The Anomaly(29)

“Fuck off.”

I started up the ladder once more.

When we checked later, we discovered it had taken forty minutes to climb. We had a couple more short breaks, when thighs and arms tightened or started twitching with fatigue, but otherwise we went up and up and up. I fell into a kind of trance, maintaining the repetitive process of reaching up, moving hands and feet, pushing up. I didn’t bother to speculate about what—if anything—we were going to find. The thing that has kept me from going crazy at certain periods in my life is the ability to let the future be. This has, naturally, meant there have also been times when life has dealt me a stunning blow to the jaw that I should have seen coming, laying me flat on my back while the gods of foresight laugh and point.

But for the rest of the climb this faded away. Molly had me wrong in thinking I’d be pleased at the idea of this cave being named after me. Partly because if it was what we’d been looking for, Kincaid had prior claim. Mainly because I didn’t care. It’s never the world at large you want to prove yourself to. It’s someone in particular. Doesn’t matter how old you get, you’re still hoping for Mom or Dad to kiss you on the head.

And yes, that person should ideally be yourself, just as the answers to all our questions and the objects of our quests should most likely be found within our own souls. But they’re not. We need more. Someone or something bigger than us. A magical other.

And that’s why we reach for the gods.

Or for someone to love.



Eventually I looked up to check the next section of shaft and saw there was only another few feet before the handholds stopped, giving way to blackness.

“Okay, people,” I said. “I think we’re here.”

I pulled myself up the last few steps.





Chapter

17



It was immediately clear that another passage lay at the top of the shaft. A real one, this time. My headlamp revealed ten feet of floor on either side. It was rocky and covered in dust—some of it dark, almost like soot—but basically level and flat.

Before me, the passage disappeared into darkness. Turning, I saw it did the same back toward the wall of the canyon, running in the same direction as the fissure hundreds of feet below.

I pulled myself out of the shaft. The walls here were also even. Not perfect, but without question worked and man-made. The passage was ten or twelve feet wide and about the same high—much closer to the dimensions Kincaid had claimed in the article.

“Do we come up?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You should do that.”

I walked a little farther down the passage as the rest of the team completed the ascent. The width remained constant. There were chisel marks on the walls. It was fairly cold, but clammy. The air felt dead. Most of it would have been here for a very long time.

Gemma was out next. “Didn’t get a chance earlier,” she said. “Just wanted to say, you know, thanks.”

“For what?”

“Saving my life, you dick.”

“It was an accident. I was busy saving mine. You received collateral salvation.”

She shook her head. “You really do have a problem.”

“And what’s that?”

“No idea. I’m not a therapist. I don’t know if it’s fallout from your marriage imploding or what, but you seem determined to prove you’re an asshole.”

“I can’t keep up with you. Last night you thought maybe I wasn’t, now we’re back to it being a done deal.”

“I’m serious. Like when we first got up in the cave down there. If anybody else had found it they’d have been all ‘I’m the man.’ Legitimately, for once. But you get busy trying to pass the accolade on to Pierre.” She lowered her voice. “Who’s a nice guy and plenty hot but probably can’t find his way out of his own apartment without using Google Maps.”

I shrugged. “I got us somewhere. Yes. It may still be there’s nothing here.”

“True,” she said. “Well, perhaps you’re right. Maybe you are just an asshole after all.”

“Fuck me,” Ken panted as he climbed laboriously out of the shaft. “So this would be an actual passage, then.”

“Yep.”

“So what’s the plan? I mean, after I’ve stopped feeling like my heart is going to explode.”

“We go that way,” I said, pointing along the passage that led toward the wall of the canyon.

“And there’s enough air and stuff here, right?”

“I assume so. Presumably it’s open to the canyon at that end, and we just didn’t spot it because it’s too high, or hard to see amid the sediment staining. So I think we should walk that way, stake out the territory. Plus it’ll show if there’s any openings along the way.”

“Not if,” Feather said. The others were standing in a group now, flicker-lit by the light around Gemma’s neck. “Where. This has to be Kincaid’s cavern, doesn’t it?”

“You’ve gotta hope,” I said. “But wait and see. And let’s only have a couple of lamps burning. We’re going to need artificial light all the time. It’s a long way back for more batteries, and I’ve seen all those movies.”