The briefing room on board the Marianas platform was a clean, well-lit oval, with a large table in its centre and an enormous screen built into the far wall. Around it the heads of the research department had gathered, along with Lieutenant Tyndall and his immediate subordinates. Once the eighteen Blink operatives arrived on the scene the briefing room became a very crowded place.
Darien sat with Niamh and the other squad leaders alongside him. The other operatives had to stand, clustered at the opposite end of the room from the viewing screen. Most of their gear was currently making its way to the station's dry-dock where a submarine waited to ferry them down into the unknown. He lounged in his chair, all but ignoring the marines that were present, in favour of the elderly man at the front of the room.
The head of the research team had an eccentric look about him, shunning the lab coats and shirts of the other scientists in favour of a deep blue jumper made of a material Darien didn't recognise and, of all things, a pair of shorts that came down to his bony knees. Wisps of white hair clung to the shining dome of his head and in one hand he held...a toy? He'd never seen the gadget before but the scientist was playing with it absently as the briefing room filled. A pair of small, fat plastic discs were attached to a long string, and they rolled up and down as the man flicked his wrist in an almost hypnotic motion. Every now and again he would make a sharper motion, and the discs would stop at the bottom of their journey, spinning in place. Darien found himself staring, smiling to himself. This man was not what he'd been expecting.
"Alright," Lieutenant Tyndall rumbled suddenly, ending the low ebb of conversation in the room. "I believe that's everyone. We'll try and keep this briefing as short and to the point as we can." He turned and gestured to the eccentric old man. "This is Professor Thomas Churchwood, head of the research division on Marianas. If there is anything to know about what we've found here, he knows it."
"Really, Lieutenant, you are too kind," Churchwood chuckled, shaking his head in an absent sort of way. "Though I do confess to having a certain amount of useful knowledge stored up in this infernal misfiring computer system that passes for a brain." He tapped his temple with one spindly finger in illustration of the point.
Tyndall gave him an exhausted look. "Professor, the briefing?"
"Hmm? Oh! Yes, of course, forgive my rambling." The man stopped spinning his toy and beamed at the occupants of the room, revealing two crooked rows of coffee-stained teeth. "I take it these delightful young people are our guests from the illustrious Blink organisation?"
Darien shook his head with a smile. This Professor Churchwood certainly had a unique approach to giving an operational briefing. He could only assume the man knew as much as Tyndall claimed, or he wouldn't have even been allowed into the room. He caught Niamh's eye and she looked thoroughly askance at the prospect of relying on this maverick for information.
"Now, now, now," Churchwood continued. "Where is the blasted thing...ah, yes." He produced a small remote from the voluminous pocket of his shorts and pressed a button. The screen behind him flashed into life, displaying a much more detailed picture of the undersea settlement than they'd seen back at Blink HQ. Darien leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table as he stared hard at the map.
"I trust you're all aware of why we're camped out on this rather temperamental bit of oceanography," the professor said. "What we've discovered is – well let's just say it may upset a few paradigms once we manage to get inside it. It's a city of non-human origin, and in my considered opinion we are only scratching the surface."
He pressed another button and the screen zoomed in, displaying length markers along the bulbous mountain-like mass of the city. The area that protruded up from the city floor measured a dozen kilometres across. It occurred to Darien that even for three teams of specially-skilled Blink operatives, that was a lot of ground to cover.
"As you can see, the area that we've been able to confirm as part of the city is enormous – easily the single largest single structure in colonised space by orders of magnitude. However, this, I believe represents only a small portion, the tip of the iceberg, if you will." Another press of the button and a blast of data poured down the right-hand side of the screen, almost too fast for Darien to follow. He narrowed his eyes, trying to discern what the mass of formulae denoted.
"The reason I believe this, is because taking readings of the city's interior is vexingly difficult," Churchwood said, and there seemed to be genuine frustration creeping into his tone. "Its outer casing is made of a supremely dense alloy, forged from materials native to the planet that our scanning apparatus has trouble penetrating. Samples we've managed to take have shown that the outer doors are virtually impenetrable by normal means. In order to blast through them we would need to deploy an explosive device with a yield of at least fifteen megatons. Such an explosion would cause irreparable damage to the rest of the structure and could easily trigger a seismic event."
"Bloody hell," Niamh murmured. "That's a heavy door."
"An understatement if ever there was one." Churchwood started sending his little trinket spinning up and down again, as though it were involuntary. "The impenetrable nature of these doors and the outer shell, is why you have all been extended an invitation. I will never countenance the use of ordinance that could erase thousands of years of invaluable information, but we need to get inside that city, to learn about its people and perhaps, just perhaps, meet one of those who built it. The gains are boundless."
"Stay on point, Professor," Tyndall interjected.
"What? Oh, yes, yes, my apologies. You'll forgive my enthusiasm, but this is rather exciting."
Grinning like a child, the professor indicated the screen again. "Despite the difficulties, our submersibles have been able to ascertain some information about the city itself. Seeing how deeply embedded into the ocean floor it is, we surmise it was indeed constructed there, rather than being the victim of some romantic cataclysm. Second, we have detected dozens of large airtight pockets inside the shell. Other areas appear to be flooded, but we can't seem to locate the fissure by which the water managed to enter.
"It is of no consequence. Since we know there are areas inside, undamaged and able to support life, we know that we know there must be intact relics of this civilisation that could be of incalculable value. And there is still more. Although impossible to pinpoint, we have detected very slight power emanations from within the city – faint but definite, indicating that something down there is still active. Our best guess puts the structure at between eight and twelve thousand years old, so I should not need to highlight how powerful this energy source must be still be functioning after all that time.
Churchwood stopped playing with his trinket, catching it abruptly as it spun back up into his hand. "Your task is a very simple one – you are going to go into that city and explore. We have identified the three best locations for your teams to transport into, to maximise your chances of finding what we need." Another button push. The screen whirled and three pulsating blue dots appeared in different sections of the city. "Each of these corresponds to an area we think we have identified." He pointed to each one in turn.
"Just inside the outer shell is what we believe to be a dry-dock of sorts. It is close to a set of the city's outer doors, so whichever team takes this location should, if possible, find a way to open these doors and allow the ingress of more conventional personnel and equipment. On the opposite end of the structure is a tightly packed arrangement of rooms which we surmise to be living quarters – or whatever their equivalent of houses may be. Last but not least, the central point; this is the largest open chamber we've identified and our scans show it branches off with connecting passages in all directions – up, down, left, right – like a crossroads. It is directly beneath the structure which we hope is the control centre for the entire facility."
"Control centre?" Darien asked. "Do you mean a government building of some kind?"
"A young chap with a head on his shoulders," Churchwood replied, his grin extending across his wrinkled face. "It's our best guess, but yes, we think it to be some kind of command and control base for the city itself. Its location and prominence would suggest it is the nucleus of the settlement. So there you have it. I'll leave it to you to argue over who takes what prize."
Darien waited for more, but that seemed to be the beginning and end of Churchwood's mission parameters. Accordingly, he nodded and looked to the other squad leaders. Mina stayed impassive while Vass had a hungry look on his face.
"Hammerhead takes the central chamber," he said flatly. "Mina, your team gets the living quarters. Vass, you're on dry-dock duty." He didn't wait to see if they had questions – right now he wasn't interested in hearing them. As the senior operative and overall commander, he dictated who went where. Neither of his subordinates took issue with the fact, though he saw the excitement in Vass's face fade just a fraction. The ambitious team leader would undoubtedly have wanted to the take the biggest prize for himself. Discipline remained, however, and all eyes turned to Lieutenant Tyndall as he moved to the front of the room.
"Your sub scoots out at 0600 hours, Marianas time," he declared, locking eyes with Darien. "Since this is a scientific operation, every operative will be rigged up with mono-eye recording gear to log everything that you see down there."
Groans of protest rippled through the assembled operatives before Darien silenced them with a fiery look. The mono-eye rigs were not the most comfortable pieces of equipment – semi-circular bands of malleable plastic fitted with a single lens camera that would be positioned over the individuals' left or right eye according to preference. He'd used them before on other operations and gotten used to the sensation of having the thing clipped to the side of his head. It didn't surprise him that Tyndall and the scientific staff wanted to get their eyes inside the city through the operatives.
"Once the initial transports are made," Tyndall continued. "I will stay on station in the submarine with technical support specialists who will help guide you through the interior."
"You don't think you're going down there without me, do you?!" Churchwood burst out suddenly. "Young man, I've dedicated my life to the pursuit of knowledge! I'm going on that submersible. I want to see this with my own eyes." He paused, giving Darien a knowing wink. "Or at least as close to my own as I can get."
Tyndall looked like he wanted to argue, but seeing the professor's enthusiasm he decided against it. "Alright, Professor. Just please try not to get in the way."
"Perish the thought."
"Until then, you've got the chance to get something to eat and grab some shut-eye before we ship out. I suggest you take it." Tyndall nodded to those assembled in the briefing room. "Dismissed."