“I was afraid ...”
“It's all right,” he whispered. “But it'll be here in a few minutes. We've got to get moving.”
“I broke the code,” she whispered, staring into his eyes.
Connor genuinely smiled. “Like I knew you would, darlin'.” He kissed her. “Now let's get out of here. We've got to move.”
Without words Beth turned and ran up the staircase. In a moment she came out, holding Jordan close in her arms. He was wrapped in a blanket. “He's still sleeping. I'm not going to wake him up if I don't have to.”
Connor walked up and gently lifted Jordan from her arms. “He'll be okay. He's just—”
A howling roar thundered through the long tunnel behind them, echoing across the expanse of the Housing Cavern. It was a lot closer than Connor had expected.
Chesterton stepped forward. “Frank thinks he might be able to defuse the fail-safe, Connor.”
“How?”
“I've got to get into Cyberspace to do it,” Frank responded. “And that means I've got to get to the Computer Cavern because that's where the Cyberspace Module is located.”
“You take him to it, Connor,” Chesterton said, lifting an M-16 that he had secured from a weapons locker. “There's probably going to be some kind of mechanical problem once you get there. This entire place is wrecked. Some of the electrical lines are down, and you're the only one who can fix them.”
Connor hesitated. He had come up with a desperate plan, something that might kill the beast, but he couldn't set it up if he had to lead Frank to the Computer Cavern. But then he knew that killing Leviathan would be useless if they couldn't disarm the fail-safe.
“All right,” Connor said. “Let's go.”
“I'll need Beth to help me.”
“She's coming, too.” Connor slung the M-203 over a shoulder, turned to Thor and Barley. “Can the two of you lay more tracks in and out of this cavern to confuse it? It's already hurting, but we need to hurt it some more.”
Together they nodded.
“Good,” Connor continued. “Just open all the vault doors and lay as many heat impressions as possible. Give it plenty to look at. Wear it out. It's wounded and it can't feed anymore. Plus, the fight on the bridge used up all of its resources. It's going to be starving real soon.” He hesitated. “The rest of us will go ahead and try to access the computer. We'll meet up at the power plant in an hour to make a stand, to try and keep it from passing through the cavern to reach Crystal Lake. I think I can rig up something that it can't cross, something that might even kill it. And we can probably get a distress signal through the communications linkup with the surface. But first we've got to disarm this bomb.”
“It will be done,” Thor said.
Barley lifted his rifle. “See you in an hour.”
Connor turned to Chesterton. “What do you want to do? You want to come with us or stay here?”
“I've been listening to Frank and I've realized that I don't know a thing about computers,” Chesterton said. His aspect was fatally fatigued. “I think I'll stay here and help them to—”
On the far side of the Housing Cavern the titanium door shook, struck hard. The bestial roar that followed was like blood-wet fear in the air, guttural and threatening.
Instantly Thor was moving forward, shoving Connor. “Go, my friend! Go! Go! Hurry before it breaks down the door. We will hold it here as long as possible. Disarm the bomb.”
With Beth beside him, Connor was moving. He heard the wall behind them shattering, caught a freshness in the reptilian scream that told him a section of the vault's frame had surrendered to the colossal, raging force. And then they had stooped under the narrowly-lifted door to enter another passageway, moving quickly.
Beth was behind him with Frank leading as they ran deeply down the tunnel. In the distance behind them they heard the now familiar sounds of savage conflict, the roar of the beast followed by defiant human cries and the thunderous explosions of rifles and grenades.
But there was no time to think of it, not with what loomed before them. Connor sensed it before he saw it. Light. Heat. Heavy smoke moving toward the ventilation system. And Connor instinctively looked up at the tunnel, slowing in cold fear as he understood.
It was on fire.
* * *
Chapter 24
Flame before them with flames behind and Frank spun, shouting, “We've got to get out of this tunnel! The only other way to reach Brubaker is through Omega!”
Connor whirled to look at the entrance of Omega. He knew the tunnel led through the cavern for a mile before it intersected with Brubaker, which would take them to the Computer Cavern. And then he remembered how Leviathan had wrecked the tunnel earlier. “But Omega was wrecked when that thing destroyed the nitrogen tanks,” he gasped. “We can't...”