The 45th Parallel, page 5
“Fuck, what did you do?” I screamed, grabbing Sera’s hand as the rocks disappeared and a gaping hole opened up before us.
“Me? This was your idea!” Her words were barely audible over the roaring wave that overtook us.
“Shiiiiit!!” Clutching each other and banging together in the whirlwind, we were swept into the dark swirling vortex.
Chapter 9
“Fuck!” My hands reached up to soothe my pounding head as I came to my senses. A split second passed before I recognized the sensation, barely managing to roll onto my side and projectile vomiting, missing Sera by centimeters. She was on her knees a few meters away, losing her stomach contents as well. Stupidly, we had taken sandwiches to eat throughout the day, knowing it would be a long day of building the conductive material and praying we weren’t seen.
The weight behind me registered as I lifted my head, and relief surged through my chest, comingling with the feeling of nausea. My pack had made it through, despite hanging precariously by one shoulder strap. Stupidly, I hadn’t been wearing it, but it had been by my feet as the stones rumbled, and I thought I had grabbed it as we were sucked away. Sera already had hers on when I had set the charge, and I could see the bulge in the dim light, the waterproof camouflage pattern one that had been her father’s. Knowing from our parents that the antipodal point on August Island was in a grotto with hot springs, and travelers were not always thrown clear, she had taken that bag deliberately. There was no way Sera would risk her precious laptop getting wet. Besides, it was one of the few things she had that had belonged to our biological father, Luca, and she cherished it. We lay soaked and panting for a long time, waiting for the nausea to pass before I managed a groan meant to convey that I was ready to speak. Sera and I knew each other better than anyone in the world.
“In all of your parents’ stories of portal travel, they neglected to tell us the part where we would be turned inside out and thought we would die,” she muttered. “They always made it sound so romantic, traveling across the world on the solstices and equinoxes. I knew it was too good to be true.”
“Don’t you wonder why the later travelers used heat suits?” I groaned. “Wish we had more preparation time, and I could have found some.”
“Your parents both did it this way. Bloody hell, I can’t believe your Dad did that three times.”
“I’ve just realized how much he loves my Mum,” I moaned. “No man will ever love me that much. Fuck, I think I have broken every bone in my body.” I rolled to Sera’s side, and we lay against each other for a while, recovering our wits. No one was here, and there was no reason to rush.
Aiding each other, we pulled ourselves to a seated position, supporting each other as we wobbled to remain upright and gazed around the dark space. As my eyes became accustomed to the near-total darkness, I could make out thick concrete walls curved around a central water supply, a small sandy bank of less than a meter running around the edge, sloping steeply down into the lake, indicating that the water level had once been several meters higher. Dark stains along the concrete walls confirmed this theory as my eyes adjusted. The water level was dropping, not rising. Steam rose from the water-filled space, making me wonder if we were wet from landing in the water or sweating from the oppressive heat. An enormous cylindrical tube ran from the middle of the water supply to the roof. Even in the dim light and at a distance, we could tell it was big, enormously big. More extensive than the biggest loch on Lewis that provided the water supply for Garynahine. I could barely make out faint green lights around the external wall at regular intervals, casting an eerie glow over the gloomy water.
“Where are we?” Sera whispered, our voices echoing around the curved walls. “It feels like we are at the bottom of an enormous well. This isn’t August. Our parents described it as a rocky cave with hot springs. That water is certainly warm, but this is no cave. Those walls are constructed. You can see the joints even in the low light. Our parents aren’t that stupid.”
“I’m going out on a limb and suggesting we aren’t where we should be,” I whispered back, waves of unease washing over me. “I think we should go back. I feel like I have been dropped into the center of the earth.”
“How?”
As we stared at the shadowy black water, the whirlpool that had transported us here had long ceased, and the water’s surface was perfectly still, reflecting the dim green lights with barely a ripple. Goodness knows how long we had been unconscious. I dropped my red backpack and waded out as far as possible, but all I got was wet. It was deep, and within a few meters, the bottom dropped away, forcing me to swim back.
“Fuck. We are stuck here,” I hissed, my voice echoing around the vast circular room.
“But for how long?”
“Solstice, hopefully, not the next equinox. I barely have enough food for a day. I thought we would end up on August Island, and all we would need was enough food to walk into the main township.”
“Shit, that is thirteen weeks away. What do we do now? We will starve. If we aren’t on August…”
“Where are we?” I whispered. “It looks like a well. Thick circular walls, water storage.”
“Maybe that is where we are: the water storage of one of the communities. I don’t remember any of them having their antipodal point in a well and certainly not with a huge concrete pillar in the middle. Not that I paid that much attention, I admit. But weren’t most located at ancient archaeological sites like Callanish and Newgrange?”
“They were. Mum took me out to see the cairns at Clava when we were there. We’ve both been to Newgrange, and I’ve been to the site at Orkney, when we were there for one of our birthday parties. On a positive note, at least this place looks inhabited.” I pointed at the silver machinery barely visible across the water.
Moving slowly to avoid jarring our battered heads, we inched our way around the outer wall, using the cold concrete wall for support. It was farther than we thought, and with pounding headaches, it was slow going. After traveling through the antipodean portal, I felt like I had been slammed into a brick wall at high speed. We sighed with relief when we finally reached the pumps and filters. I placed a hand on one of the pump casings. It was warm, definitely still operational. A dim glow came from the lights on the pumps but barely enough to see past our feet.
“Let’s find a way out of here,” I said, my voice echoing disconcertingly around the space. “If there are pumps, then people must maintain them. They will help us, especially when they know who your Mum is.” There was something disconcerting about this place. Cold and eerily quiet.
Starting from the pumps, we moved in opposite directions, trying to find an exit. We ran our hands along the smooth concrete wall; the walls were damp from the steam rising from the lake. It took us ages to find anything in the darkness, but finally, Sera located a metal door fitted flush with the wall.
“Here,” she called, her voice echoing around us.
There was no handle, so using our pocketknives, we located the hinges and pried open the opposite side, struggling to get enough grip to get a finger through and hold it open. The door was heavy and solid, and it took both of us to lever it open, using our feet to manage the weight.
“Not exactly welcoming,” I muttered. This place was clearly designed for people to go in and not out.
The space beyond was slightly cooler and better lit, casting an eerie artificial light back over the dark, murky lake from which we had emerged. Unable to close the door gently, we heard the resounding boom as it echoed through the outer room. Our eyes watered as they adjusted to the brighter space. We were in a narrow room that ran in a ring around the inner lake room. I paused to take it in. While I had never been in a basement or dungeon, from the stories I had read as a child, this was what I imagined it to be like. Dirty concrete floor, concrete walls, and every surface damp with condensation. I half expected to see ancient chains hanging from the wet concrete walls. There were no windows, no natural light. But it wasn’t empty. Huge metal machinery ran around the cavernous ringed room, the likes of which we had never seen. Encased by solid walls, floor, and ceiling, the noise was deafening. The equipment was roaring, and I fought the urge to place my hands over my ears.
“What is this place?” Sera yelled in my ear. She looked as uncomfortable as I felt. There was something vastly wrong. This most certainly wasn’t our parents’ original home, August Island, off the coast of New Zealand. Dad had described the walk through the forest to the natural hot springs many times, often describing the different plants unique to August Island. He never spoke of a circular room, perhaps a hundred meters wide, filled with thunderous machinery, much of which appeared to be pumping and filtering water from the room with the lake and antipodal portal.
We moved carefully, not wanting to stumble over someone working here, but saw no sign of life. Sticking to the outer walls, we found a metal ladder hanging from floor to ceiling. I looked over at Sera, and she nodded. The only way was up.
It was a long climb to the roof, and we took it slowly, still weakened from the horrendous trip through the portal. The ladder was slippery from condensation, and our clothes were still wet. As we climbed through the opening at the top, we found ourselves on an enormous floor that completely covered the lake below. Still circular, with the same thick concrete walls running around the perimeter, on this level, it was divided into corridors and rooms, running in a grid pattern. We crept through, the machinery still booming below our feet, although muffled from the several feet of thick concrete floor between the levels.
“There is that pillar again.” I pointed it out to Sera. Running through the center of the level was the enormous concrete pillar, double black doors at floor level, proving that it was, in fact, an access point. There were no handles on the door, but we could see that the pillar extended beyond the roof and down through the floor. A support structure, I wondered. It was solid enough and looked like it supported something heavy on top. The ladder we had climbed didn’t seem to go any higher, and as we stealthily made our way around the upper level, no new ladders were evident.
Returning to the outer wall, we checked each door we passed, but each one was locked. Dim artificial lights were interspersed along the walls, but there were no windows. No natural light, not even a tiny slither, reinforced my suspicion that we were underground. A mine shaft, maybe? That would make sense with the water source below and all the heavy machinery.
On the sixth attempt, we found a door open and slipped inside, sighing with relief. Despite not knowing where we were, there was an overwhelming sense that we were intruding. That much was clear. Knowing how much importance Illy placed on communicating before traveling between communities, I dreaded to think how much trouble we would get into this time. This was far worse than taking our own yacht and traveling home without notice.
As our eyes adjusted, we could see we were in a storeroom, floor to ceiling metal racking containing lubricants and oils to maintain the machinery, old manuals, and piles of filthy rags. I picked up several items, recognizing most of them, but there was nothing of note. It stank of chemicals, and I clutched my head, still pounding from the rough landing. As I tried to breathe through the pain, I realized I was starving and thirsty. Right on cue, my stomach rumbled, and Sera glared.
“You and your stomach!”
“Sorry,” I mouthed, pushing on my belly in an attempt to quiet it as we closed the door and continued our search.
Several more locked doors presented themselves before we found another open door, this time to a tiny office. A desk and single chair sat abandoned in the middle of the room, empty bookcases lining two walls. The desk was bare, and a thick layer of dust across the furniture and floors betrayed its lack of use. Closing the door behind us and flicking the locking mechanism, we looked at each other in the dim light, wondering what we would do next. A smooth white rectangle hung beside the door. It looked like something I had seen before. I ran my finger along the central point, and an overhead light flicked on, almost making me scream with surprise.
“I remember where I have seen that before,” I mused. “On Clava. They have light switches like that in the medical facility, but they are much bigger.” I turned to Sera. “Do you think your laptop will have survived that?”
“It is in Dad’s old padded waterproof backpack and wrapped in my rain jacket, so I hope so. That was some trip.”
Sera removed it from her pack, using a pair of socks to wipe the dust from the desk before she lay it down. I grinned. Sera adored this machine more than anything else and would never place it on a dirty surface. She powered it up, and we both breathed a sigh of relief when it appeared to be working. Laptops were rare. The case and some components had been sourced from Glasgow for this one, but she and Tadhg had spent months building it, painstakingly, from parts they had made and sourced. It was her pride and joy. She knew every screw and wire and loved it like a child.
“Can you work your magic and find out where we are?” I pleaded.
“Already on it.”
While Sera typed madly, trying to access Wi-Fi and computer systems, I went in search of food.
Chapter 10
Returning with several ancient, rusted cans and a can opener, I asked, “What did you learn?”
Sera glanced up, startled, and groaned at the battered cans I was juggling. We only knew what they were as we had been forced to eat canned food on our childhood trip to Australia. But I had learned enough about the canning process from Dad to know that if the cans were intact, then the contents were likely still edible, no matter how old.
“You will not believe this.” Sera didn’t break her gaze from the dim light of the screen.
“Right now, I would believe anything, so try me.” I tried to recall how to use the can opener, opening and closing it around the rim of the can, the frustration mounting as I tried to work out how to cut the lid off.
“We are in an underwater habitation. A community living underwater. UH is short for underwater habitation, not uninhabitable.”
I looked up from the can. “Okay, I admit I wasn’t expecting that.”
“That makes two of us. There are six of them, from what I can work out. This one appears to be called Yellowstone. We are in, or perhaps under, Yellowstone Lake in the USA, in what used to be Wyoming. Though now I come to think about it, it probably still is. It isn’t like they changed state boundaries. Did you bring spoons?”
I produced two metal spoons from my backpack with a flourish. “If we are on top of a lake, that explains the contained water supply we landed in. Why here, though?”
“From what I can tell, we are underwater and situated over a hydrothermal vent harnessed to produce power.”
“That makes sense. Callie taught me about those. They use geothermal energy from the earth’s core for power. There were quite a few power stations in the old world that used geothermal technology. I read about it once and wondered if we could access it for Lewis, especially in winter. It is only possible in certain places. We researched the possibilities, but then, well… we left.”
“I found the city schematic—look.” She pointed at her screen. “And I found a little of the history. The water supply was enclosed with a thick concrete wall, like a well, before the virus infiltrated the lake, so it is fully self-contained, safe, and sits atop the earth’s fissure, which is what they use for power. The lake beneath us is seriously deep, more than fifty meters in places. But the geothermic heat explains why it is so hot down here. Like us, they reuse and recycle as much as possible, but they lose some water each year, hence the reduction in the water level. They have lost several meters in the thirty years they have been here. We are on the floor above the water storage. It looks like an upright tube, see? This community is located in the middle of the infected lake outside, which explains those thick concrete walls and no windows. According to the schematics, there is a central circular dome, or a pod as they call it, at the top of the cylindrical shaft that runs up the middle. Then lots of little ones linked to it, almost like a spider or an octopus. But the smaller pods can only be accessed from the main one above us.”
I’d seen pictures of an octopus but never one in real life. Still, I knew what she meant. We had spiders on Lewis.
“How do we get up there?”
“The main pod is on a hydraulic lift so that it can be raised or lowered. It can be raised above the water to access daylight, or as far down as to sit on this level, where we are. But all the pods can stay above the waterline if this level is ever breached. Not that it is likely. The concrete is ten meters thick and was built in stages, so even if one ring cracked, the next likely wouldn’t.”
“That is some engineering feat,” I admitted. “So, there is a city sitting on top of us?” I cringed, thinking of the weight perched above my head. Likely hundreds of people going about their daily lives. That was not a comforting thought.
“There is. But the smaller pods extend out on articulated arms from the main pod, and also can be raised to access sunshine, allowing plants to grow, but lowered for darkness or in the event of storms, so they aren’t on top of us. From the reports I found, the storms in the middle of what was America are pretty bad. Likely worse than ours, as they are landlocked. Much of the sand that pits our dome on Lewis falls away as it comes over the ocean.”
“And that is where we are? America?”
“I am fairly sure. The good news is that they will most likely speak English. All the files I have accessed so far are, anyway.”
“What do you suggest we do? Tap the closest person on the shoulder and say, ‘Hi?’”
