Professor Cassel sat in a stiff Victorian chair in his hotel room taking revelry in the lighting of his favorite briarwood pipe. This was not a smoking room, but that no longer mattered. The deception had failed. It had worked well enough for the first two days, but the illusions had become too obvious soon after.
This was the very chair he had awakened in after the train. A doctor and nurse had been standing over him, seemingly consumed with concern about his condition. They said Cassiopia had not been able to rouse him when the train pulled into the station. They said he had remained semiconscious during the ride to the hotel. His daughter had called for a doctor on the way. Fortunately, the situation was much less serious than had been first thought. A simple blood imbalance. Cassiopia was away picking up the necessary prescriptions. They expected her to return at any time.
On his next awakening, he found himself fully clothed on the bed, an array of prescription bottles on the night stand. Cassiopia called soon after to let him know she had been pulled away to a sidebar discussion. He should get a good night’s rest, and she would meet him for his speech in the morning. A sedative had been prescribed. He went right to sleep.
The speech the following morning offered the first indication something was not right. The auditorium was packed. Cassiopia did not meet him as usual for the walk to the stage door. He spotted her at the very back of the hall. He stumbled through his presentation with even less tact than usual, yet the applause seemed far too gracious. There was something out of place. A feeling of deception persisted.
He had returned to his hotel room plagued by growing suspicion. The prescription regiment was immediately shunned. Looking out his room’s picture window at the busy retail section of Knoxville below only added to the feeling that something was not right. A knock at the door had interrupted that discontent. It was the first of the three of them, Dr. Palermo, a noted physicist. Would the Professor please join his group in the lobby for a discussion of multi-dimensional physics? Dr. Palermo promised they would make it worth his while.
A meeting room near the main auditorium had been secured. There were already lengthy equations on six large whiteboards. The implications on those whiteboards were so provocative; he had not been able to resist. The other two so-called physicists were already in the room, waiting. Before any introductions could be made, Dr. Ballard, a wrinkly old man with snow white hair, wearing a baggy brown suit a size too large, stood by the center whiteboard and pointed to an unfinished fragment of equation. He begged Professor Cassell’s approval, but the equation’s justification was in error. A heated debated began immediately. Eventually, there was an introduction to Dr. Moriana, a man with a chiseled face wearing light blue medical scrubs, standing proudly by the last of the whiteboards as though he owned it.
The next two days had been all-consuming debates. Professor Cassell could not resist the cutting edge implied by the work of his three colleagues, though his suspicions remained close by. Food and beverages were delivered to the meeting room continuously. More whiteboards were brought in. Each minute of the day represented a line or component of equation leading to new territory. There were no set hours. The work went on without consideration of time. No one ever wanted to stop.
It was only in the few brief trips made back to his hotel room that Professor Cassell’s mind focused back to reality enough to begin dissecting the subtle problems around him. Cassiopia had called several times, but never visited in person. That in itself could be justified except that so many other things could not. The hotel hallway held the first solid indication that things were not as they seemed. The Professor’s room was at the end of it. The hallway accessed ten other suites. At the far end of the hall was a small window overlooking the square. A single elevator occupied the opposite end.
It was the stairwell that finally forced him to believe. There was no stairwell. The only access to this fifth-floor hallway was the elevator. That was just not possible. No building code anywhere in the world would allow the absence of a stairwell escape in case of emergency. Add to that, the fact that there had never been another soul in the hallway. No other doors were ever heard to open or close. On his second day, he had inadvertently pressed the second-floor button in the elevator, then the first. The elevator had descended directly to the first floor, ignoring the lighted second-floor button. The next day he had deliberately pressed all the floor buttons with the same result.
Professor Cassell sat in his stiff Victorian chair smoking his Briarwood and considering options. His three colleagues had been working the trans-dimensional theories as though their lives depended on it. A new big hole in the master equation had closed the debate for the evening. Everyone needed to catch up on sleep. The assault would begin again in four hours, or whenever everyone could get there. They were close to solving the common equation that would join all the others, making the opening of a portal to other universes theoretically possible. They were so close the Professor had begun to fear the implications of it all. That, in turn, had made him question his surroundings still further, which eventually led to his realization that things were not what they seemed.
The Professor glanced at his cell phone on the nightstand. It was a useless commodity. It was just as counterfeit as everything else. He picked up the TV remote and switched it on. I Love Lucy. He turned the volume up too loud. He stood and took a heavy, empty glass flower vase from a nearby table and went to his picture window. The bright neon of the city was everywhere. Cars were still crowding the main drive directly below.
Wielding the heavy vase like a hammer, the Professor swung with as much force as he could muster and smashed the window. The glass bowed and fractured. A few pointed shards fell to the floor. In the glass-less section of window there remained only blackness. Some of the glass still intact continued to display the city. The Professor poked at his fractured window. Where there was no glass, there was a black plastic backing, the backing used by any good three-dimensional LCD display. It was a very solid backing.
The Professor moved over to a section of empty wall. He tapped on it. It felt like standard, thin drywall. He took his keys from his pocket and began a drilling, twisting motion into the drywall. A hole appeared quite quickly. He did the same in areas around the first hole until a circle of small holes allowed him to punch out a fist-sized section. He leaned forward and peered into the newly formed hole. There was a shadowy light beyond. It was an outer room. There was no insulation and no secondary wall. The wall was a façade.
Cassell took the vase in both hands and began hammering the small end around his new opening. Pieces of drywall broke off and fell away. The opening became the size of a suitcase. He put down the vase and began a slow precession of kicks near the bottom. Drywall broke away in chunks until there was enough space for a man to squeeze through. The Professor stuck his head through and looked around the secret, outer room.
It was big. It was the size of a warehouse. He worked one leg through the opening and stepped down and out of his illusionary hotel room and into a huge, dark and dingy chamber. Cables ran to and from the imitation dwelling he had just escaped. The backs of the video monitors that had been used as windows could be seen. The walls of the outer chamber were unfinished steel and cement. There was a dampness about the place and an unpleasant musty smell to back it up.
Pulling his other leg through the hole, the Professor scanned the area then began walking along the backside of his false hotel room wall. He turned the corner to look in the direction of the fake hallway. As he went, the backs of phony hotel room doors came into view. These were the doors never used by other patrons, the doors that had never been heard to open or close.
More cables covered the floors. The real ceiling was thirty feet high with large suspended lighting, and fire suppression plumbing. Ahead was the end of the false hall where the elevator joined. To his surprise, he came to the elevator compartment and stood in awe. The elevator was a metal room mounted on pistons. It had never gone up or down at a
ll. The fake elevator connected to a much more sophisticated chamber, much larger than the hotel room and hallway façade. It was the size of a small gymnasium. There were sensors implanted every few inches in the walls. He had to step up onto a raised floor to look more closely. There was an odd looking, chest-high door in the wall next to the elevator simulator. He undid the latch and pulled it open, then bent over and stepped inside to look.
The place was packed with flashlight-size electronic emitters built into the walls and ceiling, protected by clear Plexiglas. The floor was made of clear panes like picture windows. Beneath them was a similar arrangement of packed electronic sensors and emitters. He turned and looked back at the fake elevator doors. Those doors had always opened to the hotel lobby. He was standing in what had once been the hotel lobby. This was some kind of huge simulator, but it was beyond any technology known to Earth. This room had been packed with people on occasions. He had bumped against some of them. He looked at the area to the right of the elevator. The hallway to the hotel’s meeting rooms had been there. Now this was all one big open chamber. This had to be a giant hologram generator, but how could holograms have such substance and realism? He had even given his speech to a crowded theater within this chamber and believed it was all real.
The Professor pushed his way back out and into the shadowy, colorless warehouse. He climbed down from the raised floor and began looking for a way out. Mechanical and electronic equipment was stacked everywhere. Six-foot high stacks of cables sat wound up on wooden pallets. An odd-looking yellow forklift was parked in a far corner. At last, he spied an alcove. He looked carefully around and headed for it. Equipment had to be stepped over or circumvented. It was a surprisingly long walk. Light from the alcove drove him on.
At the opening, the Professor found a wide, gray corridor with rails embedded in the floor. It was as disorganized as the warehouse had been, with equipment and furniture stacked against the walls. The corridor went on forever in both directions. Hanging from the low, concrete ceilings, lighted caged bulbs burned brightly, one after another as far as the eye could see. Heavy iron shelves lined the walls, supporting pipes and cabling. There was nothing to indicate which direction was best. The Professor chose the corridor to his right and began walking.
It seemed like there was no end. Occasionally, ventilation registers in the ceiling marked his passage, but aside from that it was just one endless passageway. The Professor tired and paused, his back against the cement wall as he caught his breath. He listened. There was not a sound. The air continued to smell musty. He rubbed the cold from his sleeves.
Two more sessions of walking brought no end. Finally, he came upon a cutout in one wall that bore an upward, wrought-iron ladder. Given the choice of continued walking, or chancing the climb, the Professor considered the ladder. It was impossible to tell how high the vertical shaft went. Lights above blinded that vision. There did appear to be a platform ten or twenty feet up. That alone made it worth the risk.
The Professor tried to push aside his doubts. He was not in any shape for climbing. He had just hiked quite a stretch. There was no steel guard to fall back against. He tested the first rung of the ladder, pulled himself up on the first step and then stepped back down. Maybe.
There was no other choice. He gripped a rung in the ladder and pulled himself up. He hesitated in self-doubt but grabbed the next rung and stepped up. Very slowly, one rung at a time, he continued. His deck shoes were not enough. The steel rod hurt the bottom of his feet. He pressed on. At the tenth rung, he stopped to look down and catch his breath. To him, it seemed like a long fall. He looked up; halfway to the platform. What if there was nothing there? His arms threatened to fail him. He worried he might have a spasm and fall. Fear became a motivator. He began again. One step at a time.
As he approached the platform, cool fresh air pushed by. He hastened his pace and with care, finally stepped off the ladder onto it. He bent over to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. There was an oval-shaped door ajar. Light from the level beyond it shone through. He pushed the heavy metal hatchway open further and bent over to squeeze by.
Another corridor, but very different. This time there were supplies neatly lined up on shelves along it. They bordered the corridor until it turned a corner in the distance, so there the Professor went.
At the corner, the tunnel finally ended. It opened to a large meeting room, complete with a huge projection screen and dozens of red cushioned seats. Double swinging doors at the other end opened to another corridor, but this time the hallway was elaborately finished with subdued lighting and brown carpet, and this time there was a promising stairwell at the end of it. The dampness was gone. The air smelled fresh. It was still cool bordering on cold. The tired Professor picked up his pace. Along the way, other doors opened to executive offices. None looked as if they had ever been used.
At the base of the stairwell, the Professor suddenly realized he had more inspiration than energy. He leaned against the steel hand rail and lowered himself down to sit on the first step. He put his hand on his heart. It was pounding. He leaned against the railing and breathed deeply. Perhaps Cassiopia’s constant bickering about not getting enough exercise was correct. After a few minutes, he pulled himself back up and attacked the stairs, one step at a time, the handrail anchoring him to each new pause in the climb.
The top of the stairwell brought yet another long hallway. The floors were tiled here, the walls covered with imitation wood grain. Double doors lined the walls at various points along the way. The first set was open to a generator room. Six car-sized generators sat amid piping and cables on overhead racks. The second open door was a storeroom, the next a huge chamber with a low ceiling lined with bunk beds as tightly as they would fit. There were accommodations for hundreds of people here. Other rooms housed a cafeteria, a medical laboratory, and a radio station. There was no mystery about what this place was. It was a survival bunker for a lot of people.
The end of the long hall brought another, shorter set of stairs. The Professor wearily climbed them and was immediately confronted by a hung gray blast door. It had a wheel control for the locking mechanism and a spoked hub for the main latch. The Professor used his body weight to turn the wheel and with each laborious rotation watched the cylinders in the door withdraw from their locks. When they were open just enough, he gave his last energy to the spoke wheel and heard the big door clank open. With his back against the flattest end section, he walked the heavy, balanced door open. Something on the other side made a thump and skidding sound as the door swung.
After a brief moment to catch his breath, he dared a look. A brightly lit room with green triangular designs on the wall and green furniture was filled by a crowd of well-dressed people holding drinks. They had stopped to stare at the opening of the hidden door. A divider hiding it had been pushed out of the way. The Professor stepped out into the surprised stares of the guests. He straightened his wrinkled suit jacket and headed for the nearest door, uncertain if these people were associated with his captors. They continued to silently stare as he passed by.
A short, elegant hallway opened to a huge, noisy lobby bustling with people. A registration counter ran from one end to the other. Half a dozen clerks were behind it, waiting on arrivals and departures. A wide, lighted sign overhead read, ‘Welcome To The Greenbrier.'
The realization stunned Professor Cassell. He stood in a daze as his mind filled in the blanks. This was not Knoxville. This was West Virginia. How could he be this far from his destination without having realized it? And, the massive bunker he had just climbed out of was the famous Greenbrier bunker built back in the 1950’s and exposed to the world in 1992.
Professor Cassell walked briskly toward the front desk. He would request a house phone and call his daughter first. She would take care of the rest. As he wove his way through the flow of visitors and bellhops, a shadowy figure hurriedly emerged on his left and grabbed his arm. It was Dr. Moriana. Before Professor Cassell could speak, som
eone to his right grabbed his other arm. It was Ballard.
“Out for a stroll are we, Professor?”
The Professor attempted to pull free.
“Now, now, there’s good reason for you not to make a scene. Just come along quietly,” said Dr. Ballard
“Gentleman, I am not going anywhere with either of you. I am quite through with you.”
“Professor, let me get right to the point. We have associates watching your daughter. If you do not do as we say, small parts of her will be sent here until you comply. Do I make myself clear?”
A bolt of fear shot through the Professor.
“We have a car waiting outside. Come along now.” With one man under each arm, they coaxed the Professor toward the front door. He looked back at the desk clerks, too busy to notice. An armed guard stood near the big front doors. The man might as well have been a mile away. The three men moved outside where a black limousine waited. Dr. Moriana opened a rear door as Ballard shoved the Professor down and in. With everyone in, the limo quickly pulled out.
“You left your room in quite a disarray. I’m afraid new accommodations will need to be made. They will not be nearly as comfortable,” said Moriana.
“Did you have a chance to inspect the holochamber, Professor? Quite a feat of engineering isn’t it?” asked Ballard. “We were borrowing it from a certain organization here on Earth that you are unaware of. We did not have their permission but, we will not be needing it further.”
“Who are you people?” asked the Professor indignantly.
“The word people is such a broad term, Professor. Your question is poorly phrased.”
Professor Cassell watched as the limousine approached a quaint little covered bridge. Beyond it, the huge car pulled off the road onto a trail.
“You are enemies of the government, using me to develop a weapon,” said the Professor.
“Wrong and wrong, Professor. Your government does not know we exist, and there is no weapon that would be of any use to us.”
“Then what is this all about?”
“You are about to get the shaft, as they say, Professor. Ah, here it is.”
What looked like a ten-foot-tall cement ventilation riser appeared along the trail. The limo jerked to a stop.
“These matters are too complex for even you to understand. If you focus your attention on solving the last of our equations, we will turn you loose unharmed, and you will never see us again. That is your best option. Any others will be painful in a number of ways,” said Moriana.
The driver exited and opened Professor Cassell’s door. Outside, a curved metal door in the ventilation shaft had opened. The Professor was forcefully led to it and pushed in. It sealed behind him. The circular floor began a gradual slide downward. The Professor looked up in time to see the light overhead fade and disappear. He wondered if and when he would ever see it again.
Chapter 9