The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (33 page)

“Sorry, sir, I can’t
let you do that,” the chauffer’s voice replied.

“Just for a few
minutes?”

“I’d lose my
job.”

Corey
shrugged.  “Just tell your boss we threatened you at gunpoint.”

The chauffer
chuckled.

He stopped
chuckling when Corey threatened him at gunpoint.

“HOW
does
it feel,” asked Jill, “knowing you’ve aided one of the most dangerous
organizations in Anterra?”

“A funny
accusation coming from you,” Dr. Valentine replied, “when your blonde friend
tried to get me to do the same thing for your own organization.  Just out
of curiosity, which of Sketch’s rival gangs do you belong to?”

His voice was
confident—a little
too
confident.  But it didn’t hide a slight
tremor, didn’t stop his hands from shaking slightly.

“They’re going to
kill you, aren’t they?” said Jill.

He hesitated.

“They told you
they’d kill you if you ever let anyone else get hold of the blueprints,” Jill
pressed him, “and now we have.”

He shuffled his
feet.  “I know you’ve got a camera in that little purse of yours. 
Hand it over.”

“They’ve got you
right where they want you.”

“Shut up! 
Give me the camera before I pull this trigger!”

“You won’t pull
the trigger.  You’re not a killer.  You’re just a guy who got himself
mixed up in an ugly business.”

He took a step
closer.  “Do you really care to bet your life on that assumption?”

Jill glanced over
at the towering glass wall at the front of the ballroom.  “I’ve got some
bad news, professor.  Even if I handed you the camera—even if you put a
bullet in my head right now—it wouldn’t do you any good.  The photos of
the blueprints are already uploaded onto our base’s computer.”

He paled. 
“You’re lying.”

“You know I’m
not.”

Gunfire sounded
from outside the building.  Gasps and shrieks sounded from the party
guests below as the glass wall and doors began to crack.

A thunderous
shattering sound erupted over the ballroom as a hovering
skylimo
burst through the glass and soared over the gawking guests.

The professor’s
eyes bugged.

“By the way,”
said Jill.  “I also have some good news.  My friends and I are using
the blueprints to enter the Dark Beneath and take down Sketch’s ring.  And
if we do it quickly enough...well, he just might not get around to killing
you.”

With that, Jill
vaulted over the rail.

The professor ran
to the edge of the balcony, mouth hanging open, and saw her land on the roof of
the hovering
skylimo
just below.  The guards in
the ballroom were raising their weapons.

“Hold your fire!”
the professor barked into his com.

As the long
vehicle made a mid-air
u-turn
Jill dangled over the
side.  She slipped into an open window where multiple pairs of helping
hands gathered her inside.

Nearly one
thousand slack-jawed, bug-eyed guests watched dumbfounded as the limo left the
way it had come.

“Godspeed,” the
professor whispered toward the obliterated glass wall.

A few more shards
tinkled to the floor while formally dressed men and women exchanged incredulous
looks.

20

IT
was
after midnight when the department car pulled up in the alley next to Jerry G’s
backyard.

He and Jill sat
in silence for a time.

“Well, glad we
got the chance to work together again,” said Jerry.

“Yeah,” Jill
nodded.  “It was a pleasure.”

He smiled at
her.  “Most exciting date I’ve ever been on, that’s for sure.”

She
laughed.  “Me too.”

More
silence.  Why is it the things you want to say most—the things that are
practically bursting out of you—are usually the hardest to say?

“Guess I’d better
go.”  Jerry opened his door.

“Jerry, wait,”
Jill blurted.

He paused. 
“Yeah?”

“You were great
tonight.  The way you handled things...”

He shook his
head.  “I see where you’re going with this.”

“The department
could use you, Jerry.  Your skills would come in really handy.  If
you want, I’m sure the director would—”

He stopped her
and shook his head.  “I don’t belong in the government.  I’m glad you
found your calling, Jill.  I’m still looking for mine.”

She wanted to try
to talk him into it, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good.  “Well, if you
ever change your mind...”

“I’ll let you
know,” he replied in a tone that said he’d never change his mind.  He shut
the car door and hopped the fence.

Jill sighed as
she watched him cross his backyard and descend the stairwell into his basement.

SHERLOCK
was already examining the blueprints.  So was a team of
human analysts.  They promised Director Holiday they’d try to have a
three-dimensional map of the empty passages in the depths of the satellite
worked up within twenty-four hours.

For Jill and the
rest of the team, that meant a well-earned day off.

ONCE
every
week or so, the department cafeteria served meatloaf for dinner.

Which meant once
every other week or so, Jill and Dizzie didn’t show up at the cafeteria. 
Instead they made macaroni and cheese in the dorm kitchen.  Dizzie had
started the tradition with analyst Mandy
Farrel
. 
Jill had joined them ever since arriving at the department.

Tonight was one
of those nights.

“Did Jill
forget?” asked Mandy, a serious looking girl with horn-rimmed glasses. 
“She’s usually the first one here.”

Dizzie wrinkled
her nose.  “She would have remembered the minute she got close enough to
the cafeteria to smell the meatloaf.  Don’t worry, she’ll show.”

As if on cue,
Jill appeared in the doorway to the kitchen loft.  “Sorry I’m late. 
I had to find someone.”

Amber Phoenix
stepped in right behind her.  “Hey, guys,” she said with a timid
wave.  “Jill invited me.”

Dizzie welcomed
Amber with her usual enthusiasm.  She sat her down and gave her the first
and biggest helping of macaroni and cheese, then bought her a drink from the
vending machine.

Jill watched as
Amber’s tenseness slowly melted away over the course of the evening.  By
the time they were having dessert, Amber was talking and laughing right along
with the others.  Feeling not-weird around them, as Dizzie would have put
it.  She’d been right.  Amber was intimidated by Jill, and it had
been up to Jill to change that.

Dizzie was always
right about everything, Jill decided.  Maybe it was almost time to confide
in her even more than she had already.

Maybe.

“HERE’S
the map Sherlock and our team have generated,” Holiday announced in Conference
Room D the following night.

A
three-dimensional model of the Dark Beneath appeared on the screen.

“The original
city-level entrances into the tunnels no longer exist,” the director
explained.  “They’re now covered by buildings and streets and such. 
Sketch’s ring has found ways to regain access the entrances—such as they did at
the conservatory.”

“We can do the
same thing,” said Corey.  He, Dizzie, and Jill were the only three in the
room besides Holiday.

“But Sketch’s
people are down there,” said Dizzie.  “We’ll have to find an entrance they
don’t know about.”

“We already
have,” Holiday told her.  He zoomed in on a particular section of the
eastern edge of the map.

A
small shuttle floated along the eastern edge of
Metropolitan Satellite IX
,
several stories beneath street level.

Bradley Park had
donned a suit with a domed glass helmet and linked himself to the craft via
cable.  Now he was floating across the short, vacuous distance between the
shuttle and the vast underbelly of the satellite.  The sun was behind
Earth at the moment, casting the Home Planet’s shadow across MS9.  This
section of the satellite was thrown into a halo of cold white light from a
spotlight on the shuttle.

At the shuttle’s
controls, Amber Phoenix checked the layout on her screen.  “A little to
your left,” she reported.

Her instructions
buzzed in Bradley’s ear.  “Got it.”  He held out his gloved
hands.  Magnetic palms stuck to the steel wall that housed the forest of
working parts within
Metropolitan Satellite IX.
  Cautiously he
moved left.

“Now down a
little.”

“Right.” 
The wall, scarred and separated into countless sections and panels, housed a
particular box here.  The lid swung open on a pair of hinges.  It
contained a thick, swiveling handle.  “Here we are.”

“Try it.”

“It hasn’t been
used for almost a century.”

“Just try it.”

“Okay, here it
goes.”  He turned the handle.

A massive panel
next to the box began silently sliding open.

“Link us with
HQ,” said Bradley.

“Already on it,”
said Amber.  “Director Holiday, we’re in.”

“Excellent,”
Holiday’s voice replied.  “We’re broadcasting your signal now.”

THE
screen at the front of Conference Room D showed a video signal from the
craft.  Jill, Dizzie, and Corey watched as a sliding panel exposed a
gaping black opening in the side of the satellite.

“What do you
think?” Amber’s voice asked over the speakers.

Holiday wasn’t
saying what he thought just yet.  “Take a look inside.”

“I’m turning on
the suit cam now,” Bradley’s voice announced.

The screen now
showed the video feed from a camera mounted on Bradley’s spacesuit.  It
panned across the satellite’s shell as he worked his way toward the large
opening.

Now he was
looking inside.  A small light affixed to his suit cast a dull pool of
illumination onto a wide metal floor inside the opening.  “This light’s
worthless,” he complained.

“On my way,” said
Amber.  She maneuvered the shuttle closer to the opening and shone the
powerful spotlight inside.

Now they could
see the entire chamber.  It was large and empty.

“It’s the landing
bay, all right,” said Corey.

BRADLEY
worked his way inside the opening and down to the floor of the big
chamber.  “Let’s check the airlocks,” he said.  “Cut me loose.”

“You sure?” asked
Amber.

He stomped on the
bay floor.  “The gravity generator’s working.  And the magnetic boots
are holding.  I can hardly even walk.”

“Good. 
Cutting you
loose
.”

The cable
connecting Bradley to his ride now detached from the shuttle’s airlock. 
He reeled it in and reattached it just inside the landing bay.  Then he
found another control panel and shut the massive bay door from the
inside.  Darkness enclosed him except for the tiny light on his suit.

“According to
Sherlock, the air pressure is engaged,” said Amber.

Bradley checked
the readings displayed inside his helmet.  “Seems to be working.”  He
placed some small devices around the bottom edge of the bay door.  “Not
showing any leakage.”

“Oxygen level is
ideal,” Amber said a few moments later.

Bradley unsealed
the glass bubble and lifted it off his head with relief.  “Ah!” he said
taking a deep breath.  “Fresh, artificially generated air!”

“The entrance,”
Amber’s voice urged him impatiently.

“I’m going, I’m
going.”  He crossed the wide bay floor and found a human-sized door at the
far end.

The Dark Beneath
lay behind that door.

Bradley took
another device attached to his suit and held it against the door. 
“Initial scan is showing no activity on the other side,” he reported.

“So what are you
waiting for?” asked Amber.

“This door has
been built and sealed to hold against a vacuum.  The scanners won’t be
entirely reliable.  Director, are we sure Sketch’s men aren’t waiting for
me on the other side?”

“They would have
no reason to access that door,” Holiday’s voice replied in his ear.  “The
room has been without air until this moment, you recall.”

“So we’re sure
Sketch’s men aren’t waiting for me on the other side?” Bradley repeated
uncertainly.

“It’s
possible.  Unlikely, but possible.  You arrived prepared, did you
not?”

Bradley drew a
strange-looking sidearm that had been holstered to his spacesuit.  “Yep.”

“Then what’s the
problem?”

“The problem is
that they might shoot me first, sir.”

“It’s possible,”
Holiday said again.

Bradley
hesitated.  “Hardly reassuring.”

“Life is full of
uncertainty, isn’t it?”

“Come on,
Bradley!” Amber said insistently.

Bradley took a
deep breath and pushed the button next to the door.  It hissed open.

The light on his
spacesuit shone into a silent, empty room.

“We’re clear,” he
said, and stepped inside.  “Any chance I could turn the lights on in
here?”

“At your own
risk,” replied Holiday.  “The electricity should be turned on, but if
Sketch’s people happen to be nearby...”

“Life is full of
uncertainties.  I’ll chance it.”  He felt his way around a wall
papered with a floral pattern until he came across a switch.

Warm light
flooded across what looked like a hotel lobby, small but finely furnished.

“Looks good
considering it’s been a hundred years since anyone set foot in here,” said
Bradley, panning the camera around so they could see the place from HQ. 
“A little dusty.  How the heck did the plants survive?”

“The same way all
synthetic plants survive,” muttered Amber.

“Oh. 
Right.”

“THIS,”
Holiday said gesturing to the screen, “was the base camp for the architects of
MS9.  Most of Anterra was constructed while it was already in space, as
you know.  Workers resided on the satellite for weeks at a time while they
worked.  This is where they lived.  Rather nice bedrooms, locker
rooms, bathrooms, kitchen, and dining area.  And, of course, direct access
to the tunnels.”

“It’s perfect,”
said Amber’s voice.

“Assuming Sketch
has not already made use of it,” said Holiday.

“Doesn’t appear
he has, sir,” said Bradley.  “But I’ll investigate just to make sure.”

“Check the tunnel
access first,” said Holiday.

“ALL
right.”

Bradley crossed
the lobby and entered a small anteroom.   It had only one other door.

“Time for the
crawlers to do their thing,” said Bradley.  He drew a small, wheeled
device from his spacesuit’s pack.  “Night vision is engaged.  Are you
getting the signal?”

“Audio and
video,” Holiday’s voice confirmed.

Bradley opened
the door.  It led to a long, dark hallway enclosed by metal walls.

The Dark Beneath.

He put the
wheeled device against the wall, then took out a tiny remote control pad. 
“Here we go.”

The crawler
rolled up the wall, then along it as if held there by gravity.  Its
journey down the hallway was completely silent.

Bradley shut the
door and checked the screen on his tiny remote control pad.

AMBER
watched the same image from the shuttle.  It relayed the audio-video
signal of the crawler.  For the first few minutes it encountered nothing
but silent, empty hallways.

Then crawler
reached an intersection of the tunnels and paused.  The crossing hallway
was lit with fluorescent lanterns fixed to the wall.  Words flashed across
the screen:  MOVING OBJECTS DETECTED NEARBY.

“Do I keep
going?” asked Bradley.

“Just wait,”
Amber cautioned, watching the screen intently.

Two figures
appeared in the video from the crawler.

Amber gulped.

THE
occupants of Conference Room D held their collective breath.

On the screen was
the signal from the crawler.  The two figures in the hallway had faces
like pale skulls.