Leviathan Read Online Free PDF Page B

thick, humid heat of the cavern without the strategically positioned large-capacity dehumidifiers that made the place livable, machines that Connor and his men also maintained. But because of the unbearable working conditions for welding and wiring, pain-soaking exercises that made the cavern an endless marathon of mental toughness, Connor's crew had hatefully dubbed it “the Inferno.”
    Though originally created by acidic gas, the Inferno was void now of corrosive fumes. Whatever colossal power had created the underground cavern was claimed by another time. But ventilators had been installed to ensure that the atmosphere remained non-poisonous, though the ventilators couldn't begin to match the cave's natural force of expiration. For at the cavern entrance, over 1,000 feet above them, wind howled from the tunnel to the surface at over seventy miles per hour. It was nature's way of stabilizing the cavern's internal atmospheric pressure with the surface.
    Connor recalled how a company called Stygian Enterprises had purchased the site several years ago for private research. And yet, though Stygian owned the facility and the cavern, the complex itself was designated as a United States Arctic Research Station and operated under the protection of the United States Army.
    Once construction had be en completed in the cavern, Connor arrived to begin a three-year stint as foreman of the civilian support crew. Although he didn't know the exact purpose of the laboratory, he didn't care. He only knew that Grimwald Ice Station was a semi-military installation and that the tax-free hourly salary was more than twenty times what he could have earned in the States. And for the money—money that would change the life of his family forever—Connor had chosen to briefly endure the arctic climate. Then one month after he arrived, a team of twenty-odd scientists and supervisory personnel landed to inhabit the cavern's living quarters.
    Connor suspected that they had initiated classified research with the sphere, but he didn't ask questions. He didn't know, and he didn't want to know. He was determined to do his job and finish his three-year contract as easily as possible. Then he'd leave this godforsaken place and buy a nice house and a good-sized chunk of land where he could live in peace. Maybe Montana, he thought often enough. Or Wyoming. Or maybe he would return to Kentucky, where he was born. But it would be a place where his family could live safely. Yet the thought of safety only reminded Connor again of Grimwald, and how this dark and dismal place had never truly known any peace at all. And probably never would.
    Norway's doomed attempt to colonize the island had failed miserably, partly because of Grimwald's harsh w eather and inhospitable terrain, but also because of the superstitious dread Norwegians and Icelanders reserved for it. The Scandinavians passionately labeled the island as haunted and cursed and with unbending stubbornness refused to settle it.
    Many even said that Nor way's impetuous attempt to colonize the island ten years ago failed more from a soul-draining sense of doom than the actual difficulties of surviving. And until that settlement had collapsed beneath the relentless haunting terror possessed by Grimwald, the only inhabitable structure had been a mysterious and formidable tower founded on the far north side, a smooth, cylindrical fang of imperial white granite that erupted from a slate-red peninsula.
    The tower, eternally white with frost, was mysteriously constructed in A.D. 900 by a single, unknown Viking warrior who had defied all curses and fears and demons to make a grim stand on Grimwald's hostile shore. Although the nameless warrior's fate was never known, was ultimately claimed by the dark night vales of Grimwald's forests, his tower had endured—a lasting testament to his iron courage and spirit and strength.
    Built by hand from hand-hewn blocks of solid granite, each weighing over a quarter ton, the