Ixeos: Book One of the Ixeos Trilogy

by Jennings Wright

  “Just don’t mess with any of the stacked stone columns. Before the…” Riley stopped and cleared his throat. “Fifty years ago the IGC, the inspectors of the tunnels, kept the limestone pillars intact. They were originally built by the quarrymen, a long time ago, to keep the mine safe. Now it’s just us down here, and we pretty much don’t touch the, although Abacus sometimes has us check them for cracks.”

  “So all of Paris is up there on top of us, and all that’s keeping it from coming down here are some stone pillars built a couple hundred years ago?” Clay asked nervously.

  “Yeah, but we haven’t had a cave-in in awhile. At least ten years, and even then, it was just a small one over towards Atlanta. No biggie.” Riley kept trudging forward.

  “Atlanta?” Neahle whispered to Clay.

  Chapter Four

  It occurred to Neahle that she could see something ahead besides darkness. As they hurried forward, there was, unmistakably, light at the end of the tunnel.

  “What’s up there?” she asked.

  “That’s where we’re headed. Home.” Riley picked up the pace and the others scrambled to keep up.

  As they approached the light, a figure stepped into their tunnel and held up a torch, extending his light to meet theirs.

  “You got some?” a deep male voice asked.

  “Yep, three,” Riley answered.

  “Cool. Always a good day when you bring ‘em back,” the man said.

  The McClellands and Marty slowed, unsure of the new stranger. He was uncommonly tall and broad, clothed in jeans and a dark button down shirt. As they reached him, his features emerged in the light. At least six feet four, he was shaped like a linebacker. His skin was the color of black coffee, and his hair was cropped close to his head. He had a ready smile and friendly eyes and held his free hand out to them as soon as they were close.

  “Samson,” he said. Seeing how they were sizing him up, he laughed. “Yeah, like Samson in the Bible. Not the name my Mama gave me, that was Leon. But since I been here, I been Samson. Lot of us get nicknames around here.” He grinned at them, shaking hands. “Come on, Abacus’ll be glad the trip paid off today. We send someone every day at this time—those ducks are like clockwork. If they bring people, it’ll always be right at the same time.”

  “Surely there’s not someone new every day?” Neahle asked.

  Samson laughed. “Oh, no. Most times there’s nobody. But Abacus and Vasco, they got here before there was anyone else and they don’t want any newcomers to have to wander around on their own the way they did.”

  Marty shuddered at the thought. “We’d never have made it here, that’s for sure.”

  “No, took them two weeks and Landon’s help,” Samson said. “But they’d been hiking back home and had full packs on, with food and flashlights and all. As you saw, there’s water down here. So they might not’ve been happy, but they survived.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to wander around for two weeks,” Neahle said. “It was bad enough being met.”

  Laughing, Samson turned and led them into a large open room carved into the rock. He stuck his torch into a sconce and beckoned them forward. Riley put his torch in the matching sconce on the other side of the opening and followed with Hannah. A dozen people were scattered in the space, which was at least fifty feet long and half again as wide. Columns, carved from the original stone, held up the ceiling at regular intervals. The walls were a continuous painting. From copies of Renaissance masterpieces to Japanese style print work, the brilliant colors and figures leapt off the rock. Tables, benches, and couches had been made from rock and what appeared to be cement, and were covered with colorful pillows in all shapes and sizes.

  “Looks like a whacked out coffee house,” Marty said. “Was the decorator on ‘shrooms?”

  Hannah laughed. “These paintings were done over a period of about a hundred years, before…” She paused. “There are paintings under some of the paintings that you can see if the paint chips. Most of the rooms down here are like this, or else covered with graffiti. The cataphiles of Paris—those were people that partied or just hung out down here—made all the furniture by hauling hundreds of bags of cement down through the manholes of the city. We make pillows and mattresses and stuff like that when we need them, with whatever we can find. It’s pretty eclectic, but no drugs are involved.” She smiled.

  “I still don’t understand why y’all live down here. Why aren’t you up in the city in real houses? I mean, I don’t really understand Paris not being Paris and all that, but still, there’s a whole city up there, right?” Neahle rubbed her arms, looking around. The others in the room were watching them with a mix of welcome and pity; no one made a move to join them.

  “It’s complicated,” Samson said.

  “Yeah, we heard. Everything’s complicated! So how about you take us to this Abacus, or Landon, or whoever it is who’s going to uncomplicate it for us, because I’m tired of the excuses!” Clay was furious, and now that they had reached some semblance of civilization, he wanted answers. He wanted to go back to Carrot Island, to his kayak, to the blue sky and cool water and wild horses. He wanted to be home, to drive his car, to open the fridge and get a cold Coke to quench his thirst. What he didn’t want was for one more person to evade his questions by saying, “It’s complicated.”

  “I know, trust me,” Samson said. “I felt the same way. And I got here by myself, no friends, no siblings, nothing. It’ll take awhile, but you’ll be alright.” He clapped Clay on the shoulder and smiled.

  “I don’t think so,” Clay snapped, wrenching his shoulder away.

  “Clay! We’ll talk to this Abacus guy and we’ll get it figured out.” Neahle took her brother’s arm and clenched it to her.

  “I don’t know what we’ll figure out,” Marty commented. “Seems to me no one knows the main thing, which is how to get home. How long you been here, Samson?”

  “Eleven years. Got here when I was sixteen. My little sister, she was with me that day. She was the one who wanted to know what happened to the ducks. But the pipe scared her, so I told her to wait for me, that I’d be right back.” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know how long she waited…”

  “How old was she?” Neahle asked.

  “Fourteen. Too young to get here, although I’m mighty glad about that. Still and all, I don’t know what she told our folks. They must’ve thought she was crazy, saying I went into that pipe and never came out.” He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now except pray. But I miss her, I surely do.”

  “We’ve all got family at home; it’s best not to think about them too much,” Riley said, pushing through them into the room. “Right here’s all the family you’re going to have from now on. All of us, and the ones who are out on a mission. It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

  “On a mission?” Clay asked. “What’s that mean? And I don’t see how I’m going to get used to living in a tunnel with a bunch of strangers.”

  “You’d be surprised,” muttered Hannah, gesturing for them to follow.

  Everywhere they went was lit with torches along the wall and oil lanterns hanging from fixtures on the ceiling. There was a vaguely smoky smell, but the roof was high and the fumes were minimal. As they walked down a wide passageway, they noticed many side passages with doors of all kinds.

  “This is the office section,” Hannah said. “We all have jobs, sometimes here inside, and sometimes out on operations. There’s a storage room, a library, and then the offices. Abacus and Vasco share one, there’s one for Landon that he never uses, and then a few more that get shared by whoever’s in and needs one. Off the other side of the living room are the dorms.”

  “What are these operations?” Clay asked, not expecting an answer.

  “We’re almost there; Abacus’ll explain it all. And Riley
and Samson and me, we’ll all be in the library waiting for you. I expect you’ll want to eat pretty soon, so we’ll go on to the kitchen after you’ve had your fill of explanation.”

  “Had our fill?” Marty reiterated.

  “Yeah, you won’t get the half of it at first. It’s…”

  “Complicated,” Marty finished. “Yeah, we got that. Thanks.”

  They stopped in front of an ancient rough-hewn wooden door held together with iron straps. There was a small window of wavy glass and an oval iron doorknob. Samson rapped on the glass.

  “Yeah?” they heard from inside.

  “Got some!” Samson called back.

  “Bring ‘em on in!” the voice said.

  Samson turned the knob and pushed open the door, standing aside to let the three enter. Once they were inside, he closed the door behind them with a soft click. In front of them sat a forty-year-old man who looked exactly like a pirate.

  Chapter Five

  Abacus stood and came around his messy desk, hand outstretched. He was of average height, with shoulder length brown hair pulled back in a ponytail low on his neck. His clothes were loose, a big white cotton shirt over dark linen pants, all covered with a duster style coat in black leather. A diamond earring twinkled in his left ear, and he had a scar running across his forehead from left to right, slicing through his eyebrow and ending at his cheekbone.

  “Welcome! I’m Aaron Turner, but everyone calls me Abacus. Quick summary of your first dozen questions: I’ve been here twenty-three years, I’m forty-one years old, we’re from Boulder, Colorado, and my brother is Bobby. Or Vasco, as he’s called here. And you are?”

  Clay reluctantly shook the extended hand, overwhelmed by the man’s exuberance. “Uh, Clay McClelland. This is my sister Neahle and my cousin Marty. We’re from Beaufort, North Carolina.”

  “Richmond, Virginia,” Marty clarified. “I was just visiting.”

  “Lucky you,” Abacus said smiling. “Bet you wish you’d stayed home.”

  “You could say that,” Marty said. “So let’s cut to the chase… A. Obviously, no one knows how to get back, right? And B. This is some kind of alternate Earth, or other planet, or something.” He watched the older man, looking for answers.

  Abacus smiled, gesturing to a grouping of mismatched chairs. He took a worn leather one for himself. “Some people are like you, Marty, more practical than scared. All in all, easier to deal with…” he began.

  “I’m scared!” said Neahle, sitting forward in her chair. Her cheeks were red and tear formed in her eyes. “I want to go home, and I don’t see how we’re in some, some alternative universe just because we crawled through a drain pipe. That’s not possible!”

  Clay took her hand and squeezed, turning angry eyes to Abacus. “I don’t know how you got us here… I don’t even care where here is. I just want you to send us back.”

  Abacus sighed and raised an eyebrow at Marty. Looking back at the siblings, he held up his hands. “If I could send you back, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be home myself. I didn’t bring you here, Landon did. And so far, no one gets to leave.”

  “Where is this Landon, then?” Clay demanded. “I want to talk to him.”

  Abacus shrugged. “We don’t exactly know who or where he is. He leads us, I guess you’d say. He decides who comes. He visits sometimes, helps us with our operations, that kind of thing. He certainly saved our lives when we first got here…”

  “Your lives wouldn’t have needed saving if he hadn’t brought you here in the first place!” Neahle said in frustration.

  “True. On the other hand, he could have brought us here and left it at that. Whoever he actually is, and wherever he comes from, you’ve been brought here for a very important purpose, and the best thing for your sanity to understand that and get on board with it. But that’s jumping the gun a bit…” He clasped his hands together behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “To answer Marty’s questions first and get those practicalities out of the way: no, we don’t know how get back. The pipes seem to work only one way, and even if you’re right on site when someone new comes, you can’t get in the pipe and crawl out. On our side, it looks solid until the people emerge. And as for the other, yes, it’s an alternate Earth. We are in Paris, a Paris that looks just like the Paris on our own planet, but this isn’t our world.”

  “That’s not possible,” protested Neahle.

  Abacus smiled gently at her. “You wouldn’t have thought so, would you? But it is, apparently, because here we are. It is impossible, and yet it’s true. Fighting it doesn’t change anything.”

  Neahle slumped back in her chair, but Clay pressed forward. “We can’t stay here! Our parents, our life… Landon can’t keep us here against our will!”

  “Unfortunately, he can. He does. But most of us get over it, especially once the reason is made clear.”

  “Most?” asked Marty.

  Abacus sighed. “There are a very few who can’t manage it. Not many. Landon is an excellent judge of character. I wonder sometimes if a person who’s the right age gets in here with a real candidate by accident. Like Hannah’s boyfriend.”

  “Ex…” muttered Neahle.

  “Yes, ex. As she so frequently reminds us.” The leader laughed, his eyes crinkling into laugh lines. Although he’d spent nearly a quarter of a century here, his face was tanned, the laugh lines little white scratches on the darker skin.

  Marty scowled. “How come you’ve got a tan? Don’t you live underground? Is there a tanning bed here or something?”

  “No, we don’t use power down here. We all spend time above ground on missions, but even if we didn’t go on missions, we’d have to get sunlight for our health. I’ve just come back from a month long trip, and it was hot. But more on that later. How about if I just give you the jist, and then we’ll take a break. The others can answer a lot of questions over dinner, and we’ll meet again tomorrow. We’ve learned the hard way that you can’t wrap your head around this all in one meeting, so there’s no point in trying.”

  Clay sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, a scowl on his face. Neahle drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. Marty leaned forward on his elbows, eager.

  “As we’ve acknowledged, this isn’t our Earth. I’m not sure how the two evolved the same and yet separate—I’m not sure I’d understand it even if Landon wanted to explain it. So let’s just understand that that’s ground zero. The cities, the geography, the technology we have on our Earth are the same as they’ve had here.”

  “Had?” Marty frowned.

  Abacus waved a hand for patience. “These tunnels, they exist under our Paris, too. Up above in the city there’s the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and the Arc d’Triomphe. Big Ben is in London. The Statue of Liberty is in New York. That giant statue of Jesus is in Rio. Our own houses are there, our streets, our schools… Only they were occupied by different people. We don’t exist on this planet other than here in the tunnels. You won’t run into yourself if you go back to North Carolina. It’s the same, only it’s not. That’s probably the hardest thing to stop trying to figure out—why it’s all the same and yet different.”

  “Were?” Marty asked again, picking up on the past tense.

  Smiling at the young man, Abacus leaned forward. “You’re going to have to let me tell this my own way, Marty. I know you’re picking up on the differences, but let me get to them in the right order, okay?”

  Marty nodded, leaning back in the chair but not relaxing.

  “The good news about this is that we don’t have to learn new geography. We know where the U.S. is, we know where Europe is, China, Japan, all that. Even though none of us were geography whizzes in school we’ve all had the basics and we can find or create maps. So that’s the easy part. Now, as Marty has realized, there are difference
s, too. These differences are mostly recent, and they’re the reason that we’ve all been brought here. In this world, it’s the year 2035.”

  The McClellands all started. “2035!” Neahle exclaimed. “That makes me thirty-one years old!” She touched her face as if feeling for new wrinkles. Abacus laughed.

  “You’re the same age, you just skipped some years… Anyway, in this world, during World War I, there was an infiltration. Humanoid beings from another planet in the galaxy quietly came to Earth because their own planet was dying. Their sun was diminishing and their scientists predicted that, before long, the sun would either implode or simply cease to put out the amount of heat needed to sustain life on their planet. So they came here.”

  “Hold up,” Clay said, palm forward. “Aliens? Seriously? That’s your story?”

  “There are billions of planets,” Marty said to his cousin, fascinated. “There’s no reason to believe ours would be the only inhabitable planet.”

  Abacus nodded. “I don’t know if this planet, Ixeos, exists in our own dimension. Landon hasn’t said. But here, in this dimension, it did, so the aliens came here. They didn’t invade like in War of the Worlds. They didn’t need to. They look like us, they learned our languages, and they coexisted with the people on Ixeos for a hundred years. There are differences, which we’ll talk about later, but nothing that would let you pick one out of a crowd or even out of your neighborhood if they were trying to blend in. They worked in the sciences and maths, mostly for governments on top secret projects, designing weapons and medicines and technologies that helped the people here achieve what we, on our Earth, have achieved: computers and the internet, nuclear bombs, lasers, space flight, modern medical techniques and drugs. Cell phones. Satellites. Television. Airplanes. Weapons. The aliens had a hand in all of it.”