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<title>Deborah Jackson | Author - Sinkhole - Chapter One</title>
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<h2>Sinkhole</h2>
<h3>Chapter One</h3>
<p>“Two thousand meters deep.” The words echoed and re-echoed in Katrina Delaney’s mind as she clung to the slick cave wall. The team had almost achieved a point deeper than anyone had ever reached—and returned from. They had made it to this point in one piece. But now, they were in trouble.</p>
<p>“The current is too powerful,” she said to her team of cave divers. “I can’t hang on much longer. We have to make a decision.”</p>
<p>They were swimming through the third sump, the flooded channel in this seemingly bottomless cave in Chiapas, Mexico. Kat had known that the strong current would make for a risky dive, but it was the only passage they’d found that would allow them to get deeper. They’d headed into the current, but as they’d approached an adjoining branch to the main artery, the rate of flow had increased astronomically. She could barely maintain her grasp on the wall.</p>
<p>“Should we go back?” asked Ray. His deep resonant voice came out as a tinny squawk on the underwater PA system.</p>
<p>Kat half-turned and caught the gleam of his eye in the icy trickle of her helmet light. Was he ready to turn back? <em>Not a chance in hell</em>. Ray was an expert caver and her sidekick on every trip into earth over the last five years. He had passed the deepest marker two years ago, only to be outflanked by the next team to try for the record. Now he was looking for twenty-five hundred meters or even deeper, and no obstacle, however dangerous, was going to stop him.</p>
<p>Kat possessed the same drive but for different reasons. As a microbiologist, she was prompted to take these unprecedented risks by new and extraordinarily small life. Nanobacteria, less than 0.2 microns in size, were proven to exist in hot springs, in volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor, and in deep caves. Some had even been found on Mars. But what really drove Kat at the moment was another need. Something more personal.</p>
<p>“N—no,” she said through gritted teeth as she dug her fingers into the rock. “I think we can still find another passage.” She paused to snatch her breath, then continued, “We could take the connecting channel and go upstream. I think I see an outcrop where we can rest and maybe find a new crawlway to get us deeper. There’s no way we can hold on in this current. And if we let go . . . ” She left her last statement hanging. They all knew that the current would bash them against the rock walls.</p>
<p>“Right,” said Ray. “You’re the boss.”</p>
<p>A strained chorus of okays joined him on the PA. These belonged to the other two members, Megan O’Reilly, the archeologist, and Pete Fleming, another microbiologist, who was clipped onto the nylon guideline behind her. They were no doubt feeling pain in their taxed muscles.</p>
<p>Kat jabbed her hand at a milky chunk of rock, anchoring herself against the flow, and lined up with the side channel. The tumbling water though this channel seemed less intense than in the main egress, but it would be difficult to swim upstream. She plowed ahead anyway, feeling for the next niche in the limestone. Soon, however, she came to an elbow in the tunnel where jagged spikes of karst projected from the wall. She looked back without voicing her concern and met Ray’s eye.</p>
<p>Ray gave a quick terse nod. Onward then, but even more cautiously. The nagging current and the sharp teeth of rock up ahead might saw through their nylon guidelines if they weren’t extremely careful. Kat gripped another handhold in the rock and expelled an explosive grunt as she pulled toward the bend. The excruciating tug on her body made it clear that all four team members were still in tow. As they reached the curve in the tunnel, the current smashed into them full-force. Kat clutched a spear of limestone jutting from the side, her arms and chest slick with sweat beneath the neoprene. She heaved with all her strength, bringing herself halfway around the bend. There was a lather of bubbles in the channel, and she couldn’t see beyond it. She reached blindly, gripped another chunk of rock, and pulled. There was an agonizing shift in the rock, a larger swarm of bubbles. It fell apart in her hands—the bloody soft limestone—and the water punched her backward.</p>
<p><em>No! This couldn’t be happening.</em> A splinter of fear jabbed her heart. Kat felt her body collide with Ray, dislodging him from his niche. She flailed helplessly as the current snatched her, her head crunching again and again on the walls. The flashlight in her helmet flickered too as it crashed into the tongues of rock and, all too soon, was snuffed out.This was it then, <em>the end</em>. She was flying blindly through a narrow stream framed by bulging rock that could snap her limbs and split her skull. The dark wrapped around her like a suffocating blanket, preventing her from grabbing a lifeline that might be within reach. And the force of the current pummeled her chest so violently she couldn’t even scream. Kat waited for the last brain-nullifying impact. </p>
<p>Incredibly, and without warning, she bobbed up like a buoy into empty space. It must be an open chamber, but the suction pulled her under again before she could react.</p>
<p><em>Oh no, you don’t</em>.</p>
<p>She pumped her legs, her flippers exploding into life; her hands plowed through the water until she bounced up into the cavity again. Now, to stay there.</p>
<p>Kat grappled for a handhold in the dark, and finally found purchase in a slippery crack. It took the last bit of strength she had to pull herself out of the water and onto the flat surface. She ripped off her mask and gasped the stale, dank air.</p>
<p><em>Sanctuary.</em></p>
<p>But it wasn’t over yet. Ray, Pete, and Megan were still attached to the rope, and as the current swept them past and sucked them farther down the stream, it wrenched Kat from the solid ground and into the water again. She shot out a hand and just managed to clamp onto a jagged spear of rock. She had to stay there, or they were all dead. Somehow she had to pull them out. Struggling against the vortex, Kat slapped another hand on the rock. Although it was smooth and greasy—probably a stalagmite—she still managed to winch herself up, wedging a knee behind the limestone fragment.</p>
<p>She was out of the water now, but the noose about her waist felt like it would slice her in half. <em>She had to keep going. Just a little bit more. </em>Using the stalagmite as a pulley to take some of the weight of her companions, she dragged on the ropes, hearing the faint crumbling of calcite as she liberated the first team member from the undertow.</p>
<p>The suction snapped like a plug suddenly popped free from a drain. Ray came up onto the rock, his seal-sleek neoprene brushing against her leg, and flopped beside her. Kat could hear him gasping and smacking wet palms on the porous rock, although she couldn’t see a thing. She hauled again on the rope, wincing as chunks of limestone broke off from the stalagmite and tumbled to the ground with a hollow clatter. But the drag lessened when Ray finally caught his breath and added his biceps to the task. Out came Pete—the lesser weight—and then Megan, onto the solid surface beside them. As they stripped off their rebreathers, Kat could hear them panting.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” rasped Megan. “Thought we were goners.”</p>
<p>Kat collapsed on the stone slab beneath her, now feeling the throb and sting of bruises and cuts. There was a sharper pain in the leg she’d sliced open six hundred meters above on a razor fragment of rock. She’d probably ripped it further. She couldn’t see anything, but her hearing was very acute in the seamless darkness. The slurp of the water from the sump was punctuated by a steady <em>drip drip</em> of condensation from the ceiling of the cavern. Kat listened to the rhythm a minute longer before she responded.</p>
<p>“Welcome,” she said. “Thought we were too.” She peeled off the helmet and neoprene cap. Chuckling nervously, she ran a trembling hand through her damp hair. “Thought I was going to meet my maker. But I wasn’t ready for it. Not <em>quite</em> yet, anyway.”</p>
<p>She felt tentative fingers touch her shoulder. “Are you okay?” asked Ray.</p>
<p>“Never better.” She ignored the throbbing in her chest. “Does anyone have a light? Mine must have smashed against the rock and I guess yours did too, Pete.” Ray and Megan had gone without in order to save batteries.</p>
<p>“I can find my extra,” said Pete. She heard a rustling and the plastic whine of a zipper. “Got it.”</p>
<p>He flicked on a beam, slashing through the darkness and painting the rock with a pearly glow. Columns of stalactites and stalagmites surrounded them, thick glistening veins of white. The wall was three meters away, and to the side, a narrow crack in the stone seemed the only extension of the cave besides the sump. Kat could feel a slight breeze caress her face.</p>
<p>“Well, I could think of worse places to end up,” said Ray, smiling. His silver-streaked mustache sparkled in the pale light. “At least there’s air. There must be an open passage to an even deeper shaft.” They knew that where water had vanished in the past, air usually exited, pulled by the barometric pressure differentials. </p>
<p>“You’re right,” said Kat. “Despite the fact that we nearly hurtled to our deaths, this may turn out to be a good thing. The walls are glistening—probably slimy with microbial life. We still have our packs and the line. We can just explore here for a while and haul ourselves out again.”</p>
<p>“Um,” said Megan. “I think we have a problem.”</p>
<p>Kat turned toward her and frowned. “A problem?”</p>
<p>Megan held up the guideline. It had been severed two meters behind her. “I was just happy it didn’t snap in front of me.”</p>
<p>Kat grimaced. What more could go wrong? “I guess we have to call for help.” She sloughed off her waterproof pack and zipped it open. She’d placed a series of miniature radio relays every one hundred and fifty meters so she could communicate with the men topside who were monitoring their progress. Pete’s men from the pharmaceutical company, and a caver called Harding. She dug into the pack and finally extracted the radio, or pieces of it. Wires and shards of black casing dangled from her hand.</p>
<p>“Damn,” she said. “It’s trashed.” She rested her head against the pack. “I don’t believe this. We’re trapped at two thousand meters. No hope of rescue. No one could even reach us beyond this last sump.”</p>
<p>“What’s the problem?” asked Pete. “All we have to do is go back the way we came.”</p>
<p>Everyone turned toward him with wide eyes.</p>
<p>“Well, gee, Pete,” said Ray. “How do you suppose we do that? Have you ever swum against the current of a <em>raging river</em>?”</p>
<p>Pete bit his lip and shook his head.</p>
<p>“<em>Idiote</em>,” said Ray, reverting to his native French, something he only did when he was upset or angry. His exasperation with Pete was reaching a new level. “We can’t get out the way we came. But maybe there’s another way.”</p>
<p>Kat smiled. Never say <em>trapped</em> to a caver. If you can belly crawl a mile underground, you can find a way out. “Right,” she said. “We’ll get what we came for, then we’ll find the exit. Got to be here. We’re still breathing.”</p>
<p>She stood up and gazed at the magnificent thicket of stalactites and columns. Delicate soda straws like fine white icicles dipped their waxy ends into the dank air above her head. There were bound to be microbes here. Undetected, unchallenged micro-fingers that tickled life from the rock itself.</p>
<p>“This could be the place,” she said. A stab of pain in the old surgery scar made her grunt and double over.</p>
<p>“Kat, are you okay?” asked Megan.</p>
<p>“Sure,” she gasped. “Just dying.”</p>
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