by Tim Wellman
"Shit!" Kato said, as she took a long, smoky puff. "I get it, now." She smiled and nodded. "They didn't know how long their tunnel was, so they were guessing, and got it wrong. It must be a bit shorter than ours. They mentioned this place, though not in much detail, but this is where they fought a few people. I thought they were talking about someplace in the tunnel since they mentioned a few rough places, but this makes more sense."
"So, do you think they killed everyone here, then?" Carlisle said.
"No, they made some sort of peace here after a short battle, if I'm reading the papers correctly... there were dozens of people, mostly younger men, living here," she said. "They just called it the 'Mission Post'."
"So, what happened to them?" Stevenson said. "These were the original townspeople from the field up there, right? Before the world ended they made their way down here."
"They called this the Mission Post because it was an outpost, I guess," Kato said. "Not everyone in the city, just a forward post, maybe even just an annex to house people less than desirable in the bigger city. I guess the room back there was created after these people moved out." She looked around, admiring the craftsmanship, the high ceiling. Even the fronts of dwellings were stone-carved and carefully decorated. "Something must have changed and they no longer thought they needed this forward post; a small guard room would do. Or maybe they still used this for guests or something. The other tunnel is probably blocked off, now."
"Don't think they would have done all this work if they believed they would ever live on the surface again," Carlisle said. "But they... they knew what was going to happen before it happened? They must have, right? This wasn't built in a week, it took months, if not years, to do all this work by hand."
"The thing everyone missed back then is that the asteroids were actually an alien invasion, right?" Stevenson said. "That's our big discovery, right? The earth was attacked and these people knew it was coming."
The others nodded. It seemed, as implausible as it was, the only logical conclusion.
"Let's check some of the dwellings and see if we can find any clues," Carlisle said. "I want to take some pictures, too, and need to write down some notes before I forget them. But, the mummies earlier, this place, there's been no anthropological discovery like this since King Tut's tomb." She chuckled and took out her cigar case. "The earth was invaded and no one knows it happened."
"Or what happened to the invaders," Stevenson said.
"It's obvious they won the war," Carlisle said. "I wonder if they went home after that? Did these people also know that and loosen their defenses? Or..."
"Or did they stay here on earth, you mean?" Stevenson said. "Lull these people into believing they were gone. Now, that would be a project to keep an Anthropologist busy for a few years, wouldn't it."
Carlisle nodded. "It's all related to this, isn't it? I seem to have my life's work dumped right in my lap."
-13-
Ghosts In Town
They walked along the single, central street of the small, stone cityscape, pausing at each dwelling, but there was no sign of life. Or death, for that matter. It was a ghost town with no ghosts. But Carlisle had found her payoff, her lost civilization. It was enough for fill several books. She would be famous, respected, recognized as a true scholar. And she realized it really would be her life's work. At least people knew the ancient Egyptians had existed; she had found a lost world that no one knew existed.
"Well, now, look at that!" Stevenson said. He ran ahead a little and knelt down beside a large, rusting metal machine of some kind, unusual because of several large copper wires sticking out of it. "They were generating real electricity." He looked up as the others approached. None had actually seen real electricity in use since most towns had much bigger things to worry about after civilization was destroyed. The world on the surface was still primitive, still in its rebuilding stages. "There would have been water flowing over this paddlewheel, and this is a generator. It probably sat in this trench when water flowed through it."
"Okay, let me get a couple of pictures of that. I appreciate your knowledge of these things." Her stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear with the added reverberation of the large, enclosed area. "Wonder what they ate?" Carlisle said. "Cause I could use a nice meal right now."
"Oh, I imagine that's what this generator was used for, too," he said. "Among other things, it probably powered growing lights for vegetables. But they probably raised some livestock, too."
"I guess these were people who were actually used to living in the real, pre-invasion world," Carlisle said. "So, they brought all of that knowledge with them. This place could teach us so much about how to rebuild our world." She smiled and looked around. "Hey, where's Kato?"
He stood up and they both looked around. "Kato?"
"Here," she said, as she emerged from one of the dwellings carrying a small cardboard box which she dropped in front of them. "Food."
Carlisle picked up a military-packaged meal. "But, these are thirty years old, right?"
Kato shook her head. "They must've lived down here till recently," she said. "These ain't expired. There's canned stuff in there, too, but the date is five or six years ago. Must have been the storehouse. There's plenty of water in there, and purification tablets."
"So, they continued to have contact with our town on the surface?" Carlisle said. "Getting food from up there. How could that be? Why didn't they help us with their knowledge?"
"If you lived here would you tell anyone in our world about it?" Kato said.
"How do you fix these things?" Stevenson said, holding up one of the meals. "Hey, chicken and dressing."
"They have instructions written on the backs," Kato said.
"Not needed," Carlisle said. "I've eat hundreds of these things in the field. Taste like tanned leather, but they fill you up. We just need water and something to set them upright in. These have heating pouches included." They all walked toward the storehouse. "One thing bugs me, though. Where do the little demon things and the flying lizards come from? This all looks like normal human existence. There's nothing alien here that I can see."
"From down here?" Stevenson said. "Or, since they obviously fought aliens, maybe they're aliens, too, one or the other."
Kato looked up and breathed deeply. "I don't sense no bad things here," she said. "There was no mass death or destruction... just a few quiet passings. But there's no feeling I get of the little demons, either. They didn't come from here originally, though they was here, according to the documents."
"Do you really sense that?" Carlisle said. "Can you really feel..."
"Am I a real witch?" she said with a smile. "We all are; it's just a matter of being able to silence all the voices in your head so ya can hear the universe explaining itself." She smiled again. "Want to buy some snake oil?"
They all laughed.
"It feels weird here, to me," Stevenson said. "And I'm used to wandering around an empty town. This is different. It's like we're the only people alive in the world."
"If you're hinting at repopulating the place with us, forget it," Carlisle said.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. "Hello!" As expected, he was answered only by his echo. "Where did they go?"
"Died. Maybe some went to the real city," Kato said. "Which is still several miles ahead of us."
"Ah, there's a bowl," Stevenson said. "Carlisle, show us how to do this, warrior woman."
"Get some water," she said. "We'll need to add enough in the pouch to cover the mark but it doesn't have to be purified, and then the heat pack and meal packs go in and the whole thing can rest in the bowl until it heats up. The rest of the stuff in them, crackers, pastry, doesn't need heated up."
"Okay, do mine too, and I'll purify some water to drink," he said. "Looks like plenty enough to have a quick wash with, too."
-14-
Fast Food
Stevenson took the last bite of something similar to chicken and reluctan
tly got up and stretched. "I guess we should get back on the bike," he said. "I'll go get it unless you all want to stay together."
"Go get it, we'll be fine," Carlisle said. "We're armed, and Kato can turn any enemy into a toad, so nothing to worry about."
Kato was putting several plastic bottles of purified water in a box, and humming to herself. "Never know how long we'll be, so might as well take a bit of water," she said. "If the big city is empty, too, there might not be any provisions left there at all."
Carlisle nodded. "I take it whatever you are looking for isn't here, right?"
Kato nodded. "I thought it might be at first, but the fathers were wrong in their calculations," she said. "I figure it should be in the real city up ahead."
"Gonna tell me what it is?"
The little woman stopped and looked directly at Carlisle. "When I find it."
"Good as I'm gonna get, huh?"
"For now," Kato said with a smile.
"Okay, witch girl," Carlisle said, "you keep your secrets."
"Hey, come on!" Stevenson yelled from outside. "Already got the air on!"
"Come on, let's mount up," Carlisle said.
-15-
On The Road Again
"It's cooling off the further we get from the Mission," Stevenson said. They were traveling at a fast pace as the tunnel was angling sharper downward, now, and they were fairly sure there was no immediate danger.
Kato was on the professor's lap, smoking her pipe and laying back against her companion as if sitting in a comfortable recliner. Carlisle seemed content, her arms locked around the witch's narrow waist, resting her head on the little woman's shoulder. If not for the location, they could have all been a family out for a summer drive.
"From here, it would take only around two hours to get back to town, right?" Carlisle said. "We've found a completely secret world just two hours from home."
"It won't be secret once you write about it, though," Kato said. "Once word gets out, this place will be full of people like you, scientists, tourists, treasure hunters."
I guess so," Carlisle said. She was silent.
"But, that's a good thing, right?" Stevenson said. "These people put a hell of a lot of work into this; they deserve to be known for their abilities and accomplishments. And the world needs to hear about what they did here. It's not a tomb or holy place; it's the work of human beings attempting to survive and keep their culture alive. This place belongs to humanity."
Kato nodded. "Yep," she said. She took a long puff on her pipe. "It's good that the world will know... eventually."
"After you find whatever it is you're looking for?" Carlisle said.
Kato nodded and took another puff. "Isn't it getting warmer again?"
"There's some sort of brighter light up ahead, too," Stevenson said as he stood up on the cycle's foot pedals. "Might just be a bigger torch along the wall."
"Stop!" Kato said, and stood up in the sidecar. "Brakes!"
He stomped the brake pedal and turned the air valve off and as they skidded to a stop, the front tire came to a rest only a few feet from a steep cliff.
"Holy..."
"Shit!" Carlisle said. She literally lifted Kato out of the car by the waist and jumped out herself. She walked to the edge and looked down, and then backed up and stumbled and fell on her butt. She managed to point, but couldn't speak.
Kato and Stevenson walked to the edge and both quickly backed up.
"Welcome to Hellsgate, version 2.0," Kato said.
Down below the sheer cliff, perhaps three hundred feet down, was the city. Stone and wooden buildings, a large crystal clear lake, streets laid out like city blocks. And there was light, a dozen large torches blazed, and machines, large and small, dotted the streets... trucks and cars, bikes, tractors... it was a modern city with streetlights and electric wires strewn about.
On both sides of where they stood, it sloped off into narrow ledges which formed pathways down into the city below. In the high ceiling there were caves or rooms of some sort, and huge, slow-moving fans embedded in tunnels in the rock, leading out of the city and presumably to the surface.
"How did you know?" Stevenson said. "I didn't see it. I would have driven right over the edge."
"It was an optical illusion," she said, as she puffed herself into a cherry scented cloud. "The flat surface of the tunnel created a mirage." She scuffed her boots along the floor. "See how shiny? Deliberately polished. What better defense is there than that?" She shrugged. "I've never been able to see mirages, though. Even out in the wastelands in the summer sun, I can only see what is really there."
Carlisle hugged her from behind. "You and your wolf-eyes saved us," she said.
"But to protect them from what?" Stevenson said, as he walked back to the edge and gave the city a closer look. "They've got to be way more advanced than we are. They left the hive and mutated into something else, right?"
"Or did they stay the same and it's us who are the mutants?" the witch said.
He turned around and smiled. "Who wants to turn back?"
"Let me get some photos from up here," the professor said.
Kato walked to the edge and put her hands on her hips. She was smiling but the others could only see her back. "You two should go back," she said. "You've got enough of a story to make you famous. And take that generator you found back home, shop teacher. Figure out how that worked and you'll be sought after by everyone in the world."
"What you want is down there?" Stevenson said.
Kato nodded, masses of hair shifting and flying in all directions. "If the papers can be trusted."
She turned around. Stevenson was standing with his flamethrower on his back and Carlisle was holding her shotgun.
"Let's try to get home by dinner time," the professor said.
-16-
The City Beneath The Earth
"Still no one," Stevenson said. "Maybe they're all drunk or something." They were nearly down the cliff, approaching the city proper, and no one had come out to meet them or attack them.
"Not everyone lives your lifestyle," Carlisle said. It was curious, though. There should have been thousands of people living in the city. Surely someone would have spotted them by now. They could hear sounds, industrial sounds mostly, coming from some of the larger buildings and the fans above; it didn't seem to be a dead city. Still, no one seemed to care about the outside invaders.
"There has to be people in those factory buildings," he said. "I can hear the machines working."
The professor was still thinking about what Kato wanted. It had to be something important, but she didn't seem to worry much about money, so it wasn't a treasure. Actually, the little woman didn't seem to worry about anything at all.
"Someone yell," Kato said.
"Hello!" Stevenson yelled. "Is there anyone home?!" Nothing. The industrial sounds continued, but there was no sign of life. "What should we do? Just knock on a door?"
"I guess," Carlisle said. "They may be afraid of us if they haven't seen outsiders in a while. Maybe they're just hiding."
They all stepped onto the city sidewalk, with houses along one side and a street on the other. There were cars, steam powered mostly, parked in front of some houses, so they picked a house, went up the walk together, and knocked on the door.
"Hello!" Stevenson yelled again. "We're friends!" There was no answer. He knocked harder. "Hello?!"
Kato grabbed the door knob and turned it. She looked back at Carlisle, and then pushed the door open. "Hello? We're friends from the surface. We mean you no harm." She looked back and crinkled her nose. "I feel like I'm an alien."
"Take us to your leader," Stevenson said. Carlisle smacked him on the back of his head.
Kato walked through the door and reluctantly, they followed her.
"We shouldn't just break in," Carlisle said. "If their laws are like ours, we could be executed."
"I don't think anyone is home," Kato said.
The house was covered in dus
t and the fabrics on furniture and the curtains were dusty and soiled. It had obviously been untouched for years. Carlisle took a picture. It was another piece of a puzzle that none of them understood.
"The founding fathers met these people?" Stevenson said.
Kato nodded. "Though most of their records were destroyed, these people scared the shit out of them."
"They did fight and kill aliens," Carlisle said. "They must be very advanced warriors, right?"
"It's a nice house, isn't it?" Kato said. "I've never been in a house this nice."
"Oh, it's about like most houses on the better side of town," Carlisle said. "Though the shop teacher here was raised in a house nearly the size of this entire city."
They walked through a wide door and found the kitchen and opened a few cabinets. There was no food; the shelves had been emptied. None of them knew what to make of that, but it appeared the house was purposefully abandoned.
"Let's try another house," Carlisle said. "Maybe this is just an empty one."
They all filed out the front door and walked across a yard, actually just a smooth stone area, to the house next door and knocked again. There was no answer, even after pounding on the door with the butt of the shotgun.
The next house produced the same results. And they all stood in the middle of the street trying to figure out what to do next.
"Let's go to one of the buildings where sounds are coming from," Stevenson said. "Though I'm starting to think..."
"It's as dead as the Mission," Kato said. She puffed her pipe and frowned.
"Does that interfere with this thing you're trying to find?" Carlisle said.
"Maybe," she said is a small voice and then caught herself and spoke up. "Maybe. If they purposefully abandoned the place they might have took it with 'em."
"Oh, we're getting clues," the professor said. "At least we know it's a thing that can be carried." She patted the witch on the head. "Let's try one of the noisy buildings." She pointed to the closest one, a huge metal building that seemed to be a garage or workshop of some kind.