The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1)

by Michael Beckum

  My brain was a mess. I needed help. I needed advice.

  Milton.

  I began walking toward the elevator as Dr. Mizellier called after me.

  “Brandon?”

  Ignoring her, I ran the rest of the way to the elevator and rode up to the next floor, and Milton’s office. The lift stopped, the doors opened, and filled with a man in uniform. My heart stopped.

  “Got your pizzas, buddy,” the delivery guy, said.

  “Holy crap, you scared the shit out of me,” I said laughing, but still an emotional wreck inside.

  “You left ‘em at the store, so I brought ‘em up. I knocked at the office door, but the old guy didn’t answer.”

  “He gets focused, sometimes,” I said, calming down a little. “Sorry.”

  I’d paid for the pizzas at the store, so I tipped him, then took the boxes and drinks.

  “What’s going on?” he asked me, looking in the direction of the flashing lights of the cop cars pulling into the parking lot.

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Big night for the cops. Some dude got killed tonight right outside our store. So gross. Blood everywhere. It’s gonna wreck business.”

  “Really?” I said, trying not to sound like the person who’d killed the guy—and worse—wrecked business. “Wow. Well… thanks again.”

  “No problem, Brandon. Anytime.”

  The guy remembered my name. Of course he remembered my name. He delivered pizza to me and several other APL night owls probably every night of the week. I shook it off and walked away from the patrol cars toward Milton’s office without looking back, fearing eye-contact might make the cops recognize me, or something, and come running right away. I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine and goose my ass.

  The pizza guy rode down in the elevator, and I used my janitor’s passkey to let myself in to Milton’s lab. As expected the older engineer sat motionless at his desk, but instead of working, his head was down resting on his arms. He didn’t so much as twitch when I came in.

  “Hey, Milton,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  No answer. He just lie there… as dead as Ridiculously Handsome. I stared for a while at my old friend, a little worried, but saw that he was still breathing and let it go. Maybe he was taking a nap… or maybe he was just being Milton. Since he wasn’t talking I took the opportunity to go to the window and peek out onto the parking lot below.

  Down near the cop cars I watched as the pizza guy stepped over to a uniformed patrolman, and one of the armed security guys who worked the night shift. They were all talking calmly in short bursts. The pizza guy was gesturing vaguely and nodding, then he looked right up at me, and pointed. I felt certain he and the cop both saw me—they must have—then the cop reached down to unsnap the holster covering his gun, already moving at a fast walk in my direction. He was followed closely by the security guard, who was also opening his holster. Both men spoke excitedly into their little shoulder talkies as they broke into runs.

  They were coming after me with weapons drawn.

  “Oh, my fucking God,” I whispered.

  * * *

  TRAPPED

  * * *

  “Wake up, Milton!” I said, smiling fakely and trying not to sound as terrified as I was. “Take my word for it, whatever it is, I bet my day’s been worse.”

  I set the pizzas down and began to pace like a lion in a circus cage, desperately trying to figure out what to do next.

  “Is that right?” Milton asked, simply, without lifting his head. “They’ve killed my mole. What comparable horror has happened in your life?”

  “Killed your what?”

  “My mole.”

  “What do you mean, ‘killed’ it?”

  “Killed it. Scrapped it. Junked it. Made it redundant.” He lifted his head and finally turned to me. “Choose a euphemism, Brandon. Any will do.”

  “That was today?” I asked, feeling like a bad friend.

  “That was today. It all ended today. I’m sorry,” he said, returning his head to his desk. “I don’t feel like pizza tonight.”

  I waited a moment, until a sad realization finally hit me.

  “Just the project?” I asked, gently.

  “No,” he said, weakly, “the man, as well. So tell me how has your day been worse?”

  “Oh… well… I murdered someone, and the cops are coming up here right this very second with guns drawn.”

  “Very odd joke, Brandon, but all right. If you really murdered someone…”

  He stopped mid-sentence. Very slowly he lifted his head and turned to me, a stunned expression melting his face into weirdly shifting patterns of horror and disbelief. He studied my eyes very seriously for a moment and apparently saw truth in them, somewhere.

  “Brandon,” he said, carefully. “What’s happened?”

  “I accidentally killed a man—in self-defense—sort of—and the police are…” I heard a familiar noise. One I didn’t often hear this time of night. Motors throbbing to life in a hollow, concrete shaft. “And they’re coming up in the elevator right now, armed.”

  Milton continued to look at me as if he’d never seen me before. He glanced at the door, then back at me.

  “Brandon?” he asked.

  I sat on the edge of the desk across from him and felt nearly as low as he did. I was scared, genuinely terrified, and I know he had been, too, before I came in. He was older in a world that favors the young. We were both looking at a kind of end to our lives. But at least his didn’t climax in prison ass-rape.

  “Put the pizza down and help me with something,” he said, suddenly, getting up and walking toward me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Quickly, quickly,” he said.

  He climbed a small, metal ladder and removed a hatch from the full-scale model he’d been constructing, and handed it to me.

  “Take this,” he said, and I did. “Put it on the table, there.”

  He began pulling out modular components, handing those to me as well. I placed them alongside the hatch.

  “That should be room enough. Now, get in.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no time, Brandon. Please. Quickly. Get in.”

  I did as he suggested, and he pressed me into place with a shove, carefully tucking in my stray bits of clothing. Then he grabbed the lid off the table and replaced it over the hole in the mole’s hull.

  “Ow! Fuck!” I said, as he pinched me.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “Now remain completely silent.”

  Latching the hatch with a couple bolt twists, he climbed down and went back to his chair, replaced his head on the desk, and waited.

  The wait was short. Almost immediately there was a loud knock on the door, and one of the cops yelled; “POLICE! OPEN UP!”

  “Open up, yourself!” Milton answered, angrily.

  Something swiped and clicked, and the door burst open. I couldn’t see it, but I assumed the cops were entering with barrels held out threateningly before them, clearing the room.

  “Why didn’t you open the door?” one of the men asked after a substantial length of time searching.

  “I thought it was a joke,” Milton said. “I thought Brandon was being funny, and I’m not in the mood for funny.”

  “Brandon Mack?” The cop asked. “The janitor?”

  “Yes,” Milton said. “What’s this about?”

  “We need to ask him some questions.”

  “With guns?”

  “Something happened tonight that warrants caution.”

  “But…” Milton asked, nervously, “guns?”

  “So… you haven’t seen Brandon tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did this pizza get here?”

  I cursed inwardly. If Milton had only told me what he was doing…

  “Maybe he left it,” Milton said.

  “But you said you hadn’t seen him,” the cop asked in that suspicious, cop way.

  “And I have
n’t. When he came in before, I had my head down and never picked it up.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve had a rather bad day,” Milton responded tiredly. “And just so you know, this isn’t making it any better.”

  There was a moment of silence, and I heard feet moving around.

  Coming closer.

  “Why has your day been bad?” The approaching cop voice asked, his sympathy sounding pretty genuine.

  “Well,” Milton began, “first thing this morning I was told that my last five years of sweat and toil have been a waste of time and money, and my dream project was shut down. Just for good measure I was told that I—personally—was a waste of time and money, and was also shut down—with severance. I was supposed to be cleaning out my office, but mostly I’ve just been sitting here, with my head down, contemplating the cruel nature of existence.”

  “I’m sorry,” the cop said, still sounding sincere.

  “And now you’ve come to tell me that Brandon—someone I care very much for,” Milton said, sadness cracking his voice, and I felt touched, “someone I’ve enjoyed many hours of pizza and beer with—is in trouble with the law, and that only makes my day infinitely worse.”

  “You two have been very close since his father died?” the cop asked.

  There was a silence. When Milton spoke again, his voice was barely audible.

  “I… suppose so.”

  I had never told Milton about my father.

  “You okay?” The cop asked Milton.

  “I just…” Milton began, and I heard the confusion and pain all too clearly, “it hadn’t occurred to me that… yes. We’ve been close. I like Brandon. He’s a good man.”

  “Did Brandon help you with your work?” Another voice asked, and I had to force myself not to jump. The voice was inches from me, just the other side of the mole’s hatch.

  “Only in that he listened when I needed someone to listen. Brandon was the janitor—but he’s so much more than that. He’s too smart to be cleaning floors.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about a girl named Jessica?” The more distant voice asked.

  “Often. Usually with considerable sadness.”

  “Did he ever mention getting even with her—or her boyfriend?”

  “Never. I’m fairly sure he didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. He never mentioned one to me. Only Jessica… and he was beginning to move on from her.”

  “Move on with whom?”

  “Ummm… no one. Just… you know… move on.”

  “So running into her with another guy,” The cop beside me asked, scaring the shit out of me, again, “might that cause him to become unexpectedly jealous? Or violent?”

  “Brandon?” Milton asked, astonished. “Violent? The man was a lover, not a fighter. Just ask… uh… I mean… if he fought with anyone, they must have started it.”

  There was silence while the cops digested that.

  “This your work?” the closer cop asked, again jolting me.

  “Yes,” Milton said. “It’s a mechanical mole for mining on Mars. Or Venus. Asteroids, possibly—that would require no tripping of the system. At least it was.”

  “Tripping of the system?”

  “You wouldn’t have to remove the drill assembly to replace cutters, remove cuttings—things like that.”

  “It just keeps going?”

  “Ideally, yes.”

  “Kind of sharp?”

  “In places.”

  “So… you cut yourself on it? There’s blood here. Pretty fresh.”

  My skin electrified. As silently as I could I touched the arm where Milton had pinched me, and felt the wetness there, dripping down, and apparently out of the mole. I grimaced and applied pressure to stop the flow.

  “I’m afraid I did,” Milton said. “The hazards of working with custom-fabricated metals.”

  “Can we look inside?” The cop asked, and my stomach tightened into a solid knot of fear. The door beside me began to shift and wiggle, slightly.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Milton asked.

  “Just to look,” the cop answered, forcing a jaunty sound in his voice that I didn’t buy for a second.

  There was an extended silence. Fairly long and drawn out. Was Milton coming closer? Was he going to open the hatch? As if in response, it wiggled beside me with more vigor.

  “You’re not hiding Mack in there, are you?” the cop joked, but he wasn’t joking.

  “It’s filled with computer components,” Milton responded. “There’s no room for a man in there.”

  “Really?” I heard hands testing the fit of the latch beside me; I watched it turn, slightly, and my hair stood on end. “Looks to me like you could fit a couple guys in there.”

  “Trust me,” Milton said, trying not to sound agitated, and failing. “There’s no room.”

  “So… can we?” The cop asked again, still forcing ‘casual’, the latch still jiggling beside me. “Have a look?”

  “Do you have a level five security clearance?” Milton asked.

  The cop laughed.

  “Pretty sure the answer to that is a ‘no’,” he said, I heard the latch settle back into place, and footsteps moving away. “But I’ll look into getting one.”

  That last sounded like a warning, but after a few more questions, and a request to notify them should I return, the officers left.

  Milton stayed where he was for a good long while, and said nothing. Eventually he moved to a window and looked out at the parking lot very close to my car. He told me later the policemen spent a considerable amount of time there just talking amongst themselves and to the APL security detail. Eventually another officer who had apparently been searching elsewhere joined them; they jumped in their cars and left at high speed, with no lights or sirens.

  An APL guard remained close to my car.

  It was almost another half hour before Milton felt comfortable opening the hatch for me.

  “Well, Brandon,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

  “MILTON, I’M SO SORRY I got you into this,” I said.

  “I’m not ‘into’ anything,” he told me. “Unless they come bursting through that door. And if they do, I’ll tell them you threatened to kill me if I talked.”

  I laughed, and so did he.

  I hadn’t gotten out of the mole, just in case they did come back, and he had listened to my story while leaning against the equipment-covered table.

  “But of all days to bring this kind of craziness to your doorstep,” I said.

  He waved it off as though it were nothing, got up and moved to stand near me, and his giant digging machine.

  “It was a wonderful distraction. Very entertaining,” he said, smiling, leaning against the mole while speaking to me in a very fatherly way. “But I’m afraid at some point you’re going to have to go to the police and face this.”

  “I know.”

  “It was self-defense, Brandon. Even if you used too much force. How could you know to stop? The man assaulted you.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said, sighing, and gripping a strut before me. “Tell me why they killed… er… shut down your mole?”

  “Ooooh, I could never conquer overburden pressure,” he said, dismissing it as something he had known and expected. “The deeper you go, the harder it is to keep from being crushed. Just like with anything, I suppose. In the end, it’s the outside stresses that kill you.”

  I flinched, and he saw it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me your father had died?” Milton asked.

  I shrugged.

  “You have problems of your own,” I told him.

  “I’m your friend, Brandon.”

  “And you’ve been a friend, even if you didn’t know how much of one, just by being there and helping me to forget.”

  “Well, I certainly did have problems of my own.”

  “Why would they do this to you after all your hard work?”

&nbs
p; “I can’t really blame them,” he said, sighing, looking around at the full-sized, practical drill. “People are starving on this world, why waste money trying to dig dirt on some other?”

  “But your dreams…”

  “Dreams are fine. But shouldn’t I be putting my mind to more practical use?”

  “Asteroid study is practical, Milton! One of those things hits the earth and it’s goodbye human race! Or most of it, anyway.”

  “My studies had nothing to do with mass extinction, Brandon. This was about going deep under the Martian polar ice, and finding signs of life—or at least the essential chemical components of it—not the prevention of potential death.”

  “Can it be re-purposed?” I asked, standing up and looking the huge metal mole over as if I knew the slightest thing about it. “Maybe turned into a prospector for use here on Earth, or something?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. But it’s hardly cost-effective. It has busloads of unnecessary equipment because it’s designed to be run remotely, from millions of miles away in extreme conditions, without human contact. And anyway, beyond that… I don’t own the rights,” he said, sighing. “Those, the prototype, here, and the underlying concept are all owned by APL.”

  “But there has to be a way!” I said.

  “Why is this so important to you, Brandon?”

  I looked at him, sadly, and forced a smile.

  “Because I like you, Milton. And I want to see you achieve your dream.”

  “Why? Because you watched your father fail to achieve his dream?

  “And when he finally retired, all his kids were grown, he had a chance to achieve it…”

  “… And then he died,” Milton said, with deep sympathy.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to die, Brandon,” he said, smiling sadly.

  “I know. Because we’re going to find a way to achieve your dream.”

  He placed a gentle hand on mine.

  “My dream was to find life in the universe, Brandon. Not gold in South Africa.”

  * * *

  DESCENT INTO HELL