"Listen!"
Someone screams in the captain's ears. He feels like he is woken up from a nightmare into a reality, a reality that is at least 150 meters above the ground.
The blue sky is around him, the fake sun is right in front of him, and the snow-covered mountains are under his feet. He can see the four flame exhausts of the rig and the enormous purple flame of the exhaust number 3, right under his left foot. He can even feel the heat of the giant flame on his face. The rig feels only a few meters away even though he knows they are at least 9 kilometers away.
"Rayne, do you read?" a woman's voice echoes in the captain's head.
It looks like the captain is wearing Rayne's headphones. She is right in front of him, she is not wearing anything on her head. Both of them have their feet firmly on the worm's back. The worm seems to be standing in midair in an arch "Has it stopped moving? How long have we been in the air?"
"The worm is about to dive," says the woman in the captain's headphones "Lie down on its back, keep yourself as flat as possible. Breathe normally!"
The instructions sound logical to the captain, he looks to the front. The head of the worm seems to be dropping, and the rest of the body is following the head, speeding up.
Any second now, they all will be diving to the ground. He tries to look at the face of the white-haired woman, he is still holding onto her waist from the back, his arms seem to be locked around her. She is breathing slowly and calmly, her gaze is focused on the dropping head of the worm. "Should I keep holding?"
Rayne turns her face to the captain and presses a button on the headphones, the headphones turn into a helmet and cover the captain's entire head. "Stay behind me and hold on to me like your life depends on it, stay flat"
The worm's head is no longer visible and its body drops from under their feet, pulling them down with it.
"LIE DOWN ON YOUR BACK" Rayne screams. The captain feels the words in her chest, he is holding his arms around her chest. The two of them let the speed of the worm's downfall push them back and force them to lie on their backs. They dive with the worm into the snow surface at a speed that feels faster than freefall. Each of Rayne's boots is attached to a 5-meter cable that seems to be hooked to the worm's back.
The worm dives into a slope behind the mountain ridge. Its head collides with the surface and easily penetrates it as if the snow was made of steam. The shockwave of the speed change travels the whole body. The worm keeps digging at a speed that feels like a train inside a tunnel of ice, pulling the captain and Rayne deep into the snow.
Almost all AI-calculated predictions were incorrect.
Rayne was standing in the worst location possible. Without the captain's intervention, she would be worm food.
The worm is moving at the speed of 50 km/h inside a tunnel of sand-like ice. If the captain and Rayne do not stay flat enough, they will be ground to death.
Inside the monitor hall, pure chaos.
The crystal that was giving emergency light to the rig is now in disequilibrium because of the overflow, the hall is dark again, only lit by the blue screens of the monitors. One of the rig employees thought he saw their captain getting swallowed by the worm and shouted it out. Now the men are on the verge of losing it.
Mr Porgo tries to yell his instructions to Doug; Doug has trouble hearing him in the noise.
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!"
Two people scream at the same time.
Mr Porgo looks around to see who was the second voice. The whole monitor hall turns silent and the rig employees turn their heads to look at the source of the second scream.
Jane looks red.
"Enough talk, the flame tower is a safe zone now, you can all wait outside the monitor tower." Jane tries her best to be calm. She does not get angry very often.
Mr Porgo did not expect this. He, on the other hand, spends most of his time angrily managing money and food for 900 men. He knows what to do. "As far as I understand, the captain is fine. He is just disconnected." Mr Porgo hopefully looks into the eyes of the employees, searching for signs that his words mean some relief. He may have succeeded in calming the mood by around 5%. He does not have the charisma of the captain, even though his authority is technically higher.
"Yes your captain is fine," Jane angrily follows Mr Porgo's announcement. "Our exoskeletons are checking the rig for living remnants of the worm's branches. This exhaust tower is cleared now. You can all wait outside..." Jane looks around and hesitantly continues: "...please."
Probability of death: very high.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Equipment: not built for this.
Size of the worm: way more than predicted.
Connection to center: DEAD
Rayne feels that the tunnel's icy wall is grinding her armor in two places: under her left arm and just above her left groin.
"Don't panic don't panic don't panic. Breathe normally." Rayne does not need the instructions of the headphones to know that panicking means getting ground to death right now. The two of them must stay flat inside the worm's sonic protection layer, which is only a few centimeters thick. "Bending the knee means losing the knee," Rayne repeats the instructions in her head.
"I hope the headphones are giving recorded instructions to him"
The grinding gets close to her skin. Under her left groin, she feels the grinding reach the skin. Rayne remembers the piece of nicotine gum she always keeps at the back of her mouth. She moves it under her teeth and bites hard to forget the pain of her skin being ground. She knows she can not move even though the pain screams inside of her begging her body to do something to get rid of it. "Moving means death, moving means death, moving means death.."
Inside the headphones, the captain is completely focused now. The wall of the tunnel is grinding his elbows. He is used to pain but this is unbearable. He knows that moving means death. He takes normal breaths and tries to focus on not dying. He can feel the grinding in the armor of the woman he is holding between his arms. "I hope her armor is strong enough to protect her skin."
The oozing red skin of the worm shines neon purple in the darkness of the icy tunnel.
The icy ceiling of the tunnel reflects the green neon light of the captain's helmet, the visor is a green see-through monitor. He can see numbers going up on the screen, showing mathematical calculations and algebra formulas. Occasionally he sees graphs. He understands most of them. The pain in his elbows gives him a surprising focus.
IF you are being ground, check the worm’s skin behind you for any protrusions.
Try to move to a flatter surface by slowly sliding to one side.
Never bend your knee. Protect your fingers.
Breathe normally.
”Ok let's try something,” the captain says out loud. He tries not to shout, his ribcage can push the woman in his arm into the grinding ceiling.
"Nope, she can't hear me."
He tries to feel the texture of the surface he is lying on “I am lying on gooey rocks...?” He rotates his neck to look at the rocks. He realizes that the helmet does not rotate with his head. "Yup, we have gooey glowing purple rocks and an annoying helmet."
A 35cm rock behind the captain's lower back is pushing both of them into the icy grinder.
"Let's slide to our right," the captain is hopeful that the woman can feel his announcement in his chest. He slowly starts moving his right leg, parallel to the surface of the worm's skin. The gooey rocks don't help with the smoothness of his movement. To his surprise, the woman starts following him. Her right leg follows his.
The two cables holding the captain and Rayne on the worm's skin are currently attached to Rayne's waist. The design of the apparatus allows for a free change in the attachment site: either Rayne's waste or her boots.
The captain is keeping his right arm hooked firmly under Rayne's right arm. The left side of Rayne's torso overlaps the right side of the captain's. She is protecting her face with her right arm,
The captain suspects that the rock pressing against his back is reducing the safe space between them and the grinding wall of the tunnel.
The captain feels increased tension in the cable attached to the left side of Rayne's waste as he slowly moves his left leg to the right side. Rayne follows and immediately the grinding stops.
They both take a deep breath of relief.
Suddenly, the worm reaches the bottom of the snow. Its head collides with the rock bottom and reflects upwards. Violently changing direction and taking them with it.
"What's next?" The captain desperately reads the sea of instructions on the helmet's visor. "Damn it how do you rewind in this thing?" Then an instruction pops up.
Connect your brainstem to the worm's skin and find a neural knot.
"What?!" This instruction is obviously for the woman.
The green screen shows the schematic body of a woman. Three red spots appear on the body: behind the neck and the palms of both hands.
Remember that your brainstem is the origin of your life and your time.
"Huh! Informative."
The woman tries to push her head backward, stretching her neck to reach the gooey rocks. The captain's right shoulder seems to be blocking the way. The woman arches her back. The captain feels grinding once again in her suit. This time it is just under her ribcage.
"There has to be a better way."
Keep your neck connected and remember the four TIME-KEYs for protocol SLEEP.
To the captain's surprise, the screen starts showing musical notes. "These are instructions for a rhythms." The captain can guess that this must be some kind of complex lullaby to put the worm to sleep.
The grinding gets worse; the red dot on the neck of the schematic woman turns green in the captain's visor. The red dot on the right arm turns green immediately after.
Knot located. Left palm disconnected. Proceed? Yes/No
"Wait am I supposed to click something?" The captain tries to rotate his neck to look at the woman's left arm. The helmet blocks his view.
Ouch!
The woman kicks the captain in the shin.
"Okayyy I have to click something," he says out loud, hoping the woman can hear him in the chest. He is unsure but he feels the words Yes! Choose YES! in the movements of Rayne's chest.
"The question is how do I click YES...?"
You just chose YES. SLEEP protocol initiated. Waiting to reach the surface…
"Huh! Voice-activated," the Captain can imagine stopping the worm right now can mean getting trapped under hundreds of meters of snow and certain death. He tries to look at the head of the worm, maybe he can see signs of reaching the surface.
Slowly at the end of the tunnel, a light appears, “must be the fake sun.”
Whoosh
The sound of the enormous worm leaving the snow at the speed of a car on the highway plus the sudden bright sunlight saturate all of his senses or a few seconds. Next thing he knows, he is once again hundreds of meters in midair, on a very unstable roller coaster about to fall asleep.