Blink: Leviathan (Book 2)

19

They lost contact with Niamh and Brannigan at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Darien knew from the second he tried the communications channel and received a thick crackle of static for his trouble. Tiny bursts of what sounded like speech came back after his initial broadcast, but nothing intelligible. The three operatives were thoroughly on their own.

It wasn't the first time. Idas and Hekket simply looked at him, straightened their backs and squared their shoulders in preparation for what lay ahead. He tried not to think about Amber, lost or dead somewhere in the ruin – if he didn't keep his mind off of her he'd crumble before any of them could make it out of the place in one piece. Instead he did what a Blink Squad Leader had to do – he carried on with the mission.

These lower levels were much darker, with many of the lighting nodes having failed or fallen from their housings. They fanned out in a triangular formation, with Darien leading the way, working mechanically through the series of directions Brannigan had provided. Further evidence of the shock from the quake manifested around them, with huge cracks having formed along the interior walls. Still, the main structure seemed intact, so they pressed on.

It wasn't long before they ran into the flooded section that Brannigan had warned them about. Without the main lights functioning properly the water looked like ink, black and impenetrable to the naked eye. The three operatives exchanged looks before Darien wordlessly reached into his pack for his breather mask and goggles.

"Damn it all," Idas muttered. "I'll never go the beach again at this rate."

With a grim smile Darien led his two comrades down into the dark, freezing depths. He bit back a gasp as the cold enveloped him and blackness closed in. The thin lights of the mono-rigs and torches carved into the gloom to lead the way. Dark rooms and more crevices littered the passage and he remained constantly wary. Any one of those dark recesses might hide yet more unpleasant surprises for the operatives.

He glided gently on, trying not to disturb the water any more than he had to, keeping his movements slow and smooth as he scanned the dark recesses. The motion tracker showed only the three operatives for the moment, but he didn't take that as an absolute indicator. His eyes roved constantly from the tracker and up around the walls.

Mercifully, this watery path only extended a hundred meters and the three operatives made it to the exit at its far end. Even when he caught sight of the rippling surface, however, Darien didn't relax. He eased the micro-jets up a gear, eager to be out of the frigid water and in possession of his full senses once again.

He emerged from the water without so much as a splash, rising up like a wraith and aiming down the iron-sight of his carbine. He scanned left and right, moving forward as Idas and Hekket both surfaced on either side of him. Water sloshed around his legs as he waded up the stairway and out into the next hallway.

Then they stopped.

Darien's jaw tightened when he saw the huge, scattered forms that littered the passageway. Much too large to be human, they could only be corpses of the city's former inhabitants. His cast his torch light over them. Sure enough they resembled the hologram, though these bodies looked much thinner, little more than husks despite their size. He made a small chopping motion forward with his right hand.

"I hope Churchwood and his crew are getting a good look at this," Hekket murmured as they crept closer.

The corpses were badly decayed, but being sealed inside the clean environment of the city for the past millennia left them better preserved than Darien would have thought possible. He wished they had just rotted to skeletons. At least then the unmistakable stench of necrotic flesh wouldn't have hung around them like a poisonous cloud. He grimaced, but stepped close nonetheless to examine the bodies. Four white globular eyes stared sightlessly out from the face of the nearest body, the edges of them shimmering with some kind of waxy slime. The vertical aperture of its mouth hung open. Inhuman as it was, Darien could have sworn that it was a look of terror.