Chapter Four: Into the Abyss
0545 hr; March 2553, Installation 03: The Keep
Taylor and his team slowly moved into a massive room, which looked like it was carved from within the mountain. Familiar Forerunner's glyph danced in all the smooth walls. There was an iridescent blue glow from those markings making the whole room slightly lit. The ODSTs had their VISR on, which made the interiors bright as a day light. The room was penetrated from roof to the floor by colossal pillars which looked like it was floating off the walls. And there were dozens of them placed in perfect lines; it looked like they divided this room into different compartments. The architectures and the geometries of the Forerunners never ceased to amaze Taylor and it had the same effect on his team too, as he heard a faint whistle from Simon and moderate heart rate increase, uniformly, on his team members, including him.
The floors of this room was silky smooth, felt like walking on a thin ice and it was transparent, revealing an unending abyss beneath them. Taylor and his ODSTs moved slowly and strategically so that they covered more surface area without skipping any corners. Taylor felt like he heard some kind of buzzing noise far away. He checked his radar and it was clear. Unfortunately he was not a Spartan with AI neural implant, therefore he could not ask for live updates from Abey. Every time he wanted some info, he had to pop out the AI's disk and check with her manually. He halted his team as he got Abey out. He asked her for real time three dimensional map of the area and Abey obliged as she visually brought the map out in front of his team.
This room was one of many, connected by a long bridges in between. And so far the previous teams were able to reach only the third room of this kind before they disappeared or were turned out to be dead. Taylor had to keep this part of the info hidden from his team. Because he was not sure how exactly the team was going to take the news of six rescue teams just went missing or turned out to be dead in a very strange ways. He has seen the pictures on his datapad back in the Ivanoff Station during his private debriefing. He wanted to discuss this sensitive information but again something made him to hold off. Holding off vital info like this from a team is never a good idea, however Taylor had his reasons.
"That is a long way to cover," Handy said as he saw the long halls continue forever.
"We can be easily outnumbered or overwhelmed if we get hit," George said bit concerned. This five team crew was like a tiny dot in these gigantic structures, more like ants among the men. George never felt so small or insignificant in his life, in spite of his six foot and massive body. "We need to get Bravo and Charlie here," George finally said.
"That is a negative," Taylor snapped. This massive structure was triangular in shape, with three openings located on the each side of the triangle. The other two openings, the one Bravo and Charlie were using, were discovered later, after the disappearance of the scientists. They need to cover more area, because their goal is to reach the center of this structure. The center holds the key to the disappearance, and so far none of the rescue teams has ever reached there, so it was technically an unknown and uncharted territory. And Taylor was not keen on pulling the other two teams here for their safety.
Simon and Clara were watching the team's back, but occasionally Simon turned around to give a nervous look at the projected holographic map.
"From what I gather this place has multiple tiers running along the walls of each room. One can easily follow with the team to the next levels," Abey said as she highlighted map's second floor which was narrow platform.
"But dividing the team will only make us more thin and vulnerable," George said as he was not so keen about the idea.
But Taylor had other plans. "Handy, get to the second level and cover us from there," he said as he stowed the AI's disk back to his pocket. Handy nodded once as he sprinted to the second level shouldering his Sniper rifle. Taylor felt like he needed to have a third eye, because he felt like something big was going to hit them and truth be told he was bit terrified.
Dr. Sandra Tillson was closely following the movements of the Alpha team as she was tracking the AI's disk as a homing device. Captain Jonah denied access to the direct video feed from his team's external helmet camera or any voice communications.
"That bastard," Tillson cursed at the thought of the Captain, as she tracked a faint red dot blinking within the structure, which was the copy of his AI, Abey. Unfortunately she can't keep track on the team members. 'If Halsey was here she would have come up with something,' Tillson thought, but was immediately repulsed by the thought of comparing herself with her rival and a war criminal. She had mighty respects for the Spartans, but she loathed the maker, Dr. Catherine Halsey.
Suddenly on her monitors multiple warm spots appeared. It originated somewhere deep within the wall of the structures and was travelling towards the three teams and judging by the number of heat spots and its intensity she can say a large amount of unknown objects travelling in massive speed.
"From the heat source, analysis what kind of object is that," Tillson ordered the real Abey. The AI immediately tried to match the heat source with her known data and showed a picture of Sentinels on the main monitor. Tillson saw the picture of the Sentinel projected on her screen by Abey. She was not worried about a group of Sentinels, because the marines are more than capable of taking care of them, but what made her to worry was the large, single heat source that followed the herd of Sentinels. She knew what exactly it was and it made her blood to run cold. That thing single handedly has destroyed every single rescue team before and now it was moving towards the Alpha team.
Abey who noticed the Doctor's vital spike calmly asked, "What is it Doctor?"
"Don't you see it? It is the Guardian Sentinel," Sandra Tillson muttered with pure horror in her eyes.