Chapter 9
“We land in an hour.” Sam’s disembodied voice came clear and commanding as Mark snapped back to the computer screen.
“Do you need me to send someone to pick you up?” Mark asked.
“My truck’s there,” she said, “I should be back on site by three this afternoon.”
“Will you be up for some exploration?” Mark’s excitement was beginning to show. “There’s been a development that I can’t wait to show you.”
“What?” she was surprised, “I haven’t seen any new data, what do you have?”
“A surprise.” A grin spread across his face. “We found a new gravitational anomaly,” he paused a moment before continuing. “And the end of the formation.”
“What?” Sophia pushed Sam aside and turned the laptop toward her. “The end? Is it Victor?”
Mark’s grin turned into a frown as he chose his words.
“Unfortunately no,” he said softly, “I’m sorry Soph but it ended in what can only be described as an empty cage.”
“A cage?” Sam was the one interrupting this time. “What do you mean a cage, what’s in it?”
“That’s the anomaly,” he said as his focus snapped back to the discovery, “it’s empty but the gravity in the center of it is…” he thought for a moment “odd. It is creating a vortex in the middle. I tossed a rock into it and it just hung there in the center, spinning as though in some sort of display.”
“Did you take any readings?” Sam asked, her project manager skills showing as she sought hard data.
“We did, I have been waiting to show you until you two were on your way home though. I didn’t want to distract you with it until you were on your way home.” He paused as he searched her eyes for approval. “The work you were doing in New York is desperately needed. Right now the only way we can get data is by lowering everything nearly nearly two miles into the ground and the formation has already fried two computers. We had to run a separate rope anchored to the side wall just to keep the equipment far enough away to prevent damage. I’m sending the data to you now.”
He looked down at his keyboard and clicked once or twice, suddenly filling Sam’s computer screen with data measuring the gravitational effects from the cage.
“Amazing,” Sam scanned the data, tracing the gravitational pull lines across the screen. “It looks like some sort of generator, do you see the opposing magnetic circulation?”
“Perhaps that’s what’s powering the whole thing.” Sophia suggested.
“Yes,” Sam said finally, “we are definitely going down there as soon as we get there.”
Mark was standing in the parking lot when they pulled in, walking over to lift the two computer satchels as soon as the truck rolled to a stop.
“Welcome home!” he announced as he hefted the bags. “Did father treat you well?”
“My gods!” Sophia exclaimed, “Complete luxury from arrival to departure.”
Sam laughed as she added, “As if that mansion of an apartment wasn’t enough, he had a chauffeur on call twenty four-seven, new groceries brought to us each day. He even sprang for a couple shopping trips to fifth avenue! He insisted we go to Saks and Tiffany!”
“But I guess that’s pretty normal for your family.” Sophia suggested.
Mark laughed softly as he turned toward the field office. “ROI ladies, nothing more.”
“What?” Sam asked, surprise lacing her voice.
“Return on investment, it’s his guiding principle,” Mark frowned, “always has been. This TV show has already gotten the project deep in the black and we keep seeing new viewers in record numbers. Revenue is waaaaaaay up.”
“What’s that got to do with us?” Sophia asked.
“Sam is the project manager and you, the chief technology expert. He keeps you two happy, the show keeps taping.” Mark glanced over his shoulder at where the ladies were standing.
“You coming?” He paused long enough for them to start following him before continuing. “If the show keeps rolling, he keeps raking in the profits. His generosity is always attached to strings.”
Icy cold air burst from the enormous tent that Mark had moved the research stations into as they walked inside. Dozens of computers were already humming along with displays filled with data being recorded in real time. Sam stopped in front of one displaying power readings coming off of the formation.
“Look at that,” she pointed to a line on the screen, “the amount of electricity running through this formation could power Vegas!”
“It’s already running this entire center.” Mark smiled. “Avery made the suggestion so we brought in an electrical engineer to make it happen.”
“So we are fully self sufficient?” Sophia questioned with a surprised look.
“Been off the grid for a couple months now.” Mark walked over to the opening of the excavation around the formation. “And that’s not the strangest part either. Check out this video I made when I was rappelling down there.”
He clicked a file on his computer and the screen filled with a camera shot showing the tunnel down.
“You can see,” Mark’s voice broke the silence of the recording as he worked his way down. “The first couple hundred feet are straight down,” the shot panned up showing the inside of the office tent above him before pointing down into the hole. “beyond here it starts to get weird though.”
The formation began to curve from nearly straight down as it appeared to level off.
“The rappel doesn’t change,” he continued, “the rope hangs straight through the middle of the hole rather than laying across the ground like you’d expect and the decent, well the gravity just keeps pulling along the formation. It feels like you’re always going straight down.”
The camera panned back up to where the opening had been visible, only now there was just the ghostly azure glow of the formation against the dirt walls of the excavation.
“You can even see the formation itself bending.” He held a pen up to show the bend in the formation compared to the straight barrel of the pen. “But gravity is always pulling straight down along the thing.”
“Is it like that the whole way down?” Sophia asked.
“The whole way to the anti-chamber.” He said.
“Anti-chamber?” Sam echoed.
“We found the end!” Mark’s smile spread. “The entire formation ends at that cage that I showed you earlier. We still haven’t found out what it’s purpose is yet, but gravity got real strange as we opened up the bottom around it. All the way down we were digging at our feet, hauling the muck out one bucket at a time but when we started hollowing out the chamber the debris was being sucked into the center of the cage. It just spins in the middle, but the pull is tremendous, everything that gets pulled into it has been getting compacted so tightly it’s almost like solid rock.” He paused as he laughed, “We had to pull the chunks out one at a time every time it got bigger than our debris buckets and chisel them down enough to get them out of the hole.”
“I can’t wait to see it for myself!” Sam was bubbling over with excitement as she watched the screen.
“I already have our harnesses ready to clip in.”
The three turned toward the open hole in the center of the office tent where Mark had hung parkas for each of them next to three rappelling harnesses.
“No time like the present!” Sophia had been looking forward to going down the hole since they left New York, she could barely contain her excitement as she contemplated the rappel. “But first.”
Sophia turned from the gear, grabbed a collapsable table and her computer bag and moved to the far side of the office where she was away from the other computers and had access to bare dirt. She gently set the bag on the table, opened it and started her computers boot up cycle as she pulled a small box with two probes sticking out the side like an old fashioned indoor TV antenna and stabbed it into the ground before pressing a small button on it’s top. The LED indicator light turned blue as she plugged a cable into it and the moment she inserted the other end into her computer it turned green.
“Green means go!” Sophia giggled.
“So what’s that?” Mark asked as he leaned in for a closer look at the box.
“Quite an upgrade eh?” Sam laughed.
“R&D took my fifty pound backpack and refined it into this!” Sophia announced. “Smaller, better tech, better battery life, better signal. We even figured out a way to use the system for communication between the stations.”
“Nice!” Mark looked over at her computer screen which now displayed an array of graphs and charts being filled in real time, clearly impressed by what he saw. “Is it already reading the ground structure?”
“It is!” Sophia had a sastisfied smile on her face as she opened another zipper on her bag. “And it gets even better,” she pulled out a small disk about the diameter of a silver dollar and twice as thick, then she screwed a small spike to the underside of it before announcing, “Trail markers!”
“Trail markers?” Mark was puzzled. “I thought this end of the system created a computer model of the underground structure and the other end was the location beacon.”
“Ah,” Sophia was in her element as she began explaining, “that was the old system, this is the new one. We refined the entire thing so the soundings that produce the map, the computer read out and everything else communicates to build a better diagram. The trail markers were a suggestion from the R&D team to not only show where a caver is, but the route they take to get to wherever they are. We think it will help rescue stranded cavers by showing the searchers both where they are but also how they got there will help rescuers find a safer if not more direct path to get them.” She paused with a satisfied grin. “And since this is effectively the beta test for the whole system, we are testing these along side the main system.”
“Smart move,” Mark started, “if nothing else this will give us the exact path we take through the tunnel.”
“At the very least.” Sam chimed in. “In total it is expected to give us a more definitive picture of the entire substrate of the surrounding areas.”
“The trail markers,” Sophia continued, “are basically beacons, they transmit a constant data signal that the computer then interprets the environment based on signal degredation and alteration. It’s sort of the same methods the entire system uses, only you get the readings from each beacon, about a hundred feet apart. Couple that with the LIDAR scans you already took we can expect to see the whole picture from the shape and texture of the excavation all the way to what specific minerals are in the surrounding soil.”
“And all of it is transmitted through the dirt?” Mark scratched his head.
“Dirt, rocks, water you name it we transmit using it, not really through it.” Sophia explained.
“Elaborate please.” Mark said simply.
“Well,” Sophia thought for a moment, “basic science shows us that all things are made of molecules that are always in motion, right?”
“Basic science.” Mark agreed.
“What holds those molecules together?” Sophia asked.
“Naturally ocuring electrical current.” Mark guessed.
“That is my hypothosis.” Sophia smiled again. “So we use that electrical current to carry our signal wave, not unlike my original prototype used the root systems underground but better. We get a much more clear indication of what those molecules are based on how the signal interacts with them than we used to. Plus the whole system now works hundreds of feet underground where roots don’t grow rather than loosing data at typical root depth.”
“So,” Mark paused with a laugh, “you brought a lot of those markers then, right?”
“Oh yeah.” Sophia was like a kid excited for Christmas as she unzipped a bag containing dozens of packs of trail markers before adding. “Five thousand.”
“That should do!” Mark laughed as he handed jackets to Sam and Sophia. “Ready?”
As the three wrapped themselves in cold weather gear and strapped into their rappelling harnesses Mark started giving instructions.
“The rappel will be broken into five hundred foot segments, each with a landing platform designed prevent gravitational anomalies and the disorientation it will cause from making you fall to your death.” He paused with a grin. “Safety first after-all.”
“Good idea,” Sam said, “how many incidents did you have while learning that one?”
“No serious injuries,” Mark said softly, “but it didn’t come without the cost of being shaken and battered by it. Each platform will have an anchor line around the outside perimeter, lock onto it before you release the rappel rope, after that we simply change ropes and continue down. Where will you be placing your trail markers?”
Sophia thought for a moment. “At platforms and every bend in the tunnel, that way we can get the most accuracy possible.”
“Between platforms you wont be able to reach the outside walls.” Mark warned. “Gravity seems to pull downward the hardest, but it centers around the formation itself. I have tried to push off from the formation and touch the outside wall and it’s impossible, especially if you want to be able to reach dirt, the cribbing spaces are few and far between, outside of those little gaps you wont find anything but wood all the way down.”
“Is the wood anchored into the dirt?” Sophia asked quickly.
“Yeah, but it’s just plywood and two by fours.”
“Then it will work, I just need a stick to use for reach.” Sophia looked around the office before finding a telescoping arm with a claw for picking up trash. “That’ll do.”
She began retrofitting the claw with clips to hold the trail markers and tested releasing one into the ground before turning to the others with a satisfied smile.
“Perfect!” her satisfaction was obvious by her expression as she clipped into her harness and stepped off the ledge. “You coming?” she asked sarcastically.
Sam and Mark scrambled to finish clipping in and dropped into the hole simultaneously. The descent was eerie, darkness itself being swallowed by the cold rushing up from below. Before they reached even the first platform the silence was fully engulfing, so complete that if felt noisy to their ears, drowning out the sounds of the rappelling hardware clinking as the ropes moved through them and making it hard to determine what they were saying to one another. It was so much that conversation was relegated to the platforms as they continued on.
“We’re about a mile in.” Sophia announced as she clipped her safety line to the outter wall. “And apparently up is…” she paused to study her handheld for a second before pointing off to the left. “That way.”
“So we are rappelling sideways?” Sam questioned.
“We are now,” Sophia laughed. “Ten minutes ago we were rappelling up!”
“Just wait till we get to the bottom.” Mark added. “Gravity in the antechamber gets kinda swishy.”
“Swishy?” Sam retorted. “What exactly swishy gravity feel like?”
Mark laughed. “One minute it’s pulling you toward the floor, the next toward the ceiling!”
The expressions worn by Sam and Sophia turned to pure puzzle as they grappled with the idea.
“Any indicator on why the switch?” Sam’s mind instantly went into project planner mode. “How have you been handling the equipment?”
“Before we figured it out we lost two whole computer stations!” Mark laughed again. “If it isn’t tied down, the formation eats it.”
“Where does it go?” Sophia was intrigued. “I mean matter can’t just cease existing, can it?”
“Evidently it can.” Marks laughter turned serious. “We have no idea where it goes, but everything we have put inside the cage from dirt and rocks to equipment just disappears after being crushed to oblivion by whatever force is there. No trace of anything gets left behind.”
They silently contemplated the conversation as they descended beyond the next three platforms.
It was Sam who broke the silence. “So it just vanishes?”
“You can watch it yourself when we get down there,” Mark started, “but yeah. Just gone!”
Finally the shaft of blue light they had been following turned into a small round dot before growing into a large hole into the antechamber as they reached the final platform.
“Final word of warning,” Mark had to nearly shout to get his voice to carry the mere inches between them, “the moment you reach the floor, clip onto the safety line. Do not go off rope even for a second. Understood?”
A nod and thumbs up indicated they understood the risk and Mark plunged off of the platform and slid through the hole. As Sam and Sophia watched they could see what looked like it would have been a perfect landing turn into a whirlwind of flailing as Mark struggled to right himself, a clear indication of the struggle they would face at the bottom of the journey.
Sam went next.
The moment her body entered the antechamber she felt what could only be described as the feeling of standing in a strong ocean surf as the waves crash over you. Her body was thrust from side to side as gravity tried to spin her off her feet. She pulled herself back up out of the hole for a second attempt that didn’t go any better than her first. Finally Mark grabbed the end of her rope and pulled it tight, anchoring himself to the wall in order to control the push and pull of Sam’s weight on the line. He struggled violently as Sam finally landed her third attempt and clipped her harness to the safety line so the two of them could help control Sophia’s descent.
Sophia had barely clipped onto the safety rope before she shrugged out of her backpack and began setting up the station. She placed the bag on the ground and began rummaging through the inside pockets for the transponder box and connecting cables, remembering to secure the bag itself but forgetting to secure the laptop inside the bag.
The result was almost tragic as the laptop was violently ripped upward.
Mark scrambled to catch it just as it was almost out of reach. “Tie it down!” he shouted.
Sophia laughed and shook her head, “Guess I forgot a step.”
“Could have ended this before we even got started!” Sam laughed.
The computer screen filled with data streams and images generated by the system the moment the transponder light turned green, marking the exact course through the tunnel that they had taken with perfect clarity.
“Amazing!” Mark gasped.
“We are currently three hundred feet below the surface,” Sophia looked around the chamber orienting herself with it before pointing her index finger straight down and continuing. “Which is that way.”
“What?” Mark was surprised. “So up is actually down then?”
“Exactly!” Sophia was getting excited again. “Furthermore it looks like our floor is exactly twenty feet below the chamber where the machine is! We are actually under it.”
The formation cage was onion shaped it’s wide flat base aimed directly at the center of the machine with its top narrowing into the single shaft that they had followed to find it, it felt almost intentional in design. It’s center was completely empty except for a wif of mist at the center that neither grew nor shrank as it spun. The bars of the cage were set at ten foot intervals allowing gaps between them where debris was sucked in.
“What on earth?” Sam exclaimed as she tossed a rock into the middle only to watch it vanish in front of her.
Mark spent the next two hours explaining everything they had done, the tests they ran and the results as the three of them circled the cage inspecting it from each angle. Suddenly the azure glow started to get brighter as the wind current in the antechamber picked up.
“What’s happening?” Sam had to shout above the noise.
Mark’s blank expression answered her question before he even formed the words.
“No clue!” he turned to the small group of scientist that had gathered around one of the work stations. “What’s happening?”
“Not a clue sir!” One of them shouted back. “The center of gravity is spinning so fast we can’t even get a line on what’s pulling it along.”
As they looked from the computer screen to the cage the light began to change, each bar in the cage getting suddenly brighter then dimming back again as if it was a wave moving around the circle. The lights sped up, surpassing a full rotation every five hundred milliseconds until it was nothing more than an imperceptible blur of light spinning in the darkness of the cave. The gravitational pull began tearing cables out of the computers they were plugged into as it shredded papers, ripped keyboard away and sucked one of the TV camera’s into the vortex.
Everyone was pressing themselves against the wall, desperately grappling the safety rope while simultaneously hoping it held fast to it’s anchors. The wind howeled passed them with a deafening roar broken only by the sound of equipment being battered against the walls and floor, any debris being sucked in instantly disappearing in the center of the vortex.
They held on.
The safety ropes started popping and whipping around as one wall anchor after another was jerked free from its hole, leaving two of the scientists desperately clinging onto it for safety until suddenly it all stopped and the room fell silent. As the dust settled they saw an enormous sphere nestled perfectly in the cage, it’s walls pressing against the azure blue formation bars with perfect precision.
“That’s new.” Mark quipped.
“What the hell?” a camera man shouted from the far side of the cave. “I didn’t sign up for this shit!”
The television production supervisor quickly crossed to where he was, scolding him as she went.
“You signed up for a science project.” She said firmly. “This is a science project, expect the unexpected or get the hell out!”
Sam Sophia and Mark exchanged looks before turning their attentions to the sphere. The surface was smooth, made of an unidentified metallic alloy with no visible seems except for a row of clear windows wrapping the top one third. The lighting inside was dim, so much so that they couldn’t make out any details on the inside surfaces.
Sophia froze in place, jaw slack and a dream in her eyes.
“I have to see inside.” Her tone was absolute, her resolve set like stone across her features as she reached for her rappelling rope to hoist herself up.
Sam grabbed her arm as she peered into Sophia’s face. “Careful, we don’t know what is in there.”
Sophia ignored her warning as she pulled herself free and free climbed up the rope.
She froze again as her eyes landed on a figure laying on a bed. His head was wrapped with bandages, one covering is left eye barely covering deep purple bruises along his cheek bone. His bear arms were covered in scars, some old enough to be pure white with age while others still pink with the flush of healing skin. His right hand was bandaged with the tel-tale shape of missing fingers bundled across his knuckles. His legs were no better.
His exposed eye cracked open for a brief moment then closed again as he exhaled. A full minute passed as Sophia examined him from the other side of the window, tracing the lines of his frame as he laid there breathing, faint moans escaping his mouth.
He sat up, slowly at first then as he noticed Sophia looking through the window he bolted fully upright.
Sophia let out a single word, the sound barely audible as she choked through the tears that were streaming across her cheeks.
“Victor!”