I looked up to the door above us. “So, we’ve got to get up there, somehow?”
“Yeah.”
“Right,” I declared, devoid of any idea or plan.
“I did find one room,” Michael muttered. “Full of machines and pipes, or something.”
“Pipes?”
“Yeah. Big silver ones. Running up the walls and across the ceiling.”
“Like air ducts?”
“I dunno.”
“Show me.”
I followed my little brother to the small room, and true to his word, a series of pumps sat on top of raised platforms connected to large metal ducts.
“That could be a way up,” I proclaimed, my scarred hand pointed to the largest duct running up the far wall.
Forced to tear his eyes away from my wound, Michael looked to my offered solution. “What? Like, climb up it?”
“Well, inside it, to be precise,” I replied.
“How do we get in it?”
“They’ll be some kind of access to clear out debris and dead pigeons,” I responded, an apparent expert in ducting, “I guess.”
“Er? OK,” he replied with an unconvinced tone. “Is that it?” Michael asked, pointing to a small hatch on a duct nearby.
“I really hope not,” I sighed.
“What does this do?” Michael muttered, pressing the large green button on a control panel beside it.
The pump next to me whirred and sparked, cascading molten metal like a Catherine wheel from the wire mesh over the motor. Throwing myself to the floor, I jumped clear as the ducts banged and rattled about their fixings.
“What have I told you about pressing stuff?” I shrieked, as a duct fell from the ceiling. As I clamped my hands over my head, my little brother dived to the floor next to me.
The pump died as the others followed, popping and shutting down. The cacophony of ducts striking the tiled floor ended, and the room fell silent.
With hesitation, I removed my hands as Michael too scanned the devastation.
“Look!” he exclaimed, his index finger extended, “a way in.”
Sure enough, a fallen duct, laid out across three of the pumps, offered a gentle incline toward the larger collector at the end.
“Now we can get out,” my little brother declared, jumping to his feet.
“Well, that’s convenient,” I muttered, examining the route, pushing on the duct and tapping at the sides.
“You first,” Michael insisted.
“Are you finally learning some patience?” I jested, placing my hands onto the cold, unpainted metal.
He sneered at me, stretching a forced smile across his face as he scrunched up his eyes.
Clambering in, I instructed Michael to tie the cord of the bag around my ankle. “You follow closely, OK?” I demanded.
“OK,” he replied, focused on getting the hitch right.
I turned forward, took a deep breath, and inched my way into the unlit pipe.
Reaching the collector, I was grateful to stand up. I stretched out the ache in my knees as Michael joined my side.
“Now what?” he asked, his voice resounding in the darkness.
“Up. We’ve got to go up,” I replied.
“How?”
Finding Michael with my hands, I gripped him under his arms and lifted him up as far as I could reach.
“Hey, don’t kick out,” I yelled, as he struck my chest for a third time.
“Sorry. It’s slippy.”
“What can you see?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Can you reach the sides?”
“With my arms? Yeah.”
“OK. Brace your hands and feet against the sides and try to climb up.”
“Er? OK,” he responded.
“Keep going. I’m right behind you,” I shouted up after him.
With the weight of Henri suspended from one foot and my wounded hand, I struggled up behind him.
“Hey,” Michael called out. “I can see light.”
“Great. Keep going.”
“I’m nearly there,” he declared. “It’s a broken hatch or something.”
“Can you move it out the way?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
I heard him pull the hatch through and discard it from his grasp. It bounced against the wall of the duct, brushing my face.
“Oi!” I shouted, as the hatch struck the duffle bag.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
“Just climb out,” I sighed.
Following Michael out, I dragged the bag through the opening and splayed out on the floor.
“Look at that!” my little brother shouted with glee, jumping on the spot.
The light in Michael’s eyes grew brighter, drawn to an extensive control panel extending across the back wall.
“Don’t touch anything!” I demanded, rolling to my side, standing, and pulling my little brother back.
“But--”
“Just don’t,” I insisted, glaring into his eyes.
“What is this place?” he asked, turning away.
“I have no idea,” I replied with a sigh, picking up the duffle bag and slinging it over my shoulder. “Looks like some control room for the heating system, or something.”
“So, what are those?” he asked, pointing to the pictures of the rooms on the panel.
“I guess they’re the rooms,” I responded, reading the labels. “Hey, perhaps we can dial out for help,” I declared. “We’ve just got to find the ‘Telephone Exchange’.”
“Is it in here?” Michael asked.
“No,” I replied, looking for more clues on the control panel, “it’s another room. Somewhere.”
“OK,” he replied, jumping to his feet. “Let’s go find it.”
“After you,” I declared, impressed, and with my arm outstretched toward the door. “Lead on.”
I was amazed how he kept going. No shoes? No plan beyond the next step? No idea where we were? No idea if we were going to get out? No problem. I wish I could have seen the world the way he did, one endless game where there was always hope. I hoped he never had to grow up.
The damage outside the room was extensive. Scorch marks, soot, and charred office furniture littered the hallway. Rubble, twisted metal and chunks of concrete the size of boulders were strewn across the place. Most of the walls had been reduced to waist level in one place or another, and the smell of burned plastic lingered in the air. Still, at least the lights were on, well, the ones attached to the ceiling
Traversing the rubble to the side of the corridor, we were funneled to the door of the ‘Mail Room’. Inside, two desks and two chairs sat facing a wall within which sat a series of slots, dials and buttons. A conveyer belt seemed to end in this room too and a case, similar to a briefcase but without the handles, sat halfway into one of the slots.
“What is it?” my little brother asked.
“How would I know?”
“Oh,” he replied, dejected.
A collapsed wall offered us passage into a room filled with desks and typing machines. Similar to the ones we found downstairs, these large boxes seemed to punch card gathered into a hopper at the side. As with the others we found, the cards were blank and striking the buttons on the keyboard achieved nothing.
Dodging more of the debris and overturned furniture, we re-entered the corridor further along opposite a door marked ‘Telephone Exchange’.
“This way,” I declared, beckoning Michael forward.
With care, for once, he worked his way along the aisle toward me, holding one hand in the other as though he was willing it to stop getting him in trouble.
The room was small, with five desks and three chairs. Large grey boxes sat on top of the desks, with what looked like a cable for a headset in each. The top panel of the box had places for names, but the plaques were missing.
I sat down in the chair and picked up the loose cable.
“Plug it in,” Michael suggested.
“Into what?”
“Your earpiece,” he replied.
“How?” I replied, feeling around for a socket.
“Here,” my little brother declared, taking the cable, pushing it into my earpiece, as a crackle and an ear-piercing screech drilled into my skull.
“Anything?” he asked, making his way over to another desk nearby.
Methodically, I tried every switch, along with various combinations, but there was no dial tone.
“No,” I declared, with a heavy sigh, “these don’t work either. We can’t call out for help.”
“What does this do?” Michael asked, his finger hovering over a flashing button on the other console.
“I dunno,” I replied, leaning back to get a better view. “Press it.”
“But--”
“It’s OK. You can press it,” I responded, confident nothing worked, as picking up the lead he plugged it into his own earpiece.
“It’s a lady,” he declared.
“Wait? What!” I jumped to my feet. “Give it here,” I demanded, wrenching the cable out of my own earpiece and snatching the lead out of his.
“…if you are hearing this, if you are out there, I require immediate assistance,” a woman insisted with the kind of accent you’d hear from a Hollywood starlet. “I repeat. This is doctor Melissa Hartwick. I am trapped inside my room. I require immediate assistance.”
Chapter 18
Dr. M. Hartwick
“Where are you going?” I demanded, unplugging the cable, as Michael jumped down from his seat.
“To help her.”
“What?” I screeched. “Firstly, we don’t know where she is. Secondly, even if we did, we don’t know how to get there. Thirdly, this could be a message recorded a long time ago, we don’t even know if she’s alive, and --”
My little brother’s bottom lip trembled, as his eyes welled.
“Fine,” I sighed. “If, and that’s a big if, we find some way to get to her room, we’ll take a look. I’m not making any promises mind--”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Michael chanted, jumping on the spot.
I didn’t know why he was so keen to go and save this woman. We had no idea who she was, or, as I told him, whether she was even alive; let alone if we could help.
“I supposed though, if she is there, she might know a way to get out of this infernal place,” I muttered. “Come on then,” I declared, standing from the seat, “nothing here for us anyway.”
The corridor, blocked at either end by rubble and debris, led either back to where we had come from, or to the room labelled ‘Accounting’. Following my little brother’s optimistic ‘there is always a way out’, I crossed the corridor.
Inside, the room featured a series of computers, minus their reels, tall filing cabinets, a large cabinet with a reel of paper inside, and a single desk with a device sat on top, similar to the punch card machines in the previous rooms, except this one had a black keyboard and looked more like a typewriter. I had no idea what it did.
Extensive damage to the wall offered us easy access to the next room with tables and chairs laid out like a canteen. Pinks, reds, oranges, and yellows were dotted everywhere; from the backs of the chairs to the artwork on the walls.
The kitchen at the far end, buried under belongings from the floor above, was devoid of food. If it wasn’t for the dust and debris littering every surface, you could have been forgiven for thinking the place was brand new and had never been used.
The double doors leading out to the corridor were obstructed by more rubble, but there was an opening into the next room big enough for me to squeeze through. I went first, pulling the duffle bag through behind me.
Pictures of female office workers were positioned on some of the walls, with their bobbed hair held in place by headbands. Combs, scissors, and hairdryers sat in their allotted spots in pots or on the wall, while swivel chairs sat opposite the mirrors.
“Where are all the robots?” Michael asked.
“I told you before, they weren’t robots, they were puppets.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, they don’t seem to have any robots anywhere up here. I guess whoever built this place had different expectations of the people that worked here.”
Back in the corridor, we had the familiar options, go back or try the next door.
The urinals, which hadn’t been crushed, lay smashed on the broken tiled floor. Sinks had been turned over, and the stalls had collapsed like dominos.
“This way,” Michael declared, pointing to the hole through to the next room which looked in an even worse state.
A library of reel cases was buried under the floor of the room above, and it was a dead end.
“Up there,” my little brother suggested, pointing up the slope formed by the collapse of the red and white tiled concrete floor above.
“Up there?” I asked, stunned. “But half of up there is down here. It’s probably not safe--”
Michael clambered up an overturned bookcase, climbing the rubble.
I sighed and followed him.
“Oh cool,” he remarked, breaching the top.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cages and stuff.”
“Cages?” I replied, reaching the top of the climb. “Cages for what?”
“Wait! The floor’s probably unstable,” I cried out after Michael as he ran off. Throwing the duffle bag off my shoulder onto the tiled floor, I clambered to my feet. To my relief, my little brother stood gawping into one of the many cages positioned against the wall.
“Don’t move,” I instructed, steadying my weight to see if the floor gave way.
“You worry too much,” he replied, disregarding my concerns. “Oh, look!” Michael turned on his heels, navigated a smaller hole in the floor, and approached one of the stainless-steel tables in the middle of the room. “What are these for?” my little brother asked, running his finger along the shiny metal surface toward the drain at the end.
“Er?” Chasing after him, I had to think fast, for fear of scaring him with the truth. “In case the vets got tired and needed to lie down.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s hard work looking after all those animals--”
“No,” Michael interrupted, “why do you lie to me?”
“Well, if you know what they’re for, why did you ask me?”
He shrugged his shoulders, scanning the room. “Was this a vet’s office then?”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know anything about anywhere in this place. Please stop asking me.”
“Why?”
I glared at him.
“What’s in there?” he asked, pointing to a room at the far end, my shoulders dropping as Michael tore off across the room. “Oh, the door’s unlocked,” my little brother remarked, opening it and peering inside.
Traversing the large hole in the floor and through a small gap between the piled rubble toward him, I could make out a console of the telephone exchange in the room below. Eager to not return there, at least not through the ceiling, I sprinted after Michael.
Inside the small room, a chain-link wall separated the space into two parts. One half, behind the links, had a simple bed. The second half had a plastic chair, positioned to watch over it.
“Dr. Hartwick,” Michael announced, closing the door and reading aloud the plaque on another obstructed by the rubble.
“Hartwick? That was the woman on the phone,” I remarked, opening the unlocked door. “Well,” I declared with a triumphant tone, “she’s not here.”
“Maybe she’s under there,” Michael shouted, pushing past me, pointing to the large wooden desk.
Running forward and ducking under to look, “No,” he sighed with a defeated tone, “she’s not here. Maybe she’s hiding in one of the cupboards,” he hollered, with renewed enthusiasm, jumping upright and sprinting over to the large cabinets on the back wall.
I scanned my eyes over the dus
ty collection of paperwork and belongings on the desk, as my little brother continued his futile game of ‘guess where the doctor might be hiding next’.
“Introduction of water has been unsuccessful. Electrocution,” I read aloud from one of the reports on the desk, drawn to stare at my own brush with Autonoma’s electrical demons. ‘Simulation fluid shows promise. Drowning still an issue’, another read. More reports talked of the experiments on rodents and small mammals, though there was no explanation of what the larger cages or individual rooms were for.
“What’s that?” Michael asked, prodding a machine on the desk, having given up on his game.
It was a greyish box, with two silver dials on the left, a scale counting to 100 with a corresponding silver arm marking a point, a blue control panel, and what looked like holes for a speaker to sit behind.
My little brother flicked at the buttons on the control panel, flipping the silver slider downward, as Dr. Hartwick’s voice played out through the speaker.
“…still, money is money I tell myself,” she declared, her brief laughter fading to an awkward silence. “Anyway, simulations continue. Static experiments are a waste of time, but Mr. Sulloman won’t hear it. I’ve had greater success with the introduction of light at predetermined points…” the recording faltered, and the message cut off for a moment, “…continues to scream at night.”
As Michael was transfixed on the Dictaphone, I flicked through the notes on the desk, stopping at a singed piece of paper sticking out from a pile. At first glance, it appeared to be a page from doctor Hartwick’s personal diary.
“Nothing but a dog and pony show. He copies the machines and brilliant ideas of the great men of science and discovery but can’t get the blasted things to work. Smoke and mirrors… he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t care, spends all day sat downstairs watching movies of what should have been before it all went wrong and the investors got wise,” I read aloud, though the rest of the page had been damaged by fire.
Dr. Hartwick’s voice from the Dictaphone was interrupted by a phone ringing. “…yes, Mr. Sulloman. Of course I bloody well heard it. I think the dead men in Old Icy heard that one. Yes, Mr. Sulloman, I know, but I’ve got to finish recording my findings first. Evacuate? Well really Mr. Sulloman, I think you’re being quite ridiculous and honestly--” her voice was cut short, broken by a loud explosion in the background. The recording skipped and wobbled, and doctor Hartwick’s voice returned, filled with concern, “…evacuated to our quarters. I’d wager that bloody idiot has gone and blown up half of this infernal place--” another boom rippled through the recording. “Bloody fool will kill us all. If any of my stuff is damaged when I get back, I’ll kill him myself…” The message tailed off as her footsteps faded into the background chatter of glass breaking and books being toppled from their shelves.
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