G -1

by Kyle Thomas Bruhnke

  I look back over my left shoulder, surprised to see a dull light coming from an ‘Exit’ sign over the entrance to the passageway we have just come out of. Looking around, I notice it’s not the only one. Other ‘Exit’ signs around the room are also dimly functioning. “I guess enough of them are still working,” Jared comments to himself before turning his flashlight off.

  As our eyes adjust to the dim red lighting, I begin to notice silhouettes of huge pieces of machinery. To our right, stairs lead up to a large platform. As my eyes walk up the stairs, I notice moonlit squares above and beyond them. I realize I’ve looked in those windows from the outside more than a few times but the tinting on them never allowed anything to be revealed.

  The platform on the right narrows before disappearing down another passageway. This one is large enough to swallow up any light that tries to travel down it. “Where are we?” I ask Jared.

  “This is the maglev staging area,” he confidently informs me. “I haven’t been down here in about five years. The launch rail runs down that tunnel.”

  I look into the shadow where the rail disappears. “I wonder what it’s like to ride that?” I say pensively.

  “The G-force would probably kill you,” Jared answers. Even with his back towards me, I sense he’s grinning as he says it.

  We make our way to the other side of the large chamber where another ‘Exit’ sign dimly glows. I see two huge objects in the shadows of the far right corner. They look like stacked crates covered with tarps.

  We switch on our flashlights as we enter the new passageway. This one is normal hallway size, looks a little better maintained and is cleaner. We cautiously creep down it almost immediately coming to the end. Each side has an ‘Exit’ sign. Jared directs his light to the left, revealing a short passage with stairs going up. Some faded red lettering indicates that going up that passage will lead us to hangar ‘C’. I turn my light to the right and see the same thing, only the lettering indicates hangar ‘F’.

  “Which one do we want?” I whisper, becoming anxious that somebody might be able to hear us.

  “They parked the shiff in hangar ‘C’.” He turns to the left. Walking forward, his flashlight more clearly defines the steps going up. He stops again seeming a little nervous. “We can’t use the flashlights from here. There’s no door at the top. And any noise we make will echo up the steps so you have to be really quiet. Use the handrail on that side and feel for the steps with your foot.”

  He transfers his flashlight to his left hand before reaching for the handrail on the right. Then he turns the light off. I quietly slide over to the handrail on the left, grabbing hold with my left hand. The steel feels cool against my clammy, gloved palm. I look at Jared, barely visible with the dim flashlight I hold. He nods once to let me know he is ready.

  Suddenly we hear a soft ping come from behind us. Then another and another, like a coin or metal washer bouncing down the steps from hangar ‘F’ behind us. Instinctively, I start to swing my flashlight around, but notice Jared waving his arms wildly trying to tell me something. “Turn it off!” he hisses, scared breathless. I switch the light off.

  As my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, I’m aware of the tiniest fraction of light shining down the steps which we now seem stranded at the bottom of. I see Jared, mostly as a shadow against the dark gray concrete wall behind him, slowly lower his body down to rest on the step.

  I guess there is nothing else to do. Pretty soon somebody will come down those other steps to end our covert operation. I sit to ponder the consequences of accompanying Jared on this hare-brained idea. How disappointed will my parents be? How stupid will I feel seeing my name in the police report in the newspaper?

  Then another fear hits me! We’re trying to break into a government secured facility. The outside world may never even hear about what happens to us. Jen was wrong. She won’t be visiting us in jail; we’ll just disappear, become missing persons. Everybody will think we were kidnapped. Or worse - dead! My spirit dies as I feel anger rising up inside of me. Anger at myself for following Jared; anger at Jared for tempting me. I hear my father’s voice saying, “You have to take responsibility for your own decisions.”

  The heavy silence continues. Every second seems to drag on as we await our fate. I feel my body taking half breaths as my ears strain for the next noise. A soft scuffing sound begins. At first it’s obvious in the quiet of the far stairwell, but it fades after a few seconds. Then nothing. We sit and wait for what seems like long time.

  Jared slides towards me on the step. I inch over a third of the way to meet him. “I think it’s gone,” he whispers.

  “What do you think it was?”

  “Well, if it was a guard, we’d be in custody by now. My guess is some sort of animal.” He sounds confident, which helps me relax.

  “Animals don’t send things pinging down steps,” I point out.

  “They do if they don’t know it’s there and hit it by mistake,” he reassures me.

  “Whatever! I think we should go home.”

  “Do what you want,” he tells me. “I’m still going on.”

  He edges over to the far side again, standing to size up the challenge of the ascent. In the faint light I can only guess at the excitement on his face. He grabs on to the rail to take his first step.

  I exhale a deep breath of resignation as I stand and turn to start up the steps myself. Jared’s shadow stops long enough to give me a thumbs up followed by an index finger to his lips to be silent.

  We start the climb. I count, wondering if we will go up the same number of steps that we had come down when we entered. Another out-of-use conveyor is on Jared’s right. I only count eighty-two steps before we come to a landing. The light at the top of the stairs is stronger now. I can see this landing is only thirty feet long before another flight of stairs begins.

  “I think we’re under the taxiway now,” Jared whispers. We pass some carts along the right hand wall as we walk. I guess they were used to ferry items from one conveyor to the other at the steps we are approaching.

  I count another sixty-eight steps before we arrive at the top. The light seems really bright after the dark of the underground passageways, but I can see that only a few lights are actually on. I feel any light is unwelcome if it helps the guards to spot us. They have to be somewhere. We sit out of sight, just below the top stair, cautiously peeking and listening for any sign of them.

  The stairs have come up to the wall on the left side of the hangar. The shiff is to our right in the center of the building, pointing away from us. It is really big this close up. We can’t see if the hatch into the shiff, which is on the right hand side, is open or not, but the gangway is still rolled up to it. We might get over to it and not be able to get in.

  Another ten minutes pass while we wait for some activity to indicate where the guards are. Jared points to the far right corner of the building. Holding his hands up together, he motions one of them like a door. He then points to the far left, brings his hands back together and does the door motion again. I guess he is saying there are two entrances.

  He looks at me, nods his head once while raising his eyebrows to ask if I am ready. I half-nod back. We go up the last two steps and, in a crouch, start sneaking across the floor. We quickly cross at least fifty feet before stopping behind the base of the gangway. Jared looks back at me with his wild grin of excitement. I can feel my heart pounding.

  Sliding around to the first step, Jared holds on to the solid wall of the gangway rail, lightly taking the first step up to the door of the shiff which luckily is open. He momentarily stops while the gangway groans a little, settling under his weight. I follow after he has gone up a few steps. We are halfway up when the door in the far right corner of the hangar booms open, slamming against the doorstop.

  “Hey Jim! Andy!” someone yells coming in. “Dinner time!”

  We crouch down hoping the slight movement we are causing on the gangway will stop. I can hear the door on the far
left side open. The sound of heavy boots echo through the building as Jim and Andy walk over to join the other guard.

  “Pretty quiet around here,” one of the guards says.

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t expect too much excitement from this detail. That bird’s not going to sneak out anytime soon,” another answers. I feel as if their eyes are looking in our direction. I try not to breathe.

  “Have you looked inside her yet, Sam?”

  “Not yet. Maybe after dinner I’ll go take a look.”

  “You know our orders are to leave her be,” the third voice puts in.

  “Who’s gonna know?” Sam questions.

  “C’mon. Let’s eat. Then, whatever you do, I don’t want to know about it.”

  The sound of a different door opening reaches us and the guards’ conversation becomes muddled and distant. Then we hear a door close. Jared, sensing that we are safe for the moment, cautiously creeps up the remaining steps to the shiff’s hatch. I am close behind.

  He steps through the hatch into darkness. Apparently there is no power in the space vehicle right now. I feel pretty dumb as we begin searching for something not knowing where to look or even what we’re looking for.

  Jared turns on his flashlight. “Keep it pointed towards the floor, and try to make sure you don’t shine it through any windows,” he whispers. I nod as I turn my light on.

  We head towards the back of the ship first. There are lots of compartments. We open the ones we can, checking the top of each cubby hole. It doesn’t make any sense to check the bottoms. What we are looking for will have floated to the top of wherever it is.

  As we continue our search, I try to remember what the technicians who unloaded the box had said. Something about the lid opening before being locked and a bag being pierced? I feel like we may be looking in the wrong place. The box would probably have been in the aisle when the contents escaped. I take my flashlight and watch its halo as I point it overhead towards the front near the hatch.

  I tap Jared on the shoulder. He looks away from the compartment he is checking. I point to indicate the direction of my light. He focuses in on the beam and a smile comes to his face. As we walk forward, Jared reaches into his pocket for the manila envelopes. We pause a moment after we get into position underneath the substance. Jared reaches up and, using one envelope, scoops a little of the grey powdery substance into the second envelope. In the process, some of the powder slips off the scoop and floats back up to the ceiling. Amazing!

  We are breathless. This is it; the substance that had caused a heavy container to almost float away from its handlers. Jared reaches up for more of the powder. I can see there isn’t very much of it left. “Shouldn’t we leave some behind for them to clean up?” I whisper to him. He nods agreement.

  We have about a tablespoon; maybe half of what is there. Jared hands me the scooping envelope. On the other, he folds the paper flap over and then over again. He takes the second envelope back and places the first sideways into it to create a soft latch so nothing can escape.

  “Here,” he says quietly, handing me our prize and taking my flashlight. I position my right hand a couple of inches over the top of the envelopes in my left and let go. We both watch as it slowly rises from one to the other.

  Jared quickly unscrews the cap of the flashlight, pouring the batteries into his hand and then into his pocket. “Roll it up and put it in here,” he whispers. After fitting the cap back on the flashlight, he tosses it from one hand to the other just to make sure the small amount of material won’t float away on us. “Stick this in your pocket,” he tells me, handing me the flashlight. “This is your project now.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” I say calmly, feeling good about the situation.

  We make our way back to the hatch and Jared steps through to begin our escape. He has one foot out when we hear a door open. The voices of the guards can be clearly heard. There is a burst of laughter as one of them finishes telling a story. Jared quickly pulls his foot back in. “Okay men. That’s enough fun for now. Back to your posts,” their boss orders. Footsteps can be heard as they end their dinner break.

  “Hey Sam!” one of the guards calls. “Where you going?”

  “I’ll be right there,” Sam replies. “Just give me a minute.” His voice sounds clearer this time. His footsteps are getting louder, too. He’s approaching the shiff! Apparently Sam has decided to take his look. We hear the other two guards open the door out to their post. “Hey! Who’s there?” we hear one of them shout. “Stop!”

  My heart stops. We’ve been discovered. Jennifer’s voice echoes in my chaotic thoughts; “I just want to know why I’ll be coming to visit you in jail.” Looks like she was right.

  I quickly realize though, that the scuffling is going on outside the building. A muffled, more familiar voice demands, “Let go of me, you army dogs.”

  Sam and his partner quickly sprint across the building to join in the action. The sound from their heavy boots fades as they exit the building on the right.

  Jared urgently looks at me. “Now’s our chance!” We shoot out the hatch, down the gangway, and sprint to the passage we had entered through. There we stop to catch our breath. Crouching on the top steps, we look back, listening for any sound of pursuit. I put my hand on the flashlight in my pocket for reassurance it hasn’t dropped out.

  The guards reenter the building tightly holding someone in custody. There are a lot of expletives flying around but one line cuts through the din.

  “I know your hiding aliens in here somewhere you army dogs. As a taxpayer I demand to see ’em.” It’s Uncle Earl!

  “You’re whacked, buddy!” shouts one of the guards struggling with him. “Aliens are gonna be the least of your problems now.”

  Uncle Earl hurls a few more words at them as they muscle him through the door into the room where they had just finished their dinner. The leader of the guards then instructs the other two to split up so they can watch both sets of doors. The side room door closes as the men march to their posts out the side entrances. The big entrance doors close with a bang, the echoes quickly fading until the hangar is finally silent again.

  Jared taps me on the shoulder. I look at him as he mimes “Let’s go.” I look back at the room where they have my uncle feeling like I shouldn’t leave him behind, but not knowing what I can do. I’m not supposed to be here either. It’s hard to choose quickly but, right or wrong, I decide Uncle Earl has gotten himself into it, and he is going to have to get himself out.

  I start to turn away to follow Jared down the stairs when out of the corner of my eye I spot something that freezes me in my tracks. Between the shiff and stairs are faint footprints in the dust; two sets heading to it and two sets coming back. We couldn’t have left any better evidence that we had been there. And there was no way to go erase them without risking discovery.

  Despair soaks through me again as I make my way down into the darkness of the underground facility. Jared is waiting for me at the middle landing. “What took so long?” he whispers.

  “We left footprints in the dust,” I explain despondently.

  The jubilant expression leaves his face. “What can we do about it?”

  I shrug my shoulders. Either way we are probably caught. We think about the problem for a few more minutes before continuing down the remaining steps to the corridor that would lead to the Maglev room and our dubious escape.

  The excitement of our adventure completely fades now. Fatigue settles in where the adrenaline had been and it seems to take a long time to find our way out. Even Jared’s flashlight is growing dim.

  We get to the base of the stairs leading to the outside. My legs start to ache as soon as we begin the arduous climb. Finally, we get to the top and step out into the cold night air. My legs wobble as we stop to catch our breath. Sweat runs chill down my neck.

  Several minutes pass before Jared’s tired voice says, “Help me.” We struggle to close the heavy steel door. He locks it before stooping t
o brush gravel in front, trying to make it appear as it had when we opened it. In frustration, as a final gesture, he grabs some dried weeds, throwing them against the door. In the dark it looks like it has been that way for years.

  “No sense in leaving any more clues than we have to.” He sighs as he strips the latex gloves off his hands, stuffing them into a pocket. I do likewise.

  Even now he seems a little hopeful but I’m too tired to respond. Neither of us speaks as we make our way back along the tracks. We look over our shoulder for pursuit, seeing only the flashing red lights of security vehicles. I get a lump in my throat thinking about what Uncle Earl might be going through right now. Once more I put my hand on the flashlight in my pocket wondering if it will be worth all the trouble that may follow.

  We feel safer when we get to the familiar shelter at The Hill. We retrieve the chairs from the night before and sit quietly for a few minutes. I look at my watch; 10:50.

  Fifteen minutes later, we silently agree to head back, picking up our tele­scopes as we stow the chairs once again. We still have a ways to go.

  It’s quiet when I get home. The light is on in the shop. Gramps is up tinkering with his bike again. As Jared gets into his car he says, “talk to you tomorrow.”

  Suspicions

  I wake up Sunday morning to loud voices from the kitchen. It’s only 7:20. I look away from my clock and listen.

  “Well I don’t see why we have to bail him out,” my dad yells. “I’m tired of your brother getting himself into these jams and then calling us to get him out! Maybe your father should go get his son! And try to talk some sense into him on the way home!”

  Uncle Earl! The events of the previous night quickly fill my mind forcing me fully awake. I strain to hear Mom’s quiet voice as I quickly get dressed.