LOCATION: KIBO VOLCANIC VENT (DEPTH: -200 METERS).
TEMPERATURE: 60°C (RISING).
AIR QUALITY: TOXIC (SULFUR DIOXIDE).
The descent wasn't a climb. It was a fall.
We rappelled down the internal service shaft of the Sky-Shield Array, passing the ruined turbines and the frozen corpses of the Soviet engineers who had died building this place fifty years ago.
The air grew hotter with every meter.
At the peak, it had been forty degrees below zero. Here, inside the throat of the volcano, it was sweltering. The ice on our suits melted, dripping onto the rusted iron rungs of the ladder.
"Gas masks!" Colonel Volkov ordered, his voice distorted by his own respirator. "The sulfur levels are lethal. If you breathe the yellow mist, your lungs will turn to liquid."
I pulled on my mask. The rubber seal stuck to my sweaty skin.
"Juma," I checked the hybrid. "How are you holding up?"
Juma was climbing below me. He wasn't using the ladder. He was digging his hands directly into the rock wall. His golden veins were pulsing slowly, like a dying star.
"The heat..." Juma rasped. "It feels... good."
"Don't get too comfortable," I warned. "We aren't here to sunbathe. We're here to kill a mountain."
We reached the bottom of the shaft.
A heavy blast door, marked with radiation warnings and the Russian double-headed eagle, blocked the way.
[WARNING: MAGMA CHAMBER PROXIMITY]
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 15%]
"The door is fused," Volkov said, kicking the steel. "The heat warped the frame."
"Stand back," Juma said.
He stepped forward. He placed his golden hand on the center of the door.
He didn't push. He didn't punch.
He just... synced.
The Red Mercury in his blood resonated with the heat of the metal. The door glowed cherry-red, then white. The steel softened like butter.
Juma pushed his hand through the metal, grabbed the locking mechanism from the inside, and ripped it out.
The door groaned and swung open.
We stepped through.
And stopped.
THE LAKE OF FIRE
I have seen the apocalypse. I have seen the Glass Forests of Arusha, the Salt Oceans of the Coast, and the Rust Hives of the South.
But I had never seen Hell.
We were standing on a narrow obsidian ledge, overlooking a cavern the size of a city.
The ceiling was lost in shadows and smoke. The walls were sheer cliffs of black basalt.
And below us... was the Magma Chamber.
A churning, roiling ocean of liquid rock. It wasn't just red. It was orange, yellow, and blinding white. Bubbles the size of houses rose to the surface and burst, releasing plumes of toxic gas that ignited in the superheated air.
ROAR.
The sound was physical. It vibrated in my bones.
"It's... alive," Nayla whispered, staring into the abyss.
"It's geology," I corrected, though I felt the same primal fear. "It's the engine of the planet."
"Look!" K-Ray pointed to the far wall. "The Drill!"
I followed his finger.
Protruding from the rock wall, about fifty meters above the lava lake, was a metal intruder.
The Geo-Harvester Drill.
It was massive—a spinning cylinder of tungsten and diamond, easily twenty meters wide. It had bored through the side of the volcano from the outside.
It wasn't just drilling. It was Sucking.
Massive pumps on the drill's shaft were throbbing.
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM.
It was drawing the magma out of the chamber like a mosquito draining blood.
"He's draining the pressure," I realized. "The Foreman isn't trying to cause an eruption. He's trying to stop it."
"Stop it?" Volkov asked. "Why?"
"Thermal energy," I said, watching the magma flow into the machine. "If he drains the heat, the core cools. The planet dies. The magnetic field collapses. And the Foundry... the Foundry gets enough power to run for a million years."
"We have to break the drill," Nayla said, unslinging her bow.
"Arrows won't work on tungsten," I said. "And we can't get close enough to use explosives. The radiant heat would cook us instantly."
I looked at the Subject Zero crate we were dragging. The crate filled with Blue Ice.
"We need to get the ice inside the intake," I said. "If we introduce a super-coolant into the super-heated magma flow..."
"Thermal shock," Juma finished. "The magma will turn to stone instantly. It will clog the pipes."
"Exactly. The back-pressure will blow the drill apart."
"But how do we get the ice in there?" K-Ray asked. "The intake is fifty meters out over the lava! There's no bridge!"
I looked at the environment.
The lava lake wasn't empty.
Floating on the surface of the magma were "rafts"—islands of cooled, black rock that drifted in the current.
"We jump," I said.
THE FLOOR IS LAVA
"You are insane," Volkov stated flatly. "Those rocks are drifting at ten knots. If you miss a jump..."
"Then I don't need a funeral," I said, tightening the straps on the ice crate. "Juma, you take the front. I take the back. Nayla, K-Ray, stay here and cover us."
"Cover you from what?" K-Ray asked. "There's nothing down here!"
SCREEEEEE.
A screech echoed from the ceiling.
We looked up.
Clinging to the stalactites above the lava lake were shapes.
They looked like bats. But they were the size of hang-gliders. And they were made of Fire.
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: MAGMA-WYVERNS]
[TYPE: SILICATE LIFEFORM]
[TEMP: 1,200°C]
"The heat evolved them," I whispered. "Silicon-based life. They eat the sulfur."
One of the Wyverns detached from the ceiling. It dived, trailing a stream of liquid fire. It wasn't attacking us. It was attacking the Drill.
It slammed into the metal shaft, clawing at the tungsten.
ZAP.
A blue laser shot out from the Drill's defense turrets. The Wyvern was vaporized.
"The Foreman expected resistance," Volkov said. "The drill is defended."
"That's why we need cover fire," I said to Volkov. "Can you hit those turrets?"
Volkov racked his rifle. "I am Russian. I hit what I see."
"Good. Juma... let's move."
We stepped off the ledge.
We landed on the first floating rock. The heat coming through the soles of my boots was immediate. The rubber began to soften.
"Keep moving!" I yelled.
We sprinted across the black island. The lava bubbled just inches from the edge. A splash of molten rock hit my pant leg.
HISSS.
My fire-resistant suit smoked, but held.
We jumped to the next rock. Then the next.
We were playing hopscotch in a volcano.
Above us, the Magma-Wyverns screeched. They saw us. They saw the intruders carrying the cold box.
Three of them dived.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Volkov's rifle echoed in the cavern. One Wyvern exploded into a shower of sparks. The other two veered off, confused by the noise.
"Left!" Juma yelled.
We leaped onto a large, flat slab of obsidian.
We were directly under the Drill now. The noise was deafening. The massive machine spun above us, sucking the lifeblood of the earth.
The intake valve was twenty feet above our heads. It was a gaping maw, glowing red hot.
"We have to throw it!" I yelled. "On three!"
"It's too heavy!" Juma shouted. "We can't throw it twenty feet!"
He was right. The crate weighed a hundred kilos. Even with Juma's strength, the angle was impossible.
"We need a ramp!" I looked around. There was nothing but lava.
Analyze. Adapt. Dismantle.
I looked at the Geysers.
Every few seconds, a pocket of gas would burst from the lava, shooting a column of magma into the air.
"Juma!" I pointed to a bubbling patch of lava right under the intake. "That spot! It's about to blow! We need to ride the geyser!"
"Ride it!?"
"If we jump on the rock as it erupts, the pressure will launch us up!"
"Or it will incinerate us!"
"Do you have a better idea?"
Juma looked at the drill. He looked at the lava.
"Crazy Engineer," he grunted.
The bubble swelled. It turned from red to blinding white.
"NOW!"
We jumped off our safe rock.
We landed on a small, unstable crust of slag right on top of the bubble.
BOOM.
The geyser erupted.
We were launched into the air. We rode a pillar of fire, surfing on a piece of rock the size of a shield.
The heat was unbearable. My mask alarm screamed.
[WARNING: SUIT INTEGRITY FAILING]
[INTERNAL TEMP: 50°C]
We flew up past the lava level. Past the drill tip.
We were level with the Intake.
"THROW IT!"
Juma roared. His golden muscles bulged. He swung the crate. I guided it.
We released the Subject Zero crate.
It spun through the air.
It sailed into the gaping, red-hot mouth of the Drill.
We fell back down. We crashed onto a lower rock shelf, rolling to a stop just inches from the lava.
I looked up.
THE INDIGESTION
The crate disappeared into the machine.
For three seconds, nothing happened. The drill kept spinning. The pumps kept throbbing.
"Did it work?" Juma wheezed, clutching his side.
Then, the sound changed.
GURGLE.
A deep, sickening sound came from inside the machine. Like a giant choking.
CRACK.
The sound of metal stressing.
Then, the reaction hit.
The Blue Ice (Subject Zero's cryo-stasis material) met the Magma.
Expansion. Rapid, violent, uncontrollable expansion.
The magma inside the pipes didn't just cool; it froze. It turned into solid, dense obsidian in a microsecond.
The pumps tried to push liquid. They hit solid rock.
BANG-CLANG-SCREEEECH.
The drill shaft seized. The torque of the massive engine had nowhere to go.
The metal twisted. The tungsten shattered.
The entire drill assembly buckled. Bolts the size of cars popped off, shooting into the cavern walls like bullets.
"It's backing up!" I yelled. "The pressure wave is going back up the pipe!"
The blockage was solid. The magma behind it had nowhere to go.
KABOOM.
The intake valve exploded.
A wave of molten rock and shrapnel blasted outward. The shockwave hit us, knocking us flat.
But the machine wasn't done dying.
The Geo-Harvester began to tear itself apart. The connection to the surface was severed. The massive drill bit, now a dead weight, detached from the wall.
It fell.
Specifically, it fell toward the lava lake.
It fell toward us.
"MOVE!"
We scrambled back toward the wall.
The 5,000-ton drill hit the magma lake.
SPLASH.
A tsunami of lava rose up. A wave of fire fifty feet high.
"Climb!" I screamed, grabbing the rungs of an old maintenance ladder carved into the rock.
We scrambled up the cliff face. The lava wave crashed against the rock below us, the heat searing the soles of my boots.
We climbed until my arms were jelly. We climbed until the air was cool enough to breathe without burning.
We reached the ledge where Volkov and the others were waiting.
"You are alive," Volkov said, sounding genuinely surprised. He pulled me up.
"The Drill?" I gasped, ripping off my melted mask.
"Gone," Nayla pointed.
The lake was churning. The wreckage of the Geo-Harvester was sinking, melting back into the primordial soup it had tried to steal.
The connection to the Foreman was broken.
"We did it," K-Ray cheered weakly. "We stopped the harvest."
I looked at Juma.
He wasn't cheering. He was leaning against the wall, clutching his chest.
The golden light in his veins was fading. But it wasn't returning to violet.
It was turning Black.
"Juma?" I walked over to him.
He looked up. His eyes were dull. The iris was cracked, like a broken window.
"The heat," Juma whispered. "It's gone."
"What do you mean?"
"The Red Mercury," Juma coughed, spitting up a black, oily substance. "It reacted with the lava. It drained me."
"We need to get you to the surface," I said, putting his arm over my shoulder. "We need to get you to a doctor."
"No doctor can fix this," Volkov said, examining Juma's skin. "He is undergoing Obsidianosis."
"Speak English, Colonel!"
"He is turning to glass," Volkov said grimly. "His biological cells are calcifying. Without the thermal energy to keep them fluid... he is becoming a statue."
I looked at Juma's arm. The skin wasn't just grey. It was hard. Smooth. Cold.
"We have to recharge him," I said. "We need a heat source."
"The volcano is right there!" K-Ray pointed.
"Not external heat," Volkov shook his head. "Internal. Fusion. He needs a core."
My phone buzzed.
I pulled it out. The screen was cracked, but the message was clear.
> [SENDER: THE FOREMAN]
> [MESSAGE: YOU BROKE MY STRAW, ENGINEER. VERY RUDE. BUT DID YOU THINK THE DRILL WAS THE ONLY WAY DOWN?]
>
The ground shook again.
Not from the drill. From the ceiling.
I looked up.
The roof of the Magma Chamber was cracking.
A massive, pointed object was piercing the rock from above. It wasn't a drill.
It was an Anchor.
The Iron Sovereign Land-Carrier hadn't just parked on the surface. It was landing.
The massive ship was descending into the crater. It was crushing the mountain to get to us.
"He's bringing the whole ship down," I realized. "He's coming for the magma personally."
Volkov racked his rifle.
"Then we fight him here," the Colonel said. "In the fire."
I looked at Juma, who was slowly turning to stone. I looked at the massive ship descending from the smoke above.
"We don't just fight," I said, gripping my wrench. "We hijack."