Pat said, “So all we have to do is get out of this cube, find Lod, subdue or kill him, take his keycard, break into his apartment, find the back door, scale a thousand-foot shaft, then dig our way through the several feet of dirt and rock to the surface.”
“Gravity should take care of the dirt when we bust out the cap,” Coop said. “We’ll just have to make sure we don’t get scraped off the ladder when the load falls.”
I looked at Pat. He seemed to have gone several shades lighter in the past few seconds. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Lil Bro. You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Pat said.
My claustrophobia had come roaring back.
Cold sweat trickled down my side.
I did not want to climb a thousand feet up a dark cramped shaft.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Kate asked.
“Perfect,” I lied.
I was mad at myself. It was ludicrous for me to go all claustrophobic over something that hadn’t happened yet, and probably wouldn’t happen because we were locked in a glass cage like a quartet of zoo monkeys.
“So how do we get out of here?” Coop asked.
“A big glass cutter,” I said.
Kate laughed. She had a good sense of humor.
Alex not so much. He didn’t even crack a smile.
“Larry dropped by the infirmary just before he delivered his manifesto to the FBI,” he said. “He told me that when he was finished, he was going to drop by the cube and pay us a visit. That might be our only chance. He never really needed hostages. The only reason he told the FBI about us was to get into Ryan’s face.”
“What do you think he’ll do?” Coop asked.
“He’s going to murder us,” Alex answered. “Maybe not today, but —”
Kate slapped the table in frustration, startling us. “He’s thought of every contingency! I should have left the Deep a long time ago and turned him in.”
“He hasn’t thought of every contingency,” Alex said calmly.
“Like what?” Kate asked, still angry.
“Me,” Alex answered. He opened his hand revealing the flash drive.
It was flashing red and green.
Flash drives have no power. They get their power from the computer they’re plugged into.
“That’s not a flash drive,” I said. “What is it?” I asked.
“Actually it is a flash drive,” Alex said. “With a little something added. Did you try it on one of the computers in the library?”
“I tried it on two computers. It killed both of them.”
“The silver bullet,” Alex said. “My invention. I knew that Larry was doing something with computers in the Deep. Something that would eventually hurt people.” He looked at Kate. “I was hoping that you might one day be able to get into the Original room in New York and insert this into their main computer, or server. Larry has been using his own server for years now. I wanted to take his system out.” He put the device on the table and spun it. “And this little baby would have done it. Inside is a nasty malware virus that I came up with.”
“And you named it the silver bullet,” Coop said. “Like in that Stephen King story.”
Alex shook his head. “I named it after the Brothers Grimm story ‘The Two Brothers,’ in which they use a silver bullet to kill an evil witch.”
“What about the laptop you didn’t tell us about?” I asked.
“Just like Larry has contingency plans, so do I. In the event that I wasn’t able to insert the silver bullet into their system, I set up a way to do it remotely.” He pointed at the flash drive. “There is a battery, receiver, and transmitter in the drive. The flashing red-and-green light means that Bob Jonas is trying to crack the code on my laptop. When he does crack it, and he will, the silver bullet will enter their system through their Wi-Fi signal.”
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I said.
“Just because nobody has done it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. When the light turns a steady green, I push this little button on the drive, and the server and computer will go down along with everything that is tied into them.”
“How does that help us?” Kate asked.
“It probably won’t help us, but it will stop Larry from doing any more damage like shutting down the power grid, which I’m certain is on his agenda. It’s all part of his plan to level the playing field. I’m sure he’s already streamed his interview out with the FBI. He’ll make sure that it airs on TV and the Internet before he pulls the plug. He wants everyone to know he took down the United States. We are almost completely dependent on technology now. That’s what he was waiting for in the Deep. Lawrence Oliver Dane’s day has finally arrived.”
I looked up at the monitor. The live video stream cycled through. Commissary. Private apartments. Cafeteria. Commons. Gym. Public shower. Commissary …
“No cube,” I said.
“No witnesses,” Alex said with tears in his eyes. “Larry is on his way. I didn’t want any of you to be here when this happened. That’s why I left you two in Arcata. My plan was to go to the park, plant the laptop, get Kate, and get out. It wasn’t a very good plan. That’s one area where Larry is much smarter than I am.”
He looked at me.
“If you hadn’t taken the bullets from the gun and the drive from my backpack I would be dead right now. They would have shot me and found the laptop and the remote.”
He looked at Kate.
“If you hadn’t followed Bill and Bella, we would still be in Portland. Probably sitting in some hotel room eating Voodoo Doughnuts, watching Larry on the television, wishing we had been smart enough to stop him.”
He looked at Coop.
“And you. You went into the Deep. You followed your desire, oblivious to the risk, and saved my granddaughter.”
“Granddaughter?” Kate said with confusion and shock.
Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks now.
“Your mother, Rebecca, was my daughter. She —”
Blinds began lowering outside on all four sides.
“They’re here,” Alex said.
Carl stepped in first.
Lod second.
The door closed.
Kate, Alex, and I stood up from the stainless-steel table.
Coop weirdly decided that it was time to take off his tap shoes.
Carl frowned at him. He was dressed in a gray jumpsuit with a gun belt around his waist and a two-way radio hanging from his pocket.
Lod had a silenced pistol in his hand, and a two-way radio clipped to his belt. He was wearing a white jumpsuit. The only white one I’d seen in the Deep 2.0.
Lod looked at Alex. “What did you think of my manifesto?”
“Succinct,” Alex answered.
Lod smiled.
“Is the Internet still up?” Alex asked.
“For ten more minutes. Then we’ll start taking it down. Because of all the servers it’s a little more complicated than the cellular system. No matter, we’ll be taking out the major power grids soon. Major cities first, then smaller communities. You should see the television feeds. The panic has begun. There are hundreds of people on their way here right now hoping to join us. Others are coming because they don’t think the government is doing enough to stop us. Vigilantes. There will be blood in the streets when the two groups meet.”
“And what do you think other countries will do when the US crumbles?” Alex asked.
Lod shrugged. “We’ll have to see how my compatriots fare in other countries. This takedown is not happening just here.”
Coop stood holding his tap shoes by the laces. One in each hand. I was certain he would tie the laces together and string them behind his neck. I had seen him do this a thousand times. But now? What was he thinking?
“There will be blood in here as well. This is not really a holding cube. It’s an execution cube.” Lod walked to the center of the cube and pointed down at the drain. “Easy cleanup. I thought of
everything. I’ve sealed off the stairs and the elevators so Carl can drag your bodies out of here quietly. It’s just Carl and me. Everyone else is down below celebrating. The only decision that remains is what order. The boys first, obviously. Pat, then Coop. My quandary is should I kill you next, or Kate? Have you told her?”
“About Rebecca?”
“So you have told her. Good. That makes the decision easy. You’ll be number three.” He looked at Kate. “And you will be last. I guess there is something to gene hardwiring. You became a traitor just like your mother.”
“You didn’t think of everything,” Alex said. “No one can. Not even you.”
Lod gave him a sarcastic smile. “Really? What am I missing, brother?”
“The laptop.”
“Nice hardware. Your passcode was weak though. Bob had no problem cracking it. He’s playing with the laptop right now, looking at the software as we speak. Says he can’t decipher it. But he will.”
“No, he won’t.” Alex held up the remote.
“A flash drive is no good without a computer.”
“This one is a little different.”
Alex flipped it over. It was no longer flashing. The green light was bright and steady.
“It’s tied into that laptop. It’s a switch. It will kill everything you worked for. All I have to do is press it. There will be no restarting the computers or your servers. Ever. You can’t get new equipment because you can’t leave here.”
Lod raised his pistol and pointed it at Alex.
“Go ahead,” Alex said. “The last thing I do before I die is press the button.”
Lod pointed his pistol at me.
“Go ahead. You’re going to kill us all anyway,” Alex said.
I couldn’t have disagreed more. I wanted those few minutes.
“You’re bluffing,” Lod said.
Alex shook his head. “You know better than that. I don’t bluff.”
“Carl! Get on the radio. Tell Bob to shut down everything right now!”
Instead of grabbing his radio. Carl pulled his gun.
“I asked you to pull your —”
Two things happened at once.
Kate dashed forward and kicked Lod’s pistol out of his hand.
Coop threw a tap shoe at Carl’s head. It would have hit him and knocked him out if he hadn’t caught it with his free hand, moving as fast as a cobra.
“Shoot them!” Lod screamed, holding his wrist.
Alex pressed the silver bullet. There was a momentary flicker of the overhead lights.
“Shoot them!”
Carl walked over and picked up Lod’s gun. “If I’m going to shoot anybody it will be you.”
Kate kicked the legs out from under Lod, who fell to the ground, looking up at her in rage and pain.
“You killed my parents. If you try to get up, Carl won’t need the gun.”
Carl tossed the tap shoe to Coop.
“That would have hurt.”
“Sorry,” Coop said. “I won’t do it again.”
“You better not.”
The lights were still on.
“You’ll never get out of here,” Lod said. “The exit doors are computerized. And you just took the computers out. Nice going.”
Alex ripped Lod’s lanyard off his neck, walked over to the door, and swiped it through the reader. The door clicked open.
Lod laughed. “Not the interior doors, you idiot. The exit doors.”
“What about the back door in your quarters?” Kate said.
Lod’s smile disappeared. “There is no back door. You’re stuck here with me until the end of time.”
“Of course you are lying,” Kate said. “You have always lied to me.”
“Tie him up,” Alex said.
“Why?” Lod shouted. “I think Kate broke my leg.”
“Good,” Kate said.
Carl tied him up with the keycard lanyards.
was almost an exact duplicate of the one we lived in under New York City. The only real difference was the bank of computers that took up an entire wall.
All the screens were black.
We searched for the back door.
I went into the bedroom. It was exactly the same as Lod’s New York bedroom, down to the bedspread and the walk-in safe built into the wall.
The combination has to be different.
But it wasn’t.
I pulled open the heavy door. The shelves were filled with stacks of dead presidents, guns, and little velvet sacks of precious gems, just like the safe in our former apartment.
With one important exception.
“I found it!” I shouted.
Everyone rushed into the bedroom.
At the back of the safe was a small door with an electronic lock.
Alex gave me Lod’s keycard. I swiped it. The door clicked open.
Behind the door was the shaft I’d seen in Lod’s notebook. It was lit all the way to the top.
“I’ll wait here,” Alex said. “My shoulder. I’ll never make it to the top.”
“I’ll wait with him,” Pat said.
Coop found a small shovel and pick. “Remember these, Lil Bro?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to still wait with Alex.”
Carl shook his head. “We’re all going. No one gets left behind. I’ll carry Alex on my shoulders.”
“You can’t do that!” Alex protested.
“I could do it forever, old man,” Carl said.
I looked at Pat. “This looks a lot easier than the Deep.”
Pat said nothing.
“I can pop the cap myself,” Coop said, grabbing the pick and one of Lod’s flashlights. “You can decide after I clear the hole. Everyone stay away from the shaft until I give you the all clear.”
I gave him a hug. “Be careful. I’m … Well, just be careful.”
Coop grinned and started up.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked.
“Going up with Coop.”
“But I thought —”
“I can’t let Coop pull the cap alone. It’s dangerous.”
“I’ll go,” Kate said.
“I’m his brother. It’s my job. We’ve done this kind of stuff before.”
Before she could stop me, and from what I’d seen her do to Lod, she’d have no problem with that, I started to climb.
It was just as bad as I thought it would be.
A dark, damp shaft with slimy rungs and moldy air.
There were lights, but most of them were burned out.
Coop was at least fifty feet ahead of me, climbing fast, with the pick somehow slung over his shoulder.
I stuffed the handle end down my jumpsuit. It wasn’t very comfortable with the shovel end slapping me in the face with every step, but the slaps did help keep my mind off my claustrophobia.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look up.
One slimy rung at a time.
“Lil Bro, is that really you?”
I looked up.
Coop was three rungs above me, shining a flashlight in my face.
“It’s me. How about getting the flashlight out of my face.”
“Sorry.” He clicked it off.
“Thanks.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’ll probably need some help with the cap.”
“We’re at the cap?” I was so relieved.
“Uh, no. We’re maybe a quarter of the way up.”
My heart sank.
“Let’s climb,” Coop said.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look up.
“It’s like old times,” Coop said.
“We never dug a thousand-foot vertical shaft.”
“Yeah. But we wanted to.”
That was true. We’d talked about it all the time. Our plan at one point was to go to Africa and start a diamond mine.
“Wha
t do you think Mom and Dad are doing?” Coop asked.
I knew what Coop was doing. He was trying to keep my mind off the climb. And it was working, to some degree.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” I said. “I miss them. I hope they’ve gotten back together. They may not have been the best parents, but we weren’t the best kids. They made a good team.”
“As soon as we get out of here we’ll call them … Well, I guess we can’t call them. The phone system is out.”
“We can Skype them.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind.”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look up.
“What do you think of Kate?” Coop asked.
“I think Kate is wonderful. I saw the kiss.”
“Yeah, that was pretty spectacular.”
“It wasn’t that spectacular.”
“You weren’t there, Meatloaf.”
“Close enough to see it wasn’t spectacular.”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look up.
“We’re here,” Coop said.
I was out of breath, sweating, wheezing, but I was happy.
“What’s the setup?” I asked.
“Simple but clever. It’s a hinged manhole cover. The hinge is on the opposite side of the ladder. When I knock the hasp free the cover should bang open to the opposite side and not decapitate us.”
“That’s a plus.”
“Ready?”
“No, take your time. I’m really comfortable here.”
“I doubt the dirt is going to drop right away. I’m sure it’s compacted and we’ll have to chip it out a little at a time. But get a good grip on the ladder. Legs and arms just in case. Cover your head.”