De Cremonese joined him and imitated Bishop’s movements with his arms and hands. “There’s the wall again, but now both on our left and right. We’re in some kind of an invisible corridor.”
Bishop stretched one arm straight up. “I don’t feel anything, but there could also be a screen on top of us.”
“That would explain why we saw nothing from the sky,” De Cremonese added.
“It does. It also means that we are now inside the structure.” Bishop looked at his satellite phone. “I suggest we walk from here.”
De Cremonese nodded. “Seems like the safest thing to do.”
Bishop walked slowly, keeping his left hand on the videowall, guiding them inside. “You see that?” he asked De Cremonese, who was close behind him.
At the horizon, a rockface appeared. “Also fake?”
“It must be,” Bishop replied. “According to the GPS, that’s right about where we should make our final turn to the right.”
“Please, be careful.”
Bishop walked as close to the rock face as the screens would lead him. He looked left and right and, with his hands, felt the walls. The only way was to the right.
“Trees?” De Cremonese asked, looking right. “From the air, I didn’t see a single tree on the entire island.”
Two large trees—with big canopies right in front of them—allowed just enough light through to know it was still daytime.
“Listen.” Bishop pointed a finger in the air. Birds, running water and wind rushed through the trees. “It’s a rainforest.”
“Or, rather, a simulation of a rainforest,” De Cremonese added. “What do you think?”
Bishop waved his arms in search of walls. “Do you feel anything?”
De Cremonese followed his example. “Nothing.” He freely waved his arms around. “I think we are in an open space in the construction. There’s a path over there.” He pointed to a bush path leading through the trees. “I suggest we try to follow that.”
Bishop nodded, and the two started walking.
“Truly amazing. A complete rainforest inside a building.” De Cremonese looked at the birds moving through the treetops.
“The question is why?” Bishop said. “Why would anyone want to create an illusion of a rainforest, on a deserted island, and hide it from the rest of the world?”
“That’s the big question,” De Cremonese answered. “I think that when we find—”
Bishop suddenly put a finger in the air and stopped before placing a finger to his mouth.
“Sh. Do you hear that?” he whispered while lowering himself to the ground.
De Cremonese crouched next to him. “You hear something?” he whispered back.
“There it is again.”
“Voices?” De Cremonese asked.
“Sure seems so.”
“Can you understand what they’re saying?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t English.” Bishop pointed to the high shrubs at the side of the path. “Let’s move through those bushes and see how far we can get without being noticed.”
De Cremonese nodded, and the two disappeared into the bushes. Crouching, they silently and slowly moved closer to the sound until they reached a ten-foot-high grassy hill.
“There’s something just over this ridge,” Bishop said softly.
“Only one way to find out.” De Cremonese lay flat on his belly and crawled up through the high grass, closely followed by Bishop. When he reached the top, he stopped and slowly raised his head just over the edge. “Wow.”
Bishop joined him, looked, squinted his eyes, looked again, and then took his binoculars to look once more. After gazing through his binoculars for a minute, he turned on his back and let himself slide a few feet downhill.
De Cremonese followed his example and slid down, stopping next to Bishop. “What is it?”
Bishop exhaled deeply before answering. “I know what this is.”
Chapter 33 – The Core
Bishop lay on his back, looking at what he realized at the moment must be a projection of a fake sky. “I’ve been here before.”
“What are you talking about?” De Cremonese asked. “You’ve been here before?”
“Well, not exactly here, but, uh, here,” Bishop explained.
“That’s very helpful.”
“Sorry.” Bishop turned back on his belly again and crawled back up.
De Cremonese followed, and both men peered through their binoculars.
“Are you eventually going to explain?” De Cremonese asked impatiently.
“All right. You see that circle of roofs over there?”
“Sure.”
“That circle is called a shabono. It’s a type of hut where a group of families live together. Normally, you’d find them in South America. This specific one belongs in Peru, to the Mashco-Piro tribe, to be exact.”
People worked the fields at the edge of the shabono. Others sharpened primitive tools on rocks. Adult men played a game with sticks they seemed to throw on top of a pile. An oven burned, and Bishop tried to follow the smoke that drifted up, seeing if it would reach some kind of ceiling. It did not. The smoke dissipated before it touched anything. Bishop concluded that the structure they were in had to be immensely tall and high. In the center of the shabono, children yelled loudly while playing football.
“In fact,” Bishop said. “You see those people working and kids playing around and inside the shabono?”
“Sure,” De Cremonese answered, frowning, without taking the binoculars from his head.
“I believe those people are the Mashco-Piro tribe—all of them except three.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You remember I told you how this thing all started with the two government agencies working together on solving the mystery behind the missing tribes? Well, I think we found one.”
“These are the people you went looking for in Peru?”
“Exactly. From the place where we found one family left behind in a cave. Someone must have taken the tribe and moved it here.”
“And missed the last family who was left behind,” De Cremonese concluded.
“I believe so. And not only that. They’ve recreated the entire shabono down there as far as I can see to the tiniest detail. You know what this means?”
De Cremonese shook his head.
“It means that those people probably believe they’re still at their original location.”
“How?”
Bishop rolled onto his back again. De Cremonese followed his movement.
“This reminds me of The Truman Show,” Bishop said. “You remember that movie?”
“Sure,” De Cremonese confirmed. “Great movie. Jim Carrey thinks he leads a normal life while, in fact, he spends his entire life under a dome, being watched. Good movie.”
“Exactly. Only these people didn’t grow up here. They were brought here, without even knowing it.”
“Again, how?” De Cremonese insisted.
“As I recall, there were only about one hundred tribe members left. They must have sedated them somehow, probably with something they spread through the air, and then they airlifted them out of their own habitat and”—Bishop squinted and shook his head a few times—“brought them here.”
“Matthew, are you okay?” De Cremonese inspected Bishop’s face.
“Yeah, I think so. It feels like a headache’s coming on. I feel a little lightheaded.”
De Cremonese touched his forehead. “I thought it was me. There must be something in the atmosphere here. I suggest we get out of here. Was this the end destination in the GPS?”
Bishop took the satellite phone from his pocket and turned it on. “No. The flag is about two hundred feet up that way.” He pointed down the slope and to the left.
“There’s a path,” De Cremonese pointed out.
Bishop slid downhill. He rose again when he reached the path.
De Cremonese arrived seconds after him. “Yeah,”
De Cremonese softly cried out. “That was fun.”
Bishop grinned and started walking the path.
“I saw it with my own eyes. Otherwise, I would never have believed it.” De Cremonese sighed.
“Weird things are going on here on this island, Father.”
“You can say that again.”
Bishop looked at the GPS screen. “Just behind these trees,” he pointed out. “Around this corner,” he whispered as he slowed down.
They followed the path around the trees and looked up ahead. They both froze. The trail led further into the forest for as far as they could see, at least a few hundred feet.
“What...?” De Cremonese uttered.
Bishop shrugged and took one step further onto the path.
The ground in front of them began to tremble. Both men took a few steps back. The grass on the track started to shake, and a large hatch opened up from the ground, like a colossal frog’s mouth. A large gap had opened in the earth when the trembling stopped. Both men were frozen to the ground.
“You have reached your destination,” Lea said from the phone in Bishop’s hand.
Startled, he dropped it.
“I didn’t expect that.” De Cremonese picked up the phone and handed it to Bishop.
When the sound of the hatch opening had dissipated entirely, the two men stepped forward to the edge of the large hole that had materialized. A three-foot-wide staircase next to a ramp led down into darkness.
“What do you think?” De Cremonese asked.
“I think there’s no turning back now.”
De Cremonese nodded.
They took their first steps down. With every step, a bright light lit up directly in front of them, while the end remained dark.
De Cremonese looked back and saw the hatch—now twenty feet above them—slowly closing. “Let’s move on.”
Just as Bishop stepped from the staircase onto a concrete floor, the hatch closed with a loud thud. A long corridor ahead of them lit up. The gray hallway was doorless and windowless. The ceiling was covered with white glowing tiles, lighting the corridor in a creepy way. Bishop cautiously took his first steps into the corridor, closely followed by De Cremonese.
“What’s that?” De Cremonese rhetorically asked when a tremble shook the concrete beneath their feet. “The hatch again?”
Bishop felt the walls. “I don’t think so. It’s everywhere. I’ve no idea where it’s coming from.”
“It must be heavy machinery to shake a concrete structure like this.” De Cremonese looked at the vibrating lights in the ceiling.
“Come on,” Bishop urged as he picked up the pace to the end of the hallway. There was only a left turn. Another thirty feet of empty corridor without anything else but gray walls. Without interruption, they followed the path. At the end, Bishop raised a hand and stopped before turning the next corner to the right.
“What is it?” De Cremonese whispered. A clank followed a sharp squeak. “A door?”
When it was silent again, Bishop quickly stuck his head around the corner. Tiptoeing, he took a step into the next corridor and waved to De Cremonese, who followed quietly. The following passage was different. On the left and right were windows and doors. Bishop stopped at the first window to the left. The window looked outside over green shrubs with a cloudy sky. In the distance, the edge of the island dropped into the sea.
“That....” De Cremonese paused.
“Can only be another clever illusion,” Bishop finished. “We’re at least twenty feet underground.”
De Cremonese touched the window. “You gotta admit it’s fascinating.”
Bishop led the way to the next door. On the left side of the corridor was another gray steel door—like the other doors in the hallway—with a glass porthole in it. Beneath the window was a wheel, like those on submarine doors, which functioned as a handle.
Bishop looked through the porthole. “Looks like a storage room for food,” Bishop suggested.
De Cremonese passed a door to the right. “Same here.”
They passed another three doors, all containing supplies, before they came to the end of the hallway.
“Left or right?” De Cremonese asked, looking from one direction to the other.
Both corridors looked the same—about twenty feet long, without doors, windows or decorations, and both ending with another door fitted with a porthole and a wheel.
“You want to split up?” Bishop asked.
“You think that’s wise?”
Bishop shook his head profoundly. “No. But they always do that in the movies, so I thought I should ask.”
“And look at how that always turns out.” De Cremonese grinned. “This way?” He started moving into the right corridor without waiting for an answer.
“All righty then,” Bishop spoke softly.
At the end of the corridor, De Cremonese cautiously walked to the porthole and looked through. Another short hallway turned right at the end. “You wanna go in?”
“Let’s try the other one first,” Bishop suggested, then turned and walked fast toward the other door.
De Cremonese tried to keep up without making any unwanted noises.
In a few big steps, Bishop was almost at the other side when he saw a light shimmering through the porthole. He turned to De Cremonese and put a finger to his mouth. “There are voices on the other side,” Bishop whispered. As both men crawled to the porthole, someone passed the window, freezing the two on the spot.
“Shit.” De Cremonese sighed.
“You can say that again, Father,” Bishop confirmed.
“Sorry.” De Cremonese shrugged and tightened his lips. “I’m not used to this kind of excitement.”
“Neither am I, Father. Although, I’ve gained some experience over the past years.” He slowly moved his head back to the porthole and carefully peeked in. “Wow,” he said softly as he waved for De Cremonese to join him.
On the other side of the window, a control room materialized. Behind every desk, someone worked a keyboard or touchscreen. The wall-sized video screen was divided into two halves. The left one showed what looked like a huge empty construction hall, except for some large steel towers. The right side of the screen was divided into four smaller screens, each about ten feet tall, displaying changing views of what looked like forest scenes.
“What is it?” De Cremonese whispered.
“It looks like a command center of some kind.”
“Do you recognize anything or anyone?” De Cremonese asked.
Bishop scoured the room. “Not that I can see. But most of the people are sitting with their backs to us, so I can’t be sure.”
“It’s enormous.” De Cremonese sounded admiring. “It kind of reminds me of the control centers used on the Apollo flights. You know, in the sixties and seventies? The one you always see in the old clips about the moon landing. What’s on the screens?”
“I’ve no idea,” Bishop answered. “Some kind of big assembly hall and on the smaller ones, forests, I guess. There’s text above and below each of the smaller screens that I can’t make out.”
De Cremonese put both hands to the porthole, pushed his head against them, and started mumbling. “Pa... paracug... no, Paraguay and Ayo... uh, Ayoreo. Paraguay, Ayoreo, it says above the top left. And top right... Bolivia, Toromona,” he said after a moment. “Bottom left... uh, India, Sentinelese, and the last one—”
“Let me guess,” Bishop said. “Peru, Mashco-Piro.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I know what we’re looking at.” Bishop turned his back at the window.
“What is it?”
“The missing tribes. I think we found them all. You know, the Mashco-Piro we found aboveground? I’m convinced the other three tribes are also on the island and are being kept in other parts of the hidden building topside.”
“So, four abducted tribes are held captive here?” De Cremonese asked.
“Without their knowledge,” Bishop added.<
br />
“But how? Why don’t they escape? We simply walked in. Why don’t they simply walk out?”
“Why would they?” Bishop stated. “At their original location, they never left their surroundings, thus being the last isolated tribes. Now, here, nothing has changed for them as far as they know, so....”
“Why would they leave,” De Cremonese finished. “That leaves the bigger question: why are they here in the first place?”
“I guess that is, indeed, the bigger question,” Bishop confirmed. “I don’t think it’s solely to study them. They could have just as easily done that at their original location, and it would have been a lot less expensive.”
De Cremonese put his face and hands back up against the porthole.
“What are you doing?” Bishop asked.
“I’m trying to make out what the text below the screens say. They’re values or something like that. Do you have your binoculars on you? I left mine on the bike.”
Bishop handed him his pair.
With a loud clunk, De Cremonese put the binoculars to the window. Realizing his mistake, he immediately sunk to his knees while Bishop rolled away from the window and up against the adjacent wall.
Bishop gawked at De Cremonese.
“Sorry,” De Cremonese mouthed. After a long moment, he slowly stood up again and cautiously looked over the edge of the porthole. “I think we’re okay,” he whispered.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Bishop demanded.
De Cremonese softly put the binoculars just in front of the glass and peered through them. He mumbled, “Pressure... temperature... UV intensity.” He turned away from the porthole. “I think I know what this is.”
“‘What this is?’”
“Why these tribes are here,” De Cremonese replied. “You remember we talked about terraforming Mars, and I suggested it as a possibility for the two rockets?”
Bishop nodded.
“I’m now convinced he’s doing it. He’s using the tribes as guinea pigs to see if sustainable life on Mars is possible.”
“What?”
“Simple. Did you notice anything different above when we were looking at your Peruvian tribe?”
“Different?” Bishop shrugged.
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