Domain. - Domain. Part 24
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Domain. Part 24

The monitor goes blank.

Commander McKana runs his stubby fingers through his graying crew cut. "That's the third ROV we've lost in the last twenty-four hours, Director Dodds."

"I can count, Commander-"

"I'd say you need to focus on finding an alternative way in."

"We're already working on it." Dodds motions to where a dozen workers are busy rigging lengths of steel pipe to the derrick above. "We're going to lower the drill string right into the hole. Sensors will be hooked up within the first length of pipe."

Rig Captain Andy Furman joins them. "We've got a situation, gentlemen. The Coast Guard reports two people aboard a trawler just launched a minisub two miles east of the Scylla. Sonar shows them heading for the object."

Dodds looks alarmed. "Spies?"

"More like civilians. The trawler's registered to an American salvage company licensed out of Sanibel Island."

McKana appears unconcerned. "Let them look. When they surface, have the Coast Guard arrest them."

Aboard the Barnacle Mick and Dominique press their faces to the viewports' reinforced LEXAN glass as the minisub approaches the eerie beacon of light, the beam blasting upward from the seafloor like a 168-foot-wide spotlight.

"What the hell could be down there?" Dominique asks. "Mick, you okay?"

Mick's eyes are closed, his breathing erratic.

"Mick?"

"I can feel the presence. Dom, we shouldn't be here."

"I didn't come all this way just to turn back." A red light flashes above her head. "The sub's sensors are going crazy. There's massive amounts of electromagnetic energy rising out of the hole. Maybe that's what you're feeling?"

"Don't pass through that beacon or you'll short-circuit every system on board."

"Okay, maybe there's another way in. I'll circle the area while you complete a sensor sweep."

Mick opens his eyes, scanning the stacks of computer consoles lining the cabin. "What do you want me to do?"

She points. "Activate the gradiometer, it's an electromechanical gravity sensor rigged beneath the Barnacle. Rex used it to detect gravity gradients beneath the seafloor."

Mick boots the system's monitor, which reveals a tapestry of orange and reds, the brighter colors indicating high levels of electromagnetic energy. The hole itself blazes a brilliant, almost blinding white. Mick pulls back on the gradiometer's joystick, widening the field to examine the rest of the seafloor's topography.

The intense glow shrinks to a white dot. Hues of green and blue create a circular border around the reds and orange. "Wait a second-I think I found something."

Encircling the crater-shaped area are a series of dark spots set in a precise, equidistant circular pattern along the mile-diameter perimeter.

Mick counts the holes. He feels his gut tightening, a cold sweat breaking out across his body. He grabs his father's journal, leafing through the parched pages until he locates the June 14, 1997, entry.

He stares at the photograph of the nine-foot circular icon, located at the center point of the Nazca plateau. Within its circular boundaries Mick had found the original Piri Re'is map, sealed within an iridium container. He counts twenty-three lines extending outward from the Nazca figure like a sunburst, the last one, seemingly endless.

Twenty-three dark spots surround the monstrous hole in the seafloor.

"Mick, what is it? Are you okay?" Dominique sets the minisub on autopilot to glance at the monitor. "What are they?"

"I don't know, but an identical pattern was drawn on the Nazca plateau thousands of years ago."

Dominique glances at the entry. "It's not really identical. You're comparing lines carved in the desert with a bunch of dark holes in the seafloor-"

"Twenty-three holes. Twenty-three lines. You think that's just a coincidence?"

She pats his check. "Take it easy, gifted one. I'll head for the nearest hole, and we'll take a closer look."

The Barnacle slows to hover above a dark burrow, twenty feet across, the orifice spewing a steady profusion of bubbles. Dominique directs one of the sub's external lights down into its steep gullet. The beacon reveals a vast tunnel, descending through the seafloor at a forty-five-degree angle.

"What do you think?"

Mick stares at the burrow, the familiar feeling of dread growing in his gut. "I don't know."

"I say we investigate."

"You want to enter that hellhole?"

"That's why we're here, isn't it? I thought you wanted to resolve the Mayan doomsday prophecy?"

"Not like this. It's more important that we get to Chichen Itza."

"Why?" He's frightened.

"Salvation lies in the Kukulcan pyramid. The only thing waiting down this hole is death."

"Yeah, well I didn't toss seven years of college in the toilet and risk being thrown in prison just so you could chase some bullshit Mayan prophecy. We're here because my family and I need a sense of closure, we need to find out what really happened to Iz and his friends. I'm not blaming you for my father's death, but since you're the one who started us on this little adventure, you're the one who's going to see it through."

Dominique pushes down on the wheel, driving the capsule-shaped minisub straight into the heart of the tunnel.

Mick grabs for a ladder rung, holding on as the Barnacle accelerates through the pitch-dark shaft.

A squishing sound echoes within the sub.

Dominique stares out her viewport. "The sound's coming from the walls of this passage. The internal lining seems to be acting like some kind of giant sponge. Mick, to your left, there's a sensor marked spectrophotometer-"

"I see it." He activates the system. "If I'm reading this thing right, the gas being filtered out of this hole is pure oxygen."

A baritone thrumming reverberates throughout the cabin, growing louder as they descend deeper. Mick is about to say something when the Barnacle suddenly lurches forward, accelerating down the shaft.

"Hey, slow down-"

"It's not me. We're caught in some kind of current." He can hear the panic in her voice. "External temperatures rising. Mick, I think we're being sucked into a lava tube!"

He grips the ladder tighter as the deep pulsating sounds cause the glass instrument panels in front of him to resonate.

The minisub plunges, spinning blindly down the hole like a beetle being flushed down a drainage pipe.

"Mick!" Dominique screams as she loses control of the Barnacle. She squeezes her eyes shut and grips the seat's shoulder harness as the power fails and they are blanketed in darkness.

She feels herself hyperventilating, waiting for the jolt that will cause the sub to lose integrity to the suffocating sea. Oh, Jesus, God, I'm going to die, help me, please- Mick has locked his arms and legs around the ladder, his palms clenching the steel bars in a viselike grip. Don't fight it, let it come. Let the madness end. . .

Intense vertigo as the minisub spins round and around as if caught in a giant washing machine.

A sonic boom-a bone-jarring jolt: Mick is sent flying blindly through the pitch, the Barnacle driven bow-first into an immovable, unseen force, the air exploding from his lungs as his face and chest slam blindly into a stack of computer consoles.

Chapter 17.

GULF OF MEXICO.

7,168 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE.

The incessant pounding in his head forces Mick to open his eyes.

Silence.

He is lying on his back, his legs propped in the air, his upper body entangled in a sizzling array of broken equipment. The cabin is humid and pitch-dark, save for the dull glow of an orange console flickering somewhere in the distance. Up is down, left is right, and a warm liquid is dripping down his throat, gagging him.

He rolls over painfully, spitting out a mouthful of blood, his head still spinning. Tracing the blood to his dripping nostrils, he pinches off the flow.

For a long moment he just sits there, balancing unsteadily on sharp fragments of shattered computer monitors and navigational equipment as he tries to remember his name and where he is.

The minisub. The burrow . . . Dominique!

"Dom?" He spits out more blood as he climbs over a pile of equipment blocking his path to the pilot's chair. "Dom, can you hear me?"

He finds her unconscious, still strapped within the pilot's chair, her chin on her chest. His heart pounds with fear as he carefully reclines the chair all the way back, supporting her bleeding head in his hand before allowing it to rest on the back of the seat. He checks her airway, detecting shallow breaths. He loosens the harness, then tends to the deep, bleeding gash on her forehead.

Mick removes his tee shirt, tearing the sweaty fabric into long strips. He ties a makeshift bandage across the wound, then searches the battered cabin for the first-aid kit.

Dominique moans. She sits up painfully, turns her head, and retches.

Mick locates the first-aid kit and a bottle of water. Returning to her side, he dresses the wound, then removes a cold pack.

"Mick?"

"Right here." He squeezes the cold pack, puncturing its internal contents, then presses it to her head, securing it with the remains of his tee shirt. "You've got a nasty head wound. Most of the bleeding's stopped, but you probably suffered a concussion."

"I think I cracked a rib, I'm having a hard time breathing." She opens her eyes and looks up at Mick in pain. "You're bleeding."

"I broke my nose." He hands her the container of bottled water.

She closes her eyes and takes a sip. "Where are we? What happened?"

"We descended through the burrow and hit something. The minisub's dead. Life-support systems are barely functioning."

"Are we still in the hole?"

"I don't know." Mick moves to the forward viewport and peers out.

The Barnacles emergency exterior lighting reveals a dark, tight chamber, devoid of seawater. The minisub's bow appears to be wedged in between two dark, vertical barriers. The spacing between the two walls narrows sharply before dead-ending at a curved, metallic sheath.

"Jesus, where in the hell are we?"

"What is it?"

"I don't know-some kind of subterranean chamber. The sub's wedged in between two walls, but there's no water outside."

"Can we get of here?"

"I don't know. I'm not even sure where here is. Have you noticed those deep vibrations have stopped?"

"You're right." She hears him rummaging through the debris. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for the scuba gear." He locates the wet suit, mask, and air tank.

Dominique groans as she sits up, then lays her head back again, the pain and vertigo overwhelming. "What are you going to do?"

"Wherever we are, we're stuck. I'm going to see if I can find a way to free us."

"Mick, wait. We must be a mile down. The pressure will crush us the moment you open the hatch."

"There's no water in the chamber, which means it must be depressurized. I think we have to take the chance. If we just sit here, we'll die anyway." He pulls off his sneakers and climbs into the tight, neoprene wet suit.

"You were right. We never should have entered the burrow. It was stupid. I should have listened to you."

He stops dressing to lean over her. "If it wasn't for you, I'd still be Foletta's vegetable. Just sit here and try not to move while I get us out of here."

She blinks back tears. "Mick, don't leave me. Please, I don't want to die alone-"

"You're not going to die-"

"The air, how much air's left?"

He searches the control console, checking the gauge. "Almost three hours. Try to stay calm-"

"Wait, don't go yet." She grips his hand. "Just hold me a minute. Please."

He kneels down, placing his right cheek gently against hers, feeling her muscles quivering as he hugs her and inhales her scent. He whispers in her ear, "I'll get us out of here, I promise."

She squeezes him tighter. "If you can't-if there's no way out-promise me you'll come back."