Critical Dawn (3 page)

“There’s only one thing we can possibly do,” Charlie said, sealing the bag and placing it on top of the files.

“What’s that?”

“We go to the dig site and do some more research first hand. Just you and I.” Charlie checked his watch. “If we set off now, we can get there in the morning. I’ll drive.”

“It’s eight hours away,” Pippa said.

“So? I was going to drive about that with the guys anyway. Don’t worry, I won’t play any cheesy ‘80s rock. Let’s grab some supplies and head off. Think of it as an adventure.”

“I’m thinking of my bed and the need to sleep,” Pippa said.

Charlie gathered up the files and placed the bead in his wallet. “Come on, you can sleep in the truck. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Fine, fine, but let’s stop off at the apartment first. Let me feed the cat and get a change of clothes.”

“Excellent!”

Charlie escorted Pippa out of the bar, his heart racing with the excitement of everything. With the electrocution and odd behavior, he knew humans couldn’t have made the bead, and he was going to go to its source and find out what the hell was going on himself … with Pippa by his side. Things didn’t get much better than that in Charlie’s world.

Ben leapt from his seat and raced out of the Operations Room. He was thrown against the corridor wall after the ship jolted.
Space turbulence or a meteor shower, he thought. This happened occasionally. Deep space wasn’t quite the smooth cruise depicted on 21
st Century movies. It was an incessant rumble with the occasional bumps and rattles.

He skidded around the entrance of the common room. Erika sat hugging herself, shaking.

“Are you okay?”

“What was that, Ben?”

“There’s all kinds of debris out there. Relax, it’s nothing we haven’t been through before.”

She pointed to the internal wall. “Didn’t you feel it? Before the bump, I heard a bang below. The wall vibrated.”

“Probably the same thing. Don’t worry about it.”

“No. I was sitting with my back against—”

Ben was lifted off his feet and slammed against the wall. Erika screamed, grasping her chair. Plates and cups fell from the
dish drainer and smashed on the floor. The whole place seemed to shudder.

An electronic alarm started to loudly pulse, drowning out Erika’s cries. Ceiling lights flickered. The common room door started to steadily slide shut. It was probably an isolation procedure in case of a fire. Ben hadn’t seen it before.

He didn’t want to get trapped inside. Maria might need his help in the Operations Room.

Ben dove to the door and held it open with the sole of his boot, using the opposite side of the frame for support. He strained against the power, but was slowly losing the battle.

“Quick, jump under my legs,” Ben said.

“What’s happening? Where we going?”

The force increased as the door mechanism’s pitch grew louder.

“Just do it, Erika. I can’t hold on for much longer.”

“Shouldn’t we stay–”

“Do you want to get trapped in here?”

Ben’s words seemed to propel her into action. She dropped to the floor and slid underneath his quivering right leg. He immediately jumped to the side and rolled away. The door sprang across and hammered closed with a thump.

He pulled Erika to her feet. “All hands on deck. Come on.”

The Operations Room door was closed. Ben peered through the thick plastic window, which had frosted through age. He could just make out the blurred figures of Maria sitting at the console and Ethan standing over her. He thumped his fist against the plastic. The two inside both turned. Maria ran to the window and shouted something. He couldn’t hear a word above the alarm blasts, shook his head, and gestured to his ear. She pointed to the console. He couldn’t see clearly past a few feet.

“Is there a way to open it? An emergency switch or something?” Erika said.

“No, they’re controlled externally. We might have a fire on the ship. Wait here.”

He opened a cupboard next to the supply hatch and rummaged through the tools. Ben grabbed a wrecking bar and returned to the door. Erika was trying to communicate something through the window.

“Stand back. Give me some room,” Ben said.

He’d got used to the squashed confines, but now it felt like the walls were closing in. Ben faced his first real situation. The bellowing alarm and blinking lights had made the place come alive in a way he hadn’t witnessed before. The prospect of having more excitement in his life suddenly became a lot less appealing.

After managing to jam the toe of the bar into a groove, he placed his foot against the wall for leverage and heaved. The door opened a couple inches then snapped elastically shut.

“Give me a hand. Grab the end of the bar,” he said.

The door squeezed open a few more inches. Ben felt sweat running down his back. He was about to let go when a chair leg shot through the opened space. The door banged against it and settled, leaving a small gap.

Maria stood on the other side.

“We need you in here. There’s a serious problem,” she said.

“Get Ethan over here. It’ll take the four of us to get this open,” Ben said. He turned to Erika. “Find something solid to wedge in the gap.”

“Like what?”

“Grab the toolbox. That should do it.”

He gazed into the Operations Room. Three of the critical measurements were red. The fourth was green, stable. An electric crackle came from the console followed by a wisp of smoke.

Four hands appeared, gripping around the door.

Ben positioned the bar. Erika returned, leaned under him with the toolbox by her feet.

“After three,” Ben shouted. He tried to count down between the rhythmic pulses of the alarm. “One … Two … Three.”

They managed to create a two-foot gap. All seemed to be shouting through exertion in unison. Erika grunted next to his ear.

“Now. Do it,” Ben said.

She ducked down. The door closed a few inches against their pull. Erika slid the box in place.

Ben couldn’t hold any longer. He let go and bent over double, resting his hands on his knees, gulping for air. The door crunched against the toolbox, but it held firm and did its job.

He straightened and edged through the gap. A burning smell hit him as he approached the console. Not like the type when he over-cooked food, this odor had a bitter edge. The crew converged around him.

“We’ve escalated the problem. No response,” Maria said.

Ben looked at the switches on the console. “You tried the manual override?”

“Same thing. What can we do?”

He was struggling to hear a thing. “Take the bar and stop that fucking noise.”

Erika grabbed the tool from the floor. Ethan dragged a chair to the corner of the Operations Room. In each area of the compartment was a circular plastic speaker on the ceiling.

Ben flicked the override switches. Nothing. He pressed the console screen to escalate. No response.

He pressed again several times. “Come on.”

The fourth critical measurement shot from green to red.

Sparks fizzed from behind the console, spitting across the room. Maria jumped back.

Thumping came from behind him as Ethan and Erika attacked the speaker.

Ben depressed the call button. “Master Control. This is the Operations Room. Do you copy?” He waited for a response. “Master Control. Are you there?”

Maria shook his shoulder. “All eight are red. All eight are red.”

He glanced at the status bars.

The alarm took on a high-pitched whistle. Ben turned to see that they’d broken off the protective plastic cover. Maria cupped her ears from the piercing sound. Ethan winced as he thrust the bar against a concave, black internal structure.

After what seemed to be minutes but was probably seconds, the shrill stopped. The jarring pulse continued in other areas of the compartment.

“You want us to do the rest?” Erika said.

“Okay. You two do that. We’ll deal with the fallout later,” Ben said.

Ethan and Erika left the room.

He tried the console screen again, pressing harder against the glass. Trying to get any kind of response from the icons.

He thumbed the call button again. “Master Control. Are you there? Master Control …”

“It’s no use. I was trying before …” Maria said.

“Well, we keep trying—”

The light flickered off, leaving the Operations Room dimly illuminated by the red status bars and green console screen.

“Master Control. Can you hear me?” Ben said.

The speaker buzzed and crackled. “This is Control.”

He bolted toward the speaker. “Thank God. Can you update us?”

“Activate stasis preservation in two minutes.”

“Roger that. What’s happening?”

Maria yelped after a loud, electric snap from below the console. Sparks shot across the floor. The screen faded to black, leaving only the red status bars to give off any kind of ambience.

“Control, are you there? … Control?” Ben said. He turned to Maria. “I think it’s died.”

“What did they mean?”

“Stay here, I’ll tell you when I get back,” Ben said.

“Ben, wait …”

“We’ve got an option. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Ben squeezed through the gap in the door. The toolbox was reinforced with a metal table from the sleeping quarters. The door mechanism unsuccessfully shunted against the obstacles.

At the end of the corridor, Ethan hacked away at another speaker, and Erika held the chair steady in support.

“Meet me in the Ops Room,” Ben shouted. Neither acknowledged. They probably couldn’t hear him from their position next to the alarm. He’d grab them on his way back.

Ben entered the sleeping quarters, a small room with two bunks on either side, four lockers at the end, and a door to the bathroom. The lights had cut, and the alarm boomed overhead. Ben opened his locker and swiped his spare clothing to one side. He fumbled in the dark, grabbed a metal card from the back shelf, and stuffed it in his pocket.

He flinched as a hand grasped his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Erika said.

Ethan appeared in the gloom, holding the wrecking bar. “Just this one to go. We can’t get in the common room.”

“Come with me. Now. We’re getting out of here,” Ben said.

“Leaving?” Erika said.

“I’ll explain when we’re all together.”

“Okay, lead the way.”

He felt his way along a bunk and headed back toward the red glow of the Operations Room. Maria sat away from the console, which was starting to smoke.

“Come out here. It’s not safe in there,” Ben said.

She stepped over the toolbox and table. They stood in a huddle next to the supply hatch.

Ben pulled the metal card out of his pocket and held it up. Six numbers were stamped across the middle. The crew leaned toward him for a closer inspection.

“Listen up. A week before Jimmy left, he gave me this,” Ben said.

“What is it?” Maria said.

“It’s a code to use only in emergency situations. While you two were smashing the corridor alarm, we had an instruction to activate stasis preservation.”

“You heard from Master Control?” Erika said.

“Briefly. We managed to get instructions.”

“What’s stasis preservation?” Ethan said.

“If we take a big hit, come under attack, lose power, or whatever, all operational resources are to concentrate on restoring or maintaining essential services, the main engines, and stasis units. We’re earmarked for the stasis wing. There’s a lot of important people down there.”

“Why didn’t we know about this?” Maria said.

“It falls to the senior member to take responsibility, which is me since Jimmy left. Priority-wise, we’re a second tier service.”

“Is it a code for the airlock?” Erika said.

“It’s exactly that,” Ben said. “We’re going down to help the stasis team. My guess is that engineering will sort this place out later.”

“Do you think they’ll let us stay? Send others here?” Ethan said.

“It’s not even worth thinking about—”

The compartment rattled after a loud, external boom. They skidded sideways. Ben grabbed the handle of the supply hatch to maintain balance. Erika screamed. Ethan grabbed Ben’s shoulder. His face contorted with terror.

“Keep your cool. We’ll get through this,” Ben said.

The crew pressed themselves against the metallic wall for support.

Maria clutched Ben’s wrist. “Two minutes, they said.”

He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ben traversed the corridor to the airlock, held the card next to the silver keypad, and started punching in the numbers.

The three joined Ben, crouching around him in anticipation for another jolt.

A green LED to the side of the buttons lit up after he keyed in the last digit. A white light winked above the airlock, and the countdown timer started at fifty-nine seconds.

“Bet you didn’t expect this on your first day?” Maria said.

“It’s going to be okay, right?” Ethan said.

“We’ll be fine. Trust me,” Ben said.

The truth was, he didn’t know what the hell was happening. For the past thirteen years, he’d robotically carried out his shifts, eaten, slept, and studied. This was as new to him as it was to the new arrival.

Whooshing from behind the airlock grew louder. The timer neared zero.

“Ready guys?” Ben said.

The airlock slid open with a reassuring hiss. Light filled the corridor.

Ben stepped into the bright silver space. The others joined him. He looked over to Maria, who returned his gaze.

A neutral female voice came from the internal speaker. “Door closing.”

Charlie yawned and reached over the dashboard of his truck to get his Wayfarer shades. The sun’s glare reflected off his rearview mirror. The clock on the dashboard indicated it had just turned 8 a.m.

Some overly loud radio presenter was just finishing up the morning show. He mistook himself for Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, only he didn’t have the talent and this wasn’t the ‘60s, but still, the next track on was James Brown’s “I Feel Good.”

Despite himself, Charlie sang along as he cruised across the deserted Virginia Dare Memorial bridge that connected Roanoke Island with the North Virginia mainland. They’d be at the dig site in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in less than thirty minutes.

“Jesus,” Pippa said, sitting up from her slouched position in the passenger chair, wiping at her eyes. “How can anyone be so damned perky at this time of morning? Especially after that journey.”

“It’s only been nine hours. We’ve made good time. Come on, Pip, sing with me. I feel nice! Sugar and spice.”

Pippa turned the radio down. “I don’t know what’s worse: your singing or your chirpy mood. Have you taken something while I was asleep?”

Charlie grinned. He hadn’t taken anything, but the thrill of the road trip and the discovery was enough to keep him buzzing all day. He loved these kinds of trips, driving across the state, watching dawn approach. It had a sense of change to it, the colors in the sky brightening, bringing with them a new sense of momentum, a promise of new adventures and truths waiting to be uncovered.

“Don’t be a grouch, Pip. We could be making massive news by the end of the day. Think of the opportunities. You’ll be more famous than Zavi Rammas.”

“Zahi Hawass,” Pip corrected.

“Yeah, that dude.”

Charlie continued on, taking Highway 64 through Manns Harbor, leaving the glistening Croatoan Sound behind. A few gulls were busy fishing as he continued toward the mainland.

A few more cars appeared on the road, but being an early Saturday morning, the place still felt like it was deserted. Charlie always liked this part of the world. Lots of greenery. It felt natural. The Wildlife Refuge itself was one of the first places he had visited here once he was approached to survey the place.

“If we have time, you fancy hiring some kayaks for a trip down Mill Tail Creek? I hear it’s a real nice trip heading up to Alligator River.”

“I don’t do boat trips,” Pippa said. “I prefer a nice quiet bar and some food. I’m starving.”

“There’s still some donuts in the back.”

“Want one?” Pippa asked.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll get some eggs in town after we’ve finished at the dig. So tell me, if we check it out and prove the beads were definitely there at the time, and by now we know for definite the freaky little bastards aren’t human-made, at least from that period, what’s your guess? Or let me rephrase: What do you want them to be?”

Pippa pulled the small brown bag into the front. The bottom was darkened by grease. She took out a chocolate-covered donut and bit into it, her cheeks puffing like a hamster as she talked. “Well. It’s got to be aliens, right?” She swallowed the donut and washed it down with a bottle of water. “I mean, it needs to be something that was technologically advanced beyond anything we’ve seen before. Even now, they would be a technological marvel. So other than extraterrestrial origins, and that could either be aliens or perhaps they came down on a meteorite or something, the only other explanation would be time travel, and that’s just as crazy.”

Charlie slowed as a tractor pulled out on the road from a farm to his left. He waited for a clear space and throttled his Ram truck, speeding past the farmer. He held his hand up as he passed and got a wave back from the farmer.

“Friendly people,” Charlie said. “I wonder how they’ll react when this place becomes home to a million news reporters. You realize that if this is what it seems and it gets out, it’ll be the biggest news story in human history.”

“That’s what scares me the most. It’s so … out there. What if we’re discredited? You know what the media is like. We could have our careers ruined.”

“Or it could make our careers. Why be pessimistic about it?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t trust the media. How many times have we seen a historical program butchered for accuracy to sensationalize something or to make it more entertaining? The media don’t do truth. They’ll have us as crazy scientists with a crackpot theory.”

“Fuck them,” Charlie said. “We’ll do this right. We’ll figure it out based on evidence. No one will be able to accuse us of not doing our due diligence.”

A police cruiser with its light flashing shot past Charlie’s truck, its siren blaring. Behind, a fire truck followed.

In the distance, Charlie saw a dust cloud rise. “Is that … from the dig site?”

Pippa leaned forward and squinted. “I don’t know for sure. It’s in the same direction.”

Charlie floored the accelerator and followed the fire truck and police cruiser. With each mile, the anxiety built inside. It seemed they were going the same way. As they approached a turning, he muttered to himself, “Please don’t turn.”

But they did.

“This doesn’t seem good,” Pippa said.

Charlie followed but hung back from the emergency vehicles. They took the exact route he had planned to get to the site. When he turned out of Cedar Drive, he saw the cruiser and the fire truck pulled up at the dig.

By the time Charlie had negotiated the rough dirt track and pulled up to the gate, police tape was already being dragged across and around a section of the clearing. Charlie leaned out of the window. “What’s going on?”

An officer came to him. “Please turn around, sir. This area is closed to the public for now.”

“I work here,” Charlie said. “I’m with Quaternary Productions. This is our dig site.”

“Not anymore, son.”

The anxiety was turning to ice inside his guts as he turned off the ignition and approached the officer. “What exactly do you mean?” He showed him his ID to prove that he was who he said he was. Pippa got out of the passenger side and joined Charlie at the gate.

“What’s happening?” she said.

The officer held the tape up, satisfied they were who they said they were. “It’s probably best if you come and see for yourselves.”

They followed him under the tape and into the clearing. Dust and dirt clung to the air, obscuring the trees. It felt like they were entering the eye of a twister. The fire truck’s lights were flashing, giving the place a surreal feel. They reflected off the flapping, white fabric of their finds tent that they had set up. Its poles were snapped, and it covered the ground. The fire truck obscured the actual trench. The police officer led them through and then stood with his arm out. “Don’t go any further,” he said.

“Holy crap!” Pippa put her hand to her mouth as her eyes widened with surprise. Charlie followed her gaze, and his jaw dropped.

The trench was gone.

In its place was a thirty-foot-wide hole. A sinkhole.

Stephanie Marks, one of the senior archeologists, was standing at the perimeter, her face against the police officer’s chest. She was crying and talking, the words coming out in a frantic jumble.

Charlie and Pippa rushed to her.

“Steph, what’s wrong?” Pippa asked.

The brunette woman turned to face them. Her eyes were rimmed with red as tears streaked down her craggy face.

“Take your time,” Charlie said.

Stephanie took a few deep breaths and wiped her face, getting control of herself. Behind her, the rest of the tent slipped into the hole, the wind pushing it over the edge.

“Oh my God. I came over early to double check the site as you suggested in your email. Luke was supposed to meet me here, but I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not answering his phone. I think he might have gone …” she broke away as tears came again. She turned to look at the sinkhole.

A group of firemen were preparing a camera on a rope to send down the sinkhole. “Are you sure he was here?” Charlie asked. “Mine and Pip’s phones haven’t had a signal all night. The cell reception’s all screwed up. He might not have fallen in. Have you tried his home number?”

Steph nodded. “No answer. It just keeps ringing.”

That was odd, Charlie thought. He knew Luke, one of the local college kids helping out on the dig, had an answering machine. If he weren’t there, surely the machine would pick up.

“You have to get someone down there,” Steph said to the officer. “He could be down there now waiting to be rescued. What if he’s badly hurt?”

The officer turned out to be Sherriff Mackelson. He’d come from the local town. “We’re doing all we can, Ma’am; we’re low on resources right now.”

“Why?” Pippa asked. “Surely you could spare more than one fire crew and yourself. There might be a kid stuck down there.”

“This isn’t the only sinkhole,” Mackelson said. “Another one opened up in Franklin’s Farm a few hours ago. Lost a cattle shed and two farmhands. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but in all my years, nothing like this has happened before. We’re dealing with it all as best we can.”

“Where are the finds, the skeleton?” Pippa asked, her voice sounding distracted.

“At the college’s archeological department,” Stephanie said. “They were all transferred over last night. The kids and Professor Marsh are doing the cataloguing.”

“Okay, good. At least that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about. What else has gone down there?”

Stephanie looked around for a moment as if taking an inventory of things that were no longer there. “Just the tent and some digging equipment and a few trays. Nothing valuable. But I’m worried about Luke. I said I’d meet him here … This is all my fault. I should have left well enough alone. He wasn’t even supposed to be working with me this weekend.”

“Nonsense,” Pippa said, clutching the woman’s shoulder. “It was me that asked you here. If anyone is to be blamed, it’s me.”

The officer excused himself and approached the lead fireman. They had hooked up the camera to a rope and a cable. A small laptop had been set up on a temporary table about twenty feet away from the hole. Ignoring the safety tape, Charlie marched forward and joined the firemen.

“Don’t mind me,” Charlie said. “I work here … or what used to be here.”

“Sir, please, stand back. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“It’s fine, I’ll sign a damned form if I have to, but I’m going nowhere. Now let’s see what’s down there. I don’t know about you, but I kind of want this to get a move on if there’s a kid down there. Do we even know how deep it’s sunk?”

A grizzled, grey-haired man gave him a stern look and gave up trying to be authoritative. Charlie had the demeanor that he wouldn’t be fucked with. “Well, on casual inspection, at least sixty feet. Possibly deeper. We’ll find out shortly.”

The image of the screen started to change as the camera slipped over the edge and was fed by one of the firemen down into the sinkhole. At first, the image was too blurred and dark to make out, but then the light came on, creating a glow around the center of the camera. The focus worked for a few seconds before sharpening the image. In the upper right corner of the screen, a digital readout of the depth increased in foot increments.

“Slower,” the fire chief said.

Charlie leaned in to get a look at the rock. “Looks smooth,” he said. “Is that normal for a sinkhole?”

The chief shrugged. “First one I’ve experienced.”

During his college course, Charlie had briefly covered the massive sinkhole network in Florida. Most of those were caused by clay covering a limestone cave system. When the weight on the clay cap got too much, from building works or excessive rain, it’d crack, and the material above the clay layer would fall down into the weak limestone. He knew that wasn’t the case here. The soil wasn’t rich with clay, and there was no known network of limestone erosion beneath.

The camera reached just over one hundred feet when something glinted under the light of the camera. “What’s that?” Pippa pointed out excitedly as she and Steph joined the others huddled around the screen.

“Zooming in,” the chief said. “Shit, it … it looks like the glass screen of a smart phone.”

Steph shrieked and clapped her hand to her mouth before mumbling, “Oh my God, it’s Luke’s. He must be down there. Oh my God.” Pippa took her away from the scene.

The sheriff returned after finally finishing his call. “What are we looking at?”

“A cell phone,” the chief said. “And … Wait … I can see a jacket among the debris.”

Steph’s face when white as she looked at the screen. “That’s Luke’s.”

Charlie rushed away to his truck. Pippa followed him. “What are you doing?”

He moved to the rear of the truck, opened the door, and pulled out a rucksack filled with ropes and climbing gear. “I’m going down there.”