Escape, a New Life (18 page)

OLIVIA PACED back and forth in front of the giant screen on the wall of her office.  “Well, what in the world do we do now?”

“
You’re the producer,” Robert shot from the other side of the world, via teleconference.  “This scenario had never crossed your mind before?”

“What has never crossed my mind?  That you would fail so miserably that every contestant on the show winds up dead?  I’ve been telling you
, Robert, I’ve been telling you for years, we need more boots on the ground out there.  We need more control over the show.”

“That defeats the whole point
, Olivia.  This show is a social experiment.  You plant a half dozen fake contestants out here, and we completely lose all integrity.”

“Damn you and your integrity, Robert! 
How is that worse than having to flush half a season because the entire cast is dead?”  She was not concerned on a personal level that they had died, but the fact that she suddenly found herself with no show felt like a kick in the stomach.

“We recovered when Tom showed up and killed the rest of them.  We will recover again.”

“I told you
then
that we needed more control damn it.  We recovered then because we still had a show.  Sure it was just Tom and Emily, but we still had a show.  We had a jumping off point to build from.  We had people on the damned island.  This is a total disaster.  We have nothing.  The next group is only two weeks into their training.  We could not possibly be ready to start filming for six weeks at best.  In the absolute best- case scenario, we are looking at being off the air for two months.”

“I never intended for this to happen.”

“Of course you didn’t, but it did.  I hate to say I told you so, but I knew this was coming eventually.  We are at the ten-year mark.  This is a critical point, and you know that.  As smart as you are, and as much as you care about this, you should have listened to me.  I just wanted to protect your assets.”

“
You’re right, all right, Olivia?  You’re right.  Is that want you want to hear?  You’re right, and I was wrong, and now some really exceptional people are dead because of that.  Now, could we move on and figure out a solution?”

She was still pacing through her large office.  “Maybe they survived?  How long until we can get in there?”

Robert shook is head. “Impossible.  This is the biggest, private, water-pumping system in the world.  Six hundred thousand liters of water are sucked down that funnel every minute.  The water shoots through the tunnel, four hundred yards out to sea, where it pushes the current around that side of the island.  There are smaller jets all around the island to keep the current going and keep the contestants on, or at least around, the island.  But this is the main one, and it is a violent, turbulent trip through the system.  A trained diver in full scuba gear could not survive a trip through this thing.”

“But you dock the boats in there when you
need to get people on and off the island. It can’t be a total death trap.”

“We
do it in the middle of the night when we can shut the current down.  It is perfectly safe when it is not running.  Even though there is about a twenty-minute delay after it starts back up again, and it takes close to an hour to be operating at full power, we make sure everyone and everything is clear of the island before we turn it on again.  It is a hell of a thing when it gets going.”

“So there’s no chance?”

“Olivia, I’m looking out to sea at Emily’s body floating four hundred yards off shore.  She went in first.  There is a crew coming over from across the way to pick her up.  Abby will be next, and I figure Eric should be surfacing by the time they make it over here.”

“Why didn’t you just shut it down before they went in?”

“That goes against everything the show is about.  If I truly intervened, they would know the secret.  At the very least, they would know that events and circumstances were being controlled.  After that, how long before they put two and two together and figure out what is happening?  The show would be over either way.”

“We don’t have any cameras in there?  Just on the off
-chance they made it?”

“It’s pitch black in there Olivia.  Even if we did have cameras, they would not pick up anything.  After the crew comes to pick up the bodies, I’m going to have them pick me up to bring me back across the way to my house.  No sense in staying if I am the only one on the island.  I will be going in the access tunnel to shut it down so they can come in.  But trust me, I will not be finding anyone waiting in there to be saved.”

“What’s done is done,” she said.  “We have no choice.  We go to air in two days.  I just cannot believe that we’re going to air an episode were everyone on the island winds up dead.  Well, except you of course, but that won’t be a surprise to anyone.”

“They were all such wonderful people.
  Especially Abby. Her story was remarkably touching.  That is the saddest part of this whole thing.  She was a true redemption story.  Seems like such a waste.  I know you will put together a spectacular tribute.”

“It will have to be spectacular, Robert.  This might be our last show ever.”

********************

“What is
this place?”  Eric wondered out loud, climbing down from the ladder that lead up to the second ledge.  They had gone up there to try to find a way out, but did not have any luck.  The ledge was identical to the one below, the only difference being that there was a giant steel door at the far side.  They spent ten minutes pushing, pulling, and doing anything they could think of to open the door.  Yet, it did not budge an inch.  After determining that it must be locked from the other side, they decided that they were going to have to leave the cavern the same way that they had come in: underwater. 

Standing on the lower ledge along the water, he looked around the huge space
that they were in.  He took in the high walls and the enormous pool of water below.  It appeared as though it was carved right out of the rock.

“You’ve got me,” Abby said. 

She showed him the switch that she had thrown and explained that it appeared to have shutdown the whirlpool, though she had no idea what purpose the whirlpool itself might serve.  “Where to you think the water goes?”

“I might have an idea.”  Eric explained how he saw Emily’s body floating out at sea.  “There was no mistaking it was he
r, the way the sun was gleaming off that red hair of hers.”

“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense.  What purpose would it serve?”

“I have no idea.  You’re lucky you didn’t wind up in here when you floated in on the raft.”

“True.  Robert plucked me out of the water.  Do you think he knows what’s in here?”

“He did everything he could to keep me out.  I’m willing to bet he has some idea.”

Abby had a thought
. “Do you remember I told you that when I was going out on the raft, I was fighting a current and couldn’t get back in?  I hadn’t thought about it before, but the current was going sideways.  It carried me in a circle around the island, and was bringing me right back to this spot.”

“You think this whirlpool has something to do with that?”

“I think it does.  What if this is part of some giant manmade current that goes around the island?”

“Why would
an island need a manmade current?”

“I don’t know.  If we knew why we were here in the first place we might be able to figure that out. 
Maybe its purpose is to keep people from leaving.”

“Who would try to keep us here?”

“Probably whoever put us here in the first place.”  She laughed at a private thought. “Does this seem like something your buddies would do?”

Eric laughed
, too. “Nope.  We’ve been way beyond that theory for a long time.”

“I’m willing to bet Robert knows more than he let on.”

“I left him laid out on the ground up top.  Should we go find him?”

Abby thought about that.  If the current was made to keep them on the island,
and it is shut down at the moment, what was to keep them here?  Now might be their only chance to escape.  Not only that, but as nice as Robert was, she was beginning so suspect he might have something to do with why they were trapped on the island in the first place.  At the very least, he made it clear that he did not want them to go.  “No,” she said.  “With this thing shut down, we can leave the island.  I say we make a break for it now.”

“How?  We don’t have any way to leave
.”

“The raft.  It was on the beach outside of the entrance.  We grab a couple branches for paddles and get as far away from here as we can.  They won’t be as good as the oars we made, but they will have to do.”

“Now that we know how to shut it down, why not get all our ducks in a row, come back and shut it down later?  Then make for the other island.”

“No.  It was total dumb luck that I was able to do it the first time.  There is no way we can count on repeating that.  Besides, whoever put this thing here, and put us here, if they haven’t noticed already that it is shut down, they are going to soon.  Once they know that… things
could get complicated.”

“The other island has to be ten miles out
. How long will that take?  Will we even make it that far without water?”

“I spent a day and a half circling this island.  Admittedly
, I was worse for wear afterwards, but I survived.  I know we can do it Eric.  If we don’t go for it now, we may never get another chance.”

Eric thought about it and ultimately agreed.

“This is a huge current,” Abby said, “if it really goes around the entire island.  It must take awhile to really get going.  I say we start it up again, and pretend we were never in here.  Hopefully we have time to swim out, grab the raft, and reach the open ocean before it really gets going.”

Eric had an idea
. “You said that it was really hard for you to throw the switch, right?”

“Yes, but there are two of us now, and you’re a big guy.  I don’t think we will have a problem with that.”

“No, I don’t think so.  Actually, I think I should be able to do it on my own.  You swim out first.  Get the raft ready, and some branches to paddle with.  I’ll hang back here for ten minutes or so, throw the switch, then come to meet you. 

“What if you get stuck in here?”

“I won’t.  I’ll be in the water two seconds after I throw the switch.  I figure if we can have everything ready to go before we start it up again, we will have a better chance of getting out of here.  Think about it.  We get this thing going, and
then
we waste twenty minutes swimming out of here, getting the raft and paddles together.  What sense does that make?”

Abby looked toward the giant wall of rock on the opposite side of the room.  Presumably
that wall extended only partway down into the water, and the water came into this interior cavern under that wall.  She asked, “How long do you think it will take to swim out?”

“I don’t know.  Coming in didn’t take that long.  I couldn’t have been in
for more than a few minutes before I went under and blacked out.”

“But coming in, the current was basically sucking us in.  It will probably take about ten minutes to go out.  How will you know how long
it’s been?”

“I’ll do a slow count to six
hundred.  That should be about right.”

Abby smiled at him and tussled his hair, “You’re a smart one, aren’t
ya?”  She kissed him.  “I’ll be ready when you come out.  No hero stuff, understand?  Don’t think that if something goes wrong that you are going to sacrifice yourself to save my ass.”

“Yes
, ma’am.”

She stared him straight in the eye as they held each other.  “I’m not kidding
, Eric.  I’m not leaving this island without you.  If you don’t come out of here, I’m coming back in for you.  Got it?”

He kissed her soft on the lips.  “Got it,” he said smiling.
“Now go.”

Abby jumped into the water and swam across the now still
-circular pool, up to the giant wall.  Taking a deep breath, she plunged headfirst and straight down the wall.  A few feet down she found that the wall did end and there was an opening that led out to the cove.  It ran the length of the room, and there was a faint bit of lit coming out from underneath it. 

As she swam under the wall, she saw that it was very thick.  It was probably eight feet of solid rock from one side to the other.  When she finally got to the other side
, her lungs began to burn a bit.  Fortunately, it was a quick ascent to the surface, where she quickly sucked in several large lungfuls of air before heading out toward the opening and daylight.

Once at the beach
, she immediately went to the raft and gave it a shake.  The vines holding it together were looser than they had been when they had launched it the first time, but it would have to do.  The tree line came almost right up to the water, and she quickly found several large branches that appeared mostly hollow.  Abby figured that she had plenty of time.  She had made it out of the water faster than they had figured, plus Eric still had to swim out.