PLAZA

by Shane M Brown

  The rations and bedroll suggested that Rourke had worked here alone. This was a place that Rourke had shown very few others. Possibly Kline, but maybe not.

  Imagine working in the Gallery every night on your own. Month after month after month.

  Rourke suddenly adopted an entirely new dimension in Spader's mind - like some demented, tinkering dwarf, toiling in the bowels of the earth. Across the chamber, Spader's flashlight illuminated a blow-torch and welding rig. The light also illuminated where Rourke's most recent project stood between the welding rig and the gold.

  A trolley.

  A trolley designed to move the gold.

  Half again as long as the gold, the trolley was mounted on eight, six-inch heavy-duty castor wheels. The rugged construction resembled a rigid metal hammock suspended in a solid outer framework. The metal hammock, a steel sling, would evenly disperse the gold's weight over the wheels. Four eyelets showed how the trolley could instantly transform into an air-sling.

  Very clever. Rourke was planning to move this off site by helicopter.

  Rourke had everything ready to go. Spader's team had arrived just in time.

  'Why didn't he just cut the gold into bricks?' asked Gordon. 'He could have smuggled it out in pieces and not bothered with the trolley.'

  'It's worth much more intact,' explained Ethan. 'That's why he wanted it deciphered. He must have recognized some of the symbols. I've seen many of these before. They match the symbols Joanne was decoding in the bunker.'

  Ethan ran his finger down the gold. 'These symbols here are rules for entering the Gallery. And these ones above define the 'safe times'.

  'Safe times?’ asked Gordon. 'Safe from what?'

  Ethan shrugged. 'Good question. The direct translation is 'Wind Deity'. Safe from the Wind Deity.'

  'Well, it's not very windy in here at the moment,' observed Spader. 'We must be in a safe time, huh?'

  Ethan didn't answer, lost again in translating the pictograms.

  Gordon asked Spader, 'How do we get the gold on the trolley? Rourke must have a winch nearby.'

  'Oh, that's the easy bit,' said Spader. 'Rourke has everything he needs right here. Here. Help me move the trolley.'

  Gordon raised an eyebrow, but helped Spader push the trolley up against the gold's stone plinth. The trolley and plinth were identical heights, as Spader had guessed. Rourke's pedantic planning wouldn't miss a detail like that. Spader checked and, yes, there they were. Rourke had very precisely drilled two holes twelve inches apart into the plinth. Under each hole was a little pyramid of limestone powder. Spader carefully positioned the trolley and pushed. Two metal projections from the trolley slotted neatly into the holes.

  Spader walked around behind the gold. 'Better stand back, Ethan.'

  Ethan gave Spader a superior smirk. 'Do you have any concept of how much this thing weighs? It would take a dozen men to lift this thing. You’re wasting your time.'

  'Trust me,' said Spader. 'You need to move out of the way.'

  Ethan ignored him and kept studying the pictograms.

  'Suit yourself,' said Spader. 'Don't blame me if you lose a toe.'

  'Give it your best shot,' mumbled Ethan. 'You're going to hurt yourself.'

  By answer, Spader reached up and pushed the gold with all his strength. If the gold had been any other shape, Rourke's clever design wouldn't have worked, but the gold's high center of gravity made all the difference.

  When Spader pushed, the gold began tipping. Just as long as the gold fell straight....

  'Christ - NO!' yelled Ethan, leaping clear.

  The gold SLAMMED down onto the trolley. Even Spader was surprised the trolley didn't collapse. The weight landed evenly, and although several of Rourke's welds popped free, the trolley held together as it surged several feet away from the plinth.

  After a moment, when the trolley didn't cave in, when the risk of injury seemed acceptable, Gordon approached and checked the wheels with his flashlight. 'I wouldn't have thought that was possible. How did you know it wouldn't cave in half?'

  Spader shrugged. 'That's how I would have designed it. I bet that trolley could take even more weight.'

  Ethan angrily examined the gold for damage.

  'If we're gunna get this thing out before the walls move,' started Gordon, 'we have about two minutes left.'

  'You can't be serious,' barked Ethan. 'You think we're going to push this back through that labyrinth? Are you insane?'

  'That's yet to be determined,' answered Spader, pulling a little chemical vial from his pocket. He carefully squeezed several drops from the container onto the gold's surface. The artifact didn't react to Spader's acid test. Nitric acid would react on contact with most other metals, but not gold.

  Spader couldn't keep the grin off his face. He raised his eyebrows approvingly towards Gordon. 'It's the real deal. We need to move this before Rourke finds us. We shouldn't underestimate him.'

  Ethan examined the trolley. 'He stole this metal from our site. The audacity of the prick. He's been stealing our stuff to steal our stuff.'

  'You have to take your hat off to him,' admitted Spader. 'He's been doing the hard-yards to get all this organized in time. He's had to improvise. He's had to work under constant secrecy. And he did all this without raising a single second of suspicion from your team. Plus he had his day job!'

  Spader laughed at his own joke.

  Ethan didn't seem to see the ironic humor as he looked around the core chamber. 'There’s a lot more missing than this. He stole heaps of stuff. I can't see it here, so what else has he been doing?'

  Spader could tell that Ethan felt responsible. Or rather, felt irresponsible. Now Ethan was trying to compensate. He was trying to predict what else Rourke had been scheming. Rourke had operated right under Ethan's nose.

  'Don't blame yourself about Rourke,' said Spader. 'I doubt anyone would have detected him. He was in a position of trust. You could hardly have suspected all this.'

  Ethan looked like he appreciated the comment, even if he didn't believe it. 'You didn't see what he did to Nina. God knows what he's done to Claire.'

  Gordon cut in. 'My watch says we have one minutes before the barriers shift again. If we don't all start pushing now, we could find ourselves locked in here.'

  Ethan declared incredulously, 'What makes you think I'll help you push this? You must be out of your mind! Why would I help you steal it?'

  Spader replied soberly, 'Because pushing it out of here could be the last time you ever see it. This is your only chance to find the answers you're looking for. But suit yourself.'

  Gordon and Spader took position either side of the trolley. They bent to grasp the handholds. Both men heaved against the trolley. It barely moved. It felt like a wheel was buckled or stuck.

  Gordon straightened and checked his watch. 'Spader, we can't be trapped in here!'

  'Again! Try again! yelled Spader.

  They tried, and got the trolley moving, but it pulled up short before they reached even halfway to the archway. Still pushing, Spader yelled. 'Ethan! If Rourke finds us in here, he's going to kill all of us! For Christ's sake, help us!'

  Spader yelled one last time. 'Ethan!'

  But then the trolley was moving. Ethan had two hands on the back and was giving it everything he had from behind.

  Spader glanced ahead. They still might make it....

  The three men thrust their full body weight against the trolley. The trolley reached the archway. Ethan's watch beeped its ten second warning. Gordon began counting down the last six second out loud.

  'Six, five, four, three - '

  When Gordon's count reached 'three', Spader knew they were in trouble. The trolley was barely inching through the archway. Spader and Gordon were through, but Ethan was still in the core chamber. Only six inches to go....

  All three men bellowed with a great final effort, but it wasn't enough.

  The swinging barrier slammed into the trolley. The entire rig jolted out of Spader's ha
nds. Tons of shearing stone competed for space with Rourke’s reinforced steel construction. The stone won. The trolley's entire rear section twisted, crumpled, pinched together in screeching protest and then jolted violently away from the barrier.

  The twisting trolley knocked Spader and Gordon tumbling to the floor. Spader rolled clear from the bone-crushing castors. The barrier had imparted enough force to push the trolley clear across the chamber.

  When the trolley stopped, Spader rose and crossed to where his lantern had fallen. He suddenly realized they were one man down.

  Where's Ethan?

  Gordon had already reached the new barrier, a triangle barrier, but he didn't have a lamp. Spader dashed to the aperture with the lamp and a ghastly mental image of Ethan minus his hands bleeding to death on the other side.

  Ethan's face appeared at the aperture. He started climbing through. He still had both his hands.

  'That was frigging close,' he said. 'Almost crushed me.'

  Gordon went back to check the trolley. 'The castors look intact. Hang on...I think we may have been pushing with two of the wheels locked. There, that's got it. It should be a little easier to push now. Not sure how we're going to turn it though.'

  Sudden gunfire sent all three men ducking for cover. Spader took a moment to realize the gunfire was directed elsewhere. It had sounded close though, only a few chambers away.

  Ethan pointed over the top of the trolley towards the north barrier. There was light showing through the bottom corner.

  Spader dashed to the barrier and dropped to his stomach. This was another barrier that Rourke had managed to prop partly open. For some reason, Rourke hadn't finished the job. The barrier was only open four inches at its widest point down the bottom.

  But it was enough for Spader to see Fontana and Randerson just two chambers north of their position.

  #

  Randerson's ears rang.

  His hearing was returning, but the constant ringing and slight sense of disorientation remained. He swung minute-by-minute from feeling grateful to feeling angry at Fontana. If Fontana hadn't attacked Rourke, they could have slipped past unscathed. But then, when Randerson was incapacitated, Fontana had picked him up and carried him from the danger zone. Fontana had instigated the mayhem, but he'd also hauled their butts out of it.

  Fontana had functioned through the audio assault while Randerson's knees buckled. He’d left his own ears exposed to carry Randerson, whose mental facilities fled him in seconds.

  Well, this is what you always wanted, wasn't it? This is exactly what Spader offered you. The real thing. Real exploration.

  Early in school, Randerson grew fascinated with pioneer explorers. Just as quickly, his fascination became bitter disappointed. He'd never have the same opportunity. Everything had already been found. And what was there to discover in the suburbs anyway? Plenty, as it happened.

  Randerson turned urban explorer. He started at age nine. He loved the challenge of finding forgotten places. His first deep penetration underground had been on a modified BMX bicycle. He had lowered the handle bars, leant low over the frame and half-peddled, half-scooted through a storm-water drain from the Sabine River. His weekends were filled with crawl spaces, tunnels and drains. He was generally happier on his own, although a part of him wondered if he was missed. He wasn't missed. Not until he started his first job, bicycle couriering.

  Something about bicycle couriering appealed to him. Sure, there was the adrenaline, the rush of beating the clock, but it was also the maps and the shortcuts. Randerson was unbeatable. His co-workers threatened to put a tracking GPS on his bike to learn his secret routes. They joked that his bicycle could transform into a helicopter. The truth was that Randerson just had more options to choose from. More routes. He was never as happy as when he grabbed up the bike and rushed through a culvert, or down a drain or underground service corridor. Bicycle couriering had ended when a co-worker tried to follow him and gotten lost in the storm-water drainage system for two days. It had made the news, and then Randerson's bike was fitted with a tracking GPS. Forgotten places were off-limits. Fun was curtailed. Randerson quit.

  It didn't matter, because there was plenty still to explore. It was amazing how much stuff was underground. How much was interconnected. What the public saw was a tiny percentage of what existed. Delivering people's stupid parcels and documents only distracted from his real interests anyway.

  He started taking photos underground with his mobile phone. He uploaded the images to a website called longforgotten.com. People kept asking for more. Emails flicked into his mailbox from people like him. He flicked emails back. In truth, he was showing off. But for the first time ever, he felt he belonged to a community. He needed to keep finding new places to photograph. New places were getting harder to find. He turned to pouring over old maps for clues, but there were few maps available to the layman, and those available were dated and unreliable.

  While scouring the internet for old map archives, Randerson had his big idea. A way to earn money while getting access to all the plans he needed.

  It worked. It worked frigging marvelously. He started a small business digitally preserving old maps and documents. He specialized in underground plans. Within a month of registering his business and placing the ads in the paper, he had picked up two probationary contracts with the local council. They were actually paying him, inviting him, to make copies of the plans!

  One year later, he had more underground maps than he could ever use. After months of prompting from his longforgotten.com online community, he decided to write a book. The first three chapters flew from the keyboard to the publishers in less than a month. The publishers sent the chapters to a fact checker. The fact checker contacted the Council. The Council contacted the police. The police contacted Randerson.

  That was that.

  He spent all his savings and more on legal fees to keep himself out of jail. No serious charges were laid, but his business was ruined. He was evicted from his flat. Unemployed, broke, he returned to what he knew. He moved underground, lived underground. Abandoned train terminals, sealed-off maintenance rooms, decommissioned electrical switching stations - he occupied them all. In some, he even managed to rig up running water and electricity.

  During this time he met Spader. All along, Spader had been behind longforgotten.com. They arranged a meeting. Spader had a proposition.

  But in his wildest imaginations, Randerson would never have foreseen a time when he was trapped in an ancient maze with a deranged ex-bounty-hunter fleeing from giant chameleons.

  Oh well, it sure beats bicycle couriering.

  Randerson shrunk aside automatically as Fontana fired his carbine again.

  'Got him that time!' hooted Fontana. 'Right in the neck. That bastard’s gunna bleed out now.'

  Randerson didn't bother answering. He practically needed to yell in Fontana's face for the man to hear, and right now Fontana was still turned away, peering through the triangle he'd just fired through.

  So far they had been lucky with the timing of the barriers. Randerson knew their luck couldn't hold out much longer. Sooner or later they would encounter a chameleon with no barriers to protect them.

  Fontana was on a 'Bruce hunt.' Every time they encountered a triangle-barrier, Fontana rushed to the aperture with his flashlight. If he spotted movement, he opened fire through the triangle.

  'That's right!' Fontana yelled through the hole into the dark chamber beyond. 'You better crawl off! I'm coming for you, Bruce!'

  Fontana was convinced they were being stalked by the same chameleon that had attacked him earlier. He’d named the animal 'Bruce'.

  'It's that same one,' repeated Fontana, turning and yelling so he could hear himself. 'He's following us!'

  Randerson just shook his head and held up three fingers by way of answer. Three different ones. They're all following us.

  Fontana spat. 'Nup. It's the same one. He's got that big lump thing on his head. He'll be dead soon anyway.
I just got him right in the neck.'

  Whatever. Randerson shrugged and checked his watch. Either he'll be dead or we'll be dead. Either way, we got about one minute until this little house of horrors kicks off again.

  'How long!' yelled Fontana.

  Randerson held up one finger in Fontana flashlight and mouthed, 'Stop yelling'.

  Fontana pointed past Randerson.

  Randerson turned and noticed the skinny triangle of light. There was a gap in one of the barriers. They hadn't noticed the gap in the dark. Now the gap was illuminated because someone on the other side had a light source.

  Randerson raised his carbine, but at the same time, faintly, heard someone calling his name. A face appeared at the narrow aperture near the bottom of the barrier.

  'It's Spader,' yelled Randerson, motioning for Fontana.

  Both men dashed to the barrier and dropped to their stomachs. Randerson looked through the gap. Spader, Gordon and Ethan were on the other side.

  Randerson pushed his hand through the gap and grasped Spader's wrist, just to check he was real. Spader squeezed Randerson's hand back.

  He’s real alright.

  Spader said something over his shoulder to Gordon. Gordon disappeared from view. Randerson couldn't hear what was said, but he could guess.

  He sent Gordon to see if we could reach each other through a side chamber.

  Spader said something, but Randerson couldn't make it out over the ringing in his ears.

  'I can't hear you,' said Randerson, trying not to raise his own voice too much. After all, there was nothing wrong with Spader's hearing.

  'We're both deaf!' shouted Fontana, shouldering in beside Randerson to peer through the gap. 'Rourke used a sonic grenade. He's about ten chambers back.'

  Spader glanced back at Ethan, said something unintelligible, then raised a fluorescent lantern so his mouth was better illuminated.