The Rising Sea

44

Kurt lay flat at the edge of the building. He studied the terrain through the infrared filter. The central mountain was on his right while a nine-story building lay to the left. A concrete pedestrian bridge several floors below spanned the diagonal gap between the two.

The hillside was dark and cold, nothing resembling a heat source could be seen. The bridge was darker still. And the concrete shell of the building on the far side was like empty caves stacked one on top of the other.

Joe crawled forward beside him.

Kurt looked up. “Did you find the night vision goggles?”

“No,” Joe said. “They must have gone over the edge.”

“Better them than us.”

“True,” Joe said. “See anything?”

“There’s an oval swath down there in the clearing,” Kurt said. “Residual heat left behind where the helicopter sat for the last two hours.”

“Any sign of the passengers?”

“Not yet. No sign of a vent or doorway radiating heat. All these buildings are dark.”

“So much for the Yellow Brick Road,” Joe said.

As Kurt went back to scanning the buildings the rain began to fall. It came lightly at first, tapping him on the shoulders with a soft patter, trickling through his hair. Soon it was falling steadily, not a tropical downpour but cold, gray rain that would fall all night.

Kurt ignored it for now, concentrating on the task before him. He studied the structures one by one. Across and down, across and down. The tangled complex of buildings impressed him. Built over the decades, some were spaced so tightly there was barely an alleyway large enough for a bicycle to fit between them; others had been built right into each other, with outer walls knocked down and hallways extended.

Han’s people could be hidden in any one of them. At least that was Kurt’s initial impression.

“These buildings are more dilapidated than I thought,” he said. “A demolition crew would have a field day here.”

“Might not need them,” Joe said. “Some of these structures are partially collapsed already.”

With Joe’s words, it dawned on Kurt. “I know where they are.”

“Did you spot something?”

“Not a thing,” Kurt admitted. “But if you were hiding on this island, would you set up shop in a building that could collapse at any moment, one that couldn’t keep the rain out or the wind from howling through?”

Joe grinned. “Probably not. You think they’ve gone underground?”

Kurt nodded. “They dug coal out of this island for decades. The mine has several entrances and large open galleries where it’s warm and dry.”

“Sounds inviting,” Joe said. “Let’s go.”

The first stairway they came to was a fire escape connected to the outside of a building. The rusted metal was flaking badly and had pulled away from the building in several places. Definitely unsafe.

Kurt pushed on it with his boot and the entire thing swayed. “That’s not going to support either of us.”

“Let’s find another way,” Joe said.

He found a caved-in part of the roof where one side of a concrete slab had dropped. It angled down into the building like an off-ramp. The wet surface was slick and they scaled it carefully, sliding the last few feet.

The interior of the building was a dank, fetid world. Rainwater was dripping through a hundred cracks in the ceiling; plants and vines grew in many places. Several inches of muck covered the floor.

“Housekeeping must be on strike,” Kurt mused.

The infrared goggles were useless inside the dark concrete building, but they soon found an inner stairway, forced the door open and began descending toward a bridge that led between two buildings.

“If we cross here, we can get down to the ground level without having to go outside,” Kurt said.

“Staying inside won’t keep us dry,” Joe said, sidestepping some more runoff, “but at least it’ll keep us out of sight.”

They crossed the span with caution, avoiding the gaping holes and burgeoning cracks that suggested the bridge would not remain in place for much longer. And came out on the other side. Kurt dropped down to one knee and signaled for Joe to hold up.

“I was wrong,” Kurt whispered.

“You? No.”

Kurt nodded. “Not everyone is out of sight. There’s a patrol on the hillside. Two men. From up there, they will see us as soon as we hit open ground.”

Patrolling in the rain was miserable duty. So thought every soldier who’d ever been forced to do it.

Han’s men were no different. They did as ordered, but they didn’t have to like it. They started out hiking up the central hill that dominated the island; climbing through the foliage was even more difficult than navigating the slick and well-worn stairs. The arrived at the top of the hill and took their positions.

“You see anything?” the leader of the two asked.

His partner shook his head. “Something’s wrong with my equipment,” he said, pulling off his night vision goggles. “All I see are flares.”

The leader pulled the hood back on his rain slicker and stepped over to his subordinate. Each of them had a pair of night vision goggles, but the scopes were less effective in the rain. Raindrops, like all water, bend and refract light. Studying the terrain through the falling drops was like looking through a kaleidoscope.

The leader looked through the goggles and then handed them back. “Turn down the resolution.”

He did the same with his own. The lightning in the distance was another problem. The goggles had a circuit that prevented it from blinding them, but it still caused flaring on the screen that lasted for several seconds each time it flashed.

“Why are we even out here?” the subordinate said, putting his goggles back on and pulling the rain gear up over his head.

“Because the boss wants you here,” a voice said.

Han’s men turned but they were too late. One took a tree branch to the face, the other a gut punch and then a knockout blow to the back of the head when he doubled over.

By the time they woke up, they were bound and gagged, tied to a tree, and had been relieved of their weapons, ponchos and night vision gear.

Dressed in the rain gear they’d taken from Han’s men, Kurt and Joe looked more like they belonged. They crossed the hill, found another stairway and made it down to level ground. Using the infrared goggles, Kurt spotted the residual heat from the helicopter once more. It was rapidly fading from the rain.

He turned his attention to the walls beyond the landing area. Several openings had been cut in the mountain and were now barricaded. Through the human eye they all looked the same, but through the heat sensitive goggles one of them shimmered a magenta color.

“Across the field,” Kurt said. “The shaft on the far left. That’s the one.”

“No sign of any guards,” Joe said.

“Let’s not wait for any to show up.”

Kurt flipped the goggles up once more and sprinted across the open ground. Arriving beside the tunnel, he pressed himself against the wall. Joe took a position right behind him. A quick look confirmed what Kurt needed to know. “Tunnel is empty but venting heat.”

Joe glanced up at the rain falling steadily from the heavens. “Warm and dry,” he said. “Looks good to me.”

Kurt nodded. Without another word, both of them slipped quietly into the tunnel.

The ground was turning to mud as Ushi-Oni continued his exploration of the island. He’d never been in such a haven of decay and he found himself marveling at the beauty of it. The crumbling buildings, piles of rubble and stark emptiness spoke to him.

This is what the world would be like after men were gone, he mused. It wouldn’t take long for nature to erase the insignificant stain mankind had worked on the planet. Not long at all.

The wind picked up as he neared the seawall and he decided he’d had enough. He turned around, began the journey back toward the laboratory and stopped.

A faint glow was emanating from the debris ahead of him. He held still for a moment and then moved closer. The light vanished and then reappeared.

Using the samurai sword, Oni slashed at a bush that got in his way. The branches fell, cut clean through. The light was more visible now. Oni was looking at a tiny screen with a low-powered LED attached.

He bent low and pulled it from the rubble. Recognition came instantly. He had in his hands a damaged pair of night vision goggles. The front plate was missing and the screen was cracked, but the goggles were still operating, and they were obviously the type military and police forces used to make assaults under cover of darkness.

Oni looked around, expecting to be shot or attacked at any second, but nothing of the sort happened. Still, the high-tech device didn’t just fall from the sky like a…

The words died in his mind. He looked up at the vacant monolith beside him. The rain shrouded it in a jacket of mist and white noise. The damage to the goggles was consistent with a high-speed impact or a long drop. One side was dented and scraped, the other unblemished; parts were broken off. And though he’d only made a cursory search, the missing parts were nowhere that Oni could see.

Perhaps they did fall from the sky after all.

He switched the damaged goggles off, clipped them to his belt and went looking for a way into the building.