The shaft seemed to go down forever, as if to the fiery pit of Hell. It was dark for most of the distance, but as his eyes adjusted, he could perceive light at the very bottom where the elevator cage sat, unoccupied. He tried to imagine what the heathen scientists were doing deep under the ice right then; what kind of unholy work they were doing to support their blasphemous theories.
Continuing on to the operations end of the shed, he entered the main office. The room was filled with desks and tables, with at least a dozen computers scattered about. He was somewhat surprised to see that there were only two people in the office — a man in his mid-to-late twenties across the room and a young woman in her early twenties a few desks away from the door, both working at computers. As Northrup entered, the woman looked up and greeted him.
“Hi there. You’re one of the new guys.”
“Yes ma’am. I’m Eugene Northrup. I’m here representing Holy Spirit University.”
“Ah, right, you’re the guy from HSU.” She leaned over as Northrup approached, extending her hand. “Welcome aboard. I’m Sandy Ruggiero. U. C. Berkeley. Geology. I’m part of the original research team.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“My mother’s the ‘ma’am’ in the family. Call me Sandy. I’m just updating our web site back at Cal with some of the recent photos and information. I suspect you’re looking for Hal Reynolds.”
“Yes ma’am… Sandy. I was told to report to him when I got here.”
“He’s downtown right now.” Seeing a puzzled look cross his face, she added, “That’s what we call the ground level — downtown. I can take you down if you’d like.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
“Give me a minute here to finish these uploads,” Ruggiero said. “Has anybody briefed you on the latest news?”
“No, not really. I heard that they opened the small pyramid, but that’s about all.”
“Well, I don’t think Hal would mind if I brought you up to date. Yeah, they entered the small pyramid yesterday. We’ve been calling it the Outhouse because of its size and relationship to Town Hall — that’s the main pyramid — and get this: it looks like that’s exactly what it is! An outhouse!” Ruggiero whooped, punctuating her news with laughter.
“Beg pardon?” asked Northrup.
“There’s all these things inside it that look like they’re crappers, only not for humans.”
Northrup found it mildly distasteful that a young woman would be talking about private facilities so bluntly.
“Tell you what,” said Ruggiero, “while I’m finishing up here, why don’t you log on to our local server and use the site to catch up. It’s already got all the photos and info from yesterday, so it’s right up-to-date.” She indicated the computer at the next desk.
Northrup sat at the desk and looked at the computer. It was a laptop Macintosh, and its screen was dark. “How do I turn it on?” he asked.
“It’s just in sleep mode,” Ruggiero replied, “just hit a key or touch the pad.”
Northrup pressed the space bar, and the screen came alive. Ruggiero leaned back to look at the screen. “Yeah, you’re at our home page. Just click on ‘Excavation Map,’ and then click on the small pyramid to get to the new page.”
Northrup followed her instructions, and found himself looking at some text, followed by a series of thumbnail photos. He started with the text.
It summarized the process of tunneling to and then opening a space around the pyramid. Clicking on a link in the word “tunnel” took him to a photo of the tunnel as it was being dug. Clicking the “Back” button returned him to the text. There was a description of the precautions that had been taken to prevent the possibility of biological contamination, with links to photos of the airlock as it was being modified and set up. There was a description of the lock and the combination, again with links to photos. Finally, the actual opening of the door and entrance of Lightfoot and Greissman into the pyramid were detailed.
After reading the text and following the links it included, Northrup clicked on the thumbnail photos one by one, looking at the full-size images they represented.
The photos included an overview of the pyramid’s interior from three angles, shots of two men in biohazard suits standing next to one of the apparent toilets, several shots of the toilets from different angles, and a video capture image of one of the men sitting on one of the toilets.
Looking at the photos, Northrup felt slightly queasy. If these were indeed toilets, they certainly hadn’t been designed for human use. Northrup tried to imagine what kind of creatures might have designed and used these things, and images of various depictions of demons and monsters raced through his mind. Was it possible that this… city, this Godless place was actually a part of Hell?
His thoughts were interrupted as Ruggiero spoke up. “OK, I’m done! Let me call ahead, and then we’ll head downtown!” She picked up the phone that connected to ground level, and waited for someone to pick up at the other end. As she waited, she smiled at Northrup.
Northrup smiled back, and found himself wondering what kind of woman Sandy Ruggiero was. She was of average height, about five foot seven, with short reddish-blond hair. She was rather attractive, he thought fleetingly. She was wearing orange snowsuit pants and had on a beige sweater over a brown turtleneck. Though he’d been uncomfortable with the fact that she had spoken so bluntly about toilets, she seemed like a pleasant enough young woman. Yet Northrup knew that Godless people could seem outwardly pleasant, and that her appearance and demeanor could be misleading.
“Hi, Bob, it’s Sandy. The guy from HSU’s here, and I thought I’d bring him down for a look and to meet Hal.” After a pause, she said, “OK. See ya in a few.”
She put down the phone and said, “They’re getting ready to finish up for the day, but they said to come on down.” She pulled on her parka and led Northrup out the door.
The elevator motor was running, as evidently someone was either on their way up or had sent the elevator for them. As it neared the top, they could see two people in the cage.
“That looks like Bob Sinclair and Fred Taylor,” said Ruggiero. “Bob’s also part of the original team, and Fred’s our designated warrior type. He’s ready to blow us up if anything goes wrong.”
Northrup looked with surprise at Ruggiero. “What do you mean, blow us up?”
“I’ll tell you on the way down.”
The elevator stopped, and Sinclair raised the gate. “You caught me just as I was about to come up.” He turned to Northrup and extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Bob Sinclair.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir. Eugene Northrup, from Holy Spirit University.”
Sinclair turned to Taylor. “This is Commander Fred Taylor of the U. S. Navy.”
“Sir!” said Northrup, shaking his hand.
“Well, we better get going if we want to give Gene a chance to see anything before quitting time,” said Ruggiero. “Where’s Hal?” she asked Sinclair.
“He’s probably still in the Outhouse.”
“Great. See you guys later.”
Ruggiero and Northrup entered the elevator, lowered the gate and started their descent. On the way, Ruggiero briefed Northrup on the explosive charges that had been placed in the shaft as a precaution against a crisis situation. As they descended, Northrup could see where the charges were located at regular intervals.
Northrup realized that this unexpected development could have implications in the event he had to take action. He’d come with a relatively modest amount of C-4 explosives that could be used for the same purpose, among other possibilities. The fact that the U. S. Navy had provided far more powerful explosives was potentially very good news. Northrup made a note to find out where the detonator was and what it would take to fire it.
They reached the bottom of the shaft, and Ruggiero lifted the gate. Northrup was momentarily taken aback by the sight that greeted them. The size of the man-made cavern, the sheer amount of equipment and the n
umber of people at work were impressive, at least from a logistical viewpoint. It was also quite loud, with compressors and other motors running in the enclosed space.
Ruggiero led Northrup diagonally across the chamber to the bottom of the steps so that he could see the progress. The tunnel up the side of the pyramid now extended more than 40 feet up, or roughly half of the way to the second level. Rank Matthews and an engineering team from both U. C. Berkeley and MIT had devised an extendible chute that had mounts for two jackhammers at the top. The main section of the unit sat on treads that allowed it to move up the stairs as it opened its way through the ice. As it rose, additional sections were added at the bottom of the chute. As the ice came down the chute it dumped into small mining-style carts on rubber wheels, which were then taken to the surface where the ice was dumped outside the shed.
Even though the exposed section of the main pyramid revealed only a small percentage of its total mass, what was visible managed to give an impression of its bulk. Northrup knew that at the base, it extended roughly 200 feet to either side of where they stood. Studying the layout of the city back in his room at HSU and knowing the dimensions of the main pyramid were one thing. Standing here looking up the stairs was an altogether different experience.
The stairs had an inhuman quality to them if simply because of the rise of each step. The standard rise of human stairs is generally between six and eight inches, with the depth of each step around ten to twelve inches. The stairs up the side of the pyramid, he estimated, had a rise and depth of at least fourteen inches, if not more. They’d be uncomfortable to climb.
As they had crossed the chamber and then stood at the bottom of the stairs, Ruggiero had kept up a shouted running commentary. “…and we should be at the second level in the next three to four days,” she said.
“Very impressive work, ma’am,” Northrup hollered in reply.
“Come on, let’s head over to the Outhouse,” she yelled. “And stop calling me ma’am.”
Sandra Ruggiero was working toward her Masters degree in geology, and had jumped at the chance to come on the original expedition to Antarctica. Her undergraduate minor in computer science had made her the logical choice to administer the computer network and maintain the project’s web site. As one of two women in the original group, thrown in with six men, her somewhat tomboyish demeanor and bawdy sense of humor had let her fit right in as “one of the guys,” to a much greater degree than had Jill Hodge, the resident chemist and photographer. Having been the only girl in a large Italian-Irish family, with five brothers, she was accustomed to being around a lot of men. And she liked them, enough so that she’d already been to bed with one of the original team members and one of the later arrivals.
As she and Northrup made their way through the cables, ducts, equipment and boxes to the tunnel leading to the Outhouse, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. He walked ramrod straight, with almost a military bearing, she thought. She also thought he was kinda cute, and wondered how a girl would go about seducing a student from a religious school. That could be an interesting challenge.
They traversed the tunnel, and were soon standing inside the chamber around the small pyramid, near one of its three corners. They stopped, Ruggiero knowing that Northrup would need a moment to drink in the view. The sounds from the main chamber behind them were greatly muted, and only the whine of some small electric motors in the airlock intruded on the silence.
Even on its much smaller scale, the small pyramid was an intimidating sight, in part because the entire structure was exposed. To Northrup, at first glance this dark gray, almost black bulk seemed the very embodiment of evil. With its heathen symbols written on its sides and its sharp corners, he felt even more certain that it represented the work of the Devil. As he gazed at it, his visions of demons and hellish creatures returned, and he tried to imagine them cavorting and torturing those souls who had fallen from God’s grace. And yet…
Somehow the images didn’t quite seem to fit. As he surveyed the pyramid, he began to have additional impressions. There was a certain dignity in the design. The proportions and angles embodied a simple elegance. And assuming that it had been here buried under millions of tons of ice for perhaps thousands of years bespoke of the technical achievement it represented. The fact that the mechanism that opened its door still worked was even more amazing. And he wondered why Satan or his minions would need mechanical means to open doors, or for that matter, why they would need doors at all.
But the alternative explanation bothered him even more. This place couldn’t have been built by aliens, because the Bible made it clear that God created man as the only intelligent life in the universe. Therefore, this place either had to have been built by men, or created by the Lord Himself. But if this was the case, then what could explain the size and shape of the toilets, if that’s what they were?
Deep in thought, he was startled when Ruggiero spoke. “Kinda impressive, eh?”
“It’s… like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“You and everybody else. C’mon. Let’s take a look.”
She led him to the air lock, where they peered in through the windows. Inside there were work lights set up on stands, and they could see several people setting up equipment around one of the toilets.
“When they first went in, they found that a weight of around 250 pounds or more on the floor would turn on the lights — that is, make the ceiling glow. But evidently the power’s running out, ‘cause the ceiling started fading as they spent more time inside, and now it’s not enough to work by.”
Northrup bent down, and could just make out a corner of the ceiling at the far end. It was lighter than the walls and floor, but not by a large amount.
“They’re setting up a laser scanner to record the exact dimensions of one of the toilets. From the scan, the Engineering lab up at Cal will be able to make an exact model.”
As one of the men inside the pyramid turned, Northrup realized with a start that he wasn’t wearing a biohazard suit. “I thought everyone had to wear protective clothing inside the pyramid,” he asked.
“Nope. Not any more,” replied Ruggiero. “The air tested out to be perfectly healthy. In fact probably healthier than the air topside. Here,” she said, grabbing the handle of the air lock door, “we can go right in.”
Northrup wasn’t sure he was ready for this, but if this young woman was going in, he reckoned he had little choice but to follow. He closed the outer door behind him, and followed her through the inner door.
“We still keep the air lock doors closed against the chance that something we do in here might release gases or biological agents, but no one really thinks there’s much chance that’ll happen.”
She spotted Reynolds, who was standing watching two engineering students make adjustments on the laser scanning equipment, and led Northrup over.
“Hal, this is Gene Northrup from HSU,” she said.
Reynolds turned to Northrup, and the two shook hands. “Gene, good to have you with us.”
“Eugene, sir, if you don’t mind,” Northrup said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“So what’s your first impression of this city we’ve uncovered?”
Northrup hesitated. “It… certainly raises a lot of questions, sir.”
“Yeah, that it does. Look, I’m about ready to head back uptown. Why don’t you two stay until the guys are done, and then join me for dinner. ‘Bout a half hour? That’ll give us a chance to talk.”
“That’s fine with me, sir,” said Northrup.
“Good. And Eugene, call me Hal.”
“Yes sir.”
Reynolds glanced at Ruggiero, who raised her eyebrows and grinned. Standing behind and to the side of Northrup, she was out of his field of vision. She pointed to herself, then made an “O” with the thumb and index finger of her left hand and moved her right index finger in and out of the circle several times before pointing at Northrup and winking at Reynolds. Reynolds suppressed a smile, and t
urned to leave. “See you up top,” he said to Northrup.
As he walked past Ruggiero he paused and leaned close to her. “Twenty bucks,” he whispered, betting her that she’d never get Northrup into the sack.
She replied with a nod.
When Reynolds had left, Ruggiero let Northrup wander around the room and examine the toilets while she chatted with the engineering students.
Despite having seen the photos, Northrup was still surprised by the size of the toilets, again assuming that’s what they were. Were they half their actual size, they might be usable by a human; perhaps even comfortable. But either the creatures who used these were much larger than humans, or these objects were not what everyone was convinced they were.
After inspecting the interior of the pyramid, Northrup went out through the air lock and started a slow walk around its exterior. He paused to examine the “keypad” of the combination lock, and studied the symbols on the wall, touching them with his gloved hand. By the time he’d come back to the air lock, Ruggiero and the two engineers were just coming out.
“Ready to go uptown?” Ruggiero asked him.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied.
“Let’s go!” she said. As she strode off, leading the way, she turned back momentarily. “And don’t call me ma’am.”
•
“So, Eugene,” said Sinclair as he finished chewing the last of his bread, “Isn’t HSU a fundamentalist school?”
Reynolds glanced quickly at Sinclair, and then looked at Northrup, judging his reaction to the question. Steph Mitchell, Sandy Ruggiero and Dan Lightfoot made up the balance of the party at the table.
“Yes it is. It’s a Baptist school,” Northrup responded evenly.
“Do they teach a literal interpretation of the Bible?” Sinclair asked.
“Yes, they do.”
“But you said you’re degree’s in physics?”
“Yes sir, with a minor in biology.”
Sinclair winced slightly at the “sir” reference. He was only a few years older than Northrup.
“Well, I hope you won’t take offense, but isn’t it a bit hard to reconcile the study of hard science with a literal interpretation of the Bible? I mean, as I understand it, fundamentalists believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.”
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