Chapter 1 – Chap 1

The world around is changing. We can deny the facts all we want, but if we don’t change our ways soon; the extinction of mankind is on the horizon.

Let me pause for a moment to offer introductions. My name is Professor Angelia Gammell, and for the past fifteen years I have studied climate change, ecological diversity and biochemistry along with a Masters in History and Archaeology.

Right now it is my duty to tell others about our environmental responsibilities.

But I have to do more than just that. I have to make a change for the better. My father instilled in me a love for this planet and I will use my dying breath to give humans a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, another grim truth is money makes the world go round in this day and age. If you don’t have the funds, the research quickly dries up.

This happened almost thirty years ago with my father in the Andes. He was on the verge of a breakthrough with a new type of power source that could make fossil fuels obsolete. Then when the Headmaster changed, the interest in climate was gone as well and all of the research was lost.

I’ve fought for the last ten years to regain a foothold on that research. It seemed nearly impossible but I never gave up hope, working right alongside my old man at the university and pushing for larger budgets, new grants and different opportunities to make it all happen.

That hope finally paid off about two weeks ago when dad walked in with a check from the new headmaster. Once again politics changed the views of those in charge. But we weren’t complaining because the number was more than we ever dreamed of.

$1,900,300.00

My mouth literally dropped when I saw the number. I think I checked it ten times, my father trying his best to not have a stroke.

The reason for our excitement was also personal.

My mother lost her life trying to uncover the properties of previously never discovered minerals in the high mountains near the borders of Columbia and Ecuador. The cave in that killed her and the rest of her team being the nail in the coffin for future digs.

At long last we were on the verge of proving her theories and helping to curb our carbon footprint, it was thrilling.

There was so much to prepare. Heavy machinery to buy, a team to assemble and then supplies; the list felt endless.

My father did his best to keep me calm. “It doesn’t matter if it takes months to get things up and running now. As long as we have that money, we have everything we need,” he reassured me.

I relied on him heavily to contact the different specialists we would have to have. Even though the site was still relatively intact I knew it would be far more difficult than simply returning to South America and setting up camp.

The region near the excavation is a harsh one. Temperatures can range from drastic dry heat to sub zero within miles of each other. With winding valleys and uncharted jungles that often turn into war zones for guerrilla armies covering the majority of the surrounding area, simply getting there was half the battle. In fact it was obvious that trekking by land would not be an option, most if not all of the trails available were only large enough for wildlife and hardly suitable for the supplies we would need to bring.

An airdrop into the mountains was the only solution we could think of. And that of course was where our first major expense went.

Besides that, the facility itself was small and rundown. Not designed to house more than ten or twelve individuals at a time. It was old and dangerous and poorly put together, lacking proper piping, air circulation and other modern commodities. So those who did come needed to be given certain reassurances that the journey was worth it.

And by that I mean of course they would need to be financially compensated in a large way. Monthly salaries cut into my budget quickly. We had to pay for labor to clear the dig site, to prepare the facility with some running water, electricity and temperature control.

By the time Dad and I had arrived, only 30% of it was up and ready to go. The rest was literally covered by an encroaching mess of vines that threatened to make the building collapse at any moment.

But we were not deterred. The people Dad had found had the right attitude, often working long hours to push into the core of the mountain. Usually because of the bad weather they could only do so much before the equipment malfunctioned, but still they kept going with shovels and pickaxes. The desolation around us would not stop our progress.

Norman, the crew master, would often sing songs from his home country to muster the others to keep going. Anything to keep them sane. The weather made it difficult to determine what hours were passing, and often the drastic changes made us paranoid and feeling uneasy.

But finally, we reached the areas my mom had theorized would lead to a pocket of the Earth never touched by man.

I could see where the cavern had collapsed and likely killed her and all the others, leaving nothing but rubble in its wake. Dad told Norman’s men to stop working for a moment as we took a moment of silence for her and the others. The room seemed filled with death. I could even hear distant screams in my mind as I thought of mom and how she had likely suffocated where I was now standing. It left me numb, terrified to think the same fate could befall us.

But we didn’t come here to simply stop here. So the dig began.

The team worked sometimes into the long hours of the night, using the backhoe until it couldn’t run any longer and hauling out mounds of dirty and clay. Each new push into the mountains felt like it took a lifetime, but my dad kept reminding me of the fact that we were finally here.

“We are so close, Angelia. This is going to be history in the making.”

It took us almost two weeks to finally reach the next antechamber of the cavern. A wide pocket of stones and molten lava that seemed almost carved by ancient people. At last we could go in by foot.

Dad led the way, using a light on his safety helmet to peer into the gloom. The atmosphere was icy, a pocket of the world never even aware of the world beyond. It made me feel like we were entering a forbidden realm. Something not meant for mortal eyes.

“The air in here hasn’t been breathed in likely over six hundred years… or more,” Dad whispered. Behind us, the excavation crew followed carrying lanterns and pickaxes. Our professional photographer, Dominic LeGray; paused to capture every nook and cranny.

“This is freaky,” he commented as we rounded every corner. We saw no signs of life in the cavern either, just more and more of the same bland decay. Like something had eaten away at the very earth.

Even as his flashes struck against the walls it still felt surreal. We were here, and ready to begin discoveries that could alter history. But everything we were searching for now seemed suddenly gone.

Only one of the smaller machines, a drill; could fit into the next tunnel. Norman and his second in command, a man named Manuel, took turns getting it deeper into the molten core. Phosphorus chemicals filled the air and all of us quickly covered our mouths. Manuel began to cough and spit up blood, unable to cover his mouth quickly enough.

“Doctor Howlett, Nurse Ornan, we’ll need medical down here,” Dad said into the radio as we pulled the man back from the smoke.

I wanted to actually stop and see whether or not Manuel was alright, but Dad was so focused on the dig and what might lie ahead I couldn’t leave him either.

Squeezing through the other side of the narrow passage, we found ourselves standing on a frozen lake of some kind.

“There’s something in the ice,” Norman shouted as he shone his light below.

Dad took a step forward and looked through the thick sheet of frozen rock, trying to make out what it might be.

“It looks like… a body bag,” Norman admitted uneasily. It seemed impossible as I examined it. How could it be here?

“Maybe it was one of mom’s crew and they made it farther than we thought?” I suggested.

“We won’t know until we exhume the corpse,” Dad decoded .

He radioed our physician again and told them of the situation. “Make the main conference chamber into a small morgue if possible. We will bring the preserved sample up right away,” he ordered.

“This doesn’t feel right. Look at the way this room was set up. It was sealed off. Like we aren’t supposed to be here,” Norman said.

“Don’t be a superstitious idiot. It’s just a corpse,” Dad shouted and ordered they begin immediately or he would dock a weeks worth of pay. Needless to say that was all the motivation they needed.

The next few hours were spent chipping away at the ice around the body. As we got closer and closer to the discovery, it became clearer this was not merely a 30 year old body. No, this was far more ancient. Perhaps from the Incas or other indigenous tribes, I theorized as we began to extract it from the ice. A lost soul, forgotten by the passage of time.

Once it was within arms length of me and I could clearly see its features, an overwhelming sense of foreboding came over me. It was hardly recognizable as a person, lacking eyes, nose or other facial features. Yet it’s form resembled a petite middle aged woman in the fetal position.

“The cold mummified the body, the organs might be intact,” Dad said, noting that the decay had stopped at some point after their burial. It was clear from the way they had been placed within the ice, their death had been intentional.

Whoever had put them here wanted to make sure they could not leave.

That evening after dinner, Doctor Howlett began a sample study of the body. I hadn’t been able to eat a bite, too disturbed by the corpse. Dad meanwhile seemed in good spirits; insisting we be there to observe as they used the basic tools we had at our disposal to take a blood sample from the frozen mummy.

“With this we can determine the time of death, and perhaps learn something about our new friend,” he explained to me. That sparkle in his eye had me wondering what his intentions were, but I didn’t question it.

Meanwhile the team in the caverns below had stopped for the night, too intrigued and terrified by the mummy to do much else.

“Many of the crew are superstitious. They think this is some kind of curse upon us,” Norman explained. “Especially now that Manuel seems sick, he hasn’t been able to get up since he inhaled those chemicals,” the crewmaster added. I Scoffed at such nonsense, but the corpse did unsettle me. Especially as Doctor Howlett made its features more visible. DeGray stood by, capturing the entire process in vivid detail with his camera.

I didn’t need something like that to remember. It was scarred into my memory how nightmarish it looked.

It was covered in open sores. Like some kind of flesh eating bacteria had ravaged it from head to toe, including its entire chest cavity and face. Drilling into the crooked left arm allowed for a further examination of the bones told me something else that I had feared, and Howlett said it out loud for all to hear.

“They were alive when they were placed in the pit,” he said, examining the sample under a microscope.

“How barbaric,” Dad said in astonishment. The first hint of concern in his voice.

“Perhaps not. Look at this here,” the doctor said, offering him a glance. Then I got a look as well.

The slide showed what looked like submicroscopic life moving amid what was left of the bone marrow. As they wriggled and began to circle about the microscope, I felt a chill go up and down my spine.

This was a pathogen. A biological weapon

And that meant the reasons for the quick burial were evident. The ancient people had wanted to prevent an infection.

“Can you determine what this is?” I asked Howlett.

“It will take some time. I could extract other more viable organs. Despite the cellular decay, it’s likely deeper within the body that the virus might have survived,” he said.

“Do it,” I told him eagerly.

He nodded and returned to the makeshift morgue, gathering his tools and beginning to torch off the remaining sheets of ice.

Dad squeezed my hand and neither of us said a thing, too enthralled by what was happening in front of us. We needed to know whether or not we were in danger as well.

It did not take long for the answer to be obvious.

As the final pieces of ice melted off, Doctor Howlett took a break and raised the internal temperature of the room, eager to begin a proper autopsy. Seeing the corpse now in fresh light gave me that same uneasy feeling again, realizing how much this strange disease had likely forced the poor soul to suffer.

Then, out of nowhere; the body jerked.

Doctor Howlett screamed in alarm and dropped his surgical tools, the sudden gasp of air from the body enough to paralyze him with fear. Dad and I watched in abject horror as well, amazed by what we saw. The corpse was barely moving, but the signs were obvious.

Whatever we had found, it was very much alive.