Chapter 14
April 2-3 0350 ATG (After The Gate)
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The archeologist sat with his back against the desk. His heart was racing. Jonas just waited for the adrenalin to where itself out and his heart to return to normal before he got up. Besides, a shaky hand was not good for aiming, and without that, what good would defending himself be? Walking over to the other side of the reception area, Jonas found himself impeded by two metal double doors. They were slightly larger than the others. Naturally, Jonas jiggled the door handle and pushed and pulled against the door. The door handle and the door didn’t move.
This wasn’t good, because the key needed to open the door was missing. How did he know, because he couldn’t find it. However, the doors had a glaring weakness. It was their exposed hinges. Setting his bag by the door, Jonas pulled out a hammer and a series of cylindrical metal rods. The archeologist began fitting each one within the bottom hole of a hinge until Jonas found one that fit. It took a few good strikes to get the pins within the hinges to budge, but once it did, they were easy to knock out, Jonas would catch the door with the intention of laying it flat against the floor.
The whole operation was a risky proposition. The buildings security was still active. It was also why Jonas took down that first door with extreme caution and care. He hadn’t found the magic box yet, and the buildings automated security had proven temperamental at best and extremely deadly at worst. It was also why Jonas didn’t just let the door clatter to the ground. He’d already been shot at twice that day. There was no point in testing his luck a third time.
A quick peek to the side of the door reviled a large garage like area that seemed to also house equipment of all sorts. To the archeologist’s relief, there were no turrets or killbots. With the first door down, he was able to get inside. Once he was, Jonas immediately noticed something he’d only seen images of. It was something he should have noticed the moment he peeked past the door, but given his attention was on the possibility of being murdered all kinds of dead by the remnants of the old world, Jonas hadn’t. The object of his interest was that of a firetruck. Jonas made note of how preserved it had been. Well, with the exception of the mouse and rat devoured seats and interior.
Jonas knew it would have been better to just keep searching for the magic box, but a part of him really wanted to climb into the thing to see how it worked. To experience what it would have been like for the people of that time to be inside and operate the thing… To feel what they felt. That was what his job was about. Defiantly what his job was about and it totally had nothing to do with wanting to operate the massive object. Something Jonas quickly became aware of the moment he was inside the metal monstrosity turning the key that was left in the ignition, and ignoring all the other artifacts withing the vehicle. After all, how often did one come across a nearly preserved vehicle.
Jonas twisted the key. There were repeated clicking sounds, but ultimately, nothing happened. That didn’t discourage the archeologist, though. Jonas began trying multiple combinations of things until finally the truck started. “Ooooooh yeah.” Jonas groaned as though being in a powerful device satisfied some manly need, he never knew he had. Lights soon lit up the dashboard and a soothing female voice came through the speakers “Congratulations you are now firetruck certified. Would you like to retake the driver’s test?” Jonas verbalized his consent. He dutifully fallowed all the voices instructions. This was a mistake, because no sooner had he done all the voice told him to do, the truck began to lift off the ground. Jonas yelped and dove out the firetruck door as the truck bolted forward.
“Fuck me in the ass. What the shit?” was all Jonas could say as his heart nearly beat out of his chest. The truck plowed violently through the wall with the female voice screaming something about death and aberrations. That, however didn’t last at all very long, because the moment it busted through the wall, all the functioning turrets in the outside screeched to life on rusted joints and lit up the firetruck that plowed through the trees beyond and igniting into flames. It wasn’t all bad, though. Jonas had found the magic box.
With the firetruck no longer blocking the view of the opposite wall, Jonas quickly got up and made a mad dash for the elongated rectangular box. It wasn’t just the firetruck that got Jonas’ adrenalin pumping. It was the turrets blasting the thing. He didn’t want to be next. Jonas struggled to get the magic box open in his panic. He felt his digits slipping on the opening mechanism as he fumbled it open with sweety fingers. He quickly glanced out the truck-sized hole to see a turret sweeping the newly exposed area. Jonas didn’t waste any time and flipped all the switched. To his great relief, the turrets stopped moving.
Jonas still had the rest of the ruin to explore, and he really liked having the light. He carefully began flipping each switch, all the while paying close attention to the motionless turrets outside just in case Jonas flipped the wrong switch. Once the lights were back on and flickering unstably, he and Shit investigated the rest of the garage. It was chalk full of deteriorating and rodent eaten equipment. A majority of it was labeled with the word training. It got Jonas thinking about the odds of a k-9 training manual actually existing within the ruin. The killer truck had been in- Jonas shoved that thought to the back of his mind. “No need to jinx yourself, Jonas.” He reminded himself.
The archeologist wanted to fall back onto his ass, but remembered the cougar that had attacked him the prior evening. He got up and waited with his revolver out while the wolf puppy did her business just outside the hole. When she was done, Jonas leashed her, and the pair made their way back down the hall. The pair was greeted with a stairwell and a set of metal sliding doors. It was clearly an elevator. Jonas had an urge to try out the elevator. Again, most ruins never had power, and it would be a unique experience, but the firetruck had tried to kill him. “Fuck it. What’s the point of all this if I don’t?” Jonas made his second possible mistake that whole day. He put all his limited knowledge on the subject to use, which wasn’t much, and pressed the button. He had to do it a few times, because of the unstable power, but eventually the doors did open. The air inside the elevator hit Jonas immediately and it was stale. The air was also thick with disturbed dust. It was a good sign. It meant it still worked.
Jonas climbed into the elevator with a child like excitement. It only had two flickering buttons labeled G and 1. There were also two additional buttons. One was a line with a triangle on each side pointing away. The other was almost identical. The difference being the triangles pointing inwards towards the center line. Jonas soon learned after some experimentation that they opened and closed the doors. Finally, Jonas pressed the button labeled as 1. The power began to cut out intermittently again, but after several and persistent presses, the doors slid closed and the elevator moved. The archeologist felt a sudden and gentle force pushing him down as the elevator moved upward. It was both frightening and exciting all the same time.
However, the joy at the confirmed discovery didn’t last long. Right as the elevator dinged, the power failed completely, and the elevator came to a complete stop. Jonas began to panic. He would have laughed at the absurdity if Jonas wasn’t fighting to keep clam. “You bastard of a fool. Come on Jonas, you knew the power wasn’t stable.” Jonas paced around the confined space looking for anything that might help him escape. There was a metal panel that had the words, “In case of emergency” written on it, but it was an enigma. Jonas had no idea what the multiple key holes were for, because the writing had long faded. He also didn’t have the corresponding keys. That left the ceiling and the door. As weak points.
The ceiling was out of the question. Not because it wasn’t a viable option, but because he lacked the ability to reach it. So, even if he was able to break through it, He’d never be able to climb out of it. That left the door. Jonas took his hammer out of his bag, and wedged the flat end of the hammer into the thin gap of the elevator door. He held his breath as he wrenched the hammer to the side. The door did not budge. Jonas’ heart began to pound in his chest as the archeologists barely contained panic surfaced and overwhelmed Jonas.
He was going to die in here. Out of all the ways for him to go out. It was starvation. It was then that he was regretting his little stunt with the fake journal. If he’d just waited, and not galivanted off to this ruin, then he wouldn’t be stuck in this place to die of starvation. He slid down the elevator wall; his mind clouded in panic. It was when his anxiety reached a zenith that he felt Shit licking his face sensing his stress. It was when the lights in the elevator came back on that Jonas was shocked back to himself. Jonas immediately leapt to the panel of buttons, and began pressing the 1 button in a desperate bid for freedom.
When the elevator finally arrived on the second floor and opened, Jonas dove out of the death trap with Shit in his arms. He looked back at the elevator’s closing doors as if expecting to see a murderous beast ready to give chase, but in reality, Jonas was looking back to validate his reality of escape. Which, to his relief, was true. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Next time, where taking the stairs.” Jonas had a fear of being trapped in metal boxes. It was illogical, Jonas knew. He’d been trapped in crates, and restrained in all sorts of different ways. The difference between the elevator and all those other times, was the fact that Jonas couldn’t rely on his abilities to save himself.
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No amount of fire would allow the archeologist to burn his way through the metal that comprised the elevator, and even if his electrical abilities were fully functional, there was no way he’d be blasting through that metal shell, even if he used the last charge in his heirloom artifact. The hammer had even proven that enhancing his body with electricity would have been of little help. No, if Jonas was going to die, it would be on his two feet fighting or of old age.
Dusting himself off, Jonas looked around. He had mostly collected himself by this point and had released the squirming wolf pup. Jonas took the opportunity to look back one final time to gave it a mental “fuck you” before facing the rest of the ruin. As the lights flickered, Jonas saw a hallway that extended towards the end of the second floor of the building. Much like the first floor, there wasn’t much paint on the walls. The doors, however were all busted in. There seemed to be nine doors in all.
Starting at the other end of the hall, he walked through and explored eight of the nine entrances. They looked to be living quarters. The furniture looked to be heavily damaged by rodents and battle, but the ruin as a whole spoke of a peaceful life in ordinary times. It even had all the comforts of that time period. There were even classrooms which lent credence to the idea that this was a training facility for firemen… if the dog cages and firetruck were any indication. However, what happened in these ruins was far from peaceful and ordinary. There had been bloodshed and killing during a time of turmoil. If Jonas had to place this ruin on any kind of modern-day academic timeline, then it would have to be during or just after the Great War.
Jonas walked through the busted remains of the final door into what looked like another classroom. There where old blood stains and trails throughout the room, further cementing the ruins bloody past. There were also bullet holes and scorch marks with plenty of overturned tables. Jonas had walked past all of this. It wasn’t that the archeologist didn’t find it interesting. Jonas did, it was just that something else had caught his interest. At the other end of this classroom was an undamaged door. It spoke of significance. There was also an odd device next to it. It looked like a black rectangle with a slit running down its middle.
Jonas wasn’t sure what it was for. But a closer inspection of the odd wall fixture gave the archeologist some clues. It showed a card like rectangle with a strip going through the slit. It reminded Jonas of the metallic card that Erick had slipped into his wallet. Only, there was no discolored strip on it. Even still, it gave Jonas an idea of what he was looking for. He searched high and low for anything resembling anything that was depicted on the wall fixture. The search took some time. There were eight living areas to search through, and it wasn’t until the sixth one that Jonas hit paydirt. It came in the form of several flimsy rectangular things that had names and photographs on them, but more important was the discolored strip on the back. They were strewn all over the floor in a pile as if carelessly discarded.
No matter the case, Jonas had five of the flimsy things. He quickly took them back to the door, and waited for the power to come back on. Like everything odd in this place, the black rectangle only seemed to respond when the lights were on. How did Jonas know? It was by how the thing responded to him running the rectangular things through it. When the ceiling lights were off, it would not respond with a red or green light. When the ceiling lights were stable, he would get a red or green light. It took several attempts to get it right. After words, Jonas just propped the door open to play around with the thing that seemed to unlock the door.
Of course, Jonas took the time to update his journal with detailed notes about everything he'd found out since the first floor. When that was done, he collected his things and went inside. What he found was a treasure trove. It left the archeologist breathless. What Jonas found was a small library, and sitting on the many shelves were precious and extraordinarily preserved books, but one book in particular caught his attention. Sitting on a shelf was a book labeled, “K-9 unit training manual.” Jonas immediately grabbed it, but took great care when handling the old book. It was not a military training guide, but he would take it. The odd part about the book, was the fact that it mentioned K-9 unit. That was a term the old world used for their dog partners in law enforcement.
Jonas bagged the book and plumed the small deposit of knowledge for anything worth taking. There was no way Jonas would be able to take the entire library with him, but he could look anything that could benefit Jonas in the here and now. A lot of it delt in the history of canine units, firefighting theory, and even maintenance manuals for the complex equipment commonly used by a fire department. That ranged from the firetrucks to the fire-retardant garb that was worn, but sadly, there were no books of immediate use. Unless they had a way to make their wagons self-propelling like the murderous fire truck that nearly killed him, there really wasn’t any point.
Jonas gave up on his search for anything immediately useful, and made some notes for passing off this library and its location to the council. Jonas’ quill paused mid stroke as he remembered his unjust jailing and sham of a trial. It really had been an eye opener at just how little he was worth to them, then again, he couldn’t just show back up to camp empty handed. That much was true. He’d need to offset the chaos he’d help to create, but did that mean Jonas had to use this place’s location as his means of doing that? No. No it did not, but perhaps he could use this place to reset the ever-present countdown on his life by using this place as some kind of leverage.
The base idea was just plain retarded. Any logical thinker would know that the library here was inconsequential by itself. After all, this wasn’t the first time a place similar to this has been found. No. What gave Jonas his leverage was how well preserved it was. The many living areas had working terminals as well as many working examples of various technologies never before found. Not all the clothing was deteriorated and not all the equipment was non-functional.
Jonas grabbed a couple more books from the shelves and bagged them along with the id card used to open the door. “Erick, you owe me.” Jonas said allowed as he left the library and made his way to the first floor. The archeologist pulled out his pock watch, giving it a few twists and then checked the time. He really didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. Jonas really needed to get back to the expedition, but his earlier thoughts about the injustices visited upon him reminded Jonas of the lingering feelings that whole experience left him with.
Jonas found himself making his way to the magic box. He’d experienced the defenses first hand and had enough time to figure out what triggered it. With a feeling of satisfaction and the knowledge he could safely make it back, Jonas re-activated the buildings defenses. To his delight, perhaps even his horror, even the turrets he’d shot with his artifact were even operational. Jonas smiled with a small semblance of satisfaction. True, he wasn’t going to get the revenge he wanted, but Jonas would take what he could get. Hell, maybe Erick could even somehow capitalize on the opportunity.
Jonas’ finger lingered on the switch he just flipped. Thoughts of revenge continuously replaying through his mind. Each time it played through Jonas’ mind, the more his plan of turning the defenses back on seemed barbaric. “What am I doing? There’s no justice in this.” The archeologist said to himself as he made up his mind. Jonas flipped the switch back off and left. He had what he was hoping to find, and besides, all he would achieve by this is the killing of innocent people.
As Jonas made his way through the training yard, he was thinking about weather or not he had made the right decision. He knew deep down he had, but by all that was holy, it sucked. He pushed his self-denied satisfaction from his mind, and set his mind to the oncoming turmoil that he was in for when he returned. His life was still tethered to a timeline, and then there was the fallout of his stunt with the fake journal and Lars. Then, “There is that bird of Georgy’s. He’d-“ He said to himself. Jonas stopped as an idea came to mind. Maybe he could use his find to gum up the enemy. It would be a priority. It had working technology and power. It would definitely distract Erick’s opposition. Jonas smiled. Maybe he would get some satisfaction after all. Again, it would never compare to what they were going to do to him, but it was a start. Jonas stepped into the wooded tree line with a pep in his step. “Things already seem to be looking up. Hell, Shit,” The puppy barked at hearing its name. “it seem like it might be a good day, after all.”
