Pandemonium (40 page)

“It must follow a vertical fault line, like Son Doong Cave in Vietnam,” Nastia said, squeezing Dima’s hand with excitement.

Suddenly, a group of what looked like large jellyfish floated up around them. The purple and white balloons were four feet wide and trailing red tentacles covered with deflated orange and pink nudibats.

“Those things bob up and down all the time,” Geoffrey said. “When their bladders flare light, they head back up again, sometimes in groups.”

Up ahead, they could see a steel tower on the far side of the island. It was bent to one side and seemed on the verge of toppling over into the lake. The tram car dropped another ten feet and bounced, swinging back and forth from the cable.

“That pier up ahead looks pretty sketchy,” Abrams said.

“Maxim said one of them was partially collapsed,” said Nell.

“Terrific,” Bear said.

“Let’s bail out some stuff and lighten the load,” Abrams suggested.

They started throwing the few packs they had brought with them, keeping only a few pistols and grenades, some rope, duct tape, the first aid kit, a machine gun, batteries, and flashlights. The rest went overboard as explosions of bioluminescence splashed and spread on the water where the gear struck the surface of the lake.

The tower that carried the cable’s pulley bent closer to the sea as they climbed closer, and they all gasped. Then, about fifty yards from the tower, they stopped. The tram rocked and pitched as it tried to push forward.

“Something’s blocking the cable from passing through the pulley!” Geoffrey said.

“Oh, man. This could strip the gears of the bullwheel,” Abrams said.

“Give me your knife, Bear,” Hender said.

Bear gave him his knife, and Hender put it in his belly pack as he opened the door and climbed onto the roof.

“Hey, you’re missing two fingers,” Bear said.

“That’s OK, Bear. I’ve got twenty-eight more.”

They watched as Hender cartwheeled hand-over-hand beneath the cable with all six of his hands.

“Wow!” Dima said.

“I wish I could do that!” Sasha said, and Ivan wagged his tail, barking next to her.

Nastia held Dima’s hand as they watched nervously.

Hender’s fur turned almost black with terror as he tried to camouflage, knowing that a menagerie of hungry monsters thrived in the saltwater lake below. Hender kept two hands on the cable at all times as the pylon ahead creaked and dipped lower and lower. He reached the pulley on the bent pier that was caked with fungus and pulled out the three knives he had stashed in his belly pack. Mats of growth and crushed ghost-flesh, which must have been riding on the cable, had jammed into the pulley, gumming up the works. He held on to the tower over the pulley with three legs as he cut and loosened the clogged flesh in the wheel with all three knives, his hands moving like a Cuisinart.

“He had an elevator back home,” Nell explained, watching anxiously. “It had a pulley, too.”

“God, maybe he knows what to do?” Geoffrey wondered.

“Really?” Dima glanced at Nastia with raised eyebrows.

Suddenly, the cable moved and sheared off the debris as the car jolted forward.

“He did it!” Abrams said. “Awesome!”

They cheered inside the lift as it lurched and started moving, lower and lower toward the bent tower.

“Well, where is he?” Nastia asked.

“Maybe he’s going to jump on the roof as we pass,” Abrams said.

The water was only about sixty feet below them and the gondola was still sinking. Only then did they see the huge ghost octopus that had been riding on the bottom of the gondola as it slid up over the windows.

“Oh, Damn it,” Abrams said. “Get up there and shoot that thing!”

“I’ll go,” said Bear.

“Don’t shoot us through the roof,” Dima said.

“Angle your shots!” Abrams called as Bear climbed through the window to the roof.

“Copy that!” Bear said.

The ghost slid up one side as Bear climbed up the other, and they reached the top at the same time. Bear fired at the ghost, grazing it as it slipped back down, covering the window with its waving rows of suction cups. Bear ducked as they passed under the pylon and Hender jumped from the tower onto the roof in front of him.

They held on as the gondola jostled. The tower and pulley wheel passed over them and the gondola dipped down on the other side to about thirty feet from the surface of the lake. They came within twenty feet before it finally started climbing higher.

“Hi, Bear.” Hender waved as the tram car finally lifted from the water. “Thank you!”

Bear pointed his gun at Hender, his face twisted with pain. “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said. “But you were part of the mission.”

“What?” Hender said. “Why?”

“I guess humans just aren’t ready to share this planet!”

Bear aimed his pistol at the middle of Hender’s large forehead.

As a rope of white goo snagged the soldier’s outstretched arm, another stuck to the side of his head. Both streams came from the oral papillae of a ghost that now rose up and, with a vigorous pull, reeled in its sticky ropes, tipping the tall soldier on the roof as he fired his weapon into the darkness. As Bear’s feet slipped, he plummeted behind the gondola, his heavy weight ripping the ghost off the side of the tram with him. The soldier howled all the way down before he plunged into the lake, still attached to the ghost, directly over the opening maw of a mega-medusa, which reached out its eight glowing arms from the bottom as its stinging offspring wrapped glowing chains around them both and paralyzed their mother’s food.

Hender climbed down the gondola and cautiously crawled through the partially opened door, his fur drained of color.

“What happened?” Abrams shouted.

Hender was silent, trembling, and he skulked into the corner by Nell, blending into the wall. His eyes were swiveling rapidly at each of them. “Don’t kill me,” he said with a warbling voice.

“We won’t, Hender!” Nell said, squeezing two of his trembling hands.

“Damn!” Abrams frowned. “What the hell happened?”

A shower of green sparks surrounded the gondola as a flock of nudibats passed around them.

“Another fire alarm?” Nastia asked.

“They could have mistaken us for a predator,” Geoffrey said.

“What happened, Hender?” Nell said.

“Bear … tried to kill me!”

The others looked at one another.

“Shit!” Abrams said. “No offense, but it’s a little hard to believe.…”

“You fucking Americans,” Dima sneered. “It’s not too hard to believe.”

“OK!” Geoffrey said. “Let’s not start that! We won’t kill you, Hender. I promise you, we’re in this together!” He reached out a hand and took one of Hender’s hands.

“Da,”
said Dima, taking another of his hands.

Sasha took one of his hands then, too. “We love you, Hender!” she shouted.

“Yes!” Nastia said, and she held yet another of his hands as Abrams and Nell took his remaining hands in theirs.

“We’re in this together, Hender,” Geoffrey said.

“We won’t lie to you,” Nell said. “Will we?”

“No!” everyone answered.

“OK,” Hender’s voice quailed.

“Fuck!” yelled Abrams. “Look!”

Dima pointed. “What is
that
?”

They all saw a giant pink and yellow blimp drop down on a collision course toward them as it filled the windows on the right side of the gondola. Feathery fans waved around its mouth as it collected the pink and orange nudibats like a whale filtering krill in its baleen. As the buoyant leviathan closed in, it opened its mouth and swallowed the gondola whole, dragging on it as it moved over the cable toward the next pulley, which hung from long cables attached to the roof of the cavern.

Sasha screamed as the windows were blocked by the pink and yellow skin that surrounded them like the ribbed insides of a dirigible.

“We can’t get past that pulley inside this thing,” Geoffrey shouted.

“Look!” Nell said. “Its walls are lined with quilted bladders that must contain hot air to keep it afloat.”

“Do we have any concussion grenades?” Dima said.

“If we rupture those gas bladders, it should fall,” Geoffrey agreed.

“I saved one, just in case,” said Abrams. He pulled one out of a pack on the floor. “Where should I put it, Doc?”

“Up its belly, and aim high!” Geoffrey said.

“Duck!” Abrams pulled down the window and hurled the grenade into the floating whale, a perfect lob that detonated at its apogee, shredding the two large bladders that kept it afloat and shattering two windows of the gondola, as well.

The giant sank like the
Hindenburg,
losing its grip on the gondola as its thin fabric was finally ripped away before they reached the pulley hanging from the ceiling, the last one before the end of the line.

Passing down the other side of the wheel, they could see the far shore as they sank toward the water.

Hender shivered next to Nell, and she stroked his back reassuringly.

As they approached the far shore, they saw the band of salt crystals crusted above the waterline, which had already lowered a few inches as the subterranean sea filled the city of Pobedograd.

The gondola stopped then, and it swung gently back and forth, not moving forward. “What now?” Nastia said.

“The motor may have overheated,” Abrams said. “Or run out of fuel.”

After another few minutes, it was apparent that they were not going anywhere.

00:17:03

They hung there, rocking, with two windows now gone. They smacked at the nudibats that fluttered in trying to take a nip at them.

They were trapped a hundred feet over the lake and a hundred yards from the shore.

“OK, we’ve just got to zip-line the rest of the way,” Dima said. “We double up that thick nylon rope we kept. Come on,” he said. “Abrams, you go first, OK?”

“Forget it.”

“Got a better idea?”

Abrams looked at the crude loop of nylon rope in Dima’s hands. “The friction on that cable will burn right through that rope,” he said.

“Then what do you suggest?” Geoffrey said.

“OK.” Abrams broke off the halves of the armor over his arms and legs, except for the shell on his injured calf. Then he duct-taped and roped each half shell over the cable so it could anchor a rope line.

The others looked worried.

“This armor is bulletproof, fireproof, and shatterproof,” Abrams said. “And it’ll slide down that cable like greased lightning.”

“Tie it in a loop so we can sit on it,” Dima said. “I don’t want to have to hang by my fingers all the way to the shore.”

“OK, that should be easy enough,” Abrams said as Geoffrey already started to measure off another length of rope and taped another half-shell of armor to it. Hender joined in, copying him with two more sets of hands.

Abrams tied the ends of the rope together on the first loop. “OK, there you go, Dima. Let’s go! We’ve got about fifteen minutes left, man.”

“OK, OK,” Dima said, and he took the lines above, sitting on the sling of rope as he pushed forward out of the gondola’s window.

They watched him pick up speed until he hit an upswing that slowed him down before he finally dropped onto the stone landing of the gondola station on the jagged shore. He waved, and Nastia cheered as she saw him through her night vision binoculars. “He made it!”

“You’re next,” said Abrams.

Geoffrey and Hender re-created improvised harnesses in an assembly line.

Nastia sat nervously in the loop of rope and Abrams shoved her out the window. She was stone-silent and still the entire way down the cable until Dima caught her in his arms on the landing.

“How is Ivan going to get there?” Sasha yelled.

“Geoffrey, can you carry him across if we strap him to you?” Abrams asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Good, ’cause we’re not leaving a dog behind if I can help it.” Abrams cast the next rope over the cable and jerked the armor collar over the cable. Then he tied the sling below with a sturdy knot.

“OK, honey,” Nell said to Geoffrey as he climbed in.

He reached out to hug her.

“No, Geoffrey!” Hender shouted.

“Right. I can’t touch you,” she said. “But I’ll see you on the other side.”

“OK. Bye.” Geoffrey embraced the dog as Abrams tied him securely to Geoffrey’s chest.

“Ready, buddy?” Geoffrey reassured Ivan.

“You’re sure he can’t get loose?” Sasha cried, and Ivan barked, thrashing suddenly.

“Shhh!”
Abrams said to her, holding a finger to his lips. “Don’t upset him.”

Geoffrey whispered in Ivan’s ear, then grabbed the lines, and Abrams gave him a push out the window.

“I’ll go next,” Hender said, and he jumped out after Geoffrey, without a zip-line, cartwheeling under the cable all the way to the shore.

“Wow!” Sasha shouted.

“Your turn, girl,” Abrams said.

“She should go with you,” he said to Nell.

“She can’t go with me. Remember? Nobody can touch me,” Nell said.

“Oh yeah.” Abrams slung the last two harnesses over the cable and tied both into loops. “Ladies first,” he said.

“No, you go. I’ll go last,” she said.

“OK, then. Come on, sweetie. We’re going for a ride, just like Ivan. I’m going to tie you on to me, but you hang on around my neck, OK?”

“Just do it, Abrams,” Sasha said.

“OK, then.” Abrams looped the rope to secure Sasha to his chest. “Good workin’ with you, Doc. Good luck. Come right behind us now!”

“I will! Get going,” Nell said.

“OK. You can close your eyes if you want to, Sasha. Here we go!” Abrams stepped onto the ledge of the window and plunged down the line over the glimmering lake.

“I hate you, Abrams!” Sasha shouted.

The last one in the gondola, Nell gripped the heavy-duty nylon rope and stood on the bobbing edge of the gondola’s window. She saw a squadron of man-of-wars drifting toward her as she jumped.

She sped over the lake’s surface behind Abrams, and as they crossed over the landing ahead of her, she heard Sasha cry, “I love you, Abrams!”

As Nell rapidly approached the shore, she saw a deep, dark patch of water at the lake’s edge where no animals were visible. She let go of the harness, plunging into the briny water.