Sequel of Ravage (pt 1)

It’s been a year and a half since the publication of the first novel in the Son of Ravage series. Some of you have expressed an interest in when the next book will arrive, and I can only address your question with a noncommittal soon. The good news is, the first draft has been completed. The birth was painful, coming in at a hefty 100,000 words and now needs to go through the process of careful editing and preparation for its presentation into this troubled world. In the meantime, here’s a little taste, a literary hors d'oeuvre of what our merry little band of adventurers have been up to since we’ve last seen them.  Barry Lives!
 
J.P. Linde, June 6, 2020.
 

                                                                        Sequel of Ravage
 
                                                                            The Chunnel
 
                                                                                    1989

     Deep beneath the English Channel, surrounded on all sides by ancient limestone, history is being made. An underground tunnel, linking two great European countries is being chiseled out of billion-year-old rock. When completed, it will rank amongst mankind’s greatest engineering achievements, born out of blood, sweat, and brilliance. It will be the largest tunnel of its kind, 32 miles in length and will hasten the dawning of a new economic reality in Europe. A cynical press has nicknamed the herculean project, the Chunnel and right now, the future of the entire project is in peril.
     “Mister Barry Ravage sends his regrets but is extremely confident you will find his colleagues, and the mechanism, more than up to the task.” 
      The pale, spectacled man, dressed entirely in black, stood by an invention that he and his colleagues had designed less than six months before. Construction of the prototype had just been completed in Canada and this was to be its first true, working trial. The machine was one of a kind; fast, portable and capable of tunneling through solid rock in a matter of seconds. The mechanical marvel was only the size of a small refrigerator and, at first glance, appeared bulky and unwieldy. But first looks can also be deceiving. The mechanical mole could burrow through any density of rock, extract ore or minerals and record the whole process via remote control video. 
     The initial purpose of the machine was to assist a primitive tribe of Guna Indians in extracting gold from the mountaintop mines located in remote mountains of Panama. For generations, the thankless task had been accomplished with nothing but hard work and sweat. The uncomplaining natives had not yet laid eyes on the contraption as the inventors had taken it for a last-minute trip across the Atlantic Ocean. These sudden circumstances were indeed dire, the sophisticated technology required for a rescue mission of the highest priority.
     Doc lit a cigarette and drew deeply from a blend of Turkish and Virginia tobacco. “No worries,” the portly co-inventor boasted. “We’ll have your people back in no time. This machine won’t stop until it finds them.” The prematurely balding chemist was attired in his signature lab coat. He turned to his pale colleague and glanced at his watch. “How long have they been down there?” he asked with more than a tinge of concern in his voice.
     “They’re overdue.” Brain returned quietly in his customarily droning monotone. “I don’t think we can stall these people much longer.”
      Doc turned back to the assembled and stroked the smooth metallic surface of the H.O.R.D.A. “We named this device after a creature from Star Trek,” he explained. Stalling seemed to be the only option for the small audience of anxious executives. 
     “Devil in the Dark,” Brain added. “First season, aired on March 9, 1967.”
     “Episode 26.”
     “Forget about that,” one particularly surly engineer interrupted in a heavy, almost comical French accent. The man was obviously no fan of science fiction, literary or televised. “We have men missing down there and we were told that this Barry Ravage was the only one who could get the job done. Obviously, he was too busy for us and his comments are nothing more than a boast. It seems we have been taken in by a charlatan and are owed our substantial monetary deposit back.”
     The crowd was turning ugly very quickly. 
     “Hmmm,” Brain offered. He caressed the handle of his sheathed sword cane and wondered secretly if he might be needing it soon. He was becoming convinced that Engineering executives became unhinged far too easily.
     “As soon as we hear back from our colleagues,” Doc said. “We’ll launch it.”
     “No offense,” another Engineer, this one Scottish, interjected. This man had spent most of his adult life in some sort of mine and his abrupt, negative demeanor reflected the mood of someone who had spent too much of his adult life underground. “But I believe you fellows don’t know what the bloody hell you’re doing.”
     “No offense taken,” Brain lied, fingering the small button that released the blade from its wooden sheath.
     “Not knowing what we’re doing has never stopped us before,” Doc blustered. He reached for his pocket and felt the reassuring comfort of the hard pack of Camel Wide cigarettes.  He hoped he had enough the deadly, addictive cylinders to get him through the rest of this extremely trying day.
     Doc and Brain were relatively new to the hero game, drafted into service by an even more unlikely candidate, their friend Barry Levitt. Barry began this new vocation under the insistence of a deceased birth father, Rock Ravage, most commonly known by criminals as the Ravager. The son of the deceased hero had drafted his closest colleagues into a career of adventuring, and the sophomore team remained woefully inexperienced when it came to interacting with an often times cynical public. Never-the-less, Barry’s four friends muddled through the best they could, having already learned the most important rule to being a hero; that pretending was often times just as important as actually knowing.
 
     “What the was that?” The handsome blonde actor reached up and wiped the unexplainable warm drop of liquid from his forehead. Anything dripping this far underground should be cold, he reasoned. Whatever landed on the top of his head was unmistakably warm and also slimy. Unexplained droppings were not the only thing on his mind. The man called Face was growing more anxious with every step in the dark, dank underground. At any second, the actor thought the entire southern portion of the North Sea could drop down on top of him. 
     Beast aimed his flashlight into an adjoining rocky alcove. Doc and Brain, had sent their two colleagues ahead to scout for clues and to find the best location to launch the H.O.R.D.A. The plan was to radio back in one hour. Ninety full minutes had passed and the two had made one miscalculation after another. Now, Face and the hulking man-child nicknamed Beast were hopelessly lost.
     “None of this is on the map,” Face announced belligerently, thumping his finger onto the unfolded map that his colleague held in his huge, paws. “And I think some giant cave bird just shit on me.”
     “No birds,” Beast growled back. “Probably a bat. It’s Ebola you have to worry about.”
     This news resulted in several minutes of animated antics before Face finally calmed down. He jumped, he shouted, he screamed, pointing a threatening finger at his hulking, Neanderthal-looking friend. “I’m going back,” he announced, turning abruptly and realizing he had no clue as to which direction offered a safe retreat. “Any second my entire body may bleed-out from some deadly and mysterious virus.”
     “Calm down.”
     “Why would I want to do that?”
     “No. I mean we’re not lost,” Beast answered. “There’s a way out just beyond that turn.” The big man tapped the unfolded map with a brutish finger. “There.”
     “What are we even doing here?” Face whined. “Are we looking for the missing men or a place to launch that infernal machine? And why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?”
     “Because you never listen.”
     The two adventurers found themselves in familiar territory, smack dab in the middle of the vast transportation hub. From here, engineers and excavators, travelled via electric shuttles, that moved 24 hours to and from the work site. Powerful work lights blazed overhead, and despite the cold and dampness, provided a feeling of relative safety below the earth’s surface. The vast and usually busy cavern was completely empty and eerily quiet.
     All work on the Chunnel had halted and there remained only a half a mile of rock separating the English workers from their French brothers. Under normal circumstances, the engineers would have completed the task. But these were not normal circumstances. Seven British engineers were missing, and that number did not account for the 13 French who disappeared shortly after construction began. All of the victims had vanished into thin air and both governments had long since exhausted their security resources searching for them. The British and the French officials had nowhere else to turn. And, in the last year at least, when individuals, or governments, had nowhere else to turn, the new protocol was to contact Barry Ravage.
     “Serious Sally sells seashells on the salty seashore.” Face stood dead center in the middle of the cavern with his arms outstretched. “I’ve sounded better,” he announced. “This cold and damp’s affecting my sinuses and psoriasis.”
     Another drop of liquid spattered atop the center of the actor’s head. Face ran a hand through his blonde hair and felt the consistency of the deposit.
     “That’s not a bat shit,” Face shrieked.
     “What are you yammering about?” Beast asked.
     Face was focused on his finger. “This isn’t from a bird or a bat or anything else,” he said holding out his finger for an examination by his colleague. “Look!”
     “Uh-uh,” Beast grunted his refusal. “You ain’t getting me to pull your finger.”
     “Here!” A third of his index finger was covered in thick, crimson.
     “You cut yourself,” the big man declared. The brutish man had never been particularly good at deductive reasoning. He pursued his options much like his ancient forebears; by instinct.
     I didn’t cut myself,” Face said. “It’s coming from up there!”
     Beast was already on the walkie-talkie. “Doc, Brain,” he said. “You copy?”
      Face ripped the walkie-talkie out of his friend’s hands. “Shut off the overhead lights.”
     “What’s going on?” Doc’s response from the other end was comprised of mostly static.
     “Now!” Face rubbed the dark liquid off on his jeans. 
     A brief click followed a total, pitch-black darkness.
     “Flashlights on,” Face said, pointing the beam of his flashlight at the rock above the lights.
     Beast complied, once again unsnapping the retractable flashlight from his belt.  “Whoa,” he managed. The big man, never at a loss for words, was speechless. Wide brown eyes attempted to make sense at the horror he was witnessing.  
     Face raised the walkie-talkie once more. “Guys,” he said, his baritone voice cracking. “I think we found your men.”
     “What are you talking about? Where? Over.”
     “We’re going to need a very long ladder,” he said. “Over.”
 
     Another full hour had passed and the H.O.R.D.A. performed to expectations, slicing through the solid rock like a hot knife through butter. The drill spun effortlessly through the sandstone strata while the side lasers made short work the residual debris. For a bulky machine, it was quite nimble, adjusting to changes in the rock and taking the corners deftly. 
     Brain kept his eyes on the Sony monitors, his pale, steady hands operating the controls with a cool, professional assuredness. Doc, walkie-talkie clenched in one hand stood, huddled over his friend’s shoulder and followed the action on the screen. The portly chemist watched the grainy green blip on screen and nervously pondered the appropriate time for his next cigarette. They were now searching the last known location of his two friends and something kept gnawing at him that they were too late. The blinking dot that signaled their friend’s location had ceased. The machine was on its way to their last known direction.
     The two yanks were surrounded by the skeptical engineers who had been overseeing the underground construction. So far, no one on the team was much impressed by the actions of the Americans. It was becoming obvious that the Ravage crew had no clue of what they were doing and had lost two more of their own men in the rescue operation.
     “Anything,” Brain asked as he commandeered the H.O.R.D.A toward the blinking light that represented their friend’s last location.
     “I don’t see a thing,” Doc answered. “How much time?”
     “Less than a minute.”
     The lights overhead flickered and the instrument panel blinked. The surrounding audience hurried away in search of the back-up generator.  With no lights in the entire Chunnel, things had unexpectedly just gone from bad to worse. The monitors blinked and Brain felt control of the H.O.R.D.A. slip away.
     “That’s it,” Brain announced in his customary monotone. “I can no longer control it. I’m going to have to shut it down.”
     “We did the best we could,” Doc mumbled. He put down the Walkie-talkie and his hand reached into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes. “It’s out of our hands now.”
     “Out of your hands?” one agitated executive announced. “That’s it? There’s no one else?”
     “One chance remains,” Brain commented in his signature monotone. “Our best chance.”
 
Next Week: The Conclusion