The Dream Cloud, page 12
part #2 of Akropolis Series
After only a few seconds she felt the support bars start to give way. She put her feet up against the wall and gave one last jerk, freeing one end of the rack. She then proceeded to do the same with the other side. When it was done, she held a four foot long section, which she pointed towards the end of the fan.
Claire took a deep breath and shoved the end of the rack into the side well of the fan as hard as she could. When the fan blade hit the ladder and caught, the rack smacked into her ribcage and slammed her into the side of the maintenance tunnel, knocking some of the wind out of her.
She cursed under her breath, or what was left of it, and wedged the end of the rack into the corner seam of the crawlspace. Even as she let go, it began to rattle and inch along backwards.
Knowing there wasn’t much time Claire threw herself forward and was halfway between the blades of the fan before her hips were caught. She started to jerk her body from side to side and then froze when she felt the blade of the fan slip just enough to dig painfully into the muscle. There was a brief moment where she was certain that she was about to be chopped in half, but the rack held.
Twisting just a little bit around, she was able to ease her hips past the blade and the well wall. As she pulled her feet through, the tip of one toe connected with the end of the rack. The fan immediately spun into action, the ladder rattling around for a split second before it shot out down the maintenance crawlspace from whence she came. Thankfully, she didn’t lose a toe, but she was trapped in a large corrugated plastic hose with the air from behind trying to pop her out like a cork.
Claire planted her feet on the space between the fan and the wall, pushed her hands out to either side of the hose, and began to rock her body from left to right, gaining momentum with each swing. About the sixth time back she heard the seals popping, but before she could so much as give a satisfied yell, she flopped down to the floor along with the disconnected hose, the lower half of her body spilling out.
She lay there and caught her breath for a moment, before wiggling the rest of the way out of the hose. When she stood, she realized that the air filtration unit almost took up the entirety of the room. It sat hunched like a crouched giant, hoses and pipes extending from various angles, some veering off through the walls to adjoining rooms and some straight up through the ceiling. Along the front of the mammoth machine was a perfect little space for a person to walk and at the other end of that, about thirty feet away, a door.
Claire quickly crossed the stretch, scraping the wall with her shoulder in her haste. She looked for the knob this time instead of assuming there was a sensor, and when she opened the door, she peeked out with an eye down one end of the hallway.
It was empty, as she assumed the opposite end was, and took great haste in exiting the noisy room and closing the door behind her.
She noticed right off the bat that the design of the hallway was the same as she had previously witnessed in this facility except for one detail. The opposite wall from where she was standing was made of solid granite and stretched away to either side, confirming her theory that she was far underground.
As she walked, the hallway with the solid rock wall took a gradual curve to her right, passing several doors that she ignored. Some of them had symbols she didn’t recognize but none looked inviting.
In one spot the wall was slick with trickling water. At the base of the floor was what looked like a sewer drain put in place to accommodate the natural flow. Upon seeing this she nearly sobbed in relief. Cupping her hands, she drank repeatedly until her stomach was bloated. The water left a faint mineral taste in her mouth, but it was like heaven nonetheless.
Her thirst satiated, Claire felt more purposeful, even though her choice of direction didn’t change. She walked onward without stumbling or careening from side to side. The water gave her newfound energy that seemed to suffuse every cell in her body. The euphoric feeling was unlike anything she had ever felt before, almost like coming back from the brink of death, though that was an exaggerated thought.
Even her senses seemed sharpened. Long before her eyes spied the source of commotion, she felt the vibrations of motors and machines, heard people shouting indiscernible commands, made out the sound of ratcheting gears and the spinning of wheels.
Claire’s pace slowed drastically as she crept along, craning her neck as if she could see around the long curve of the hallway that was beginning to feel more and more like a tunnel that never ended.
After what seemed like an eternity, she began to feel a cool rush of air flow over her body. It wasn’t like the forceful gust in the maintenance crawlspace she had experienced before. This air was more subtle and cold, tip-toeing along her skin with soft tendrils that gave her goosebumps.
She could smell oil and the acrid scent of ozone, the musky scent of bodies at work. The sounds were becoming clearer, and in the mix she could start to make out shouts and the low hum of many voices.
Finally the curved hallway gave up its pretense and she was walking along a completely granite tunnel that was almost deafening with the reverberations that were assaulting her senses.
She had never heard such a cacophony in her life; not even in the bowels of Akropolis where the machines stood stories high and huffed and puffed, hissed and chugged, breathing life into the city above.
When Claire finally came to the end of the tunnel, she saw that it opened up into a cave so massive that her mind was barely able to grasp the dimensions.
The tunnel she’d been walking along was not on the ground level but rather opened up to a steel catwalk about thirty feet above the ground, with other catwalks criss-crossing like latticework below and above her, heading in all different directions so that Claire felt like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.
The ground level stretched away for an eternity in one direction, its end trickling into a pinpoint far in the distance, with a ceiling that was lost in darkness after a couple of hundred feet up. Even the strongest of lights, and the cave was lit up like the day, could not pierce that blackness above. But the most shocking aspect of the cave wasn’t the enormity of its girth so much as the fact that every section of the enormous floor, as far as the eye traveled, was busy with machines and people moving about with purpose.
There were cranes and forklifts moving large pieces of steel and metal bars to and fro, a giant Circumferential Dome Weld Tool that was nearly fifty feet in height with a diameter of at least that much, surrounded by a dozen mechanical lift ladders crawling with people. Huge robotic arms swung to and fro, clamping onto hollowed out tubes and carrying them to a segmented ring tool which would provide support for the barrels when they were welded. And along the center of the cave, stretching for nearly a half kilometer, was a horizontal assembly center where dozens of workers were busy guiding the gigantic automatic welding arms and attaching segments of tubes so large that you could fly two air transports on top of one another or side by side down the center.
Past the assembly center was a giant rail made of steel with enormous air hydraulic machines attached to either side, numbering at least a hundred total.
And all throughout the cave, on the machines, on the floor, zipping here and there on ground transports, standing on lifts, dangling from safety ropes, laying out wires, and milling about like ants in some grand design, were at least a thousand workers, all dressed in one piece yellow jumpsuits with different colored stripes, presumably to designate jobs or professions.
Claire could not move from her spot; aware that she was dangerously exposed but unable to shuffle even the few feet back to cover. The machines she had seen before, whether in the Waste Belt or in the depths of Akropolis, but nothing on this scale. The enormity of the project was on par with the construction of a sanctuary, except it was more focused and central, with all work seemingly converging upon the object that took up the majority of the space in the middle of the floor.
It took her a long minute but it finally occurred to Claire that what they were building looked strangely familiar. And then a second later it struck her with the clarity of absolute certainty. They were constructing one of the objects that she and Quentin had seen launched outside the Wall of Akropolis from the desert floor…except this one dwarfed them all. It was like comparing a bee to a bird.
She couldn’t fathom the purpose of such a construct. The ICBM that she had previously seen was nowhere near as large, and that had been a weapon. Could this be one as well?
It was doubtful. What danger warranted such attention? The only enemy they had was the irradiated world that their ancestors had created, and it couldn’t be defeated by such a weapon, which meant this was something else entirely.
Claire could have stood there for hours watching the assembly of the object, but she suddenly became acutely aware of her own exposure and the risk she was taking in her awestruck gaping. She stumbled backwards hastily until the edge of the tunnel blocked her from view. With the cave and the monstrous object out of sight she was finally able to collect her thoughts enough to form a plan of action.
There was nowhere else to go. She was certain the guards and lab techs that had previously given chase were still lurking around somewhere, and if not here, then it wouldn’t be long. The only option she had was going forward.
Claire looked down at her body, caked with so much sweat and grime that it looked like she had been rolling around in a pile of dirt. It was pure luck that none of the workers had spotted her standing at the edge of the catwalk, and she was under no illusion that she could continue onward without being spotted.
It was then she thought of all the doors she had passed.
With an idea firmly planted, Claire turned and started to walk rapidly back the way she had come.
The first door she came to opened up into a room that turned out to be an electrical closet, but unlike any she’d ever seen. Two homes on the Outer Zone could have fit in it. There were flex hoses and wires the size of her bicep, cinched together and attached to standing racks, traveling across the floor, looped in huge piles, and even hanging from the tops like jungle vines. Switchboards with handles covered one entire wall, connected together so that the switches could be thrown in unison. There was a large space in the middle of the floor and on the opposite wall a bank of standing cabinets with dials and switches and buttons, surrounded on either side by generators that were the size of elephants.
Claire felt dizzy from the heat in the room, in stark contrast to the coolness of the hallway, and was about to back out when she spied a small desk near the opposite corner, covered almost entirely in shadow.
Closing the door behind her, she made her way across the floor, the vibrations of the generators making her feet tickle. The desk was cluttered with shiny blueprints covered in a thick layer of dust and a mug that was so ancient that the writing on it was faded almost to the point of invisibility. But behind the desk hanging on the wall from a rack of hooks were two pairs of jumpsuits and safety helmets with goggles attached to them.
Claire breathed a profound sigh of relief. She had assumed that the majority of the rooms along the hallway housed the necessary mechanics to power and maintain the underground facility, and was banking on the fact that spare jumpsuits would be present. After all, it could be dirty work, especially if one had to spend time in a maintenance crawlspace.
The first jumpsuit was much too big for her lithe frame. It pooled at her ankles and was almost comically baggy. The second one was also much too large for her but with the sleeves rolled and tucked, as well as the legs, she felt passable. The safety helmet and goggles completed the disguise. She just wished there had been a pair of shoes or boots left behind as well, but knew that she was lucky enough to have what she did.
Feeling a bit more secure and confident, Claire left the room and headed back to the main cave.
Stepping out onto the catwalk was one of the most difficult things she had ever done. Claire felt exposed and naked, despite the jumpsuit. She walked with the constant fear of being discovered, each step compounded by the thundering of her heart. With almost every loud bang or scrape of metal or shout, she would flinch and hurry along a little faster. It was all she could do to keep from sprinting.
Her catwalk followed the wall of the tunnel as far as she could see, occasionally connecting with others that traversed to the other side, and ending in familiar looking blast doors. She wondered if behind those doors were more of the objects she had seen launched form the desert floor, or if they all contained an ICBM. If so, she was afraid of what that portended.
Whatever lay behind those blast doors, however, she was at least assured that what was being constructed in the cave was anything but a weapon. From the catwalk she was able to see that there were huge sections being connected that resembled living quarters, with welded bed frames and protruding sinks and toilets. Further on she spied what appeared to be a communal dining area, which segued into branching rooms that consisted of a fully furnished kitchen and toilet and shower facilities. It appeared that there was a waste recycling system after that which sent branching pipes into rooms with large empty tanks that might be the beginnings of an aquaponic system.
At one point, a welder operating one of the large robotic arms glanced up at her, giving a slight nod. Claire lifted up her hand in an awkward gesture caught halfway between a wave and a salute, but it must have been sufficient enough as the welder returned to his operations without a second glance.
She decided it was best if she kept looking forward and didn’t stare at the construction taking place, fearful she would be caught gawking. Whatever it was they were building it was going to be self-sustained, much like a sanctuary, only on a much smaller scale.
The further she walked the more traffic Claire started to notice on the catwalks opposite hers. She ignored the workers as best as she could, but when they looked in her direction, she gave the obligatory nod instead of a wave.
About three fourths of the way along the construction of the giant object, she finally spied the end of the tunnel. The tracks ended at a rock wall about two hundred yards further. Hugging the granite was a vertical tower built upon a massive platform. The tower was replete with huge gears, pulleys, and winches. It was so tall that it disappeared in the darkness of the cavernous ceiling.
Claire was on the verge of an epiphany when a voice called out to her.
“Hey, Journeyman!”
It was a man’s voice, so close it startled her. She
flinched a little and turned abruptly, bumping into the railing with her forearm and rebounding off it clumsily.
The man was approaching along the connecting catwalk she had just passed. Like her, he was dressed in a jumpsuit and helmet with goggles, but unlike the orange stripes she wore, his had a broad blue band across the chest.
He was only about two dozen feet away from Claire and moving swiftly. She was acutely aware of her naked feet. In an attempt to keep his eyes from spotting them, she quickly and with an exaggerated movement began to adjust her helmet and goggles as if they were extremely uncomfortable or not sitting quite right.
It seemed to work, as the man approached her without a glance down at her bootless feet. When he was within a couple of yards she stopped fidgeting with the helmet and stepped up to meet him, her heart pounding so heard she was certain he’d notice something awry.
“Hey, what can I do for you?” Claire asked, mimicking the speech patterns she had heard from some of the workers from the Waste Belt.
The man was barely taller than her, his face sprouting an inch long beard, with beady little eyes set too close to each other and a long nose that protruded so far as to resemble a vulture.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked with ill-temper.
“I…I was just-“ she stammered.
“You’re supposed to be on the bridge. Didn’t you get the call? They need everyone on the guidance system stat.”
The man was starting to look more than just a little annoyed. Before he could work up any more consternation, Claire blurted out the first thing to come to mind.
“I know, but one of the generators went offline. I had to check on it.”
She said this while nodding over his shoulder.
“Dammit, that’s the third time this week,” he said, taking off his helmet and wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Is it up and running again?”
“It’s good for now,” she replied, shrugging.
“Antiquated pieces of shit.”
He studied her for a moment, maybe considering another round of verbal admonishment.
“Get down to the bridge asap,” he said, then turned and stomped away.
Claire let out the breath she was holding, waited a few more seconds to make certain he really was leaving, and then hurried on her way, her pace much quicker now. If she was accosted again, she could say that she needed to get to the bridge post haste, not that she knew where or what that was.
Luckily for her, she saw a tunnel soon after that branched off from the catwalk. When she arrived at it, she found a set of double doors rather than the blast ones. She pushed through these, relieved to leave all the commotion behind.
She was met with a curved, narrow white hallway, familiar in its simplicity, and with dozens of doors to either side. Ignoring all of them, she started to sprint, her bare feet slapping the hard shiny floor. She took the first branching hallway to her left just a couple of dozen yards down, and another to her right just a bit further.
After a minute her breath was coming in hitching gasps that birthed a sharp pain in her ribs, but thankfully as she came around the final curve of the hallway she saw another set of double doors.
Claire slowed as she arrived at these, exiting through them as if she knew exactly where she was going. On the other side she was met with stark silence. It was almost eerie, this absence of sound. She stood in another cavern, this one only about thirty feet high and fifty feet in length. She rushed to the opposite end, already spying another blast door imbedded in a steel wall, and was dismayed to find that this one was the largest yet.
