Leviathan (22 page)

Barley didn't get it.
“Well, you'll still be electrocuted, Connor, if you touch that line because your foot is touching the ground! The current's gonna come in your hand and go out your foot! It don't matter none if you've got one hand on the box or two hands on it.”

“
Not always, Barley.” Connor lifted a dead intake line, moving it toward the 1,000-amp strand. “A fast current will travel a straight line if it can. And if the current comes in one hand and goes out the other hand, the current goes through your heart. That's what kills you. But if the current comes in a hand and goes out a foot, then it doesn't go through your heart. It'll probably blow your leg off or set you on fire or something, but there's a good chance you'll live.”

Barley
pointed. “This line right here?” he pointed. “This line right here will blow your whole leg off?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Are you kidding?”

“
No.”

Barley stared wide-eyed at the line, and Connor sat back on the wooden sawhorse, grabbing the insulated section of the 1,000-amp line with his bare hand. He jerked hard.

Barley leaped back. “
What are you doing
!”

Connor pulled three feet of line from the box. Then he grabbed the dead intake line and brought the ends close together, but not too close. He knew that a 1,000-amp line could throw an electrical bolt as far as three inches to connect with a grounded source.

Half-turning, he pointed to a thick plastic roll lying on the ground. It looked like non-adhesive electrical tape, but it was simply a four-inch thick band of plastic. It wouldn't stick to any surface without tape holding it down. But Connor knew that, in this situation, he wouldn't need any tape. The residual heat coming off the electrical line would do the job by itself.

“
Give me that roll of plastic,” he said.

Barley picked up the plastic roll and cautiously handed it to him. Connor leaned forward, grabbing both ends of the wires and slowly pushing them together until the 1,000-amp line was close to the intake line. And even though Connor was expecting it, had even braced himself for it, the shock almost killed him.

When the ends were four inches apart a bolt of electricity leaped at the speed of light to instantly hit the intake line, liquid fire, deep and pure and blazing green that flashed into a bright white flow, blinding as a welding torch, to burn a path from one exposed wire to the other.

Connor's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't find the strength to catch a breath as a solid and terrifying power charged the atmosphere with static. The skin on his chest tightened at the touch, hair standing all over his body. And although he hadn't seen it happen, he saw now that the copper endings of the wires had already melted together.

The overhead lights were glowing.

Connor sensed that Barley hadn't
moved and was watching with rapt attention. Moving slowly, Connor slid his hands farther away from the exposed copper and pushed, solidifying the weld. The power continued. Then he undid the thick roll of electrical plastic and picked up a small wooden stick. With sweat sliding off face, he cast a glance at Barley.

“
You'd better step back,” he whispered.

Without shame
Barley stepped back.

With the plastic held lightly on the stick, Connor threw the dangling end over the bare 1,000-amp meld. Instantly the plastic melted, disintegrating to the invisible heat. With infinite caution Connor meticulously turned the plastic on the line, feeling the hairs on his arm and head raise straight up at the immeasurably faint margin of power charging the air and traveling through the plastic strand and stick, the current trying unsuccessfully to connect with the ground through the sawhorse's wooden legs.

Heavy beads of perspiration dripped from Connor's arms, his chin. He used his free hand to carefully wipe sweat from his eyes, focusing with absolute concentration on the bare copper line in front of him.

In five careful minutes
Connor had wrapped the entire roll of non-adhesive plastic around the section, the plastic melting less and less as it turned, coating the wires. Then Connor took a large roll of wide black electrical tape, feeling less and less of the current as he wrapped the tape generously around the melted plastic. And finally, after an additional ten minutes of agonizing, patient work, the connecting electrical lines were covered by a large black lump of insulated plastic. No bare wire could be seen.

Sweat soaked his shirt as Connor leaned back. It dripped from his nose, his chin. His shoulders were cramping badly as he wearily tossed the empty paper core of electrical tape to the side.

He stood on the ground, turned to Barley.

“
We're hot.”

***

Hand locked hard on the last foot of wire, Thor swung out from the wall, staring down the shaft. He angled the flashlight downward but it was absorbed by the dark. But he knew, if Blankenship was correct, that there were only a hundred feet remaining.

Cables and grease-slick steel girders lined the sides and front of the shaft, but Thor knew trying to maintain a solid handhold on any of them would be even more difficult than holding the wall.

Better, yes, to trust the rock itself, trying for solid holds.

Reaching out to grasp a narrow sliver of stone, bracing the toes of his boots against the wall, Thor studied with exacting concentration for a secure second handhold. He saw several. Then he moved the flashlight around to his gut, letting the beam hit the wall.

Rebounding off the wall in the darkness of the shaft, the light beam was transformed into a wild white haze that illuminated all four walls and a space of the shaft above and below. Using it, Thor guessed that he might pick his way down the remaining hundred feet.

Gathering himself, teeth clenching, Thor released his other hand from the wire and lashed out wildly, slamming against the wall, digging desperately, his fingers finding a narrow hold.

***

“
Can you work the vault doors now with GEO?” Connor asked.

“
No,” Frank responded. “GEO isn't going to do anything that it thinks would place us in danger. And GEO is convinced that shutting all the doors is necessary to protect us.”

“
Well how did you ever plan to get out of this cavern, Frank? How did you plan to escape this place if Leviathan ever got loose?”

“
We never anticipated that we would ever have to escape the cavern, Connor! The vaults were just to trap Leviathan so the security personnel could corner it and kill it.”

“
And the nuclear fail-safe? What was that for?”

Frank hesitated.
“The nuclear fail-safe was a contingency plan in case of some kind of emergency. I never really expected to create something like this. I never... I never thought it would be needed.”

“
Well think again, Frank.” Connor knelt to study the vault door. After a moment he looked up. “You're certain that GEO won't open any of the doors?”

“
GEO will only do what it's programmed to do.”

Connor stared silently at the vault.

“We can raise the door manually,” Barley said, stepping forward. “There's an emergency pump built into the side of the vault. It works on hydraulics. Takes less than fifteen seconds.”

Frank tensed.
“But listen, Connor, if you manually raise that door, GEO is going to interpret it as a broken circuit and it's going to initiate nitrogen pheromones stored above the door. None of us will survive the atmosphere.”

“
We'll use gas masks,” Barley countered.

“
Nitrogen is stored at minus 150 degrees Celsius,” Frank said, turning to him. “This room will be frozen, Barley. We'll be dead from hypothermia in less than ten seconds.”

Connor bent forward, plac
ing both hands against the titanium vault. “GEO is just a machine, Frank.” His voice was distant. “It's like you said, a machine just does what it's told. Or what it thinks it's told, which means we have to trick it.”

Standing, Connor moved to the vault's control panel. He took out his utility tool and removed the screws that held the cover plate. In a few more seconds he had reworked the circuit, leaving two small wires twisted together and dangling.

“That should be the circuit that tells GEO that the door is closed,” he muttered. “As long as that circuit isn't broken, GEO shouldn't know that we've opened the door. So go ahead, Barley. Time to dance.”

The big lieutenant bent without expression and began working the short handle of the hydraulic pump. Instantly the vault opened a foot, two feet, moving steadily upward. Connor saw an inch-thick steel cable quivering at the inside corner of the door, holding the tremendous hydraulic pressure that kept the vault upraised.

Sweating from the effort, Barley stepped back. “Let's hope we don't have to do that in a hurry,” he said, unslinging his rifle. He bent, peering under the doorway. “It's clear. Let's move out. This tunnel should lead back to the Command Center.”

* * *

Thor dug bloody fingers into stone.

Trying to hold a grip on the rock, his hands were numb and bleeding. His four hundred fifty pounds pressed against the wall, dragging him down. His breaths exploded against the rock in hard blasts, mixing with grave-dust. Sweat streaked his face, soaked his hair, falling from his bearded chin.

How much farther^

The darkness beneath him seemed depthless, but Thor knew he had climbed down at least sixty feet from the end of the wire. So there couldn't be more than thirty, or even forty feet, remaining.

Depthless darkness
...

S
training and trembling, Thor glared for a more secure handhold, but he had reached a section as smooth as glass, the sides of the wall perfectly cylindrical. He glanced up, frantic, forearms dead with fatigue and pain, and in frenzied fear he couldn't even find the handholds he had used to lower himself to this precarious position.

The battle-ax dragged him back from the wall, and his boots slipped again from their narrow purchase. Groaning, Thor jammed bloody fingers painfully into the rock.

A choked cry of agony escaped him as his boots slipped off the wall and his entire weight went solidly to his fingertips, shredding his fingernails. He scrambled for a more secure hold on the smooth wall, slipping, scrambling again, slipping . . . Teeth clenched in pain, Thor cast a wild look down—pain, fear, darkness, an abyss ... Bellowing in agony, unable to ascend or climb, Thor clung savagely at the edge of a long and bitter darkness.

* * *

“Can GEO track Leviathan?”

Frank answered Connor's terse question as they moved.
“Yes. GEO always knows where Leviathan is.”

“
So where is Leviathan now?”

Lightly touching the headset, Frank asked,
“GEO, what is the exact location of Leviathan?”

“
Switch to the speaker system,” Connor said. “I want to hear this.”

“
Leviathan is in Alpha Corridor,” the computer replied over the speaker system in its impersonal voice. “Leviathan is standing at the Observation Room.”

Halting in place, Frank stared at nothing. Connor froze beside him, watching. A cold pall of silent fear seemed to cross the scientist's face. His hand continued to touch the headset.

“GEO, what is the brain activity of Leviathan?” he asked.

“
Leviathan's EEG activity is at maximum speed and maximum intensity.”

Head turning like a doll, Frank looked at Connor.
“GEO,” he asked more quietly,  “how long has Leviathan been stationary at the Observation Room?”

“
Leviathan has been stationary at the Observation Room for forty-six minutes and twelve seconds. ‘

Frank's face went white.

“What is it?” Connor asked.

“
It's about to attack.”

“
How can you know that?”

“
It's standing beside the Observation Room so it can study the structural integrity of this place.”

“
Study the structure? It's an animal!”

“We've got to move,” Frank said, running forward. “We've got to reach Chesterton before Leviathan reaches the entrance of Alpha Corridor. I think that it's discovered a way to defeat the vault!”

* * *

Chapter 16

A graveyard-dead disbelief rose from the depths of Chesterton's sullen eyes. It was the look of a man who absolutely could not believe the dismal, dark fate that had been delivered to him.

“
Give me that again, Doctor,” he muttered.

“
All right,” Frank said, leaning over a computer terminal, “let me put it to you as simply as possible. Leviathan is a programmed organism that has specialized knowledge available to it from memory implantation.”

“
What kind of knowledge are we talking about?”

The scientist raised his hands.
“Any kind of knowledge, Chesterton! Leviathan has an entire encyclopedia of knowledge in its memory network. It has knowledge of countries, capitals, ocean currents, climatic conditions, national populations. It had to have all that information if we were ever going to release it into the lake. It had to know how to find its way to the targeted armies, capitals, whatever. It had to—”

“
Wait a minute, Doctor. I thought Leviathan's memory implantation dealt mostly with military tactics.”

“
Yeah, Chesterton, Leviathan understands whatever tactics your people put on those tapes. But Leviathan has a constantly evolving neural network that is always—”

“
Frank!” Chesterton slammed both hands on a desk. “I'm tired of science reports! Just give it to me in English!”

“Fine!” Frank responded, leaning back. “I’11 make it simple for you, Chesterton.” He pointed solidly at the Alpha vault. “Leviathan is about to come through that vault like a freight train! And you'd better get ready for it because nothing can stop it!”

“
You said it can't melt titanium!”

“
Now I’m saying that Leviathan has found a weakness in the construction that even we don't know about. And you'd better believe me, Chesterton, because I know this creature.”

Frowning, Chesterton stood silent a moment
“All right, Frank,” he said finally. “Then tell me this: What is that thing going to do when it comes through that doorway?”

“
The first thing it's going to do is knock out the lights.”

“
Then it will be in the dark,” Chesterton muttered.

“
It doesn’t need light, Chesterton.”

“
It can see in the dark? You never told me that!”

“
You never asked.”

“
I ... I cannot believe this.” Chesterton lowered his head with the words, looked up after a moment. He placed his hands on his hips, leaning forward as he turned to Barley. “Lieutenant! Take all the C-4 and dynamite and whatever else you can find, and rig it up with a microwave switch at the exit of Alpha Corridor. And get it done yesterday!”

“
Yes sir!” Barley replied, was gone.

A ponderous pause, with Chesterton staring at the vault. For a long time no one cared to speak.

“What does any of this mean, Frank?” he asked finally. He shook his head, looking down at the floor. “What does any of this really mean?”

Frank focused on him.

“It means we're not in control, Chesterton. It means we never were.”

* * *

Roaring as his fingers were torn from the rock, Thor saw the metallic gleam to his left and decided ...

Use the elevator cables!

In the, frantic moment as his fingers tore from the rock, Thor slammed his boots forcefully against the wall and launched his titanic form through the air, sailing through darkness. And in the next second he crashed against the serpentine black cables to grasp wildly at the thinly-oiled, slick steel as he rebounded out and down.

Instantly in the rushing, formless moment, Thor's hand flashed out to strike a steel girder with bruising force, all his strength centered in the fingers of his hand.

Bellowing in pain, Thor dug his fingers in the steel, trying to find a solid grip in the heavily greased elevator frame. But his great weight dragged him backward, his grip sliding on the thin oil. And yet for a herculean moment he held, his entire arm trembling with the strain while his other hand reached wildly at the cable, the steel, flashing down the rock for a wild swipe at an unseen crevice as vivid thoughts blasted his mind ...

Innocent lives lost ... Evil eyes glowing ... Innocence consumed ... Evil devouring ... Darkness rising ...

Thor snarled, scrambling savagely for a hold, but against his will he felt his grip slipping. Knowing he could not hold, he tried a sliding descent; but as he released the slightest pressure, he knew he had lost it all to darkness rising, rising, rising...

Thor roared back into ...

Black, rushing wind ...

Falling...

* * *