Overlord

48

Aston came around to the sounds of someone making a lot of effort, grunting and swearing. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder. He groaned and looked up, saw Jen Galicia dragging him and Slater along, holding one arm of each and jerking them back in fits and starts. Tears rolled down Jen’s cheeks, but judging by her expression they were tears of frustration more than anything else. The woman’s strength and determination was awe-inspiring.

She saw him look up and relief washed over her. “Quickly! Help me!”

A deep, sonorous crack split the air and then a booming of rocks tumbling reverberated through the cavern.

“Hurry!” Jen shouted. “The whole place is coming down!”

Aston staggered to his feet and took Slater’s other arm. Between them, one arm each, they dragged her along as rocks pounded into the passageway right behind them. Dust and speckles of glittering green swirled in the air and then the only light was Jen’s weak headlamp striping the walls as she moved. Aston stopped, gathered Slater up in a proper carry, and they hurried along again. As they passed through the cavern where they had first seen the vines, the whole cave still lit by their spooky green glow, more deep cracks and creaks sounded through the rock. One dark line snaked alarmingly across the ceiling right above them, dust and stones raining down.

“Hurry,” Jen said again, but it was advice Aston didn’t need.

“One more cavern after this one,” he said. “Then we’ll be through that original door and back into the cave with the elevator, right?”

“I think so.”

Jen yelled out in surprise and danced aside as a huge stalactite detached from the ceiling and shattered right where she had been heading. More groans and cracks echoed as they zigzagged to avoid the deluge of falling pointed rock, the shower of smaller stones and dust. The cavern floor heaved slightly beneath their feet, a crack racing open along their left-hand side. Head down, arms burning with the weight of Slater, Aston powered on, Jen beside him. He held Slater tight against him, relieved to feel her chest rising and falling. She might be hurt, but she wasn’t dead.

As they stumbled along the last tunnel, she stirred and moaned. “Aston?”

“Nearly there,” he told her.

“Put me down, I can run.”

He didn’t need telling twice, his arms jelly, his legs like lead. As she landed on her feet, Slater staggered a little, pressing one hand to the side of her head, and Aston and Jen reached out to steady her.

“I’m okay,” she said, and the three of them pushed on, the staggering, foot-dragging run of the exhausted but determined.

“Nearly there,” Aston kept repeating like a mantra, to drive them all on. “Nearly there.”

The wall of the tunnel cracked like a gunshot and a spider web of dark lines spread across it. More rocks and debris rained down. Then they saw light ahead, and the perfectly rectangular outline of the doorway. Growling in determination, they drove themselves on as it suddenly tilted and tipped in on itself. Yelling a refusal to be caught now, they dove through and into the bright, artificial light of the placed halogens. The ground shook, the caverns moaned.

Thankfully the elevator car was at the bottom, waiting for them. They piled in and pounded on the button to go up. The car jerked and rattled and began to rise. A wide split arced up through the rock above the sharp edges of the door in the opposite wall and the neat stones of its construction tipped and fell into the bright cavern. The wall above it slumped, the rock crashing and booming as it splintered and fell. Aston hoped the engineering of the elevator and its shaft would hold as dust clouds billowed up from below and enveloped them, made them cough and cover their faces. The whole shaft trembled, all three of them crying out in fear, but the elevator kept moving.

It seemed to take an age, but the vibration through the rocks continued, growing ever more distant, and the air chilled as they reached the surface. The three of them turned to stare out, squinting against the incredible white brightness of the Antarctic day. Aston had never been more happy to see the sun, low on the horizon. They hurried from the elevator shaft and rumblings and groans echoed up from it. The caging and shed surrounding the mechanism shifted, then, with a screeching tearing of metal, the whole thing folded up on itself and disappeared into the ground as though it had been swallowed. The ground under them tipped as if to follow it and they ran, slipping and sliding on the ice, putting as much distance between them and the sinkhole as they could. Then everything fell still.

Aston collapsed to his knees, pressed his hands into the snow and brought some up to rub onto his face. He ate a handful, grateful for its icy freshness. Slater and Jen knelt next to him and the three of them fell into a group hug, laughing at the absurdity of it all, elated with the adrenaline of survival. Eventually, they rose and trudged across the snow, heavy-footed with tiredness, heading for the base. The front doors were open, a low drift of snow gathered inside the first corridor.

“Is it abandoned?” Slater asked.

Aston had a feeling it was rather more sinister than abandonment. “Something happened here. Something to do with Larsen and those mercenaries, I’m guessing.”

As they moved cautiously deeper into the base, Slater said, “Do you think Larsen was working with someone else to scoop SynGreene's discovery?”

“Seems most likely,” Aston said. “The insane greed of people messing everything up once again. People suck.”

“And you think those same people came here?” Slater asked. “Cleared everyone out?”

“Maybe. If we run into more armed goons after all this, I think I’ll lose my mind.”

Slater paused, and Aston stopped with her. She looked meaningfully at him.

“What?” He felt uncomfortable under the intensity of her gaze.

“Well, you said about losing your mind. How… how are you?”

Aston smiled despite his discomfort. “After eating the fish? You wondering if I’m going to go Digby O’Donnell mad on you?”

Slater shrugged, eyes concerned.

“Honestly, I feel fine.”

“Oh.” Jen’s voice was small, constricted, from a few yards ahead. “Oh no.”

Aston and Slater turned to see what had caught her attention and saw her looking into the main lounge of the complex, one hand covering her mouth.

They joined her and saw the cause of her shock. The room was littered with body parts, and soaked in blood. A huge hole gaped in the far wall, and several streaks of blood went through it like bodies had been dragged that way.

Aston pointed. “More uniforms and weapons. Some more of Larsen’s cohorts, I expect.”

Slater nodded. “Looks like it. Three maybe? I don’t know, I never was a fan of jigsaw puzzles.”

Aston laughed, grateful for the break in tension. “Me either. Looks like the entire base staff are in here, too. I guess the mantics came topside for a while.”

“I guess that’s proof they can tolerate any brightness with enough time,” Jen said.

“I guess so. Let’s just hope they won’t be coming back again. Hopefully, everything down there had been shut off by the caverns collapsing.”

“Let’s call for help quickly though,” Slater said. “And wait somewhere far from here.”

“How do we explain all this?” Jen asked.

Aston pursed his lips, thinking about that. “I think it’s best if we don’t try to. We got lost down there, separated from the others. We heard sounds of fighting, but couldn’t find anyone. When we finally got back to the surface, we found all this. We have no idea what happened.”

“They won’t be happy with an answer like that.”

Aston shrugged.

They found an office and a control center and got a distress call out to SynGreene. Arthur Greene himself, after the most cursory of explanations, promised to airlift them within hours. “Maybe it’s best,” he said, voice heavy with resignation, “if we abandon the entire project. At least for now. Who the bloody hell sabotaged my expedition? Don’t worry, I’ll find out and there’ll be hell to pay! Meanwhile, I’ll get you back to civilization and you’ll be paid. I’m so sorry for what’s happened. Can I rely on your… discretion?”

“Sure,” Aston said. “You pay us well enough and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”

“Thank you.”

All three were relieved, though guilty to some degree.

“I have to explain the deaths of Jeff and Marla,” Slater said, her expression pained. “I can’t just ignore it all.”

“I know,” Aston said. “But I wanted to make sure Arthur had no qualms about getting us out. Once we’re back in the civilized world we’ll demand his help in dealing with all the fallout.”

“If nothing else, I want him to pay some compensation to their families.”

“Fair enough.”

They decamped to another lounge area, far from the carnage they had discovered, and found supplies. Real food, ice cold sodas, fresh fruit. It was like a cornucopia from heaven.

While they ate, Aston described his experiences. The result of eating the fish and what had happened out over the Jade Sea.

Once he’d finished, Slater said, “So you’re really okay?”

“I’m not suffering any ill effects from the connection to the Overlord, if that’s what you mean,” Aston said. “At least, none I’m aware of. But I really don’t understand exactly what happened.”

“I have a theory,” Jen said, chewing thoughtfully on an apple. “It’s akin to the hive minds you see in nature. In bees, for example.”

“I was thinking of something similar,” Aston said. “Zombie ants. But this thing is so complex, so powerful.”

“It can’t be that simple,” Slater objected. “What Aston described sounds more like telepathy or something.”

“All brain activity is a combination of chemical reactions and electrical impulses,” Jen said. “What we really know about that stuff is incredibly limited. Perhaps the Overlord exudes energy on a wavelength the greenium allows people to receive? Once it’s in the blood, therefore in the brain, it acts as a biological transmitter and receiver.” She gave a crooked grin, shrugged. “It’s just a theory. Whatever the phenomenon, it’s clearly very real.”

Slater shook her head, not happy with the explanations but not offering any alternatives. Aston thought Jen Galicia's ideas were as good as any. But it didn’t really matter. The overriding memory he had of the whole thing was the Overlord’s powerful, all-encompassing loneliness. It tore at him. Hopefully the collapse of everything down there would be an end to it. In the long run, he thought that was maybe for the best. All things should eventually die.

“Anyway,” Slater said. “As long as you’re okay.”

“I think the effect must wear off. Perhaps you need to keep consuming it to stay attached? Long-term effects would be bad, I think. But I’m fine.”

“Makes sense,” Jen said. “I guess your body has processed it out by now.”

Slater leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Well, with any luck it’s all over. Help should be here in a few hours. Let’s try to sleep in the meantime. I feel like I haven’t slept for a week.”

“Should we take watches?”

Aston looked around the small lounge room they were in. “Only one way in,” he said, pointing at the door. He dragged a small table over to block it, then put a few water glasses and jugs on top. “We’ll hear it if that goes over.”

They each stretched out on a sofa, the comfort incredible after so long with nothing but cold rock beneath them.

“I’m glad it’s all finally over,” Slater said.

“Yeah. I need a holiday,” Aston agreed. “No more adventures for a while.”

They fell quiet, Jen and Slater quickly dropping into deep sleep. Aston lay there thinking about the Overlord, wondering how long it had existed. What it really was. If it was finally over. As he drifted off, blackness stealing in from the edges of his mind, he heard a distant whispered word in his mind.

“Asssttoooooonnnn…”