Quota 0/391 — Only 3 days left
6:00 a.m.
Victor refused to believe he'd actually slept. He'd laid his head on one of Tirelire's lumpy pillows and, a split-second later, the alarm was already shrieking. Over the past few days he'd discovered something worse than having to wake up this early: having to get up this early, with no chance of crawling back under the covers, and the glacial cold waiting for him outside his sleeping bag.
'Couldn't we at least be in the tropics?' he grumbled, wriggling free as fast as he could.
Every uncovered second was pure torture; Tirelire's walls worked like a thermos.
Too warm inside? I'll shield you from the outside chill!
Too cold inside? Relax—no outside heat will ever cross these walls!
Practical outcome: Victor was shivering the instant he slipped out of the bag.
Luckily, salvation came in a bright and blinding orange. Not the sun, it stubbornly withheld its warmth, but a fluorescent suit.
It waited alone in the tiny wardrobe, the other three claimed by the team nearly an hour earlier.
'At least nobody's around to watch me squeeze into this horror,' he muttered, grabbing the suit.
Nathaniel had shown them several times how to put it on: slide into it, then seal the zipper.
The zipper, alas, was a nightmare. Even throwing his full weight into it, Victor needed several minutes every morning to close the thing—and that wasn't even the suit's worst flaw, or its only one.
The most obvious hit him as soon as he stepped out of Tirelire's hold.
Olivia, trussed up in her little orange cocoon, looked utterly ridiculous. He doubtless looked the same, but there was no mirror to confirm it. The only hint was Shirley's stifled laugh every time he wandered into her field of view.
'At least it's warm inside,' he consoled himself, watching Olivia tapping away on a tablet. Whatever she was prepping, it was surely explosive.
Shirley, meanwhile, was working on the snowmobiles, trading the front skis and rear treads for wheels so they could roll through the mud.
They'd have to leave soon. The day inside would be long, and they couldn't risk returning after sunset. The forecast showed no blizzard, but getting stranded on a lake in a storm was not on the agenda.
"Rolling out in five!" Nathaniel called, climbing down from the automortar with a shoulder bag. Inside: a drone to find the hatch, tools to pick an armored door, and the walkie-talkies Victor had bought from the ice cream dealer. Whether they'd work underground was anyone's guess.
His inner voice had been silent lately.
'I really need a quiet moment to test my Jester's pet,' he thought, swinging a leg over a snowmobile. That bigmouth had to be good for something besides shifting a tank's gears.
"Everyone ready?" Shirley asked from her own modified machine. Olivia and Nathaniel were already ridind theirs, the question clearly aimed at Victor.
Shirley had taught him to ride over the last few days, but confidence was still a work in progress. The four engines roared almost in unison, gasoline fumes soaking the air. Nathaniel and Olivia shot off first; Shirley stayed back to bring up the rear.
The mud offered no track to follow across the tundra. Victor's front wheel kept spinning, his suit already dulled by splatters. Shirley had wisely dropped back to avoid the friendly-fire.
Ahead, Olivia and Nathaniel chatted over the talkie-walkies. Alas... no auto-translations for Victor.
"**Are we inside the perimeter?**" Nathaniel asked.
Olivia steered one-handed, the other holding a tablet with a virtual map stretched on it.
'She's probably used to driving with one hand on the wheel and the other on an assault rifle,' Victor mused, refocusing on the nonexistent road ahead.
Mud and earth thinned into a delicate film of ice. The frozen lake was their only path to what lied in the middle of it. Victor had no guarantee it would bear their combined weight, but there was no choice: the lake was nearly ten kilometres wide, and crossing on foot would take two hours with nowhere to hide.
Moment of truth. Nathaniel stepped onto the brittle sheet, pushing his machine.
Crrrkk… crrrk…
The ice groaned but held.
"Looks good," Olivia said through her talkie, driving herself onto the thin layer. The ice neither cracked nor squealed.
'Let's hope it doesn't give under me. My luck has been too good the past days,' Victor thought, following. He couldn't swim, and doubted his Jester could float. One slip would be a one-way ticket to a freezing water barely five degrees.
The wheel spun before catching, and he began his crossing. Shirley came up behind without waiting.
The lake stretched forever, mirroring the sun's timid first rays. The glare would have made them squint if not for the visored helmets built into their suits. Whatever the composite material, it worked like ski goggles. Victor was simply glad he could scan objects without having to strip off his gear every five minutes.
They reached the far shore. Ahead lay a plain of moss, ankle-high grass, and skeletal shrubs. No trees, and the pancake-flat land offered zero cover, though it did give long warning of threats. It was a double-edged sword that was benifiting the predators more than the preys.
'Let's hope we don't meet the same "giants" we ran into in New York,' Victor thought while staying on standby.
Nathaniel launched the drone to locate an entrance. Last time they'd found a hatch; this time the drone saw nothing of the sort.
The only landmark was—
"A hole in the ground?"
Victor blurted it out. Calling it a "hole" insulted every cavity on Earth. Crevasse was closer: barely half a meter deep, with wooden beam protruding from the earth.
"Probably an underground entrance," Olivia said, dropping her bag to the ground.
Uncertain, but their only lead. Buried beams were the liveliest sign of life in this isolated tundra.
To see what lay below, Olivia's pack would do. They'd brought four shovels, handy for defense and especially, digging.
'Still a slog', Victor thought, helping clear the passage.
The rocky soil made excavation backbreaking. The suits didn't help; they were bright, motionless targets if some monsters were to appear. The tension weighed on Victor's nerves.
"How much longer do we need to dig?" he growled, trying to wipe his sweat, but smacking his visor instead. Half an hour of digging and only now did they glimpse the bottom: a tunnel, partially collapsed over the years.
Once the opening was fully cleared, Nathaniel pulled a flashlight, caught his breath, and dropped in.
"Looks like an old mine shaft," he reported. Only then did Victor and the young women follow suits.
For once Victor loved the suit's air filter. The dust was so thick you could see it in the beam.
"Why would anyone open a mine out here?" he asked. Strangely, their research had never hinted the existence of such mine. No village, no road, nothing. There had to be something if one wanted to operate a mine so deep in the middle of nowhere
But they had no time to ponder.
They moved on by foot toward the island's center. Caves-ins were slowing down their progress here and there, but nothing a shovel squad couldn't handle, until the tunnel shrank to a crawlspace, forcing them onto their bellies.
Victor wasn't claustrophobic, but the squeeze and ever-present dust made every metre torture.
"I see an opening," Olivia said, her voice echoing far using the confined space. There was no sunlight ahead, only a return to full height and not an exit.
'What the hell is this?' Victor wondered after standing up and patting his suit to remove pebbles and dust.
A grey concrete wall loomed ahead, red Cyrillic letters shouting:
ВНИМАНИЕ!
ОБЪЕКТ № 42/Б
ДОСТУП СТРОГО ОГРАНИЧЕН
ВХОД РАЗРЕШАЕТСЯ ТОЛЬКО СОТРУДНИКАМ
КОМИТЕТА ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ СССР
В ЗВАНИИ НЕ НИЖЕ ПОЛКОВНИКА
НЕСАНКЦИОНИРОВАННОЕ ПРОНИКНОВЕНИЕ
КВАЛИФИЦИРУЕТСЯ КАК ОСОБО ТЯЖКОЕ
ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ ПРЕСТУПЛЕНИЕ
СЛАВА СОЮЗУ СССР!
Didn't look like a mine entrance to Victor. Thankfully Olivia read it aloud:
ATTENTION!
FACILITY No. 42/B
ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED
Entry permitted only to personnel of the USSR Committee for State Security with rank Colonel or above.
Unauthorized entry constitutes a particularly serious state crime.
GLORY TO THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS!
"What were they doing in the middle of nowhere?" Victor muttered as his brain connected the dots.
Russian Bunker could mean weapons, and weapons meant money.
Only one question filled his mind now:
'If we stumble across a nuclear warhead, I wonder how much could we sell it for…'