Subterranean (11 page)

He bolted after her, finally catching up halfway down a hallway that led back to the hospital. As soon as he was close enough, he took her in his arms and embraced her in a loving hold, silently flooding tears from his eyes when she buried her face in his chest and began sobbing lightly.

“Lisa,” he held her snugly, “I love you.”

“Do you?” The question dripped from her lips.

“I do.” He swallowed. “I love you so much…”

“Why?” She weakly asked.

              Surprised, he answered carefully. “Because… I don’t know, because you’re… you’re you…”

“Why?” She muttered with a frown.

“Why?” He mimicked her in confusion. “Why what?”

“Why do you have to go?!”

“Because…” He glanced over to the hangar keeping him and the wilderness apart. “…because I have to.” He put a hand on her neck. “This is something I have to do.”

She closed her eyes and let a teardrop trickle down her cheek. “And what if something happens to you, Flynn?” Her moistened eyes locked with his. “Do you think I could live with myself? By myself?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He said matter-of-factly.

“You’re not Superman, Flynn.” She slapped his hand away, making him step back in shock. “You’re an archaeologist with a guilty conscience!” Her knuckles stemmed her cloudburst eyes. “What if you died out there? What would I do, then?!”

“Whoa, Lisa, hold on, don’t cry.” Flynn suddenly pictured himself standing in his sister’s room trying to explain why she would have to be alone for the next few months; it was always a futile effort that ended in sadness. “Lisa… I just…” He bit his finger, discombobulated by the total impotence of his words as she sobbed.

“Why… why do you have to go, Flynn? Let them do it! They don’t need our help!” She pointed in the direction of Vale and Rolan behind layers of thick wall.

“I… I have to, Lisa.”

“Why?!”

“Because there are people trapped on the surface that need help, and I’m going to be the one to help them.” He mulled over his own words. “If I can’t even save someone here, how am I supposed to save Earth?”

She continued sobbing for a few minutes, keeping the silent emptiness of the hallway at bay with the periodic moans of her sorrow. “Okay,” she finally said, wiping her tears away and gently tugging at her chest, “I’ll stay here… but please come back soon.”

“I will.” He caressed her neck in his hands. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

She let him hold her head tenderly, stared into the jet black lenses covering his eyes, and then wrapped her arms around his neck, holding her lips inches away from his. “Promise me you’ll bring that back.” She kissed him tenderly and withdrew her hands, resting the ice blue pendant shaped like a teardrop on his chest. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Her fading voice wrenched at Flynn’s heart, the fear of permanence pumping bitterly cold blood throughout his body.

A Journey of Her Own

She dragged her feet to the melancholy tone of her own despondency through the hallways and all the way back to the hospital room. She sat on the bed, trying to maintain her composure while once again in the face of loneliness. How could Flynn have just left her like that? He didn’t even leave her the radio to keep her busy. She was beginning to think that he might not care at all, that he was just another selfish person looking out for themselves and their own goals. She was nearly consumed by that thought when another happened to enter her mind.

What if Flynn never comes back?

She tried hard not to answer that question, not to think about it even, yet it still bothered her repeatedly without end.
He’s been up there before; he’ll be fine
, was what she told herself every time the horrible scene of Rolan and Vale returning without him entered her mind, though that only provided mild temporary comfort with diminishing returns.

I need to take my mind off of it; I’m my own woman… maybe I can talk to someone
.

She hadn’t been around any of the Subterraneans by herself so far, and she hardly considered herself the type to make friends quickly, but that Rasina, Rolan’s wife, was a nice one; maybe she could talk to her. It would be a little awkward visiting her alone, but she had to try; the thought of being with someone friendly was the only thing keeping her from collapsing on the bed and bursting into tears again.

“Okay, I’ll go see her.” She rose to her feet and took a deep breath, feeling around her chest for the familiar pendant that normally hung from her neck. The bare skin that welcomed her fingers made her clench a fist; she hoped Flynn would come back soon.

When the door slid open at her command, she was surprised by a hulking figure that stood menacingly in the threshold. She screamed and ran to the back of the room in a corner, where she huddled up and held her hands out in plea.

“What do you want?! Please, don’t hurt me!”

The shadowy figure stepped into the light and his distinct white coat reflected the fluorescent rays. It was Radovan.

“Where is Flynn?” He inquired in an urgent tone.

Lisa eased into a relaxed pose, though still trembling slightly from the fright. “H-h-he went back up… to the surface.”

“That is… unfortunate. I need to speak with him regarding the spaceships in the hangar. There is more to this discovery than we previously thought.” He scanned her with scientific detachment. “You will do fine. Follow me.”

He turned around and left the room, assuming she was right behind. It took her a moment to calm down and collect herself, but she smiled at the chance to do something significant on her own. At least it would take the pain of loneliness away. She ran after Radovan and clung to his side.

“Where are we going?” She asked, clearly still nervous.

“To my lab in the research center.” He stated without looking her way.

“Why?”

“To discuss the hidden hangar.”

She brought a couple fingers up to her chin. “Did you figure out what to do about it, yet?”

“Yes.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

“I would rather not elaborate further with so many people nearby.”

“Oh, yeah, that would probably be bad.” She looked around for spying eyes. “Do you think we are being followed?”

“That is unlikely. I tampered with the camera feed to the hospital room.” He shared his presumably impressive feat without a hint of arrogance, or any emotion at all for that matter. “No one should know that you are with me, save for the few bystanders observing our travels right now.”

“The… camera feed?”

“Yes. The camera feed.”

“So, Tural was watching us?” She thought back to her romantic encounter with Flynn and shuddered.

“Yes.”

She frowned in disgust, imagining the unpleasant Subterranean leader. “That’s creepy.”

“Quite, but not entirely unexpected.” After numerous twists and turns through back alleys and long walks on far flung paths, they arrived at their destination: the Subterranean Research Facility. “Keep close to me,” he motioned her over, “and it would be best not to bother the other scientists.”

Inside the facility, surrounded by a clutter of scientific equipment piled on tables, she followed Radovan through the sterile white rooms to his office. She felt strange being here without Flynn, like she was lost and out of place, but she did her best to ignore that feeling; she was doing this for him after all.

There was a transparent room in Radovan’s office that housed a giant rock hooked up to an array of complicated machinery and scanning devices snaking their way into various computers, connecting with a pair of lenses that he used to observe his experiments on a molecular level. Most of the time his eyes were always glued to the instrument, with his two hands navigating the controls and recording incoming data simultaneously.

This time, however, his full attention was devoted to Lisa.

“Why did Flynn go back to the surface?” Radovan questioned, preparing conclusions in his mind before he even had an answer.

“He said he had to go save the other scientists from the survey team.” She analyzed the statement further for some sort of significance that she expected Radovan to point out. “Some of them ran away when that horrible beast attacked them.”

“Interesting… The timing of his departure is… unfortunate.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because a group of guards recently transported something from the hidden hangar.”

“What was it?”

“That is precisely what I asked the guards, but none of them answered me. So, I was forced to persuade one of them to divulge the contents and its destination.”

“Persuade?” Lisa said with worry.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath and tensed his muscles. “It was a central computer core that contains within it a database of information on an unspecified topic, but the interesting part is that it was being transported to Tural’s chambers.”

Lisa shrugged. “How is that interesting?”

“Because this occurred shortly after Flynn infiltrated the hidden hangar.” He slapped a hand on the desk. “Flynn failed to mention that he incapacitated one of the technicians in his efforts to discover the spaceships, which means Tural knows Flynn was there.”

“He… incapacitated someone?” She rubbed her lip innocently with a knuckle. “You mean like he killed them?”

“No, he merely…” He braced against his own impatient instincts. “No, he did not kill them.”

“Oh, good.” Lisa smiled and reached for the missing pendant on her chest, once again unexpectedly touching bare skin.

“In other words,” Radovan said in a suggestive tone, “Tural decides to move a computer full of information from the hidden hangar shortly after Flynn sneaks into it. And it is going to his personal chambers, the most difficult area in the city to gain access to.” He arched an eyebrow. “That is quite suspicious.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She admitted, still unsure of why Radovan was telling her all of this. “So, what should we do?”

Radovan walked over to a chest filled with equipment and smiled. “I have an idea…”

Chapter 10

A Brewing Storm

The hangar doors opened slowly, allowing some mild rays of light to seep through and languidly coat the dark chrome walls with a weak layer of shimmer. The thick slab of metal groaned as it parted, the imposing shield separating the harsh no-man’s-land from the Subterranean city split open, releasing the few travelers brave enough to endure the unforgiving landscape.

The team consisted only of Flynn, Rolan, and Overseer Vale, as well as a single dune buggy so they could move faster.  The HTS-500’s took mere seconds in adjusting to the twilight that illuminated the majestic, and dangerous, scenery laid out before him. The soft luminescence crying out from the cloudy skies was a beautiful sight; some light was reaching the planet, at least, however faint it was.

“Why’s it so dark out here?! It’s the middle of the day!” Flynn shouted over the roar of the engine.

“Because, it is the middle of winter, as well!” Rolan said with his ever-present cheeriness.

“Winter?!” Flynn scanned the desert sands with astonishment. “You mean there are seasons on this planet?!”

“Not to worry, Flynn, I hate winter, too!” Vale looked up at the sky when the buggy hit the sand with a wallop, the hangar doors closing ominously behind them. “It is so cold!”

“It only lasts a few months!” Rolan calmed her with a smile.

“The clouds are thick in the sky today!” Vale remarked on the scarce sunlight that broke through.

“Perhaps a storm is forming!” Rolan slammed down on the side door and stuck his head out. “The air is wet! It appears we are having the rains early this year!”

“The rains?!” Flynn scanned the arid landscape, baffled by how anything so destitute could ever be nourished by the cool relief of rain. “It rains here?!”

“Oh, yes! It rains in abundance during winter!”

“What?!” Flynn shook his head. “What the hell happens, then?!”

“Ice!” Rolan scooped up a handful of sand from the moving vehicle. “And a lot of quicksand!”

“That sounds terrible! How the hell are we supposed to get around up here?!”

“We will not!” Vale answered quickly. “Once that happens, we stay underground until the next season!”

“Great…!” Flynn slumped back into his seat; his stomach lurched at the thought of an even more deadly climate churning around him.

The clock was ticking evidently, as the others made clear the priority that they should not remain on the surface longer than a full day. Strangely, every time Flynn asked them why, they changed the subject or simply ignored him.

Things were getting weird and he didn’t like it.

It almost seemed like his plan was backfiring; indeed he had earned a great deal of trust among them, and therefore more frequently information was disclosed to him, but it was never complete; everything had a hidden or ambiguous piece of the puzzle missing that no one wanted to talk about. Was it as simple as mistrust? Or was there something going on that the Subterraneans knew Flynn wouldn’t abide by? Whatever it was, it would take finesse to discover and even greater grace to deal with once the light had peeled away the darkness in which it slept.

In Plain Sight

Flynn sat in the back of the dune buggy nodding off to sleep from the bitter cold, constantly fighting the temptation to slip into a restful and careless coma from which he might never return. In a bittersweet deal to this, he was kept awake by the perpetual icy winds whipping frozen grains of sand against his face like a thousand tiny razor blades, slicing away at his skin. Although, after hours in the gelid environment, his face became so numb that he could no longer feel the blood dripping down his cheeks from the wounds and then once again nearly succumbed to sleep. He would’ve drifted off right there if it weren’t for Rolan, who slapped him on the shoulder and told him to keep watch for any signs of the missing scientists.

“Here,” he handed him a long, thick scrap of cloth, “wrap this around your face.”

“No, this is yours,” he said upon noticing Rolan’s bare face, “you need it more than I do.”

“Of all the times I am inclined to believe you, this is not one of them, Flynn.” He wrapped the cloth around his face for him. “Do not be foolish; we will share the almighty cloth.”

“Thanks…” Flynn grinned, he already felt warmer, but not so much in his face; his heart seemed to glow with embers.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, I will be back for it.” A smirk crept up the side of his face.

The hunt began to seem hopeless after the mind-numbing hours spent in a vain search. The usual routine quickly became Rolan and Vale tramping around in the hard-packed sand while Flynn sat shivering in the buggy. Eventually, Flynn reached his breaking point; he was ready to knock both of them unconscious and drive them back to the Subterranean city where he would deal with all of the fallout later. But thankfully, before he could swing the metal pipe he held in his shaking hands, a glimpse of hope landed upon them. What Flynn would’ve thought to be rubble was actually a Subterranean lying face down in the sand.

“Found one!” Rolan’s voice fought through the whistling winds and rumbling engine to be heard.

The Cold, Dark Sands

Flynn knelt beside the corpse of the Subterranean survey team member with a grim look on his face. His eyes studied the carcass that was once a reputed scientist in the field of biotechnology.

“He’s dead.”

The absence of a pulse anywhere on his known arterial channels along with the unresponsiveness of his nervous system confirmed that there were no signs of life still within him. Flynn shook his head in disappointment, convinced that the others who’d gone missing shared the same fate.

Then, he noticed a single wound perfectly inflicted on a sensitive area of Subterranean physiology, based on a chart he saw in Radovan’s office, and the bloodied scalpel still within the scientist’s dead hands. Usually the skeptical sort who asks questions, Flynn decided instead to make a bold conclusion for the sake of prying information.

“He committed suicide!”

His dramatic remark made Rolan and Vale swap glances with each other, sorely affected by his words.

“Why would he do that?” He asked thereafter.

Vale caught him in the corner of her eye. “Maybe he thought he did not have a chance of survival? I do not know, human. We cannot help him now, we need to move on.” Vale hopped back inside the buggy. “Two scientists remaining.” Rolan joined her and Vale ignited the engine, impatiently waiting for Flynn, who was still beside the corpse, confused by the sight. “Get in, human.”

True to their customs, they left the body without saying a word, offering it to the savage surface to devour and decay at its will in the frozen sands. Flynn said almost nothing as they continued on to find the other members of the survey team lost in the scintillate wastes. He was betting that the others were most certainly dead and that Rolan and Vale knew it, so why did they want Flynn to come along in the first place?

This search and rescue seemed rather pointless to him, it was more like a mission to verify that the dead were actually dead.

A Grim Development

Another dead body settled in the sand at Flynn’s feet, this one suffered the same fate as the last: suicide, the wound carved in the same place, too.

“Two in a row.” He whispered under his breath as he wrestled to solve the mystery of the pattern that was gradually forming.

Then he reminded himself about the peculiar culture of the Subterraneans; suicide on the surface might be considered an obligatory repentance for failure or cowardice. Either way, another dead body meant there was one more survey scientist to find and then Flynn could return back to the city.

The Monument of Failures

It was nearing dusk and the celestial lodestar in the sky still strained to be seen through the dense layer of clouds that blocked its path. Flynn threw up a middle finger at the opaque sky, inspired by his encroaching hypothermia.

“I liked it better when you were trying to cook me alive!” Rolan and Vale stood perplexed as Flynn hurled swears and curses at the invulnerable divine object.

Normally, they would’ve questioned him on this strange behavior, but they appeared to be thoroughly consumed by the task at hand, focused entirely on completing the mission so they could go back to the city. Flynn convinced himself that it was because the surface wasn’t exactly reminiscent of a pleasure planet and he kept to this assumption because it was better than the wild imaginings and reckless speculations that his paranoia concocted in strange times… though he didn’t know how long he could postulate it.

Rolan and Vale laid a portable screen displaying a map on the seat of the buggy and pointed at a bunch of different locations to mark areas they’ve already investigated. It was meant to help narrow down their search patterns, yet Flynn got the feeling it was a waste of time.

“It’s a big planet,” he waved a hand along the boundless backdrop, “how are we supposed to find one person in this giant refrigerator with just a dune buggy?”

“We could try the crash site,” Rolan proposed, “we have not yet looked there. We left some salvage last time… perhaps the doctor thought he could build a shelter.”

Vale stroked her chin. “Perhaps if the cold began to affect his judgment...”

With speed, they piled back into the buggy and drove off yet again to the crashed ship that stood as a ruined monument to Flynn’s failure; a relic of an age already long forgotten, distant in the memories of a fresh new world like a place that was once real but now seemed like fantasy. It settled like an ancient statue of a Roman Emperor broken into pieces, glory and pride fallen into a heap of scrap, the arm that held the sword still outstretched despite the missing hand, the same expression of superiority as it lay decaying in disgrace.

Desperation

There he was, the last scientist, sitting with his back against the remaining pieces of the broken ship. From afar, Flynn thought he was still breathing, but upon closer inspection, the gory wound that marked his midsection indicated otherwise. This was no suicide; it looked like something had blasted clean through his body with great force in a clear attempt to murder him.

“He was shot?” He swiveled his head around in a vain attempt to find answers. “By who? Are there other Subterraneans around?”

Vale swallowed hard and refused eye contact. “It is a big planet, human. Yes, there are other Subterraneans… But no, there are not any around here. Everyone on this continent lives back in the city.”

No weapon was found as Flynn traced the sandy blood trail rounding the corner of the downed ship. Not a soul was in sight from the wreckage he stood atop, only the everlasting sea of sand stretching towards the unreachable horizon.
What could’ve caused this?

Just then, as he scanned the dunes, he noticed something moving way off in the distance. It was blurry and far away, but he could tell it was big. He brought a finger up to his HTS-500’s and pressed a button on the side to zoom in.
What the hell is that?!

Kilometers away, he saw a giant mass of green tentacles spreading its massive roots in every direction, all connected to an enormous blob of green that sat overbearingly in the center. It was big, and it was growing at an alarming rate.

“Hey, Rolan! Vale!” He pointed at the gigantic heap of green tendrils expanding, burrowing in and out of the sand and crawling over everything it passed. “There’s some kind of plant or something out there!” He looked down at them from his vantage point and then back out towards the desert. “It’s huge!” Despite how strangely inviting he described the curious presence, he received no response from the other two. They simply remained quiet.

Climbing down, he realized Rolan and Vale were staring at the corpse of the scientist with great distress written across their faces. “We need to leave.” Vale demanded, and she and Rolan trudged their sinking feet over to the vehicle. “Now.”

“Vale, wait!” He crunched deep impressions into the sand with each step after them. “What’s going on?! We can’t just leave!” He stabbed the direction of the green mass with his finger. “There’s something out there!”