Chapter 66 - The Subterranean Flume
We ran down the stairs, our boots slamming against concrete that had been cast with crushed quartz to prevent slipping. The sound of gunfire from above faded quickly, swallowed whole by the massive, reverberating thrum of the mountain itself.
Every twenty paces, the concrete walls were braced with heavy steel ribs, each stamped with an inspector’s mark from 1968. Painted beside each rib were chalk marks—handwritten names and dates spanning four decades.
*E. Miller — Oct 14, 1974 — Pressure 2,400.*
*E. Miller — May 2, 1981 — Core secure.*
*E. Miller — Nov 19, 1996 — Valve seals replaced.*
"She came down here alone," I said between gasping breaths, my flashlight beam jumping over my mother’s familiar, tight script scrawled across the cold stone.
"She had to," Sarah said, never slowing her pace. "The protocols were designed during the Cuban Crisis. If one person held the key, no single committee could authorize the flood. Evelyn was chosen because she lived directly above the primary damper. If she flooded the valley, she drowned her own home first. That was the security measure, Tom. Collateral."
The stairs ended abruptly on a wide, suspended platform of perforated steel. Below us, the space opened into a cavern so vast my flashlight beam couldn't reach the far wall.
In the center of the void, three colossal hydraulic rams—each as thick as an oak trunk—rose from a circular pit of black, boiling brine. Above the rams, suspended by six multi-strand steel cables, was the lower half of the titanium cylinder Julian’s crawlers were trying to winch to the surface.
The cables were singing like violin strings under thousands of tons of strain. Steel strands were already snapping, peeling away from the main braided lines with violent, ringing reports that echoed through the dark.
"Julian’s winch is overpowering the locks!" I shouted over the din.
"He's trying to yank it out before the bypass valve clears!" Sarah yelled back, pointing to a cast-iron control console bolted to the platform floor. "The manual override is there! We have to bleed the pneumatic pressure to lock the rams back down!"
On the console, a bank of mercury manometers bubbled violently. A single large brass hand-wheel was secured with a lead seal bearing the county clerk’s stamp from 1971.
I didn't wait for a tool. I smashed the butt of my heavy wrench down across the lead seal, shearing the wire. I seized the spokes of the brass wheel with both hands and wrenched it clockwise.
Nothing moved.
"The brine pressure is equalizing on the wrong side of the gate!" Sarah shouted, checking the glass gauges. "The line to the quarry is open! We need to vent the bypass!"
Above us, the ceiling groaned. A fist-sized chunk of limestone broke free from the darkness, hurtling down to smash through the steel catwalk twenty feet away, plummeting into the boiling brine below.
From the tunnel entrance at the top of the stairs, a shadow detached itself from the gloom.
It wasn't Dad.
Julian Vance came down the steps, dragging his left leg, his coat soaked with mud and rain. In his right hand, he held a heavy blued revolver, his teeth bared in a snarl of pure desperation.
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"Get away from that wheel, Tom!" he screamed, his voice cracking against the stone. "Step back, or I swear to God I'll bury us all in this hole right now!"
***
