by Glynn James
This wasn’t about a stash of forgotten treasure, though. This was about my mother. She had been here, I now knew. No one else ever called me Conman, or “My little Conman,” – just my mother. And that was what was scratched into the vent outside.
So I stepped into the room, shining the headlamp around the dark corners, looking for…expecting…hoping for… I don’t know. Anything, really. Anything that could tell me what happened to my mother.
It didn’t dawn on me until that moment that the pile of rags in the far corner, just underneath where the vent came out inside the building, could be a body. I stood there, staring at the pile of rags, making out boots, legs, a head, or was it a hood? All the details of a dead body were there.
Was it my mother? Had I come all this way to find her final resting place?
Please, God, no…please, God, no, was all I could hear over and over in my head.
Don’t let this be my mum, please.
And it wasn’t.
The relief, as I finally strode over the bare floorboards and turned over the body, coughing as a cloud of dust filled the air, was immense.
Because it wasn’t a body at all.
It was a pile of clothes and gear.
It wasn’t a dead person.
It wasn’t my mother.
A pair of heavy boots, some thick leather chaps, leggings sometimes worn by far-travelling Outriders, two rucksacks, a pile of shirts and slacks, and a hood. I knelt and started searching through the pile. A re-breather mask – something worn by either divers or people in harsh conditions…such as heavy dust storms – a satchel filled with dull but reasonably new looking tools, two more holsters with handguns, similar to the ones I carried, and a trio of different length knives in a small scabbard.
And even more.
There were two small lock boxes piled against the back wall. I popped the lids and found dozens of small rectangular ration tins, all still sealed and intact.
I had been wrong to not expect a stash, and it hadn’t been what I was looking for, but to find it only opened up more questions.
Who had put this here? My mother?
If she had, then why? Had she gathered this stuff for herself? And if that were the case, why hadn’t she taken it with her when she moved on from here?
The back of the air vent stared at me from the dusty, crumbling wall.
I shone my headlamp directly at it, and tried to peer through. The sunlight outside glared, but still half of the small area between the two vent panels, one on the outside, and the one I was peering through, remained half in shadow. I could still see something in there. Was it box? Or a pouch?
I grabbed at my tool belt, ripped open the flap, and took out a screwdriver. A minute later I pulled the inside metal vent from the wall, coughing again as more dust flooded the room.
There it was: a small pouch. Actually, it looked like a wallet of some kind. I grabbed it and opened it up.
My mother’s face smiled back at me from a faded, stained photograph.
So, now I’m sitting here in the Roughrider, with the sides all battened down because a storm is raging outside. It started as I was going through the gear that my mother – well, I’m presuming it was my mother – left behind. I hauled everything down using the rope I found underneath the pile, dropping it all on to the ground outside the garage and then dropped the rope. Going back through the building was a little more precarious than the ascent had been, especially with the wind blowing dust through the building. I nearly fell back down the stack of chairs I’d piled up, but managed to grab onto the joist above as the stack collapsed.
Damn garage door wouldn’t stay shut and kept rattling, so I left it and I’ve secured everything inside the Roughrider. I remembered to put the cover over the hood and the engine before I climbed in. The last thing I wanted was for the dust to get inside and clog up the engine.
I went through all the stuff left behind, still marvelling at how much there was and wondering why my mother would have left it here. I thought that maybe she could have left it here for herself, and maybe she planned to leave me a message and not all the gear. I also worried that she hadn’t made it back here to collect her stash.
Then I found the recording chip inside the sealed pocket in the wallet. I’m going to try something, now. There seems to be a buffering tool on the recorder, so I’m going to attempt to transfer the recording to this chip.
Well, here goes nothing.
:: Transfer Function Accessed
:: Pasting Buffer
(Woman’s voice)
Hi, Conman. This is your mother.
I don’t know if you will ever find this message, but I’m hoping that you will. I hope you’ve found the coordinates I put into your recorder, though I’m also hoping that it is a long, long time after I recorded this. Oh God, I hope you’re not out here until you’re old enough to be able to cope on your own.
I know. I know. You’re a strong kid, but I hesitated putting the coordinates into the recorder, hesitated even thinking about leaving a trail behind, and if I’m honest, this may be the only trail note I leave.
Where I’m going is dangerous, and that’s without considering The Resistance on my tail.
To you, I hope this will be years on, but I only recorded the message for you this morning. It was just a few hours ago that I left the other message on your recorder.
I’m still trying to get my head around leaving you there. It’s just so hard. But I know you’ll be okay. They may have come looking, and they may have searched, but I know you keep the recorder hidden, and I doubt they’ll find it.
But I also don’t know that for certain, so I’m going to have to test you on this. Before we’re done, anyway.
I have to think how to do that, but while I’m at it I guess you’re going to have a lot of questions you want answering.
Well. Let’s start with this.
The Resistance made a deal with the Stygians – that’s Nua’lath’s people, but you know that – way back at the end of the war.
We didn’t win. We surrendered.
No. I know. That will be so hard for you to grasp.
They sold us out, our leaders. Sold us out and sold out my parents and grandparents. We could have got them back, I think. The documents that I found, purely by accident, detailed the search. They did find traces, and they did find a way into the city of Riverfall. That much was all lies.
But they were met by Stygians. The damn things were waiting for us. Nua’Lath’s people, even though they hated Nua’lath for stealing their precious artefact.
Somehow Joshua and my grandfather’s other brothers – James Halldon’s brothers – made a deal with them, rather than continuing to fight. I can’t find references at all to Sha’dis, so I don’t know if it was him or other Stygians that made the deal, but it meant that The Resistance agreed to end the search, and not to enter The Ways. I also couldn’t find anything about what The Resistance gained from the deal, other than an end to the war.
Now, you’re probably wondering what the place is that you’re in right now?
I found out about it years ago, before you were born, but didn’t bother to come here. It was one of the bases that James - let’s call him JH, like you used to - used in his work, the experiments with gates and plane shifting. But it was closed down and became forbidden ground after the war. They stripped the place completely, or so they thought. They also put an order out that no one was to enter, because they couldn’t know if there were still things hidden here.
Of course, I found what was hidden here, and I also found signs of passage that hadn’t been disturbed. From other info I gathered, JH didn’t just run the Outriders. He was head of Tech Research. And at the time of his disappearance, and the secret agreement, a whole division of the Outriders and, from what I can gather, nearly the entire Research Division - who I can only guess must have been stationed here at the complex - just vanished. Yes, I know. It’s very strange, and I’ve still found no trace
of them. I estimate, from what I’ve found, that about five hundred Outriders and Vigilants went missing, and maybe two hundred research facility staff.
All of these people would have been hand-picked by James, his most loyal.
When this place was stripped bare, as you will find if you look around, they took everything. But they didn’t find the bunker and they didn’t find the people. And I’m hoping that no one does and that it’s just you that finds this. I don’t think anyone has any reason to come out here, especially with the quarantine on the facility.
Well there is, and this is where the test begins.
So there is a bunker entrance hidden on this base, and inside there you’ll find answers if you search. It’s a huge bunker, miles and miles of passages and rooms. Keep the entrance closed, so no one else can get in. There’s a lot hidden here that not many people know about, and they mustn’t know. There’s far too much to tell. You’ll have to go see for yourself. Be careful down there. It’s dark.
So, if it’s really you that finds this, Conman, and no one else, then you’ll be able to remember your Maw, and open the bunker door that I recoded. Do you remember?
I hope the supplies come in handy. You may need them if you choose to follow. I won’t be disappointed if you don’t follow. I’ll understand.
I love you.
Mum.
:: Buffer End
:: Record Date 17:05:4787 06:26
I didn’t sleep so well. The storm is still raging outside. I did poke my head out, during the night, and decided not to risk much else. I’ve turned the engine over a couple of times just to make sure that it still works, and it seems to be fine, at least for now. The last thing I want is to be stranded out here and not make it back for roll-call in…two days. I have two whole days to find this bunker, starting now.
I don’t know how long I sat thinking last night, but I’m pretty tired, so it was probably way too long. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. My mother made it this far, and she left all this behind for me to find. I know she says the place is quarantined, but I still think it’s a minor miracle that the stuff was still here and intact. Mind you, if I hadn’t seen my name scrawled on that vent plate, I wouldn’t have ventured up into the higher floors of the building. I took a quick look up there when I first searched the offices and decided it was too dangerous. This building looks like it’s ready to fall in on itself.
That reminds me. I must try to find somewhere better than this garage to use as a base. Now that the door is broken, and the dust can get in when the storm blows, it’s not much of a shelter. And the thought of it falling in on me probably adds to my unease and inability to sleep.
I can’t believe it, though. She didn’t die. They’re liars. All of them. How many of them were in on it? Even JH’s brothers? If what my mother said is true – and I have no reason to believe otherwise – they backstabbed him, and the rest of my family, but for what reason?
Why would they do that?
:: Record Date 17:05:4787 19:26
I’ve retired to the RoughRider early, because it got dark very quickly and the storm is raging again. It’s been calm and clear for most of the day, apart from the occasional blast of wind sweeping through the valley, and I’ve managed to cover a lot more ground than I expected to.
The central row of warehouses, all six of them, though still pretty much intact, was a complete no win. The buildings have been stripped bare, absolutely nothing left behind. It was kind of eerie entering each one. Even though it is bright and sunny outside, glaring even, inside the warehouses was dark and still. Most of the doors are open, so there is enough sunlight coming in to be able to see, but it’s still mostly dark inside.
I went through all six warehouses, and the tiny office rooms at the end of each, but the people who cleared these buildings took everything, even the furniture. All that remains is a film of dust covering the floor.
I did uncover a whole section of the ground in the first warehouse, but didn’t bother with the rest. It’s just concrete under there, and I figured if you were going to hide a bunker, it wouldn’t be in the middle of a warehouse. No, so far no signs of any hidden entrances.
Searching the warehouses took me up until midday and then I came back to the office building and started a more thorough search, at least just the ground floor. I figure that since I’m looking for an underground bunker, I can skip searching upper floors.
Actually, I don’t think any of the other buildings even have upper floors.
Anyway, the ground floor of the office building turned up nothing, so I headed out the back.
There was a row of a dozen much smaller buildings lined up behind the office building. They actually don’t look much bigger than the cargo containers that a lot of the early Evac City buildings were built from, and on closer inspection that was what they turned out to be. They had all been prised open and left to the elements, and apart from a pile of thick metal pipes in the third container, they were all empty. I’m surprised that they didn’t take the pipes and the containers themselves. I know I’d get a high price for the pipes if I had some way to haul them back to the Evac scrap market, and a building merchant would snap up the containers to build habitats.
So, I have just one day left to attempt to find this bunker. I think I’m going to run out of time. Even if I did find the place, I wouldn’t have very long to investigate, which leads me to think that I need to find somewhere secure to put all this stuff my mother left me. I don’t think it’s safe to take it all back, just in case someone starts to pry.
I think a trip to the Junklands on the way back. The old diner there is a good place to hide the gear, and I haven’t been back there for years. It would be good to see the old place again.
:: Record Date 18:05:4787 20:17
Well, wherever this bunker entrance is, it’s certainly well hidden. I covered the remaining buildings today and I’ve come up empty. I guess that was to be expected, really. When the place was shut down it must have been crawling with people, and if none of them found the entrance then it’s likely to be very well hidden.
Most of the remaining buildings are ruins, with barely more than the ground floor still intact, and a lot of them have caved in. I still tried to search even the collapsed ones. It worries me that one of them could hide the entrance, but none of them seem ideal for a bunker entrance. No stairs, no lift entrances. I figure I would have at least spotted something, but then, maybe not. The people that cleared this place out didn’t.
I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, trying to wrack my mind for ideas, or any clues, but I have nothing.
How did my mother find it? How long had she searched for it? There has to be another clue somewhere. Anyway. I’m going to get off to sleep now, hopefully, and then head back to Evac in the morning. I could probably stay a few hours tomorrow, and continue my search, but If I’m going to stop off at the Junklands and visit the diner to hide all this gear, I need to give myself time.
Something I did find, and which has me puzzled, is in one of the bigger buildings on the far side of the complex. There is a huge room below ground level in some kind of massive basement. The door was closed and the dust hadn’t gotten in. On the floor, dotted about, were these circles of glyphs. If I’m guessing correctly, they are portal markers.
Could they be the very ones that JH talks about using in his diaries? I think so. To see them, after all these years of knowing about them, is just mind blowing. We travel to other worlds using portal mechanisms, machines, but those are different; they have coordinates to aim for. These markings are like ancient carvings in the floor. To think that they really can be used to open doorways, with nothing but the power of your mind and an amulet, is crazy.
It always did make me wonder. What were the portal keys that JH and Andre used? As far as I know, there were only ever a few of them, and I’ve certainly never seen one. Were they some kind of high tech? Or even magic? I know, that sounds crazy. But reading the diaries ove
r again, and looking up how the portals were used, it almost seems like some form of magic.
:: Record Date 19:05:4787 07:43
Leaving now. I’m all packed up. It was difficult fitting everything on, even with the sizeable trunk I have on the back of the RoughRider. My mum left a lot of gear up there.
:: Record Date 19:05:4787 13:55
It took me longer to get to the old diner than I expected. The road that leads there is broken up and no one ever went out that way to fix it. There isn’t a lot of traffic north of Evac, since it just leads to the Dustlands and miles upon miles of barren wilderness. Not a lot out there to interest anyone. Though, with what’s supposedly hidden under the facility, people may change their minds if they knew. I wonder if that was why JH chose the place. Seems like a perfect location to hide something you don’t want people looking at.
We lived at the old diner when I was little, just me and my mum. I’m sitting here at the entrance right now, looking over the place. I hardly ever come out here, even though, technically, I own it and about five square miles of dirt around it. We did try to grow stuff out here, you know, corn, vegetables, all manner of stuff, or, should I say, my mum tried to grow stuff. But the land is so barren that even with the irrigation system she built it doesn’t yield crops worth bothering with.
My mum used to say the diner used to be a waystation of sorts – an eating establishment that travellers stopped off at to eat and fill up with fuel – centuries ago. Before this world fell to The Horde, and before The Resistance chose it as its base.
It’s a rectangular building, with strange curved edges rather than sharp, straight ones, and at one time I think it was probably brightly coloured, even gaudy, because you can still see some traces of the old paintwork clinging to the rusty metal. My mum and me spent weeks and weeks cleaning the place up, getting rid of as much of evidence of wear as we could. Hours of scraping off rust and painting it over with resin coating to try and stop the place degrading any further.
Out the back, the swing that we built still stands and so does the sandpit, or “the pool”, as my mum used to call it. I think she was going to try and repair the outdoor swimming pool, but the tiles were too broken and we couldn’t find enough replacements and adhesive to make it work. In the end, we chucked a lot of sand into it, and were going to just fill it in, but then I started playing in it and my mum decided that it had found its new job.
