Kill Zone

16

The wall of blinding light down the tunnel was not only intense, but it had grown more ominous. The others grew uneasy, too, even van Dyckman. The throbbing accelerated from a slow, rhythmic pulse to a jerky, random staccato, as if it was designed to disorient and confuse.

Adonia covered her eyes, flinching. Shawn said, “I’ve heard of this, I think. It’s an optical deterrent, just like the sonic one. The system is trying to herd us in the opposite direction, down the tunnel incline.”

“But that’s not the way out!” van Dyckman insisted. “We can’t go backward. We need to get out of here.”

Garibaldi sounded pensive rather than frantic. “Hydra Mountain must have multiple layers of independent, active defensive systems. They’re targeting our senses, first assaulting us by smell with that noxious tear gas, then by sound, and now with white light.” He paused for a beat. “I bet this isn’t the only countermeasure. Other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum could be far worse.”

Shawn nodded. “It would stop an intruder cold. Anything to protect the nuclear warheads that used to be stored here.”

“But we’re not intruders!” Pulaski snapped. “This is my own damned program!”

Garibaldi looked down his nose. “Apparently, the automated countermeasures are not convinced of your wholesome intentions.”

“Maybe the Senator should make another phone call and file a complaint,” Doyle said with clear sarcasm.

“Let’s not wait around to find out,” Adonia said.

“But we know we don’t want to go in the direction the active measures are pushing us! This is the way out. The system works!” Steeling himself, van Dyckman put his head down and stubbornly marched toward the bank of pulsing, intense lights. “Just close your eyes! It’ll be fine.”

He pushed past the Senator in his haste to prove his assertion, knocking the disoriented man out of the way. In the cycling, random lights, Pulaski stumbled against the pipes of a disassembled scaffold, lost his footing. He cried out in pain and held on to the granite wall for balance. “Damn it!”

Shawn ducked his head and refused to let the changing lights confuse him. He made his way to the Senator and stabilized Pulaski, taking some of the big man’s weight as he brought him back toward Adonia.

“It hurts!” Pulaski said. “I twisted my ankle.”

Garibaldi looked at him with a withering expression. “Don’t expect me to carry you.”

“That’s enough. He’ll make it, and we’ll all pitch in when necessary.” Adonia could feel growing antagonism among the others, as if they considered Pulaski too high maintenance for the crisis, and Garibaldi’s sarcastic edge didn’t help. She turned to the Senator. “Try not to put much weight on it, sir.”

Still pushing toward the bright pulsing light like a man trudging against a driving storm, van Dyckman approached the end of the tunnel. The glare shimmered and throbbed like a fusillade of bright flashes. He seemed determined to defy the countermeasure and bulldoze his way to the exit. But as he grew closer, he must have triggered another sensor, as a succession of bright circles of light shot down the tunnel wall from rings of high-power strobes embedded in the walls.

Dazzling waves hurtled toward him as if converging on his head. The glowing circles dissipated once they flew past, but they shot out faster and faster, brighter than sunlight. Van Dyckman ducked his head and covered his face in the crook of his arm. Off balance, he veered away from the center of the passageway, lurching toward the left wall, but he kept going, fighting against an imaginary headwind.

As the Senator leaned against the wall, keeping one foot off the floor, Adonia watched the strange bombardment surrounding her boss.

“Now what are they throwing at us?” Doyle asked. “Some sort of… optical special effect?”

Doggedly plodding toward the exit door, van Dyckman reeled. The throbbing rings of light in the walls changed color, melting from white to violet, circle after circle, cycling down the spectrum from blue to green to yellow to orange, and even deeper, until it became a dark red so intense that it was almost impossible to see.

Garibaldi straightened, his eyes wide. He shouted, “Van Dyckman — turn around, now! Or you’ll be fried.”

Pulaski looked down the tunnel. “The bright light is fading. Does that mean it’s safe?”

“It hasn’t faded, just shifted down in frequency,” Garibaldi said. “And if it’s dropping to the infrared, our eyes won’t be able to see it anymore. But he’s about to experience it as heat — big time.”

It was the next phase of the active defense, Adonia realized. “Like being in the middle of a giant convection oven.” She bolted after her former boss, calling back to Shawn, “Stay with the Senator. I’ll bring him back.” She ran barefoot toward van Dyckman, and the pulsing rings of white light swept past her as well, wave after wave, increasing in intensity. “Stanley! Come back.”

Rings of light shot all around her, changing colors as they swooped past. She bent her head and tried to ignore the overbearing glare. “Stanley, damn it! Turn around!”

The throbbing rings filled the tunnel, spiraling from white to intense purplish-blue down the spectrum to bloodred — and then she could no longer see it… but a sudden intense heat bathed her skin from the front, as if she were walking toward a supercharged heat lamp.

The temperature quickly became unbearable, and she crashed into van Dyckman, where he stood in the center of the tunnel, his head down against the overwhelming infrared radiation. He stretched his arm toward the elusive vault door, now only tens of feet away, as if trying to pull himself forward.

Adonia’s face stung and burned, but she managed to grab his shirt and pull him back. He struggled. “It’s… it’s right there, just a little further—”

“You’ll die before you make it.” She yanked and he stumbled back into her, but she caught him, kept him upright, and dragged him toward the others. Once she turned around, even just a few steps away from the pulsing infrared, she felt her front cooling off, although the heat now slammed against her back like a physical force.

Van Dyckman stopped resisting, then he lurched along with her, retreating toward the others. As if the systems were rewarding them for making the right decision, the heat dissipated swiftly as they retreated. After only a few seconds, Adonia felt as if she had spent a day in an intense tanning bed.

Soon, the concentric rings of brighter lights flashed around them, visible again, as if they really needed motivation to keep going. Adonia felt van Dyckman sag against her. His shirt was soaked with sweat. “That wasn’t smart, Stanley.”

“It’s not supposed to work like that.”

As they reached the rest of the group, the light behind them spiraled back up to a steady white, casting long shadows on the concrete floor and all the scattered construction equipment and debris. The ceiling LED lights brightened, taunting, beckoning them in the direction the systems wanted them to head.

Into the descending tunnel.

Adonia said, “Who am I to argue against stubborn countermeasures?”

Shawn joined her, concerned. “Your face is red, like a bad sunburn.”

“I could use a dip in a nice cool swimming pool. Did I mention this isn’t the way I wanted to spend my Sunday?”

“And I’d rather be rock climbing,” he said. “Maybe later. Once we get out of here.”

“You got it.” Adonia wiped the sweat from her forehead. She looked down the tunnel that led to the lower level. “We better get going before the next defensive measures kick in.”

Undersecretary Doyle joined them, ignoring van Dyckman. “In a few hundred feet the tunnel starts sloping down. There’s a guard station before you reach the lower level — it should be manned. We can hole up there until this madness is over.”

Adonia looked at the Undersecretary. “How do you know that?”

“Some of my own programs were located in Hydra Mountain. Remember, DOE used to deliver nuclear weapons to the military here. The lower level was used for storing plutonium pits, back in the good old days.”

Adonia didn’t need to hear any more. “If we get to the guard portal, we can shelter there. I bet we’ll find some kind of telecommunications to contact Rob Harris.”

Shawn frowned. “Why would the old countermeasures herd us down to the former pit-storage level? That makes no sense.”

When Adonia ran a hand through her dark hair, her fingers came away wet with perspiration, and her red dress was rumpled. “No idea, but we’re not getting to the main exit through that infrared wall.”

Dazed, van Dyckman gazed back toward the glaring barrier of white light, knowing their exit was only a few hundred feet away. “So close.”

Senator Pulaski struggled to his feet again, gingerly putting weight on his sore ankle. He started walking in short stutter steps. “Just get me the hell out of here.”

They moved as a group, working their way down the tunnel, away from the pulsating lights. Garibaldi nodded, as if this scenario were merely an experiment. “The system is responding as if we’re intruders, but the wires are crossed. Literally.”

Van Dyckman threw him a disgusted look as they passed more construction material and debris against the tunnel wall. “Impossible. I told you we installed new systems. State of the art.”

“Then the countermeasures should be driving us out of the Mountain, not deeper into it.” Garibaldi raised his eyebrows. “Think about it, 1950s analog hardware interacting with artificial intelligence? Back in the Cold War era, they used copper wires, not fiber optics, and mechanical, analog switches rather than digital logic. Instead of being able to computationally simulate a million test cases a day guided by self-learning algorithms, Hydra’s old interface might be able to run only a few tests a day — if they’re lucky.”

Van Dyckman said, “We’re under intense pressure from the President, and each test would have brought down the facility for hours. If we did all that, we’d never move anything in.”

“Shouldn’t have been a problem,” Garibaldi said sarcastically, “so long as you’re willing to put up with a few minor glitches, like this disaster.”