Page 25 of Love for Thea

“Copy that, Atlantic One,” Bennett replied. “You have unrestricted authority on the ground. Mace, you are the Net. Keep them synchronized.”

Mace took a breath, his eyes scanning the data. The “Thea-Logic” overlay was an angry purple scar on his main screen.

“Tex, I’m seeing a ghosting effect on the Stone Ribs overlay,” Mace said, leaning in. “Is that atmospheric interference or hardware lag?”

“Neither, Mace,” Tex’s raspy voice responded. “That’s the ground moving. I’m rerouting a secondary feed from a Japanese SAR-satellite. It’ll bounce the radar off the granite and see through the ash. Look at the LIDAR data I just pushed to your board.”

Mace watched as a new window popped open. The Stone Ribs weren’t a static rock formation anymore. On the radar feed, the granite was pulsing.

Grizzly’s voice cut in over the comms, breathless but sharp. “Ranch, be advised: Thea says we’re looking at a lithospheric swell. She’s off the Net so she can listen to and read the mountain without comm noise distracting her, but she’s calling the shots from here. She says the magma is pushing the granite cap up. It’s more than just a tremor; the whole ridge is rising.”

“She’s right,” Tex added. “Atlantic One, listen up. The trail you’re on is tilting. If you don’t clear the Ribs in ten minutes, the road is going to be a vertical wall. And stay sharp, you’ve got a handful of Vanguard leftovers at the silo exit. It looks like The Principal didn’t leave them a seat on the bird, and they’ve gone feral. They’ve got a sniper on the waste-silo roof holding the high ground, and they’re likely to shoot anything that moves.”

“Can you mask them, Tex?” Mace asked, his fingers flying across the keyboard to update Picasso’s tactical map.

“I’ve got a gift for the sniper,” Tex replied. “I’m currently persuading the silo’s automated fire-suppression system that there’s a massive chemical fire. In ninety seconds, the roof is going to be buried in three feet of high-expansion foam. He’ll be blind and very, very sticky.”

“Wolf, talk to me,” Mace commanded, shifting his focus to the aerial feed.

The roar of a heavy turboprop engine filled the channel. “Ranch, it’s a graveyard down here,” Wolf shouted over the noise. “Visibility is dropping to zero. The ash is turning into a slurry with the steam. Atlantic One, be advised: the North Road is blocked by a landslide. You’re going to have to cut across the old logging trails. Watch your ground-temps, if the tires start to smoke, you’re on a vent.”

“Copy, Wolf,” Picasso said, leading his team toward the door. “Grizzly, you hear that? We’re coming to the front door to pick you up. Wyatt’s got the trauma bag.”

Inside the mining tunnel, Grizzly’s voice came through, punctuated by the rhythmic clack of boots on iron rungs. “Atlantic One, be advised: the culvert floor is a CO2 dead zone. Stay on the catwalks. Thea is stable, but the air is toxic. We’re five minutes from the silo exit.”

“Logan,” Mace said, turning to his brother. “Give me a Path of Least Resistance overlay for Atlantic One. Sync Tex’s fire-suppression hack with Picasso’s arrival. I want those contractors suppressed the second Grizzly and Thea break the surface.”

“On it,” Logan muttered. “Tex, I need your satellite refresh-rate at sub-second intervals. I can’t guide them through a minefield if the map is ten seconds old.”

Mace watched the icons move. On the main screen, the thermal-modeling overlay was screaming in deep purple. A fresh tremor rocked the ranch house, rattling the china in Marjorie’s cabinet, but Mace didn’t flinch.

He’d only started skimming Thea’s field logs an hour ago, but the raw accuracy of her data was the only thing keeping the mission from flying blind.

He was the Air Boss. He was the center of the web.

“All stations,” Mace commanded, his voice steady. “The Net is synchronized. Tex has the eyes. Wolf has the sky. Atlantic One, you have the breach. Grizzly, stay off the floor. Let’s bring them home.”

Picasso paused at the door, catching Mace’s eye. He gave a single, firm nod, the silent respect of one warrior to another. Then the four men disappeared into the night, the roar of the Ram’s engine fading as they headed toward the glowing, angry horizon of the park.

Mace leaned back, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in his eyes. He had the sky, he had the sky-eyes, and he had his family on the line. Now all he had to do was keep the mountain from killing them all.

FOURTEEN

THEA

02:15 Hours (Day 2) (Time Elapsed: 09 hours, 45 minutes)

Thea had pulled the headset off the moment they entered the shaft. The overlapping voices of the Net had become a jagged wall of noise that threatened to shatter her ability to process the mountain. Beside her, she could hear the faint, frantic chatter leaking from the bone-conduction headset still clamped to Ben’s temples: a constant, low-frequency reminder of the chaos he was shielding her from.

The tunnel was a throat, and it was closing.

Data point, she thought, her fingers brushing the damp stone. The granite walls are forty-eight degrees. My internal core temperature is dropping. Ben’s hand on my shoulder is ninety-eight degrees. He is the only constant.

“Watch the ledge, Thea,” Ben said. His voice wasn’t the hard, clipped tone he used with the SEALs. It was the low, steady rumble he used back at the ranch to calm a spooked colt. “Easy now. I’ve got you. Just one step at a time.”

Thea’s breath hitched as a tremor rolled through the stone, sending a trickle of grit down her neck. “Thea-logic says we shouldn’t be here, Ben. The vibration is hitting 4.2. The silt is liquefying.”

“I don’t care what the logic says, Thea,” Ben leaned close to her ear and whispered, his hand sliding down to squeeze hers. His palm was calloused and warm, a startling contrast to the damp cold of the mine. “I care what you say. Tell me where to put my feet.”