Chapter 72 - The Iron Door
The trek through the sub-alpine forest took two hours of grueling, silent climbing through knee-deep mud and jagged granite scree. The wind whipped down from the higher peaks, carrying the sharp scent of ozone and wet pine, while the gray sky threatened an early mountain snowfall.
True to Henderson’s warning, they found the entrance to Project Deepfrost tucked deep into the base of a sheer granite cliff, completely obscured by a massive, artificial-looking rockslide that had been deliberately triggered to block the mouth of the tunnel.
Ethan dropped his pack to the ground and pulled out a heavy-duty tactical thermal lance, igniting the blinding white-hot flame with a sharp hiss.
“Give me ten minutes to cut through the shoring timbers behind these boulders,” Ethan said, pulling his protective welding mask down over his face. “Whoever collapsed this entrance didn't want anyone getting in from the outside—which means there’s an interior power source still running. You don't keep environmental systems active for twenty years on wind power alone.”
Avery kept watch at the edge of the clearing, her eyes sweeping the dense forest behind them while Ethan went to work. The thermal blips they had seen on the ridge had vanished from the GPS tracker twenty minutes ago, but the prickle at the back of her neck told her they hadn't gone away—they had simply closed the distance.
The hiss of the thermal lance was deafening, echoing off the sheer rock walls of the canyon as white-hot molten steel and pulverized granite sprayed into the freezing air. Within eight minutes, Ethan kicked away a massive, charred support beam, revealing a dark, cavernous void that dropped straight down into the bowels of the mountain.
“We’re in,” Ethan said, lifting his mask and wiping soot from his forehead. He flicked on his high-intensity helmet light, casting a brilliant beam of white illumination into the subterranean darkness.
Avery stepped up to the edge of the breach, the air drifting up from the tunnel smelling distinctly different from the mountain breeze outside. It didn't smell like mold or stagnant rock. It smelled of refined machine oil, sterile air-conditioning, and copper.
“Modern filtration,” Avery noted, sniffing the air. “That means the facility isn't abandoned at all. Someone’s been using it as an active staging ground.”
They dropped down through the jagged opening one by one, their boots hitting a smooth, poured-concrete floor that stretched away into the absolute darkness. Ethan tapped a wall-mounted junction box near the entrance, and with a low, electrical hum, a string of dim amber emergency lights flickered to life overhead, stretching down a long, reinforced concrete corridor that cut straight into the heart of the mountain.
They moved forward in a textbook two-man stack, weapons raised, their boots making no sound against the dust-free floor.
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After walking for three hundred yards, the narrow corridor abruptly opened into a massive underground vault—a vast, subterranean chamber carved directly out of the living granite, illuminated by the harsh, clinical glare of overhead fluorescent tubes.
And standing in the center of the room, waiting for them beside an active, humming quantum mainframe, was a figure they never expected to see draw breath again.
