The Black Tower: The Complete Series

by David R. Beshears

  “I believe we could all do with a break,” said Church. Except for the incident with the pterodactyl, the last floor hadn’t been particularly dangerous, but the low oxygen atmosphere and the steep trails had made the journey to the summit an exhausting one.

  Quinn directed Sgt. Costa to set the watch and dropped his own gear to the ground. He took two steps out as everyone began settling in. He stood gazing out into the fog.

  Asher came up beside him. “Are you thinking on going against your own orders, Lieutenant?”

  Quinn looked back at the rest of the team. Costa and Ramos stood to either side of the main group, still settling in amongst the gear. He guessed visibility at no more than twelve feet. Costa was little more than a silhouette in the bright, silvery gray of the fog.

  He looked outward again. “It would be nice to know which direction we should go. A few degrees one way or the other could make all the difference.”

  “I agree,” said Asher. “But having no clue what’s in any direction really makes the choice an easy one.”

  “I don’t follow you, Professor.”

  “We just a pick a direction and go.”

  Quinn curled his brow and frowned. “What say we try to gather a little intel, eh Professor? Who knows? We might catch a break. I would rather not take the team into that completely blind. Not if I can help it.”

  “It’s up to you, Lieutenant.”

  “Just a quick peek at what’s out there.”

  “Dip our toe in the water, so to speak.”

  “Something like that. Twenty steps out. Fifty feet, see what’s to see.” He turned quickly to the rest of the team. “We’ll be right back.”

  Costa took a step forward from her watch position. “Sir?”

  “Just a few yards, Sergeant, and right back again.”

  “I thought you said no wandering off,” said Owen. She turned to Church. “Didn’t he say no wandering off?”

  “That’s what the man said, Elizabeth.”

  Owen watched Quinn and Asher disappear into the fog. “Oh, this is not going to end well.”

  Episode Six / Chapter One

  Carmody was sitting with Johansen at one of the six tables in the mess tent. Several of the other tables were also occupied, but for the moment they had this one to themselves. Their empty food trays were pushed aside and they were talking quietly over their forgotten cups of coffee.

  Carmody had picked up a promotion since coming out of the tower with Dr. Banister several weeks earlier, PFC insignia pinned on her collar. After almost a week of extensive debriefing, she had been assigned to the command staff, purportedly as part of Sgt. Miller’s team but in truth assisting Dr. Banister as needed. This had meant that she and Johansen were required to work together quite a bit; neither seemed to mind.

  It had taken almost that entire week’s debriefing for Banister and Carmody to believe they weren’t in some duplicate universe created by the Adversary. Though, according Dr. Banister, they weren’t really outside at all… the command center and the area around the tower was somehow inside.

  Even after all that Carmody had been through while in the tower, she just didn’t get this. This was the command center and these people were real, but they weren’t really outside?

  So, they were back at command, but command wasn’t where they thought it was…

  As it turned out, General Wong had been just as suspicious of Carmody and Banister. He didn’t think they were real at first; magically appearing outside the tower, claiming to have taken a ride on a special train? Yeah, right…

  It wasn’t until after some intense conversations with Church on the inside, first to convince Church, and only then convince the general, that they were finally accepted to be who they claimed to be.

  Carmody knew that it was all tied into this whole idea that they weren’t really on the outside, that this was somehow like the floors in the tower… and yet different…

  Geez…

  Johansen looked down at his watch. Twenty minutes to the next communications window. They turned in their trays and started back to the command hut.

  At last communication, the team had still been on the sixteenth floor, but had been fairly confident they would soon reach the portal to seventeen.

  Carmody had left the team back on the thirteenth… back at the train station in the void.

  Entering the Quonset hut, she moved off to one side as Johansen walked over toward the radio. He had to maneuver between Banister and Lake, who were already hovering near the communication station. General Wong and Captain Adamson came in a minute later, sat at one of the two tables in the middle of the room.

  Johansen sat down, calmly watched the clock on the wall and waited. The final seconds passed… He put on the headset, flipped a switch on the radio set.

  “Tower team, this is command. Do you read? Over.” He looked up at Banister, who was standing to his right, then to Lake standing at his left. He smiled and turned back to his radio. “Command to tower. Command to tower. Over.”

  Five seconds passed.

  “Well?” asked Lake.

  Johansen started to turn to Lake, quickly turned back to the radio.

  “There you are, Ramos. How’s tricks? Over.” He slapped a hand on a timer that he had fastened to the top of the radio set. It was preset to 3 minutes, letting everyone know how much time remained in the communication window. He listened a moment, smiled uncomfortably up at Lake, then Banister, turned away from them both. “All right. Thanks much, Ramos. I’ll let ‘em know. Here’s Doctor Banister. Over.”

  “What?” Lake had expected first crack at the team.

  “Doctor Church is asking to speak to Doctor Banister.” Johansen handed the headset to Banister as he stood up. He looked across to the general. “They’re on the seventeenth floor, General. Ramos said something about London fog.”

  Captain Adamson caught his attention, nodded to an empty chair at the table. Johansen went over and began filling the general and the captain in on what little he had been told.

  Carmody took a few steps closer to Banister, curious to know all about the next floor.

  “I agree absolutely, Nate,” Banister was saying. “No. No, you best stay put for now. Better they come back to you.”

  “What is it?” Lake asked impatiently.

  Banister only raised a brow and turned away. “They know better where you are than you them. If you’re not in any immediate danger, then heck, give ‘em a little more time.”

  “Banister,” grumbled Lake. The timer continued to wind down, the seconds inexorably being eaten away.

  Banister’s hint of a frown began to turn dark. He wasn’t happy with whatever it was Church was now saying.

  “Banister,” said Lake, now more forcefully.

  “Oh, come on Nate.” Banister was suddenly exasperated. “Really? Are you really going to bring that up again? Now? Get over it, old man. I’m the one put Asher in that spot. And a damned tough spot it was.”

  Dr. Lake gave Banister the sternest gaze he knew how to give, held out a hand for the headset. Banister finished listening to Church’s response to his chide. It was his attempt at being polite.

  “Of course, Nate. Of course. Okay. Okay, I need to turn you over to Lake now.” He grinned broadly. “No… no, I’m afraid I do.” He pulled off the headset and handed it to Lake. “I do apologize,” he said, starting toward the table. “He’s all yours.”

  §

  Quinn and Asher had paced out the twenty steps, found nothing, turned around and paced those same twenty steps back. They had returned to what should have been the location of the rest of the team. They found themselves standing alone in the fog.

  They took five steps to their left, came back, and took five steps to the right. There was no sign of the rest of the team. They called out. No one was out there.

  They continued in their original direction for another twenty paces. Still nothing. They were lost. They shouldn’t have been, they had taken every pre
caution outside of not taking the walk to begin with, but they definitely had no idea where the rest of the team might be.

  They began pacing out a grid pattern, keeping each grid small enough so as not to miss any part of the floor.

  A few steps, turn, a few steps, turn…

  All the while, one fact continued to nag at them.

  Even if they had gotten turned around, they should be able to hear the team.

  Should be able to hear Owen, if no one else...

  And the team should be able to hear them. They continued to call out to the others at each point in the grid. They had yet to get a response, had yet to hear any sound coming from the fog.

  “Lieutenant, do you see that?” asked Asher. A shadow in the fog, one of many shadows in the fog, wasn’t moving. Straight ahead, appearing and fading in the fog that was drifting across their path.

  There’s something there, all right, thought Quinn.

  They approached a wide chasm. The smooth, hard ground beneath their feet ended abruptly at the jagged edge, the fog spilling over and down into the abyss, and outward across the empty expanse.

  Directly in front of them were two vertical posts three feet high set four feet apart, anchored near the edge of the chasm. These formed the anchor of a narrow rope bridge that stretched out across the chasm, disappearing into the fog. There was no way to tell how wide the gulf might be, or where the bridge might take them.

  Quinn took one step out, held tightly to the hand ropes and looked down. “It could be twenty feet to the bottom, could be a thousand,” he said.

  “Same for the bridge,” said Asher.

  Quinn steadied himself, looked outward and rocked cautiously one side to the other, testing the stability of the bridge. “It looks scary as hell, but it should bear our weight.”

  Asher looked left and right. They now had a boundary. “We shouldn’t cross the bridge until we find the others,” he said. He moved out of the way as Quinn stepped off the bridge.

  “Exactly my thought,” said Quinn. “The chasm forms one boundary of our search area.”

  With their backs to the bridge, they started away from the edge of the chasm, returning the way they had come.

  §

  Costa and Church stood in the center of the makeshift camp, the others in the team standing around the perimeter, facing outward, each well within sight of Costa. They were taking turns calling out for Quinn and Asher. As yet there had been only silence coming back to them.

  Church had convinced the others that for the time being they should wait there, but as the minutes passed there was growing concern that more than just getting lost, that something may have happened to Quinn and Asher. The fact that Doctor Banister had agreed with him that it was best they hold their position had bought some time, but now even Church was considering going in search of their companions.

  He and Sgt. Costa were discussing ways of conducting a search without everyone getting lost when Owen calmly called out to everyone.

  “We have company,” she said.

  Shadows in the fog materialized into two figures. One figure raised a hand as they approached. “Hey.”

  “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you, Liz,” answered Asher.

  “So what happened? You two got lost, eh?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” mumbled Asher. “The weirdest thing… everything moves in here.”

  “Moves?” The others were gathering behind Owen.

  “Yes. Moves,” said Quinn.

  “Yeah,” said Asher. “You can’t count on something that you know to be behind you to be there when you turn around.”

  “Exactly,” said Quinn. “Walk away a few steps. You turn around, walk back… it’s gone.”

  “Of which you have direct observational experience,” said Church.

  “Yes,” Quinn sighed.

  “And more than that,” said Asher. “You can walk away from something, never turn around, and find yourself right back at what you just left behind.”

  “We came up on that rope bridge four times. I still don’t know how we finally made it back here.”

  “Dumb luck,” said Owen.

  Church shook his head from side to side. “Likely the Adversary’s doing.”

  “You give him too much credit, Nate.”

  “Luck or not, we’re glad to see you back safe,” said Susan, looking first to Quinn, then Asher. “You really gave us a scare.”

  “For which I apologize,” said Quinn.

  “To the positive… we did learn something from the experience,” said Asher. “We may not know how things work in here, but we have an idea what to expect, what to watch out for.”

  “And in all your wandering, that rope bridge was the only object you came across,” Church stated thoughtfully. He was speaking to Quinn. “I suggest we take it as a signpost; our first milestone on our journey across this floor.”

  “Precisely what Professor Asher and I were thinking,” said Quinn.

  “Well then,” Owen sighed noisily. “What say we see if we can find it again?”

  “We can but try, Doctor,” said Quinn. He turned to the group. “You heard her. Gather up your gear, ladies and gentlemen.”

  §

  Once General Wong had accepted the fact that Banister was in fact Banister, the doctor had quickly become an integral part of the staff. His direct experiences inside the tower and his relationship with the members of the team, with Dr. Church in particular, provided a unique and invaluable perspective.

  The general also appreciated the fact that Dr. Lake understood Church’s value to command. He not only accepted and listened to Church’s observations, he actively sought them out. What was his take on an observation made by the team? What did he make of a comment or thought, or of the way the comment was presented? What of the Adversary’s interactions with the team? What of the consistencies and inconsistencies from floor to floor?

  Taking it beyond this, General Wong was genuinely impressed with the way Dr. Lake had brought Church into the process of refining Lake’s dataset of information that he had compiled over the last sixteen floors. Gaining a solid understanding of the how and why of each floor, of those very consistencies and inconsistencies between floors, and then correctly interpreting the data and being able to provide to those within the tower an accurate analysis, could be critical to getting the team from one floor to the next; could very well provide the tools they would need when they finally confronted the Adversary on the top floor.

  Of course this also meant that their meetings always ran two to three times longer than they had prior to Dr. Banister joining the command staff.

  The general leaned back in his chair, took a drink of his coffee, long since gone cold. He listened to Lake and Banister going back and forth about Quinn and Asher’s little walk into the fog. At the time of the last communication, they had been gone about twenty minutes. Unsettling yes, but it could mean anything.

  They would just have to wait for the next communication for news, hope for the best.

  This had been the nearest the communication window had come to the time of the team’s arrival on a floor. On the positive side, it was great to hear of a successful move from one floor to the next so soon after the trip through the portal. And it also allowed command to get an early peak at the conditions on the next floor.

  On the downside, it also meant that the inside team didn’t yet know that much about the new floor they found themselves on, and command wouldn’t hear from them again for more than a day.

  Major Connelly entered the command center. She acknowledged those sitting at the table before heading to the coffee station. Lake eyed her warily, while General Wong simply sat patiently drinking the last of his cold coffee.

  “And how are you today?” asked Banister. He agreed that Major Connelly was likely not the person she presented herself to be, but for the moment there was no reason to be uncivil.

  “I’m doing quite well, Doctor Banister. Thank yo
u for asking.” Connelly sat at the table, fresh cup of coffee in hand. “I understand the team has made it to seventeen. Is everyone all right?”

  “Quite,” stated Lake.

  “Though several of the team has since decided to go for a walk, and have yet to return,” said Banister. He explained the environment of the new floor and the situation with Quinn and Asher.

  General Wong looked on in silence, listening to Major Connelly’s questions, observing her body language as she listened to the answers.

  Major Connelly was a good looking woman in her forties, the medical officer brought in to consult should the need arise.

  The problem was, if the scientists were to be believed, command and the area immediately around the tower had somehow become part of the “inside” at the moment the door into the tower disappeared.

  They weren’t on a floor exactly, but for all intents and purposes, they were just as isolated.

  Lake believed that there had been no real contact with the outside world since that time. No one had left command, which really blew the general’s mind. What of his trips to headquarters?

  And no one had entered.

  Which meant that Major Connelly wasn’t Major Connelly.

  According to Dr. Banister, that wasn’t a problem. As long as this Major Connelly performed all the duties required of her, what did it matter?

  General Wong would accept that for now.

  He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that no one ever left and that no one noticed that fact.

  The Adversary wasn’t just messing with their surroundings. He was screwing with their minds.

  Episode Six / Chapter Two

  Sgt. Costa led the way through the fog, traveling in what they hoped was the direction of the bridge that spanned the chasm. Asher followed well within sight of her, with the others trailing along behind, all within sight of the person in front of them.

  Susan Bautista and Church walked side by side, speaking in hushed tones. The fog seemed to bring that out.

  Officially, Susan was Dr. Church’s assistant, but had really served as an associate to both Church and Banister for years. Her duties had often focused on keeping the rest of the world from getting in, whether it be through her direct intervention or simply serving as a conduit. She wasn’t a social person by nature, but was able to hide herself when she was representing the doctors.