The lights in the conference room faded, and the vast flat screen glowed. A long, complex serial number appeared first, followed by a timestamp in a stark white font. The administrative text faded, exchanged for a cautionary message.

  [Warning: AI Auto-Generated Descriptions, Captions & Transcript. Sound is digitally enhanced.]

  Dim, grainy pictures emerged on the screen like uncanny creatures from a fog, accompanied by indistinct crackles and the hiss of static. Discrete subtitles materialized, describing the scene as intelligible words replaced electronic noise from the room’s stand mounted speakers.

  From the start it was clear this was no home movie. Rather, it appeared to be a tightly edited compilation of digital clips from personal body cameras, serving as an official record. Of what, it was as yet unclear.

  Bodycam Feed: Samuel Peck

  Camera on. To the left, dark walls. In the centre, a metallic gate, lit by multiple flashlights. A frost-coated red sign is illegible with dirt.

  Peck: “Camera check.”

  Chopra: “Aye-aye captain.”

  Laughter off-camera, left.

  Peck: “We’re not in the military, Mia, and I don’t have a peg-leg. Move forward, I want that door open.”

  A figure, wearing a helmet-mounted light and a hi-vis jacket over a hoody, enters left then leaves right.

  Chopra: “You sounded like a drill-sergeant, Sam. ‘Camera... on!’ But I get the point. Let’s bring up one of the boxes. Some help here, please? Grab one.”

  Sounds of movement. Bright lights cast four long shadows.

  Bodycam Feed: Mia Chopra

  Peck is ahead and to the left, wearing hi-vis vest over dark, bulky clothing and a white hard-hat with a headlamp. Chopra’s gloved hands are in focus, rope handles on a white insulated box. Her breath mists.

  Thorpe: “It’s cold, but I’m surprised by how warm it is, this far down.”

  Peck: “Okay, about to open the gate. Remember, the nearest real hospital is McMurdo. No accidents please, watch your step and your partners’ six.”

  Chopra: “Ronnie, the thermal gradient is about thirty degrees Celsius per kilometre. To you yanks, that’s about 5 degrees Fahrenheit per three-hundred feet. This far down you could strip off and dance the fandango. Please wait until I’m ahead so I don’t have to watch you shake your scrawny arse.”

  Laughter.

  Thorpe: “Screw you, Mia.”

  Peck: “That’s enough, guys. I’m serious, anyone slips and breaks a leg gets to walk.”

  Red-orange light shines on a mechanical padlock closed through two thick chains. Peck inserts and turns a key, reaches through the bars and flicks a switch. White LED ceiling lamps flicker on and shadows leap. Chains chime and clatter, striking hard ground. The gate creaks open.

  Chopra: “That’s our cue. Allen, you’re on mapping, take scan as far forward as you can. Switch to coms channel five. Enough hilarity, get it done.”

  Snip ends.

  A new long serial number replaced the blank screen, followed by a timestamp that indicated twenty minutes have passed.

  Bodycam Feed: Samuel Peck

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  A passageway crossroad: wet, glowing-pink walls lit by a rope of LED lights spaced 5 metres apart.

  Peck: “Allen on five, where are you? – over.”

  Allen [indistinct via coms]: “Twenty meters east of your position at the gate, Sam. I’m forward of the last light in the south drift. It’s spooky down here but my headlamp’s on, and I’m not switching it off.”

  Peck: “Watch your feet, Allen. Another twenty minutes. Review footage and samples when we’re toasty back upstairs.”

  Allen: “Got it.”

  Peck: “Mia on three, report?”

  Chopra: “Here Sam. I’ve taken samples from the raw rock-face with the number two drill-set. Two boxes. Drill made a racket like a chainsaw through girders, but I’m good to go. Say Sam, I saw something a bit weird.”

  Peck: “Only a bit? Are we in the same damn cave?”

  Chopra: “Got me there, I guess. Just... did you see the symbols on the walls? Circles about the same size of my hand, etched into the rock, with a design that looks a bit witchy?”

  Peck: “Yeah, I saw them. I thought they looked Arabic, or old Middle Eastern. What of it? I thought they were survey marks, location markers, a target to shine a laser at to measure the tunnel. But you’d know better.”

  Chopra: “I get why you’d say that, but these are nothing like anything I’ve seen before. Real distinctive, as if the last crew went mad and invited Satan to tea and crumpets.”

  Peck: “Someone got bored, that I fully understand... Where’s Ronnie?”

  Chopra: “Ronnie is in the west drift. I hear him drilling.”

  Peck: “I copy. We’ll tidy up and get going.”

  Bodycam Feed: Adrian Allen

  A passageway through rock. The granite walls shine with moisture. Peck is a distant figure at the gate. Allen turns: a single yellow-orange headlamp reflects in streaks from semi-phosphorescent rock minerals.

  Peck: “Ade on five, again please, what are your co-ordinates, over.”

  Allen: “No more than eight meters further west, Sam, the far side of the lights. If I turn around, see my light? Hey, the rock here is pretty. Mica and rose-quartz, it picks up the light. But the damn LEDs keep flickering–”

  The white LEDs fade, then return to brightness.

  Peck: “Yeah, I saw that. Don’t worry, we’re not here long. Tidy up, go get Ronnie then come on back.”

  Allen [looks up at the flickering lights]: “Dud LED drivers, I guess. I copy.”

  The camera pans and hard shards chink from Allen’s feet, his headlamp reflecting off rock. Peripheral movement flickers and a fast shape moves across the rough passage, bright metal catching the light. The camera pans back but the reflection is gone. The corridor is empty.

  Allen: “Hey Ronnie, I’m coming over.” In a lower voice, “Faster than you think.”

  Bodycam Feed: Mia Chopra

  Jolting. Chopra’s gear rattles. Audible breathing, stressed.

  Chopra: “I’m on my way, guys. Don’t leave without me!”

  Peck: “What’s wrong? You’re rushing, watch your footing.”

  Chopra: “Heh, I saw something move down the drift. Then the lights went out, before I saw what it was.”

  Peck: “Don’t kid, Chopra.”

  Chopra [out of breath, pants]: “So. Not. Kidding. Sam, we’re at the bottom of a cave in the cold arse-crack of the world, hundreds of clicks and a day away from the nearest manned research station. Now I thought I saw something move in the dark. I am so not amused.”

  Peck: “Keep it together, get back here. You know —”

  Allen [quiet]: “Guys.”

  Chopra: “If you say anything about effin’ penguins, Sam, I’ll gut you.”

  Allen: “Guys! Listen up, Ronnie’s down.”

  Peck [Silence]: “What do you mean, down? Sitrep, Ade. Take a breath, tell me what you see.”

  Bodycam Feed: Ronald Thorpe

  Black turns to grey and white. Adrian Allen appears in view, his concerned face large and close to the camera.

  Allen: “I’ve turned him over, Ron’s breathing, but he’s bleeding. There’s a—stick in his ribs.”

  Peck: “Stick—”

  Allen: “It’s a bloody arrow, Sam. A short arrow but I’m a geologist not Robin Hood – listen he didn’t fall on this thing, he’s been shot.”

  Allen disappears out of shot, revealing the rock ceiling of the passageway. Allen grunts. The ceiling moves in jerks.

  Peck: “Wait, don’t move—”

  Allen: “We can’t leave him here. We need the light, move him to a tarp, I can drag the tarp. Come and help.”

  Peck: “You’ll hurt him—”

  Allen: “He’s hurt already, Sam, we need him out of here. Who has the kit?”