well, welcome to
Chaos
, assholes.

He rifled through Jonesy’s pack and made his way to the turbines.

Grid Countdown: 1h:45m:30s

The Island
5:46 a.m.

“D
AMMIT!
” T
ONY SHOUTED.
“Jake just dove into the whirlpool!” Tony ducked lower as more rounds ricocheted overhead.