Bella appreciated Old Joe's easygoing spirit. "Well, good health is all that matters. No need to read too much into it."
What were the angel's intentions? No point overthinking it. For all anyone knew, the healing had simply spilled over.
Old Joe was living on borrowed time now. Every extra day was a bonus. There was absolutely no reason to dwell on it.
If angels were big shots whose every action carried profound meaning, then Bella—by generous rounding—qualified as a big shot too. Did she have some deep purpose for coming to the Mysterious Island?
Overanalyzing was a trap.
Two trees stand before the gate. One is a jujube tree. The other is also a jujube tree. Maybe the author had a profound point. Or maybe they just scribbled it down without thinking.
Bella didn't want to discuss angels with Old Joe. She and the angels had reached a certain understanding: she wouldn't interfere with their plans, and they wouldn't show up to smite the heretic.
There was no mutual-dependence issue here. None of that "first they came for the demons and I said nothing, so when they came for me no one was left to speak up" business. That wasn't going to happen.
She steered the conversation away from angels and asked Old Joe how he'd discovered the Mysterious Island.
Old Joe lit up like a child. Even though everyone already knew the answer, they listened attentively as he told the story from the beginning.
"That's right, I'm the one who found it," Old Joe said, beaming. "Last year, my health was in terrible shape. I was bedridden in the hospital full-time. My grandson sent me a few novels—among them The Mysterious Island, Treasure Island, and Gulliver's Travels..."
He sighed. "I never got a higher education. I was lying in that hospital bed waiting to die, and with my background, those novels were all I could manage to pass the time. But one thing led to another, and I actually spotted something."
Old Joe had written up his discovery and mailed it to dozens of experts and professors. The academic world's default response to amateur scientists was to ignore them. Only Professor Serizawa took it seriously, and that was how this expedition came to be.
"Originally, I figured I'd just hand over the clues and let you professionals handle it. These old bones were ready for the graveyard. But then my body recovered out of nowhere, so I figured—why sit around waiting to die, right?" Old Joe said to Serizawa with a wistful chuckle.
The election had affected him too. Hordes of people asking his opinion—what opinion? He didn't have one. Unable to stomach the media's pestering, he'd left Arizona.
Old Willy, the Black man, had become devoutly faithful. He wanted to dedicate what remained of his life to the great cause. Old Joe, the white man, couldn't have cared less. He'd left behind his old friend, his family, and the land he'd called home his entire life to strike out alone in this wilderness. Odds were he hadn't planned on going back.
The group rested briefly before turning to the journey ahead.
"The island isn't big. Honestly, I didn't see anything worth studying." Hobbs and Shaw had each scouted in a different direction and returned with news that was less than encouraging.
This time Old Joe grew serious. He pointed southwest. "Three days ago, I found a hidden cavern over that way. Massive. No idea where it leads, but that might be where you'll find what you're looking for."
"That has to be a passage to the underground world." Professor Serizawa's voice was firm.
The island really was small—just as the doctoral student had said. An island existing inside the eye of a storm was theoretically plausible, but the eye had a finite size, which capped the island's dimensions. To hide an island the size of New Zealand, how large would the eye need to be? And a tornado generating an eye that size—the whole planet would be ripped apart.
Serizawa believed the Mysterious Island was only a starting point. The underground passage was the real prize.
The transport helicopter stayed put. The pilot shouldered his own pack and joined the expedition.
They'd landed near the shore. A cliff roughly ten meters tall blocked their path. They skirted around it and soon found the cavern Old Joe had described.
One look at the cavern's scale and every researcher in the group—Bella included—was stunned.
Geological features revealed the approximate depth and age of formation. The cavern before them fell squarely into the "bottomless" category.
"Send me home?" Shaw whispered to Bella.
Bella understood immediately. She shook her head slowly. "It's already past my sensing range. There's a massive concentration of minerals down there interfering with my perception..."
After repacking their gear, they filed into the cavern one by one.
It was cold inside. Strange stalactites emitted a faint glow, though the light was painfully dim.
Beyond the reach of their flashlights, everything was a wall of gray haze. Following Professor Serizawa as he charged off in every which direction, his students—all with some wilderness experience—weren't spooked by the oppressive atmosphere, though the doctoral student who'd been hovering around Bella trying to carry her pack had finally run out of things to say.
There was no path inside the cavern. The ground rose and fell unpredictably. Even Bella had to sweep her flashlight across the terrain ahead to keep from tumbling into a pit.
Many sections required scrambling on hands and knees. A faint rustling sound brought the group to a halt. Bella, Hobbs, and Shaw all turned toward the same spot simultaneously.
"Shhh. Don't startle it. Move slowly, keep your footsteps light." Hobbs was worried it might be a python or something similar. He signaled everyone to tread carefully and not to wave their flashlights around.
Shaw lowered her voice. "Send me home?"
This was a code only the two of them understood. Bella activated Eagle Vision and scanned the source of the sound repeatedly before answering in an uncertain tone: "I think... I think—how do I put this? It looks like a centipede. A centipede about three meters long and roughly as thick as my waist."
Even with her residual ghost traits, Shaw couldn't suppress a shiver at that description. Some instincts were simply hardwired.
The group pressed deeper into the cavern, stumbling and groping through the darkness. Hobbs led the way, Shaw brought up the rear, and they advanced in lurching intervals, pausing frequently to correct their bearing.
The attacks they'd braced for never came. The giant centipedes and giant scorpions seemed equally uninterested in tangling with these outsiders.
Both sides kept their distance. The prolonged exposure to such a suffocating environment was a grueling test of everyone's psychological resilience.
Time seemed to lose all meaning down here. Five minutes? Ten? An hour? Ten hours?
Apart from Professor Serizawa, who remained thoroughly engrossed, the rest of the group was flagging. On their first day inside the cavern, they managed only three hours before hitting their limit.
At least everyone's nerves were steady enough. Hobbs's M4 carbine provided a reassuring sense of security.
Food wasn't a concern—they'd packed plenty of compressed rations. Water, however, was limited. How far this passage stretched, how long it would take to traverse—no one had the faintest idea.