“Haven’t a clue.”
“Open a window and climb up the outside wall? Perhaps pull down a ceiling tile and climb up through the floor?”
“As I said, not a clue. But when we do find a solution, I can assure you that it will not be so pedestrian.”
“That would be what you call… a clue.”
Lieutenant Quinn came into the breakroom clutching a handful of papers.
“Copy machine works,” he said, waving the pages.
“So what do you have for us?” asked Banister.
Quinn handed a sheet to Banister, another to Church; copies of the hand-drawn map that he had made of the seventh floor, as they currently understood it to be.
Quinn really, really had a thing for drawing maps of the floors they were on.
“Ah, I see,” said Banister.
“I have to tell you, Doctor Banister, I had a heck of a time figuring out how to work that monster.”
“You would think that using a copy machine would be fairly straightforward.”
“Not this beast. It’s not just a copy machine. It must have five or six different functions. And once you actually get to copy mode, there must be a dozen different options.” Quinn looked at one of the copies of his map. “I just wanted copies.”
“I suppose that explains why the machine takes up half the room,” said Church.
“Copy room,” Banister chuckled to himself. “A copy machine that actually does need its own room.”
“More like Mission Control,” said Quinn, turning away from the table. “That copy machine could land a man on the moon.”
Church and Banister looked coolly at one another. Church slowly raised a brow. Banister slowed smiled, absently scratched behind an ear.
§
Johansen was all alone in the command center. He was often all alone in the command center. He slid back from the communications table and stood up, wandered over to the coffee counter. He pulled the carafe from the coffee maker, frowned, and poured the half-cup that was left into his mug.
He took a sip, grimaced and set the mug onto the counter. He was making another pot when he heard the machine over on the narrow table set against the wall come to life. It woke up, made several obnoxious screeching and beeping sounds.
It was one of those small-footprint tabletop four-in-one machines: printer, copier, scanner and fax.
There was a fax coming in…
Johansen filled the carafe with water from the water cooler, finished getting a fresh pot of coffee going. Once the coffee maker started to gurgle, he went over to the printer-copier-scanner-fax machine and picked up the piece of paper sitting in the tray.
He smiled.
He looked up, looked around the room.
Still all alone…
He looked back down at the piece of paper.
Five handwritten words filled the page:
“Hello out there. Banister here.”
Episode Four / Chapter Three
Two of the cubicles along the windowed wall had been opened up, the cube wall between them removed. A table and a number of chairs had been brought into the expanded cube. When not out exploring, many of the team members divided their time between this and the breakroom, and this was where they had gathered the last few evenings before heading off to their individual cubicles for the night.
This was where Owen found Church and Banister. They had been reviewing the latest updates to the map, but were now quietly taking in the cityscape view.
“We stay here much longer, we’re gonna run out of toilet paper,” said Owen. She dropped herself into one of the chairs with a heavy groan.
“One more reason to be moving on,” said Banister pleasantly.
“As a matter of fact, I was in the supply room this morning,” said Church. “Liz is quite right.”
“Someone’s probably stashing a private supply,” grumbled Owen.
“Always so cynical, dear Elizabeth,” said Banister.
“Warranted, more often than not.”
“Cynicism is never warranted, whatever the circumstance. It benefits you nothing, and life is way too short to fill it with valueless nonsense.”
Church’s mind had been wandering. Hearing this, he snorted, snickered and then spoke up. “Speaking of valueless nonsense, can you imagine coming in here day after day, planting yourself in one of these cubicles, day after day, week after week, year after year?”
“I’m beginning to,” said Owen.
“I shudder just to think such a thing,” said Church. After a long pause, he turned and looked curiously at Banister. “Say Wes… what if that’s what this is all about? What if that is the big, scary monster? There has been nothing else.”
“Don’t forget Carmody’s paper cut,” said Owen. At least she wasn’t calling her The Girl Private anymore.
“Are you suggesting that this floor’s Big Bad is being bored to death?” asked Banister. He would need a little more convincing.
“Just a thought, thinking out loud; but why not? If the Adversary looked into my mind for something bloodcurdling to throw at us, this is what he’d find.”
“All right, just for the sake of argument… let’s say that your out loud thought proves to be true. How do we beat the Mundane Monster?”
“Well, how would I know? I’ve never faced mundane before.”
“And yet here we are,” said Banister. “You started this... assume this is where you work.”
“Geez, get a different job,” Owen sneered.
“Absolutely,” Church said quickly; too quickly. Then he thought of something. “No. Wait. Not a different job… a better job.”
“Different, better… whatever,” Owen said dismissively.
But Banister smiled. “Ah. I see where you’re going. What’s the saying? Get kicked upstairs?”
“A promotion?” Owen was actually startled. “How the hell are we supposed to get promoted?”
“You know what they say…”
“No. Please don’t.”
“It’s not what you know…” Banister started.
“It’s who you know,” Church finished.
§
Ramos leaned close to the radio, as if somehow putting himself nearer to the man on the other side of the signal. “Johansen? Johansen? Come on back to me, man. Johansen, you read? Over?”
Quinn came into the breakroom, Carmody behind him. They hurried toward Ramos, hovered over him as he listened for the faint voice coming through the headset.
“Corporal?” asked Quinn. “You have them or not?”
“Johansen…” Ramos spoke again into the headset. “Johansen, come back, over.”
Ramos listened. Quinn and Carmody waited.
Ramos grumbled unintelligibly and tossed the headset onto the table. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face with both hands. “Sorry, sir,” he said.
Quinn lifted his gaze, looked away from Ramos, out the window.
“But you did get through to them?” he asked, more of a statement. “You spoke with command?”
“Yes sir. Or… they got through to us.”
So Carmody had told Quinn. “Either way, we were in communication with the outside.”
“For a minute or so, sir. Long enough for Johansen to tell me they’ve been receiving our faxes.”
“That’s excellent!”
“Yes sir.” Before Ramos could add to that, other members of the team started streaming into the breakroom. Word had gotten out, and everyone had questions.
Quinn managed to quiet them down, then ordered Ramos to fill him in on exactly what he had heard before losing communication.
Ramos had spoken only with Johansen, and only briefly. Yes, they had received the faxes the team had been sending out. He was told that the general and Doctor Lake had both sent faxes in return, but when it looked like these weren’t getting through, the general had ordered Johansen to continue to try to reach the team on the radio.
“Good thing, too,” said Cost
a.
“But why didn’t we receive the faxes?” asked Lisa.
“The machine is designed to receive as well as send,” said Ramos. He pointed up. “He’s just not letting it happen.”
“Actually,” said Asher. “It shouldn’t be working at all, receive or send. I mean, it isn’t really connected to anything on the outside.”
“It works because the Adversary makes it work,” said Church.
“Exactly so,” said Banister. “Which is how they managed to get through to us on the radio.”
“But why?” asked Quinn. “We’re missing something.”
“We’re missing just about everything,” said Owen.
For perhaps the first time since the mission began, Lt. Quinn and Dr. Owen were in total agreement. He turned back to Ramos.
“Did you get anything else?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Johansen was just about to put Doctor Lake on, and that was it.”
§
General Wong stood outside the Quonset hut, hands clasped behind his back, and gazed up at the black monolith. The top of the tower was lost in the gray blanket of low clouds that hung overhead, threatening rain.
It was very quiet here; an unreal alien quiet. It was unsettling to most, but General Wong found it strangely calming. He would often come out here, stand in this very spot and let the peace wash over him and let all the noise in his head wash away.
The door behind him opened and Dr. Lake came out of the command center. He stepped up beside the general. He stared irritably at the tower.
“This is ridiculous,” he stated at last.
“It is what it is,” said the general.
“Ridiculous.”
“Very well. As you say.”
Dr. Lake let out a sigh. “I apologize, General,” he said. He frowned at the black tower rising up from the asphalt. “There’s no reason to any of it.”
“Oh, there is reason, Doctor. And you’ll figure it out.”
The doctor wasn’t so sure. Even if there was reason that he had yet to identify, it was nonetheless a kaleidoscope of moving targets. “He’s playing with us,” he said darkly.
“That he is.” The general turned to look at the doctor. “There are rules to the game, Doctor Lake. That much at least has been evident from the very first floor. The key element of this game is to decipher the rules without benefit of a rulebook.”
“We don’t even know what the game board looks like.”
“Quite right; that would be a second key element.”
It took a few seconds, but both men managed to smile. The general mumbled something about needing to go back inside, but for the moment neither made any move to do so.
For just one more minute, they let the peace wash over them.
§
Johansen had their complete attention. He was sitting at the central table in the command center, papers and folders pushed aside, leaving only the one sheet of paper. Looking over his shoulder, General Wong and Dr. Lake could just make out a long column of numbers very precisely written out. A second column had only the occasional check mark.
“Every thirty seven hours, twenty minutes,” he said, for the third time.
“We’ve gone much longer than that without being able to reach them,” said Lake.
“Yes, but the window was there,” said Johansen. “Open about three minutes, give or take a few seconds. If we had tried to communicate within that window, I’m certain we would have made contact.”
“I see,” said General Wong. Looking closely at Johansen’s work, he focused on the rows with the checkmarks. Those represented the successful contacts with the team. Each fell to an increment of thirty seven hours, twenty minutes. “I’ll be damned.”
“Probably,” mumbled Lake. He folded his arms across his chest. He continued to study the figures. “We initially had a much longer communications window than three minutes, did we not?”
“Yes sir,” said Johansen. “Something happened while they were still on the first floor that changed that.”
“We lost the door,” stated the general, quite matter-of-factly.
“Just about then, sir,” nodded Johansen.
General Wong frowned thoughtfully. “Was that the cause, or were they both symptoms of something else, something of much greater import?”
Johansen wasn’t expected to have an answer, and he didn’t. He said nothing.
Dr. Lake glanced at his watch.
“A testable hypothesis, corporal,” he said. “About seventeen minutes from now.”
§
Asher and Susan sat at one of the tables in the breakroom. They had finished their lunch, half rations, and were now looking over copies of Quinn’s latest updates to the map.
The team had explored every square inch of the floor several times. More than several. Ten, twelve times… there was no sign of the access to the next floor. Nothing.
And yet Quinn always had updates to his map. There were daily revisions, and each day everyone was expected to study the updates. Perhaps a correction would reveal something. Maybe a change from one day to the next was a clue. Was there something missing that would lead them to the answer, lead them to the question that would lead them to the answer?
“This is getting us nowhere,” droned Susan. “We’re going in circles.”
“How does he come up with so many changes, one day to the next?” asked Asher.
“Mostly just stuff people overlooked,” said Susan. She leaned over the map and pointed. “I mean look at this, Peter. He added trash cans. Lisa noticed trash cans in the cubicles, and they weren’t on yesterday’s map.”
“Hmm,” Asher grunted. “They were there yesterday, weren’t they?”
“They were there. I use the one in my cube. Don’t you?”
Do I?
“I guess so. Not really much call for it.” He looked around the breakroom. “We use the cans in here.”
Susan slid the map a bit closer, pulled yesterday’s map up beside it. Most of the handful of differences between the two were similar to the trash bins. The light switch board in the supply room, a second set of shelves along the north wall. Both should probably be checked out, if they hadn’t already. And it looked like a door in the men’s restroom had been added to today’s drawing. How’d they miss putting a door on the map till now?
“What about this?”
“Utility panel, I think,” said Asher. “You know… electrical boxes, water shutoff, like that.”
Ramos’ radio on the nearby table began ringing for attention. Asher and Susan looked at one another, then to the radio. They finally stood and walked over. They stared uncertainly down at it, neither quite knowing what to do.
Susan looked anxiously at the open archway to the hall.
“I don’t think he hears it,” she said.
The radio continued its horrendous ringing noise.
“I guess I’ll, uh…” Asher fumbled around with the receiver, looked apprehensively at the button on the handle, then at the face of the radio itself.
“Hello?” he stammered, putting the receiver to his ear. He began adjusting and then resetting knobs, clicking and unclicking the button.
“Anything?” asked Susan.
“Hello,” Asher said again, continuing to click and adjust and reset. “Hello. Hello. Asher here.”
A voice then, coming through the receiver, cutting in and out. “Hello, Professor. Johansen here. You wanna stop doing that?”
Episode Four / Chapter Four
Costa came into Quinn’s oversized cubicle and stood before the table. She waited for the lieutenant to acknowledge her.
Quinn looked up from his paperwork. “Inventory completed?”
“Yes sir.” Costa handed him the clipboard. One sheet contained the updated list of food and rations, the remaining documents included a final inventory of supplies and equipment they held ready to take with them to the next floor. This second list was divided into two categories: the first was a full in
ventory, the second that same inventory broken down by members of the team and who was expected to carry what.
“Nice work, Sergeant,” said Quinn. He returned to the first sheet with the food inventory. It didn’t look good. “Looks like we’ll begin to starve right on schedule.”
“Yes sir,” said Costa. “We’ve about worn out our welcome, sir. Time we were moving on.”
“I’m right there with you.” Quinn tossed the clipboard onto the table and leaned back in his chair. “We can’t cut rations any further; particularly the civilians.”
“The water supply is good,” said Costa. “Thank goodness for that.”
Quinn leaned forward again, put his elbows on the table. “Put a lock on the bottled water. Everyone is to use the water out of the tap. I want to keep our known quantity on hand, run the unknown until it runs out.”
“Yes sir. Doctor Owen won’t be happy.”
“Doctor Owen is never happy. Being unhappy is what makes her happy.”
“Ah, the paradox that is Elizabeth Owen,” said Banister. He stood at the opening to the Quinn’s cubicle.
Quinn dismissed Costa with a slight nod. Costa nodded in return, turned and left.
“Doctor Banister,” Quinn indicated a chair. “Have you and Doctor Church come up with anything?”
“A few theories.” Banister came into the cubicle and sat in the offered chair. “Nothing you could hang your hat on.”
§
Asher opened the narrow access door set into the end wall of the men’s restroom. Beyond the opening was a narrow passage two feet wide and about four feet deep. Along the left wall were three metal utility panels.
“Like I told you,” Ramos said casually. “Utility closet.”
“Never doubted you for a moment,” said Asher. “Why didn’t it get onto Lieutenant Quinn’s map?”
“Couldn’t tell ya,” shrugged Ramos.
Carmody had the map in hand. She stepped up to the access door and looked inside.
“D’you check that far wall?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Ramos. “It’s a wall.”
Carmody frowned at the map. “There’s a blank space on the other side.”
The Black Tower: The Complete Series Page 13
