Chapter 28 - The Descent into Cavern Four
The rain had turned the western bluff of Franklin Road into a cascading waterfall of mud and dead leaves.
It was four-thirty in the morning when Luke and I reached the opening of the miners' crawlway—a narrow, jagged fissure in the limestone cliff face, half-hidden behind a curtain of wild blackberry brambles.
Luke had rigged a two-inch steel tripod over the fissure, anchored to a massive white oak by three heavy tow straps. A portable gasoline generator chugged fifty feet away, powering an electric capstan winch loaded with two hundred and fifty feet of steel-braided aircraft cable.
Corinne stood beside the tripod in a heavy rain slicker, holding a waterproof radio and a digital gas monitor. Her face was pale in the glare of the halogen work lights, but her hands were steady as she checked the carabiners on my climbing harness.
"Air monitor shows elevated methane at two hundred feet," she said, her voice cutting through the roar of the rain and the drone of the generator. "Oxygen levels are at eighteen percent. If the meter drops below sixteen, Grant, you pull the emergency tether twice. Luke will winch you out, no matter what happens."
"Understood," I said.
I adjusted the miner’s headlamp on my helmet and checked the waterproof canvas bag strapped to my chest. Inside were Clara’s silver key, Harrison’s brass key, a heavy pipe wrench, and a sealed canister of industrial sealant.
"Grant," Corinne said, stepping into my space, her hand coming up to touch the side of my face. Her skin was wet with rain, her eyes fierce and vulnerable all at once. "Don't try to be a hero for the land. If the water is already at the platform, you come back up. Owen needs a father more than he needs this farm."
"I’m coming back," I promised. "For both of you."
I clipped the heavy locking carabiner into the center ring of my harness, sat back over the dark abyss of the fissure, and gave Luke the nod.
"Lowering away," Luke said, engaging the winch clutch.
The world above disappeared in an instant.
The cold, wet air of the storm gave way to the suffocating, humid chill of the subterranean cavern. The limestone walls closed in around me, slick with black calcite deposits and weeping streams of mineral-heavy water. The beam of my headlamp cut through the swirling fog, illuminating ancient wooden shoring timbers, green with mold and bowed under the immense weight of the earth.
Down. Down through eighty feet of vertical crawlway, then into the vast, echoing darkness of the primary cavern.
The space opened up suddenly into a cathedral of jagged stone. Below me, the sound of rushing water was terrifying—a deep, resonant roar echoing off the limestone vaults like an approaching freight train.
"One hundred and eighty feet," Luke’s voice crackled through my earpiece, broken by static. "Water table is rising faster, Grant. We’re getting seismic vibrations on the surface."
"I see the water," I yelled into the radio microphone.
Thirty feet below my dangling boots, the black, oily surface of the floodwater reflected the beam of my headlamp. It wasn't clean rainwater; it was a foul, chemical-scented brew, swirling with iridescent slicks of ancient machine oil and sulfur foam.
And in the center of the flooded gallery, anchored to a concrete pedestal that rose four feet above the rising water, sat Tier B.
It looked like an industrial torpedo—a vertical stainless-steel cylinder four feet high and eighteen inches in diameter, bolted to the bedrock with heavy manganese anchor bolts. Suspended directly above it was a counter-weighted steel hammer attached to an acid reservoir, held back by a mechanical trip-wire linked to the rising water float.
The water was six inches from the trip-wire.
"Stop winch!" I shouted into the radio. "Hold me here!"
The cable jerked to a halt. I dangled five feet above the concrete pedestal. I swung my legs, using the momentum to swing toward the slick platform. My boots hit the wet concrete, slipped, and I scrambled on hands and knees, grabbing the cold stainless steel of the cylinder to keep from sliding into the black water.
The air burned my lungs, tasting of rotten eggs and metallic copper.
I pulled the keys from my chest pack.
The dual-key mechanism sat beneath a protective brass cap on the top of the cylinder. I used the pipe wrench to break the forty-year-old lead seal, twisting the cap counter-clockwise until it broke free with a metallic screech.
Two keyways sat side by side.
Left: stamped with a stylized *C*. Right: stamped with an *H*.
I inserted Clara’s silver key into the left slot. It turned smoothly, seventy degrees to the right, with a solid, satisfying mechanical click.
I inserted Harrison’s brass key into the right slot.
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It didn't turn.
"Grant!" Corinne’s voice screamed through the static. "The creek bed just buckled on the south tract! You have two minutes before the whole cavern vents!"
