The Darwin Elevator (21 page)

Jake flashed a thumbs-up.

Skyler unfolded a larger piece of paper. “Blueprints, even. Excellent.”

“Gimme,” said Samantha.

He ignored her and studied it.

Tania pointed out the data vault for him. “The data vault is in a basement, here, below these four structures. This building on the right has a landing pad on the roof,” she showed him. “I suggest we land there.”

The captain sucked in his lower lip as he surveyed the layout. “We could dust off from that, I think. Tania, will this gadget of yours work if there’s no power?”

“There’s a backup generator,” she said, pointing at it on the blueprint. “Thorium, never turns off. We’ll switch to it manually if need be.”

Samantha cleared her throat. “May I please see the blueprint, oh glorious captain?”

“Study the layout, everyone,” Skyler said, and handed it to her. “Ninety minutes until jump. Angus?”

“Yo!”

“Slight course correction, I think.”

“On it.”

The others pored over the images and blueprints, working out their strategy.

Tania stared at Skyler. “Did you say jump?”

From a storage locker bolted to the floor of the craft, Skyler produced a large backpack with a complicated set of straps.

“This,” he said, “is a tandem parachute.”

Tania, standing a meter away, made no move to come closer.

“It won’t bite.”

She looked at Skyler and cocked an eyebrow. A few seconds passed. Skyler imagined her wrestling with an inner voice, telling her to forget this foolishness. But she crossed the cargo bay to stand in front of him. “How does it work?”

He held it between the two of them. “I’ll wear it,” he said, “and you, well, you’ll wear me.”

Across the cabin, Samantha snorted back a laugh.

“Or you can jump with Sam,” Skyler said, “if that’s more comfortable.”

“No way,” Samantha said. “Sorry, princess, but I jump alone.”

Tania kept her attention on the parachute. “It’s fine. Just tell me what to do.”

He nodded. “Best thing is just to stay relaxed, and when we land, lift your knees as high as you can so that I can get my footing.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Skyler removed a second harness from the locker. “I need you to put this on. I’ll help, don’t worry. Then mine connects to yours, and I’ll control the chute.”

Tania hesitated. “What happens if you have a heart attack, or pass out, or something?”

“Emergency rip cord,” he said, pointing to a red and white pull rope. “I’ll show you once we’re suited up.”

Across the cargo bay, Jake and Sam prepared their weapons. Skyler strapped on his usual complement of submachine gun and high-powered pistol.

“You people don’t take any chances,” said Tania.

“Sweetie,” said Samantha, “this whole business is one big chance.”

Skyler tapped his sidearm, looking at Tania. “Ever used a pistol?”

“I’ve never held a weapon of any kind,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Okay,” he said, “now is not the time to learn. Just keep close to one of us.”

“Don’t worry.”

He looked at the briefcase. “Want one of us to carry that thing down?”

“I’d rather do it myself,” she said.

He studied her harness. “Well, let’s get it tied to you somehow then.”

To Skyler’s surprise, the metallic briefcase weighed almost nothing. After a few awkward moments of closeness, and one less-than-gentlemanly brush of his forearm, he rigged it to her chest strap in a way that she could wrap her arms around.

Angus’s voice filled the cargo bay. “Two minutes.”

Skyler punched the intercom. “Fly over at three thousand meters, then give me slow circles until Jake is in position.”

“Copy,” Angus said.

They all stood in silence as Jake finished securing his rifle to his harness. End to end, it stood nearly as tall as he did.

“Thirty seconds,” said Angus.

Skyler opened the rear cargo door. The sound of rushing wind filled the cabin.

“Broad daylight,” Samantha said. “Keep your wits and hide your tits, Jake.”

He offered her a mock salute.

“Mark,” said Angus.

Jake walked backward off the loading ramp and performed a somersault as he fell away from them, into the white clouds below.

Skyler shook his head and grinned. He glanced at Tania and found her to be frozen in place.

“Don’t worry,” Skyler said, “I’m no showman.”

Her eyes were locked on the sight out the back of the craft, the blanket of white that stretched out in all directions. “Clouds,” she said.

“Okay, let’s get you hooked up,” Skyler said.

She broke her gaze away and moved to stand right in front of him. Skyler connected the tandem harness together and triple-checked the buckles.

“Target in sight,” Jake said in Skyler’s ear, shouting over the hiss of rushing wind. “There’s a building with a tower. Heading for that.”

“How’s it look?”

“Good news. There’s a light on,” Jake said.

Skyler tapped his earpiece. “What, inside? Someone home?”

“No,” said Jake, “a beacon of some sort. A radio tower.”

“They’ve got power,” Skyler said to Tania. “He’s heading for the tall building on the north side. We’ll drop on the west building, across from the landing pad.”

“Why not on the pad? You could inspect it.”

Skyler shoot his head. “Don’t want to draw any subs to it until we’re ready to go.”

A quiet, tense thirty seconds passed. Then Jake’s voice: “Touchdown.”

The transmission stopped, followed by static.

“Are we clear to jump?” Skyler asked. “Jake?”

The static continued, then Jake’s muffled voice came through. “Clear” and “collapsed” were the only words Skyler could comprehend.

“Roger,” he said in his microphone. “Sounds like he hit a bad spot on the roof, but we’re clear. Get ready.”

The world below began to tilt and turn as Angus brought the craft around again.

Chapter Fifteen

Hilo, Hawaii

26.JAN.2283

Tania’s scream lasted four seconds.

From terror to bliss, in four seconds flat. She’d never experienced anything like it.

On the word from Angus, Skyler had literally lifted her as he ran down the cargo ramp. She saw Samantha, already impossibly far below them, before they left the aircraft themselves. Tania had closed her eyes and let her fear out.

The wind howled through speakers in her helmet and lashed at her protective suit. Relentless, violent, and ultimately exhilarating.

As soon as they cleared the aircraft, Skyler pulled a cord and deployed the drogue chute. Just before the jump he’d explained that it would slow them to the speed one jumper would normally achieve.

Still above the clouds, Tania took in the horizon. Cotton-ball clouds covered almost everything, but far to the west the wall of white ended. Beyond lay the dark blue Pacific Ocean, a stark border against the sky. Sunlight danced on the water, and Tania basked in it.

“You okay?!” Skyler shouted.

She barely heard him over the wind and the buffer of her suit. She couldn’t help but smile. “Never better!” she yelled back.

“Don’t close your eyes, as much as you want to!” he shouted. “This is the best part!”

For a second, she thought he meant their current situation. Then she looked down just in time to see the thick floor of clouds racing toward them. It took every ounce of courage she had to keep her eyes open. The solid white floor approached faster and faster still.

They hit the puffy whiteness at incredible speed. She felt nothing, as if a sphere of glass were around them, pushing the moisture away. She realized they must be creating a bow shock of air, and laughed aloud.

When they passed through the cloud layer, vertigo set in.

For the first time in her adult life, Tania saw the
real
Earth, beyond Darwin’s safe Aura, from a distance not considered outer space.

The big island of Hawaii stretched out below them. She could just make out the telescope complex at the top of Mauna Kea, off to their left. The famous Keck Observatory, which had collected the data she now hoped to recover.

The city of Hilo loomed directly under her. Abandoned skyscrapers lined the coast. Vacation homes stretched from the shore off into the foothills, empty backyard pools just visible in the overgrown vegetation.

“Hold tight!” Skyler shouted. He angled toward the university complex. A sprawling collection of tan buildings choked by wild vines.

Below, she could see Samantha’s black parachute unfurl, a small black square against the vast green landscape. Tania placed her arms protectively around the briefcase strapped to her chest and gripped it with all her strength.

Skyler pulled the rip cord.

Before she could think to brace herself the harness around her upper body constricted viciously around her.

Seconds later, the straps loosened and the pain eased.

From the violence of the chute opening, to perhaps the most peaceful moment of her life, in an instant.

The wind became a gentle caress on her environment suit. The campus below drifted closer with each second. Square buildings once white or beige were now covered in the growth of wild vines. The scope and variety of vegetation shocked her, so different from the simple, manicured rows aboard the farm platforms.

“How do you feel?” Skyler asked.

“Overwhelmed,” she said, aware how childlike her voice sounded.

She took in the vast Pacific and felt somehow smaller than she ever had looking at Earth from Anchor Station. The blue water stretched to the edge of the world.

“Is Sam headed for the right place?” Skyler asked.

Tania spotted her parachute below them. Her path would take her to the building on the west side of the courtyard. “Yes,” she said.

Skyler aimed for the same place. “Remember, legs up, just before we hit ground.”

Tania looked north, to the tall building where the sniper had landed. She couldn’t see him, but a portion of the roof had clearly collapsed. He might be hurt—a sprained ankle or broken leg. She wondered if any of the crew had medical training. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask, before.

A few hundred meters below, Samantha landed in the middle of a rooftop dotted by air-conditioning vents and utility boxes. Tania could see her angle just before touching down, moving her legs to hit the ground at a run.

Not a run, a full sprint.

A sharp crack sounded from the tall building, the sniper’s direction.

Then another. Gunfire.

Samantha’s chute drifted away, released with total disregard for collecting it. Tania saw her raise her shotgun as she sprinted.

The wind gusted. It tugged Skyler’s chute off course. Tania could sense him fighting to control their descent.

Below, the roof spun out of view. They would miss it. Tania strained her neck to keep Samantha in view. The woman still ran across the mottled surface, toward a doorway. An open doorway.

A man stood there, wild and filthy. Others loomed behind him.

Samantha’s shotgun boomed as the whole roof slid from Tania’s view.

Skyler shouted, “Lift!”

Her attention snapped forward. The wind pushed them over the courtyard, away from the target building, across the wide space toward the structure with the landing pad.

She pulled her legs up to her chest, something that took more effort than she expected after the long fall. On instinct she held her breath.

Skyler’s feet hit the gravelly surface and skidded out from under him. The loose pebbles offered no traction. He went down hard, on his back. Tania landed squarely on top of him, the impact causing her head to snap backward. Her skull smacked against the inside of the helmet, and she cringed at the sound of it impacting with his chin.

Birds scattered from the roof. More erupted from nearby trees. They filled the sky.

Skyler slid for a few meters before friction won out. He rolled them onto one side and unlatched the belts that had kept her tied to him.

She got on her knees, head pounding. A drip of fluid snaked down her neck. Blood or sweat, she didn’t know. The fabric of the parachute occluded the sky. The wind carried it on its course, over and them and off the roof.

“What’s going on?” she shouted, unable to keep terror from her voice. She knew, yet she had to ask.
Subhumans
.

Skyler ignored her. He worked frantically at the straps holding his gun in place.

More gunfire erupted from the building where Samantha had landed. Then another salvo, from inside the tall structure where Jake was. His shots sounded different, now. Quieter, more rapid. A different gun, Tania thought.

The captain freed his weapon, brought the butt of it to his chin, and unleashed a burst toward Samantha’s roof, toward the rooftop doorway where the creatures had been. Sparks flew from the metal door and the railing around it.

Tania froze with fear, only able to watch, as Samantha raced to the entrance. Skyler held his fire as the big woman reached the door and kicked it closed.

A sudden, stark quiet fell over the campus.

“Stay behind me,” Skyler barked at her.

She pushed herself up from her knees and blinked tears from her eyes. She had no way to wipe at them.

“Are you okay?!” Skyler shouted across to Samantha.

The woman waved, then pointed north. “We have to get to Jake!”

Skyler dusted himself off and turned to Tania. “How’s your head?”

“Bleeding, I think,” Tania said. “Your chin is, too.”

“Listen,” Skyler said, “you have to tell me if we should abort. I can’t open your suit to bandage it.”

Tania’s heart hammered within her chest. She willed herself to relax. Her head throbbed, and the blood had spooked her. But the pain felt diminished. “I think I’m okay,” she said. The captain had gone still. “What’s—”

“Quiet,” he whispered.

Tania heard nothing but wind through the speakers in her helmet.

Then, something odd. A sound that chilled her to the core.

From below came the wails, the snarls, of a hundred savage voices. They grew louder by the second. Birds streamed from the trees behind the campus.