Oshun Mayes's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

They brought the unconscious man to Fort Meridian in a sealed transport. Oshun rode beside the stretcher, the shard wrapped in cloth on his lap. It still pulsed, faint and warm. He gave the order the moment they reached the underground level. "Lock it down. Secure the shard in the chamber. I want it contained before anyone touches it again." The underground corridors hummed with a low power he felt in his teeth. Technicians moved the shard into the reinforced containment chamber. Sealed panels closed around it. For one breath, everything held. Then the shard flared. Pink and green light burst through the seams. Alarms screamed down every corridor. Red strobes spun. A tech stumbled back from the console. "Readings off the scale, Commander!" She came through the smoke of flashing light without slowing. Dr. Lena Voss, the scientist he'd been warned studied things no one else could explain. She carried a rugged scanner, its sensor ring glowing yellow. She did not look at the alarms. She looked at the chamber. "Shut the suppression off," she said. "That holds it in," Oshun said. "It's feeding it." She raised the scanner toward the glowing seams. The indicator bands climbed, then held steady. "The seal pushes energy in. It has nowhere to go. So it pushes back." She pointed at the console. "Cut it. Now." Oshun stared at her. Every rule said contain the threat. His track record came from acting fast and being right. But the light was spreading, and her eyes did not move from the readings. He keyed the console. "Kill the suppression." The panels hissed open. The light dimmed. The shard settled to a slow, faint glow behind the open chamber. The alarms died one by one. In the sudden quiet, Oshun heard his own breathing. Voss lowered the scanner. She read the display for a long moment. "The seal fought it," she said. "It wanted out. Not loose. Out, toward something." She turned the screen to him. A single bright line pointed down, deeper than the level they stood on. "Toward what?" Oshun asked. "I don't know. That's the point, Commander." She did not soften it. "We don't understand what we're dealing with. The shard isn't the source. It's a piece of something bigger. And it's pulling toward the lower level." Down the corridor, past the ruined alarms, a colossal door stood in the rock. Rust and old seals covered its face. No handle. No window. Oshun had never seen it opened. The shard's glow leaned toward it, steady now, like a needle finding north. From the stretcher behind them, the man woke. He sat up fast, eyes wide, pressing his hands to his skull. "Where is it," he said, voice cracking. "It's calling. Can't you hear it calling?" He stared at the sealed door and began to shake. Oshun's hand went to his chest pocket, to the test strip over his heart. He had a reason to go home. And something behind that door had just started counting on him not to.