Zero Game (24 page)

47

S
LAMMING BOTH HANDS
against the polished steel double doors, Viv pushes as hard as she can. They don’t budge. Behind her, I stand on my tiptoes to get a look through the windows, but the glass is opaque. We can’t see inside. The sign on the doors says,
Warning:
Authorized Personnel Only.

“Let me try,” I say as she steps aside. Shoving my shoulder against the center of the doors, I feel the right one give slightly, but it doesn’t go anywhere. As I step back for another pass, I see my warped reflection in the rivets. These things are brand-new.

“Hold on a second,” Viv calls out. “What about ringing the doorbell?”

On my right, built into the rock, is a metal plate with a thick black button. I was so focused on the door, I didn’t even see it. Viv reaches out to push it.

“Don’t—” I call out.

Again I’m too late. She rams her palm into the button.

There’s a tremendous hiss, and we both jump back. The double doors shudder, the hiss slowly exhales like a yawn, and two pneumatic air cylinders unfold their arms. The left door opens toward me; the right door goes the other way.

I crane my head to get a better look. “Viv . . .”

“I’m on it,” she says, pointing her light inside. But the only thing that’s there—about ten feet ahead—is another set of double doors. And another black button. Like the doors behind us, there’s a matching set of opaque windows. Whatever’s giving off that light is still inside.

I nod to Viv, who once again presses the black button. This time, though, nothing happens.

“Press it again,” I say.

“I am . . . It’s stuck.”

Behind us, there’s another loud hiss as the original steel doors begin to close. We’ll be locked in. Viv spins around, about to run. I stay where I am.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“What’re you talking about?” she asks, panicking. The doors are about to squeeze shut. This is our last chance to get out.

I scan the cave walls and the exposed rocky ceiling. No video cameras or any other security devices. A tiny sign on the top left-hand corner of the door says,
Vapor-Tight Door.
There we go.

“What?”
Viv asks.

“It’s an air-lock.”

There’s less than an inch to go.

“A what?”

With a heavy thunk, the outer doors slam shut and the cylinders lock into place. A final, extended hiss whistles through the air, like an old-fashioned train settling into the station.

We’re now stuck between the two sets of doors. Twisting back to the black button, Viv pounds it as hard as she can.

There’s an even louder mechanical hiss as the doors in front of us rumble. Viv looks back at me. I expect her to be relieved. But the way her eyes jump around . . . She’s hiding it well, but she’s definitely scared. I don’t blame her.

As the doors churn open, a burst of bright light and a matching gust of cold wind come whipping through the hairline crack. It blows my hair back, and we both shut our eyes. The wind dies fast as the two zones equalize. I can already taste the difference in the air. Sweeter . . . almost sharp on my tongue. Instead of sucking in millions of dust particles, I feel a blast of icy air cooling my lungs. It’s like drinking from a dirty puddle, then having a glass of purified water. As I finally open my eyes, it takes me a few seconds to adjust. The light is too bright. I lower my eyes and blink back to normalcy.

The floor is bright white linoleum. Instead of a narrow tunnel, we’re in a wide-open, stark white room that’s bigger than an ice-skating rink. The ceiling rises to at least twenty feet, and the right-hand wall is covered with brand-new circuit breakers—top-notch electricals. Along the floor, hundreds of red, black, and green wires are bundled together in electronic braids that’re as thick as my neck. On my left, there’s an open alcove labeled
Changing Station,
complete with cubbies for dirty boots and mine helmets. Right now, though, the alcove’s filled with lab tables, a half-dozen bubble-wrapped computer hubs and routers, and two state-of-the-art slick, black computer servers. Whatever Wendell Mining is doing down here, they’re still setting up.

I turn to Viv. Her eyes are locked on the stacks of cardboard boxes piled all around the immaculate white room. On the side of each box, there’s one word written in black Magic Marker:
Lab.

She looks down at the oxygen detector. “21.1 percent.”

Even better than what we had up top.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asks.

I shake my head, unable to answer. It doesn’t make any sense. I look around at the polished chrome and the marble tabletops and replay the question over and over in my head: What’s a multimillion-dollar laboratory doing eight thousand feet below the surface of the earth?

48

D
OWN IN THE BASEMENT
of the red brick building, Janos stopped at the charging station for the battery packs and mine lights. He’d been there once before—right after Sauls hired him. In the six months since, nothing had changed. Same depressing hallway, same low ceiling, same dirt-caked equipment.

Taking a closer look, he counted two openings in the charging station—one on each side. Thinking they were playing the odds, they gambled, he realized. That’s how it always is, especially when people are panicking. Everybody gambles.

As he moved further up the hallway, Janos stepped past the wooden benches and entered the large room with the elevator shaft. Avoiding the shaft, he headed for the wall with the phone and fire alarm. No one goes down without first making a call.

“Hoist . . .” the operator answered.

“Hey, there—was hoping you could help me out,” Janos said as he pressed the receiver to his ear. “I’m looking for some friends . . . two of them . . . and was just wondering if you sent them down in the cage, or if they’re still up top?”

“From Ramp Level, I sent one guy down, but I’m pretty sure he was alone.”

“You positive? He should’ve definitely been with someone . . .”

“Honey, all I do is move ’em up and down. Maybe his friend went in up top.”

Janos looked up through the elevator shaft at the level that was directly above. That’s where most people came in . . . but Harris and Viv . . . they’d be looking to keep it quiet. That’s why they would’ve followed the tunnel down here . . .

“You sure he didn’t just go down by himself?” the operator asked.

But just as Janos was about to answer, he stopped. His first wife called it
intuition.
His second wife called it
lion’s instinct.
Neither was right. It’d always been more cerebral that that. Don’t just
follow
your prey.
Think
like them. Harris and Viv were trapped. They’d be searching for a safety net . . . and they’d look everywhere to find it . . .

Gripping the edge of the short wall, Janos slid around to the opposite side, where a square piece of wood held fifty-two nails. He focused on the two metal tags labeled
15
and
27.
Two tags. They were still together.

Swiping both tags from the board, he looked down at them in his hand. Everybody gambles, he said to himself—but what’s most important to remember is that at some point, everybody also loses.

49

T
HINK THEY KNOW
we’re here?” Viv asks, shutting off her mine light.

I look around, checking the corners of the laboratory. The brackets are attached to the wall, and exposed wiring dangles down, but the surveillance cameras aren’t up yet. “I think we’re clear.”

As I said, she’s done taking my word for it. “Hello . . . anyone home?” she calls out.

No one answers.

Stepping deeper into the lab, I point to the trail of muddy footprints along the otherwise stark white floor. It weaves back and toward the far left corner of the room, then down another corridor in the rear. Only one way to go . . .

“I thought you said Matthew authorized the land transfer to Wendell a few days ago,” Viv points out as we head toward the back corner. “How’d they get all this built so quick?”

“They’ve been working on the request since last year—my guess is, that was just a formality. In a town like this, I bet they figured no one would mind the sale of a dilapidated mine.”

“You sure? I thought when you spoke to the mayor . . . I thought you said he was rumbling.”

“Rumbling?”

“Angry,” she clarifies. “Raging.”

“He wasn’t angry—no . . . he was just mad he wasn’t consulted—but for everyone else, it still brings life back to the town. And even if they don’t know the full extent of it, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing illegal about what Wendell’s done.”

“Maybe,” she says. “Though it depends what they’re building down here . . .”

As we head further down the hallway, there’s a room off to our right. Inside, a large wipe-off board leans against a four-drawer file cabinet and a Formica credenza. There’s also a brand-new metal desk. There’s something strangely familiar about it.

“What?” Viv asks.

“Ever see one of those desks before?”

She takes a long hard look at it. “I don’t know . . . they’re kinda standard.”

“Very standard.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“They just redid some of our staff offices. We got the same ones for all our legislative assistants. Those desks . . . they’re government issue.”

“Harris, those desks are in half the offices in America.”

“I’m telling you, they’re government issue,” I insist.

Viv looks back at the desk. I let the silence drive home the point.

“Time-out . . . time, time, time—so now you think the government built all this?”

“Viv, take a look around. Wendell said they wanted this place for the gold, and there’s no gold. They said they were here to mine, and there’s no mining. They said they’re a small South Dakota company, and they’ve got the entire friggin’ Batcave down here. It’s all right in front of our face—why would you possibly believe that they’re really who they say they are?”

“That doesn’t mean they’re a front for the government.”

“I’m not saying that,” I reply, heading back into the hallway. “But let’s not ignore the fact that all this equipment—the lab tables, the forty-thousand-dollar computer servers, not to mention what it took to build a pristine facility eight thousand feet underground . . . These boys aren’t kneeling in the dirt, shaking sand through their sifters. Whoever Wendell really is, they’re clearly hunting for something bigger than a few gold nuggets—which in case you missed . . .”

“. . . aren’t even here anymore. I know.” Chasing right behind me, Viv follows me up the hallway. “So what do you think they’re after?”

“What makes you think they’re after something? Look around—they’ve got everything they need right here.” I point to the stacks of boxes and canisters that line both sides of the hallway. The canisters look like industrial helium tanks—each one comes up to my chin and has red stenciled letters running lengthwise down the side. The first few dozen are marked
Mercury;
the next dozen are labeled
Tetrachloroethylene
.

“You think they’re building something?” Viv asks.

“Either that, or they’re planning on kicking ass at next year’s science fair.”

“Got any ideas?”

I go straight for the boxes that are stacked up to the ceiling throughout the hallway. There’re at least two hundred of them—each one tagged with a small sticker and bar code. I tear one off to get a closer look. Under the bar code, the word
Photomultiplier
is printed in tiny block letters. But as I open a box to see what a photomultiplier actually is, I’m surprised to find that it’s empty. I kick a nearby box just to be sure. All the same—empty.

“Harris, maybe we should get out of here . . .”

“Not yet,” I say, plowing forward. Up ahead, the muddy footprints stop, even though the hall keeps going, curving around to the left. I rush through the parted sea of photomultiplier boxes that’re piled up on each side and turn the corner. A hundred feet in front of me, the hallway dead-ends at a single steel door. It’s heavy, like a bank vault, and latched tightly shut. Next to the door is a biometric handprint scanner. From the loose wires that’re everywhere, it’s still not hooked up.

Moving quickly for the door, I give the latch a sharp pull. It opens with a pop. The frame of the door is lined with black rubber to keep it airtight. Inside, running perpendicular to us, the room is long and narrow like a two-lane bowling alley that seems to go on forever. At the center of the room, on a lab table, are three hollowed-out red boxes that’re covered with wires. Whatever they’re building, they’re still not finished, but on our far right, there’s a ten-foot metal sculpture shaped like a giant O. The sign on the top reads,
Danger—Do Not Approach When Magnet Is On.

“What do they need a magnet for?” Viv asks behind me.

“What do they need this tunnel for?” I counter, pointing to the metal piping that runs down the length of the room, past the magnet.

Searching for answers, I read the sides of all the boxes that’re stacked around us. Again, they’re all labeled
Lab.
A huge crate in the corner is labeled
Tungsten.
None of it’s helpful—that is, until I spot the door directly across the narrow hallway. It’s not just any door, though—this one’s tall and oval, like the kind they have on a submarine. There’s a second biometric scanner that looks even more complex than the one we just passed. Instead of flat glass for a handprint, it’s got a rectangular box that looks as if it’s full of gelatin. I’ve heard of these—put your hand in the gelatin, and they measure the contour of your palm. Security’s getting tighter. But again, wires are everywhere.

As I fly toward the door, Viv’s right behind me—but for the first time since we’ve been together, she grabs my sleeve and tugs me back. Her grip is strong.

“What?” I ask.

“I thought you’re supposed to be the adult. Think first. What if it’s not safe in there?”

“Viv, we’re a mile and a half below the surface—how much more unsafe can it get?”

She studies me like a tenth-grader measuring a substitute teacher. When I came to D.C., I had that look every day. But seeing it on her . . . I haven’t had it in years. “Look at the door,” she says. “It could be radioactive or something.”

“Without a warning sign out front? I don’t care if they’re still setting up shop—even these guys aren’t that stupid.”

“So what do you think they’re building?”

It’s the second time she’s asked the question. I again ignore her. I’m not sure she wants to know my answer.

“You think it’s bad, don’t you?” Viv says.

Yanking free of her grip, I head for the door.

“It could be anything, right? I mean, it didn’t look like a reactor in there, did it?” Viv asks.

Still marching, I don’t slow down.

“You think they’re building a weapon, don’t you?” Viv calls out.

I stop right there. “Viv, they could be doing anything from nanotech to bringing dinosaurs back to life. But whatever’s in there, Matthew and Pasternak were both killed for it, and it’s now our necks they’re sizing the nooses for. Now you can either wait out here or come inside—I won’t think less of you either way—but unless you plan on living in a car for the rest of your life, we need to get our rear ends inside that room and figure out what the hell is behind curtain number three.”

Spinning back toward the submarine door, I grab the lock and give it a sharp turn. It spins easily, like it’s been newly greased. There’s a loud
tunk
as the wheel stops. The door unlatches from the inside and pops open slightly.

Over my shoulder, Viv steps in right behind me. As I glance back, she doesn’t make a joke or a cute remark. She just stands there.

I have to push the door with both hands to get it open. Here we go. As the door swings into the wall, we’re once again hit with a new smell—sharp and sour. It cuts right to my sinuses.

“Oh, man,” Viv says. “What is that? Smells like a . . .”

“. . . dry cleaner’s,” I say as she nods. “Is that what was in those canisters out there? Dry-cleaning fluid?”

Stepping up and over the oval threshold, we scan around for the answer. The room is even more spotless than the one we came from. I can’t find a speck of dirt. But it’s not the cleanliness that catches our eyes. Straight in front of us, an enormous fifty-yard-wide crater is dug into the floor. Inside the crater is a huge, round metal bowl that’s the size of a hot-air balloon cut in half. It’s like a giant empty swimming pool—but instead of being filled with liquid, the walls of the sphere are lined with at least five thousand camera lenses, one right next to the other, each lens peering inward toward the center of the sphere. The ultimate effect is that the five thousand perfectly aligned telescopes form their own glass layer within the sphere. Hanging from the ceiling by a dozen steel wires is the other half of the sphere. Like the lower half, it’s filled with thousands of lenses. When the two halves are put together, it’ll be a perfect spherical chamber, but for now, the top is still suspended in the air, waiting to be loaded into place.

“What in the hell?” Viv asks.

“No idea, but I’m guessing those things are the photomultiplier—”

“What do you think you’re doing?” someone yells from the left side of the room. The voice is grainy, like it’s being broadcast through an intercom.

I turn to follow the sound, but I almost fall over when I see what’s coming.

“Oh, Lord . . .” Viv whispers.

Rushing straight at us is a man in a bright orange hazardous-materials suit, complete with its own Plexiglas face plate and built-in gas mask. If he’s wearing that . . .

“We’re in trouble . . .” Viv mutters.