Submerged (32 page)

He pressed the switch. There was a spark, the
room darkened, and the doorway appeared as the grains of sand
dropped to the floor. A second later they had reassembled
themselves and filled the doorway again. Fresh air rushed in.

“How can they do that so fast?” Dean asked.
“It’s impossible.”

“Guess not,” Finn said.

“I estimate it took them one second to do
that,” Gleason said.

“Thirty years ago, I saw the terrain change
from desert to forest to ocean in seconds,” Zeisler added. “And
we’re talking acres of change.”

“We do this in shifts,” Perry said. “One
person should be able to make it through in a second. A second is a
long time.” He paused. “We need a test subject.”

“Mr. MacCumhail goes first,” Dean said.

“And why is that?” Carl asked.

“Because he has a responsibility to our
nation. He’s the highest-ranking individual on the premises.”

“So much for women and children first,” Jack
said.

Dean raised his gun. “Mr. MacCumhail goes
first.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Finn said. He hacked.
“You and Tuttle are to follow right after me.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “At least his homeland
is secure.”

“You doubt my courage?” Finn asked. His tone
was bitter.

“I doubt everything about you,” Jack
answered.

“Let’s just do this,” Gleason said. “The
influx of air was helpful, but it’s fading fast. I could use
another blast.”

Perry raised the stun gun. “Ready?”

Finn nodded and stepped to the spot where the
door had been. “Go.”

Perry stuck the electronic device into the
wall and pressed the trigger. Sand rained down, and Finn leaped
through the opening. There was a
whoosh
,
and half a second
later the wall was back in place.

“Is it just me or was the reassembly
faster?”

“It’s learning,” Zeisler said. “That’s what
it does. It learns even as it dies.”

“Next,” Perry said. “Let’s speed this up. The
train is leaving, if you know what I mean.”

Dean turned to Tuttle. “You good to go?”

“Yes, sir, but you should go first.”

Dean looked at the others, then back at
Tuttle. “Here.” He handed Tuttle his sidearm. “There’s no time to
reassemble yours. If they give you any trouble . . . you know.”

“Understood, sir.”

Dean stepped to the same spot that Finn had
occupied moments earlier. “Hit it.”

Perry did. The sand fell, and Dean charged
forward.

He tripped. The wall had partially
deconstructed, leaving a two-foot rise at the threshold.

“Uh-oh,” Gleason said. “It’s catching
on.”

“That, or the battery is losing some of its
power. That wall may be draining it faster than it was designed to
handle.” Perry looked at Tuttle. “You may have to jump for it.”

“Don’t worry about me, Sachs. I can handle
it.”

“Say when.”

Tuttle stood several steps back from where
Finn and Dean had. He lowered his head, then worked his fingers on
the gun. “Now.” He started forward.

Perry hit the button.

Sand fell, then reassembled itself. There was
a muted scream—a horrible, blood-freezing wail.

Tuttle was stuck in the wall. His right foot
and left elbow was still in the room. How much of the man was on
the outside, Perry could only guess, and guessed it wasn’t much.
Perry plunged the stun gun’s points into the wall again and fired
the trigger. Nothing.

Tuttle’s foot twitched. There was another
soul-chilling wail, then the foot stopped moving.

“No!” Perry pressed the trigger again . . .
and again . . . again. Nothing.

A big hand took Perry by the wrist. “It’s too
late, pal. It’s over.”

Perry pressed the trigger again. Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing.

Behind him, the dripping had become a
trickle.

Perry felt sick, more from the shock of
watching Tuttle die in an unimaginable way than from the rising
fumes. Still, the fumes were the pressing problem. Opening the
doorway had allowed some fresh air in and vented some of the putrid
air. But now the amount of water falling was increasing and with it
the amount of noxious fumes.

“At least we were on the right track,”
Gleason said. “I can’t tell if the last effort failed because the
stun device had used its battery or because this place adapts so
quickly.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Carl said. “We have to
come up with another way out.”

“It does matter,” Perry insisted. “If it’s
the battery, then we might be able to hook up some of the batteries
from the power tools for another jolt.” Perry fired the stun gun
again. Nothing happened. He opened it and found two 9-volt
batteries. They were warm to the touch. “Okay, Gleason, how do we
get juice from the rotary tool to this thing?”

“I can try, Perry, but the doorway closed up
so fast, I’m not sure any of us could make it through in time.”

“What about the water?” Jack asked. “Water is
dripping on the sand and releasing fumes. That means the material
must be dissolving. We have water bottles. Maybe we could melt our
way through.”

“That would generate more fumes,” Zeisler
said. “We’d be killing ourselves faster.”

“We’re killing ourselves if we do nothing,”
Janet said. “I say we try the water thing.”

“I say we try both,” Perry stated. “Gleason,
let’s get started on those batteries. Maybe we can rig a sustained
charge that would keep the thing open a little longer.”

Janet coughed. Then coughed again. She
doubled over. The gas had filled the domed ceiling and was working
its way down. Carl went to her side.

“Time is gone,” Zeisler murmured.

Perry’s mind raced. He was out of options. He
knew he didn’t have time to find a way to wire incompatible
batteries to the stun gun. At most they had a handful of minutes.
Sadness swept over Perry. He had failed his father; he had failed
his friends. He didn’t fear death, he had faced it before, and he
had made his peace with God many years ago. For him, death was the
great adventure, but he felt an obligation for the lives of
Zeisler, Carl, Janet, and his friends. They were all here because
he allowed them to believe that they might save his father. As far
as Perry was concerned, that made them his responsibility.

He lowered his head. The pain in his heart
hurt more than the pain in his lungs.

“It’s been a good ride, pal,” Jack said. “No
regrets.”

Perry looked up. Jack was smiling. Next to
him was Gleason, who grinned and echoed Jack’s “No regrets.”

Gleason’s words pierced Perry like a flaming
arrow. Gleason had a wife and two children waiting for him. Too
many times Perry had dragged the family man to distant parts of the
world. Now he had robbed Gleason’s family of a husband and
father.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help your father,”
Jack said.

The fumes inched down the walls.

“I have been blessed to have the world’s best
friends—”

“We’re going about this all wrong,” Zeisler
said. “All wrong.” He walked to the pit and looked in. “All
wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Perry asked.

Zeisler peered up to the shaft above the pit,
the shaft through which the water was falling.

“Are you thinking of diverting the water?”
Jack asked. “That’s a good idea. It might buy enough time—”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Zeisler said. “In a few
minutes, the water flow will be too much, and we have no place to
divert it.” He looked at the sand again. Perry saw wafting white
vapor rising like gossamer steam from a cup of tea. “Get by the
door.”

“What are you thinking?” Perry asked.

“I’m thinking we’re all going to suffocate or
drown as our own fluids fill our lungs. I did this once; I can do
it again.”

“Do what?” Perry pressed.

“It’s odd that I should think of this now,”
Zeisler said. He gazed straight into Perry’s eyes. “I had colon
cancer about ten years ago. I went through extensive chemotherapy.
Tell your father’s doctors that. I’ve got a feeling that’s why I
didn’t come down with what killed the others.”

“We’ll come up with something, Dr.
Zeisler.”

“Ironically, I came here to kill this thing.
I didn’t want to die like the others. Now it appears that it’s
going to kill me anyway. Get by the door.”

“Hey, Doc, listen to Perry—” Jack
started.

“Get by the door!” Zeisler screamed.

“Maybe we should listen to him,” Jack said,
motioning for the others to join him.

Perry held his ground. “Dr. Zeisler—”

“If you had a rifle, and a bear was charging
you and your friends, what would you do?”

“Shoot it,” Perry said without
hesitation.

“We’ve been hoping this place would stay
together long enough for us to get out of this room. It’s trying to
hold itself together and keep us here. I don’t think it can do that
for very long. It’s time to shoot the bear.”

Zeisler climbed in the ring. The column of
light intensified. The floating disks began to spin faster. Perry
remembered that Zeisler said when he had done this thirty years ago
he had been able to change the terrain a few times before he lost
control. Then he was awash with violent pain and had survived
because Perry’s father had pulled him from the ring.

The ring, Zeisler had learned, was never
meant to be entered. The entity had even tried to communicate that
by saying, “Outside.”

A voice echoed in the chamber: “Out . . .
side . . . out.”

The water began to pour. Milky gas rose like
a San Francisco fog. The walls went clear. Perry could see a flat
expanse of sand. Not desert, just a flat surface of granules. The
dome above was black. The walls went opaque again, and the fall of
water lessened.

“It’s trying to choose where to put its
power—holding back the water or holding us in,” Gleason said.
“Zeisler is throwing a monkey wrench into the gears.”

“Zeisler
is
the
monkey wrench,” Jack said.

“We have to get him out—”

“The door!” Janet hollered. “The door is
open!”

“Move!” Jack shouted.

Perry snapped his head around to see the
opening free and clear. Tuttle’s body lay just outside. Carl pushed
Janet through and followed on her heels. Gleason was a half step
behind.

“Zeisler,” Perry called, “it worked. Come
on.”

Zeisler didn’t respond. He was leaning
against the edge of the ring, his hands to his head.

“I’m going after him,” Perry said.

“No, you’re not,” a voice declared.

Perry took a step, then was lifted off his
feet.

“It’s closing. Get out!” Gleason yelled.

Perry’s feet touched the ground once before
he became airborne again. Jack had him by the back of the shirt and
by the belt. A half second later, Perry was facedown on the sand
outside. Jack landed on him. The door filled in again.

“No! Get off me, Jack.”

“He’s gone,” Jack said. “I looked at him
before I came through. The last thing I saw was him collapsing in
the pit. He gave his life for us.”

“You chose me over him,” Perry fired back.
“You should have grabbed him!”

“No, I didn’t. You were the closest. I would
never have reached him in time and made it back to the door. You
would have done the same.”

Perry stood and faced his friend. He was
furious. Anger and fear boiled to the top. “How am I supposed to
live with this? How am I supposed to live, knowing I let that man
die?”

Jack looked back, crestfallen. “You don’t
have to live with it, Perry. I do.”

Chapter31

“We have to go now,
guys,”
Gleason said. “The water is coming down pretty good.
I’m afraid hunks of ceiling are going to start coming with it.”

Perry looked up and saw the column of light
reaching for the ceiling that was too far and dark to see.

“It’s going to be like a dam. Once one hunk
goes, it all goes,” Gleason added.

“It’s a long run,” Carl said.

“Then we had better get going. Once the lake
water hits all this sand, it isn’t going to be pretty.” Perry
stopped. “Where are Finn and Dean?”

“They were gone when we came through,” Janet
said. “They left us and their man behind.”

“I suggest you lose the Sam Browne belt and
the body armor, Deputy. It’s going to slow you down, and if, God
forbid, we have to swim, you don’t want to be carrying all
that.”

Janet peeled off her torn uniform shirt and
started running back the way they had come. As she ran, Perry saw
her pop loose the support straps that held the utility belt to her
uniform belt and then unbuckle the Sam Browne. It dropped behind
her.

They moved as fast as they could in the sand.
Perry’s injured lungs complained with bursts of pain, but he kept
up the pace. Pain was no longer a factor. They were trying to
outrun the equivalent of an underground tsunami. If they were right
about the base’s inability to hold its integrity, and if the
ceiling gave way at any point, floodwaters would come down with
such force that nothing would be able to stand in its way. And
nothing would survive.

Perry prayed as he ran. He thought of his
father. He thought of Zeisler. He thought of his friends. Running
in sand was taxing. They were already beaten down by all that they
had experienced, and now they were asking more of their bodies than
any of them had a right to. But they ran anyway.

Carl fell, but Jack had him back on his feet
before anyone else could reach him. Janet was proving the strongest
of the group. She led the way. Carl was close behind. Jack and
Gleason ran together. Perry brought up the rear. Every few moments,
Jack glanced over his shoulder and made eye contact.

Ten strides had become a hundred, and a
hundred became a hundred more. There was no conversation. Every
breath was too precious. Every thought had to be focused on escape.
Perry wondered about Dean and Finn. They had had a head start, but
they had come in by a different access—an access that Zeisler had
implied as being difficult.