Chapter 36 - Descent into the Abyss
The iron hatch of Flume Nine was encrusted with decades of mountain lichen and rust, buried beneath a tangle of wild blackberry vines.
As gunfire suddenly erupted behind us—Miller’s service weapon barking sharp and rhythmic, followed by the heavier staccato chatter of automatic rifles—I jammed the brass key into the corroded lock cylinder.
The lock resisted. My knuckles scraped against jagged iron, drawing cold blood, but I refused to let up. I leaned the entire weight of my seventy-one-year-old frame into the wrench, using the leverage of the fourteen-inch steel handle I had jammed through the key's loop.
*Crack.*
The rusted tumblers snapped open with the sound of a pistol shot. Together, Lily and I hauled back the heavy circular plate. A blast of freezing, damp air surged out of the darkness, carrying the deafening, mechanical roar of furious water churning inside the belly of the mountain.
"I go first," I yelled over the din. "Test every rung with your boot before you put your weight on it! Don't look down, Lily! Keep your eyes on my shoulders!"
I swung my legs over the rim and found the first cold iron rung.
The descent was pure nightmare. The ladder was bolted directly into the curved concrete shaft of the flume. Below us, blackness stretched into eternity, echoing with the vibrations of six billion gallons of water pressing against the outer walls. Each rung was slick with condensation and mineral scale.
My arthritic knees burned with every step. My shoulders screamed under the strain of carrying my tool belt. For a brief second, thirty rungs down, my left boot slipped on a patch of wet slime. My heart hammered into my throat as my fingers clamped around the freezing iron, tearing the skin along my palm.
"Dad!" Lily gasped above me.
"I'm solid!" I shouted back through gritted teeth, finding purchase again. "Keep moving! Don't stop!"
Every muscle in my aging body protested, but behind my eyes burned the memory of that morning six months ago: the young corporate executives laughing in the boardroom, taping a diaper to my workbench, smashing the notebook my little girl had given me, telling me I was worthless scrap waiting for the landfill.
*They thought old iron was brittle,* I thought as my hands locked onto the next rung. *They forgot that old iron has already survived the forge.*
Fifty feet. A hundred feet. Two hundred feet.
The temperature plummeted. Water spray misted across our faces until our jackets were soaked through. Finally, after what felt like an eternity suspended between life and death, my boot hit solid diamond-plate steel.
We were in the lower gallery.
The turbine floor was a cavernous subterranean hall of raw concrete and towering green-painted hydraulic cylinders. But the sight before us made the breath catch in my throat.
At the far end of the gallery, bolted to the massive primary floodgate housing, sat six massive, olive-drab steel containers strapped to an industrial crane trolley. Each container bore the yellow stencils of the 1991 Strategic Materials Reserve.
And standing right beneath the emergency control pulpit, holding a detonator wired directly to the floodgate’s secondary relief seals, was a man in a bespoke tailored trench coat over a tactical sweater.
He turned as our boots clanged on the steel catwalk.
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"Arthur Reed," Julian Sterling said smoothly, a cold, mocking smile curling his lips. "I must admit, your persistence is bordering on clinical insanity."
***
