One of the screens shows the hangar I had thought of as the Underground’s only base until recently. It’s in ruins, the fires having burned themselves out. It’s eerily quiet, and there’s no sign of anyone still being there. There aren’t even any bodies on the ground from where the battle occurred. It’s just deserted.
“What happened to everyone?” I ask. “Did the Others kill them all?”
Lionel shakes his head. “We were able to evacuate the majority of the personnel from Location Six, along with the files and equipment that were most sensitive. It looks like Sebastian was also able to activate the self-destruction sequence, eliminating anything that could have been used by the Others.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I say. “How could they have evacuated before the explosion? I was there. There were a few Faders fighting the Others, and Sebastian was there, but I didn’t see anyone else come out of the place.”
“That’s because they left via a different route,” Lionel explains. “There is more than one reason they call us the Underground, you know.”
SIX
“
S
o you’re saying they escaped underground somehow?” I say.
Lionel nods. He’s still looking at the screen that shows the broken and ruined Underground base. He taps a few keys on a nearby computer keyboard, apparently making a note of something.
“As you probably know, each of our bases has multiple underground levels. We are, for example, currently some four stories underground.”
“We are?” I ask. I don’t know why, but somehow, it’s easier to imagine a maze of tunnels beneath a hangar like the one back in the desert than it is to imagine them beneath an old house like this. And it’s not like I can tell just by looking how far down we are. There aren’t any windows here, but beyond that, this control center could be on any level.
“The Underground got the idea from the kind of underground tunnels and bunkers used in this country during the Second World War,” Lionel explains. “There were whole secret sections that did their work underground then, and sections of the London tube system were used as part of it. There were also plenty of bunkers and tunnels built for use in the event of an invasion. This house originally had several like that, which we merely expanded and made a little more appropriate for our needs.”
“Just how big are these tunnels?” I ask, trying to get some sense of the scale on which the Underground is working.
Lionel shrugs. “They are extensive enough to hide our whole operation in each location. We really don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. Not only does that create an increased risk of attack by the Others, but even local governments tend to get quite worried when they see heavily armed operations on our scale. It wouldn’t do to give them an excuse to send in troops, now would it?”
I guess not, though I hadn’t really thought about it like that. “Don’t you work with governments?” I ask.
“Our relationships with them can be quite... complicated,” Lionel says. “Most of those like myself and Sebastian came out of official programs of one kind or another, yet no government would ever admit to doing the kinds of things we look into. If we were officially linked to any one government, that might cause embarrassment, as well as creating the illusion that we are here to support one country’s interests, rather than simply to do research. On the whole, it is better for us to be merely a private organization with a few friends in high places, don’t you think?”
I can’t answer that. In fact, all it does is to remind me just how out of my depth I am. I’m a part of this world because of what I am, but I am not trained for it, and I don’t have any experience of trying to keep up with its complex politics. Instead, I try to latch onto something simpler.
“So these tunnels beneath the various bases include escape tunnels?” I ask.
“They do,” Lionel says, then turns to Grayson. “Tell me, young man, where does the tunnel from Location Six come out?”
“In the mountains,” Grayson says, and then gives Lionel a map reference.
For a moment, the retired major looks thoughtful. “Sebastian certainly put a lot more information into you than I would have thought,” he says. “It’s enough to make me wonder why. Still, you’re correct.”
He taps another few computer keys, and one of the cameras switches its view until it shows what appears to be nothing more than a mountainside.
“I don’t see what we’re looking at,” I say.
“Be patient,” Lionel advises. “Ah, there. Thank goodness.”
The camera zooms in, and because I know that there must be something there, I try to see what Lionel is seeing. It’s only when the hatch in the rock face starts to swing open though that I even notice it. It opens wide like some kind of modern day take on Aladdin’s cave, and from that gap in the rock, people start to appear.
They come out in ones and twos, looking organized and determined. Most are holding bags, or carrying rucksacks. The only ones who aren’t are the ones who appear to be injured. I recognize Marlene among their number, and I feel a little surge of gladness that at least some of those who have helped me have survived.
“What’s in the bags?” Grayson asks.
Lionel shrugs. “Information, weaponry, personal effects. Whatever they could grab, I should imagine. There is a lot of material kept at each base, and in the event of destruction, it would need to be transferred securely.”
“Couldn’t you just do that online?” I ask, and find myself feeling stupid when Lionel looks at me. “What?”
“That kind of transfer could easily be intercepted,” he says. “If one of the bases is under attack physically, then we have to assume that it would be attacked by hackers simultaneously, all ready to intercept any packets of information sent out from the site. No, it is far safer to move things physically. My only worry in that regard is whether the Others might be able to retrieve anything from the systems damaged by the destruction sequence.”
“Mr. Cook incorporated a controlled EMP effect into the sequence specifically to prevent that,” Grayson says. I still can’t get used to the idea that he knows this stuff. “It would have been contained within the base by the outer shielding, but would have wiped all electronic storage.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Lionel says, returning his attention to the screen. More people are spilling from the hole in the rock. Most of them are on foot, but a few ride motorcycles, skirting around the edge of the group with weapons at the ready. I guess that they’re those Faders who remained behind to supervise the evacuation rather than going out to face the Others with Jack.
The three of us watch that screen, looking, waiting, hoping. It’s obvious to me that we’re all looking for the same thing, but none of us says it. We’re all hoping that Sebastian or Jack’s face will miraculously show up among those coming out of the base. That things will somehow be all right in spite of what I saw from the helicopter as we were leaving.
As time goes on though, and more faces go past without any sign of them, my hopes diminish. And when the door in the rock slams shut without them having appeared, those hopes wither and die. If they aren’t in that group, it’s because they couldn’t be. Which means that they didn’t get away when they fought the Others.
“So that’s it,” I say. “They’re… gone.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Grayson says. I know he’s trying to be comforting, and I appreciate the effort, but I can’t help remembering that it was he who shoved me into the helicopter, he who sedated me with a syringe full of who knows what.
“What do you care?” I demand. “It’s not like you even like Jack.”
“I care that it hurts you,” Grayson says, trying to put his arm around me again.
I shrug him off. “But you wouldn’t be upset if he were dead, would you?”
“That isn’t fair, Celes.”
I shake my head. “No, what isn’t fair is that Jack is probably dead. That or captured, and from the sounds of it, the Others wouldn’t keep him alive for long. What isn’t fair is that there were only two seats on the helicopter, and suddenly you knew so much that they couldn’t risk leaving you behind.”
“So you’d rather they captured me?” Grayson demands.
“Your father wouldn’t have hurt you, Grayson. He’ll kill Jack though.”
“That was before,” Grayson says. “Now… now I have a bunch of stuff in my head I didn’t have before. I know things I shouldn’t know. I can do things I shouldn’t be able to do. Now, I don’t even know who I am, so how is my father really going to react to me. I wish this situation didn’t have to be like this, Celes, but it is-”
“And Jack and Sebastian are either dead or captured,” I finish for him.
Lionel pats me on the shoulder then. It’s a slightly stiff, awkward seeming gesture for him, but he does it. “Now, we don’t know that for certain, young lady. Jack remains a very resourceful agent, while Sebastian is a highly intelligent man. It may be that they were able to come up with a solution to their situation that we simply haven’t been able to think of.”
“But it isn’t very likely,” I say.
Lionel shakes his head. “You mustn’t give up hope like that. As I said, Jack is a highly skilled Fader, and he has gotten out of tight spots in the past.”
I want to believe him. I do. I can still remember the ease with which Jack got us away from his apartment when the Others showed up there. The way he tracked me down to save me and Grayson when we were being chased along the highway. It’s just that the circumstances seem so hopeless that I can’t see how even Jack could possibly get out of them.
I open my mouth to say something, and an alarm goes off. Lionel’s head whips round, and he taps something into his keyboard. Instantly, the screens around us change, becoming an outline map of Europe with a dark background. Mostly dark, anyway. There are spots of brightness here and there, mostly not very intense. There’s a brighter one in the south of England, and another brighter one further away, on the continent.
“What is this?” I ask.
“This is the display for our main scanners,” Lionel explains. “The ones that allowed us to identify you, and which have allowed us to explore a number of other… phenomena over the years. You see the bright spots? Each one represents something that the Underground would need to investigate further.”
“Why are some of the spots brighter than others?” I ask.
“That is simply a question of signal strength.”
I remember then what Sebastian told me back at the Underground’s other base. “And I give off a strong signal, right?”
“Exactly.” Lionel jabs his finger at the first of the bright dots. The one in England. “This one is you, Celes. Or at least the signal our scanners pick up of you. This one…” he moves his finger to the other glowing spot “…this one is new. And it’s intense, if it’s enough to set off the alarm.”
“So that’s emitting the same kind of signal Celes did?” Grayson asks.
“That would appear to be the case, yes,” Lionel says. He sounds like he wants to be excited, but is restraining himself from letting too much of it show with a certain amount of difficulty. “It also appears to be of a similar strength. Which suggests that there may be something else like you out there.”
He says it so calmly that the implications don’t sink in for a moment or two. “There’s someone else like me out there?” I ask.
Lionel nods. “That’s what it looks like, at least.”
“Where?”
I need to know. I need to know that I am not alone. That there might actually be some answers for me out there somewhere. Lionel looks at the map, then taps in yet more instructions to the computer. A more detailed map overlays itself on the first one.