SACRILEGE
Joanne rose up through the dark waters, coughing as her head broke the surface. Treading in place, she swiveled around, seeing Logan, Dale, and Duck to one side and Milo standing on the island in the center of the flooded chamber.
“Ahoy,” said Joanne. “You blokes were hard to find—I must have been right on your heels until you hit that big room back there. Took me forever to figure out where you’d gone. How about leaving some directions next time?”
“Sorry,” mumbled Duck with a genuinely apologetic tone. “I was going to do it on the way back out.”
“Bad boy!” exclaimed Joanne. “I ought to tell your mother!”
“Why are you here?” asked Dale. “What’s going on?”
“I have not-so-good news,” said Joanne as she swam to the nearest wall. “The weather up top has deteriorated significantly; satellite modeling shows a tropical storm turning toward our location. It’s a big one, maybe even a hundred-year storm, and could make things bloody wet and bloody dangerous down here. We’ve been requested to return at the earliest possible.”
“Return?” asked Duck. “To base camp? Or all the way to the surface? Can’t we just wait it out in one of the upper chambers, above the water table?”
“Not as such,” said Joanne apologetically as she hauled herself partially out of the water, hanging onto the wall beside the three men. “Too risky. They want us all the way out for now. We could be contending with flooded passageways and fast-moving waters. If that weren’t enough, the weather could make resupply missions quite difficult, and there’s always the matter of keeping the hatch in working order. I think we’d all be more comfortable out of the caverns for a day or two, let this weather nonsense blow over.”
“I suppose they have their reasons,” grumbled Dale, scratching his face in frustration. “But just when we’ve started making some real progress! Milo, tell me everything on the way back up.”
“I will,” promised Milo, stealing one last glance at the ivory masks.
Joanne smiled and nodded, but Milo got the distinct impression that haste was of the essence. She’d already spent too much time tracking them down. Logan was the first to take a big lungful of air and duck beneath the surface, disappearing in a froth of bubbles.
“Milo—you’re next,” said Joanne, waving him over. “We really ought to go quickly, please.”
“Just a minute,” said Milo. He thought about mentioning the leather-bound book, but immediately thought better of it. Best to avoid the temptation to stay longer, especially given the approach of a massive downpour.
A hundred-year storm, thought Milo. He envisioned the serpentine river filling with water, drowning the cathedral chamber and the little island he stood upon. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference—the book was already waterlogged—but the coming flood might be just enough to lose it forever.
Milo opened up his wet backpack and pulled out a sealable laminated plastic bag. Moving quickly, he carefully scooped up the book and placed it within the sack, filled it to the brim with water from the stone bowl, and tucked the heavy container as securely as possible within his pack. The water added a lot of extra weight, granted, but at least it’d keep the book stable until they reached base camp. Submerged paper held up remarkably well over time, even in acidic seawater, leaving Milo with full confidence he could preserve the book once they’d returned.
“Milo!” shouted Joanne, waving him over urgently as Dale and Duck plunged beneath the surface in quick succession, unwilling to wait their turn.
“Coming!” he exclaimed, strapping on the backpack again and swimming across the chamber. Thrilled by his discovery, Milo felt no fear as prepared his lungs for the dive. Three quick breaths—hold—and he forced himself beneath the surface, kicking toward the underwater tunnel.
The book was important, yes, but not as groundbreaking as the mask-decorated altar. No scholar had ever even considered the possibility that a tribal warrior could have made it so far into the depths of a supercave. But what next? An established understanding of Stone Age African culture, technology, and human ability would be replaced with a monolithic question mark, a tangle of unanswerable questions. He knew full well the gaps left by such controversial finds were too often filled with vitriol and doubt, to say nothing of the inevitable ad hominem attacks against his already-tainted career.
Grasping rocks with his hands, Milo pulled himself into the passageway, pressure in his ears and burning in his lungs as he scraped and bumped along the low ceiling.
Milo could see himself descending into the dismissed ranks of other historical revisionists, like the archaeologists who supposedly unearthed Roman olive jars in Brazilian bays, or claimed that China had discovered North America in the 1400s. No—it’d be even worse than that—he’d be trying to convince the academic community that early African hunter-gatherers descended through a half-mile of vertical rock and swam flooded chambers, all without ropes, light, heat, or food. It would be a shaky claim indeed, especially when built atop the broken foundation of his career.
His backpack caught on the same rocky snag, abruptly jolting him to a stop. Milo knew what to do this time, twisting himself free and kicking off from the passageway, shooting upward again.
No rational scholar would accept the idea, Milo concluded. Maybe it’d be better if flooding from the hundred-year storm washed the masks and altar away. Milo felt it unlikely—the structure could have survived a hundred such storms, maybe more.
Pulse pounding and vision gray, Milo broke to the surface.
Milo found the long march back to base camp infinitely more exhausting than the trip down. As he answered Dale’s increasingly frustrated questions, he felt as though he was slipping forward in time, his mind drifting as they waded, walked, and crawled up through the airless tunnels. One moment he’d be in the present, inches from the bottoms of Dale’s oversize boots, the next a quarter mile further along, the group in another configuration, with no memory of the interceding journey.
The group eventually emerged from the anthill and into the base camp chamber. They were all soaked to the skin, caked with drying mud, heavy packs dripping and soggy. A pounding headache reverberated within Milo’s skull, exacerbated by the echoing waterfall.
If Dale Brunsfield had been expecting a welcome reception—or even a single person to greet him—he was disappointed. Looking around, Milo only saw the empty camp, the dimly illuminated globes lazily tilting on the ceiling above, no movement other than the cascading froth of the falls.
The others dropped their packs at the edge of the supply depot. Logan sat down on a rock and put his face in his hands, drained by his exertions. Joanne slumped down beside him. Dale crawled inside his tent while Duck, frowning, began organizing a haphazard pile of ropes and carabiners beside the supply depot.
“How soon do we have to get out of here?” Logan asked without dropping his face from his hands.
“Ask me again in ten minutes,” answered Joanne. “I’m so bloody tired I can’t think.”
“Definitely take ten,” called Duck from the supply pile, loud enough for the rest to hear. “If you don’t take time to recover, we’ll never get up the shaft before the storm hits. Everybody needs to eat something too.”
Pulling the Velcro straps off his kneepads, Milo winced as blood flowed back into his beleaguered legs. He unsnapped his helmet, rubbing at the raw, chafed lines across his neck and ears. Reaching inside his tent, Milo dropped his excess gear and lights, stretching and enjoying the brief sensation of weightlessness. He couldn’t help but think of the leather-bound journal inside the laminate bag and wonder what secrets lay within.
“Milo my boy,” called Dale from his tent. “Would you mind finding Charlie for me? Isabelle, too—would like to tell them about the glow we found, help them strategize for the upcoming shoot once we’re back.”
Milo nodded, trying not to feel irritated. Sure, he’d find Charlie and the film team, no doubt so they could swoop in and take credit. Legs stiff and aching, Milo trundled up toward the waterfall, following sounds of laughter. Headlamp in hand, he shone a light toward the grotto at the base of the shaft, clouds of cold mist obscuring his vision.
Bridget stepped out of this waterfall, wet hair sticking to the side of her face. She’d stripped down to a pair of shorts and a drenched college T-shirt that clung to her skin. Milo’s stomach churned as he flashed back to his unwanted dreams.
Seeing Milo, Bridget’s first expression was one of pure shock, which she recovered from almost immediately as she stepped barefoot into her open hiking boots.
“You’re back!” she exclaimed, unconsciously crossing her arms over her chest and giving him an awkward smile.
“Yeah—Joanne came to get us,” said Milo, backing away as his face visibly reddened. “She says the weather is getting pretty messy up there. Where are Charlie and the rest?”
Bridget looked around the virtually empty chamber. “They should have been back by now,” he said. “Joanne told them to stay close. I think they were doing some more filming.”
Milo turned around and looked across base camp.
“I don’t think they stayed close,” he said.
The third call over the radio went unanswered, as did the fourth, fifth, and sixth. Joanne had become visibly frustrated, shooting angry glances between Duck and the radio.
“I don’t know what happened!” Joanne said again. “They said they’d be just around the corner!”
“If they went in a new passage, they didn’t chalk it,” Duck said. “I have no idea where they went.”
“Goddamn it!” shouted Dale. “What’s our timeframe?”
“We should have left the moment we reached base camp,” said Joanne. “The storm has already hit the surface; we could start feeling the effects at any moment. They’ve already missed two scheduled drops—we don’t need the supplies, but it’s concerning that they can’t send anyone to the top of the shaft.”
Dale shook his head angrily.
“This is my fault,” Joanne said. “I wasn’t clear enough that they should stay put while I went searching for you.”
“Can’t change the past,” said Dale, irritated. “But we need to find them and get ourselves out of here immediately.”
“How bad is it going to get?” asked Duck. “How worried should we be?”
Dale swore as he yanked off his helmet and threw it almost halfway across the chamber. The blue plastic hit sharp rocks and bounced off into a dark corner. “This shouldn’t even be an issue,” he shouted. “This is why there are protocols . . . we had plenty of time to evacuate; now we have to spend it looking for people!”
“This doesn’t help us,” Joanne said, clearly on the verge of becoming angry herself. “Let’s start moving—what’s the plan?”
“We don’t have time to do this search the right way.” Dale’s intelligent eyes darted back and forth as he thought, his frown still deeply etched. “And we won’t have time to move any of our gear to higher ground.”
“Then let’s do it the wrong way,” said Bridget. “I’d rather have wet equipment than drowned friends. Please tell us what to do.”
“Listen to her,” said Joanne. “You know she’s right.”
Logan nodded in agreement.
“Everybody pair up and pick a tunnel.” Dale pointed to the myriad of dark passageways around the one leading to the anthill. “Bring chalk—red chalk—and mark your path.”
Everyone nodded.
“Keep light on your feet,” continued Dale. “That means make a best guess every time you hit an intersection. If you reach a passageway that’s too small for a camera, turn around and try another one.”
“Got it,” said Duck, already turning to grab his pack and chalk. The young guide still hadn’t put his socks on.
“I need you back here in one hour regardless of results,” said Dale. “That means you do an about-face at the thirty-minute mark, no exceptions. We could be in for a world of hurt with this flood—they may have to fend for themselves. I’ll go with Joanne. Duck, take Bridget. Logan and Milo are together. And above all—don’t make the situation worse by taking a spill.”
Milo could barely keep up with Logan as they half-ran down a narrow, winding passageway. It was as if the geologist had found some hidden reservoir of strength Milo did not possess, and used it to fling himself through the darkness. Every intersection, Logan would briefly eye the fork without stopping, scrawl a thick red chalk mark against the more promising of the two, and slip back into his punishing cadence. As the pair clambered across a breakdown pile, Milo slipped, dropping to his knees, wishing he’d put the pads back on before leaving camp.
“Keep up,” Logan insisted. “We do not want to be in this section if it floods.”
In an instant, Logan was beside him, helping him up, but then back to moving an instant later. Every few moments they’d belt out “CHARLIE! ISABELLE!” to a lonely, echoing response.
Looking at his watch, Milo clocked twenty-eight minutes of the exhausting search. The idea of turning around in a hundred and twenty seconds held no relief. Milo knew they’d have to return at the same pace, maybe even faster, to have any hope of reaching base camp by Dale’s deadline. He tried to imagine the consequences if they weren’t able to locate Isabelle and Charlie—would they be leaving the pair to drown?
Again, they reached a fork. Milo barely considered it before almost bolting toward the larger of the two, but Logan held up a hand for him to stop.
“Do you smell that?” asked Logan, tilting his head toward a small, rounded opening dwarfed by the one Milo had selected.
Milo checked his watch with impatience. “We have to get back.”
“I smell . . . gas.” Logan pointed toward the smaller hole. “I think it’s coming from there.”
Time ticking out, Milo and Logan both shouted Charlie’s name but heard no response. But when Milo held an ear toward the hole, he heard the distant thumping of tribal drums.
Logan and Milo looked at each other for a moment before Logan crossed off the mark to the other chamber and together they wriggled into the hole. It opened within a few meters to standing size, the smell of gas and drumming growing ever louder, now joined by the flicking glow of firelight.
Rounding a turn, Milo stopped dead to stare. In the small, room-sized chamber before him, Charlie Garza danced nearly nude in front of a camera, his body covered with tribal makeup and illuminated by flickering gas-soaked torches. Isabelle filmed as a small portable music player belted out the tribal beat.
Behind Charlie was a long, smooth wall filled with cave paintings, crude men with long spears hunting animals. Milo’s heart jumped into his mouth for the fraction of a second it took him to tell that they were all fake. Even from the distance, Milo could see the supposedly ancient paintings were made of lipstick.