The two MPs were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, each Marine armed with an M-16.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Marulli. If you’ll come with us please.”
She followed them inside the prefabricated building’s front door to a waiting room that looked like something straight out of the 1960s. The floor was black and white checkered linoleum, the walls done in fake walnut wood paneling. Framed posters, faded and yellowed with age, featured antiquated information about California’s environmental laws. Six chairs faced an unplugged RCA television set, the foam stuffing visible on the split-open worn vinyl cushions.
An open door on the left revealed a supervisor’s office. A familiar gray-haired man dressed in a plaid shirt and worn jeans sat with his hiking boots propped atop a wooden desk. Brown eyes, magnified behind reading glasses, looked up from an issue of Sports Illustrated.
“Dr. Marulli.”
“Afternoon, Fred. How’s the wife?”
“Meaner than a bobcat. I see you hitched a ride with one of the hotshots.”
“Guess I’m moving up in the world.” She joined the two MPs who were waiting for her in the break room.
As she stepped inside, one of the marines shut and locked the door behind her while the second guard moved to the soda vending machine, the only modern piece of apparatus in the visitor center. Inserting a credit card in the pay slot, he selected ROOT BEER.
Internal magnetic locks snapped open, allowing the marine to slide the false outer door aside — revealing an awaiting elevator.
Jessica stepped inside. She held on as the doors sealed.
The subterranean base, known as the Cube, was the only one Jessica Marulli had ever visited. She suspected Vandenberg Air Force Base had a similar underground complex, as did Groom Lake. Two years before she had worked with a loose-lipped army engineer from Riverside, California named Matthew DeVictor. In an obvious attempt to impress her, the former officer at Bechtel described operating a nuclear-powered boring machine that could drill a tunnel seven miles long in a single day.
“We called them subterrene machines and they were massive, as long as the Space Shuttle with a diameter three times larger. On board was a compact nuclear reactor that circulated liquid lithium from the reactor core to the tunnel face, generating exterior temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot enough to melt rock so there’s no excavated soil or stone left to remove… no telltale evidence. As the lithium loses some of its heat, it’s circulated back along the exterior of the subterrene which cools the vitrified rock, leaving behind a smooth, finished, obsidian-like inner core — perfect for their unidirectional Maglev trains. I hear those puppies can travel at speeds in excess of 1,500 miles an hour. They have an entire underground rail system that connects one subterranean complex with the next.
“The Bechtel Corporation has been building these underground cities for the secret government since the 1940s. At first it was a response to the Soviet’s nuclear threat, but over the last thirty years, it’s shifted into something else entirely.
“The biggest project I ever worked on was the one located beneath Denver’s International Airport. The complex is over twenty miles in diameter and goes down eight levels. It houses the new CIA headquarters — Langley’s just a front. One of my buddies, a structural engineer named Stuart Martin, worked on and off the project for six years on account of them constantly changing construction companies in order to prevent any one particular group from knowing too much. It never bothered Stu; being one of the few structural engineers around with experience working underground, he’d just bounce from one company to the next as a freelancer. If you check out the surface area adjacent to the Denver airport, you can see these small concrete ventilation stacks that resemble mini-cooling towers. They’re spread out across the entire surface area, some of them partially hidden behind shrubs. Of course, you can’t get too close — the perimeter’s fenced in.
“My last day on the job, I saw workers hanging Masonic symbols and bizarre murals on the walls featuring burning cities. To be honest, it scared the piss out of me. Bad enough no one knows about these facilities; to think some whacked out religious cult is involved makes it even worse. Of course, they scare the bejeezus out of you when you’re hired, letting you know in no uncertain terms that if you ever talk about anything, you’ll get the Jimmy Hoffa treatment.”
The elevator descended rapidly with no indication of how deep it was going. After thirty seconds it slowed to a smooth stop, its doors opening to reveal a short Caucasian woman in her mid-forties.
Sandy Lynn Bagwell greeted Jessica with the same southern charm she reserved for all her Zebra-level guests. “Good afternoon, Dr. Marulli. It’s been quite a while since your last visit. We’ve missed you.”
“Thank you; it’s nice to be back.” She glanced nervously to her left where two more armed MPs were waiting.
“Dr. Marulli, come with us.”
Jessica followed the two men down a wide white-tiled corridor, its walls papered in navy blue. They stopped at the first door on the left — a knobless steel barrier with a built-in security device.
One of the guards slid his identification card in the slot, causing a magnetic bolt to activate. “In you go.”
Jessica pushed the door open, her hands shaking.
She jumped as the guard slammed it shut behind her, extinguishing the corridor light, leaving her in complete darkness.
“Hello?”
She was afraid to move, unable to see her hand in front of her face.
“Is there a reason you have me standing in the dark?”
Her pulse raced, her breaths turning rapid and shallow as her anxiety rose.
Stay calm… they’re testing you.
“Stay calm… they’re testing you.”
The voice was female but not her own, nor was it human — its cadence computer generated.
“You can read my thoughts?”
No response.
You can read my thoughts?
We can do many things. Telepathy is the most efficient method of communication, don’t you agree, Dr. Marulli?
The voice was male, this time human.
Telepathy may be efficient, but how does one function without the ability to filter every inner thought from the rest of the world?
What thoughts would you filter? Another male telepath asked. Feelings of anger? Hatred? Lust? The desire to hurt another?
Or perhaps the need to deceive? A human female voice suggested.
Jessica felt off-balance and vulnerable, afraid to think. The effect of the darkness magnified her fear, penetrating every fiber of her being, reducing her to nothingness… to an unutterable thought.
A primal urge saved her from the madness.
I have to pee.
No response.
I said I have to pee. Since you can read my thoughts you know I’m not attempting to deceive you. You can either guide me to the nearest toilet or I’ll pull down my pants and piss on your damn floor.
A light appeared, revealing a bathroom and giving the chamber depth.
She made her way slowly across the room, her eyes gathering as much information as she could, her fingers counting each stride.
Entering the bathroom she pulled the door shut, dropped her pants and sat down on the toilet.
Seven fingers… about fifteen to twenty feet from the bathroom to the exit. Circular chamber, the walls composed of some kind of dark, porous material, which means they probably can’t read my thoughts outside of this room.