by Leito, Chad
I was in denial.
He lifted himself above the water and turned the heat on his suit up, quickly rotating the dial. From the smooth surface of the water he could see a red, distorted version of himself in the light of the embers.
And then he plunged in.
The water was icy enough that an instinct to gasp tickled at his throat, even under water. He kept his eyes closed as he slowly crawled forward; it was dark enough that his vision was of no use. The worst part about the tunnel was the narrowness of it. Asa’s elbows were smashed in on either side of him, and he knew that if Teddy had collapsed the tunnel down to make a dead end, or installed a gate, that he wouldn’t have room enough to turn around. An impeded route would force Asa to try and crawl backwards through the lightless, cold water.
After thirty seconds of pulling himself onwards, he began to feel the algae-covered, slimy walls around him for the opening that led to the safe room. Asa did not plan on stopping here. There was a sureness in his gut that he would simply find a barren, cold room carved out of the mountain.
His heart pricked with anxiety as his numb fingers found the rounded edge of the tunnel that led to the safe room. He stretched his arm before him, and passed this tunnel, moving onward.
Remember how I used to kid myself, thinking that the extra tunnel that Teddy dug must just be for architectural reasons that I didn’t understand?
It disturbed him to think that he could turn such a blind eye to the truth.
The extra tunnel went on for a long time, widening out. There were small grips for his hands, similar to those found on an artificial rock-climbing wall. Asa utilized these, yanking himself forward. He opened his eyes, which had no benefit, and continued to tug. After pacing himself down the tunnel for over one minute, he realized that if he continued he wouldn’t have enough air to turn back around. He thought of the George Washington quote, and he wondered what would happen to a corpse in watery tomb. And what will I do if I reach forward and instead of my palm landing upon the next grip, my fingers slip into the cold mouth of a corpse—Teddy’s corpse.
Asa mentally reprimanded himself for thinking this. It was disturbing, not useful.
His ears began to hurt with the water pressure. His chest was beginning to beg for fresh air when he saw the first hint of light in the far distance. He whimpered out bubbles in the melted snow that Teddy had siphoned into the tunnel and dug his fingers into hold after hold, pulling himself forward.
He continued to descend for two hundred more yards and then the tunnel opened up completely and he was in a pool. He looked upward and saw blue and green light shining onto the dancing surface. Seeing these lights, he thought of how he was about to finally know what all the drilling was about. He was still for a moment; his hair floating around him as he wondered if he actually wanted to see what Teddy had been doing all that time. There were so many oddities about Teddy as of late—the straight A’s, the dilated pupils, the aggressive jokes, the twitching that was so similar to Robert King. Asa looked back, into the dark tunnel from which he came. His lungs felt like they were about to burst. Even if he didn’t want to find out what Teddy had been doing the past few months, he had to now. He didn’t have enough air to return to his dwelling. He pushed off from the slick stone bottom with all the force he could use, and kicked his way to the top.
He emerged and sucked air deep into his chest. He spun around, looking for Teddy, afraid of what he might find.
Teddy was nowhere to be seen. What he found was not something he had anticipated. Even though there were no dead bodies, or computers connected to outside governments, what Asa saw made him uneasy. The room was vast, stone, and lit with torches holding blue and green flames. Every small wave of the water and every one of Asa’s breaths echoed terribly loudly. He couldn’t suppress the need to cough, but was afraid to make much noise. He sunk down under water, coughed out muffled bubbles, and then came back up. He was terrified of making too much noise.
Asa waded over to the edge of the pool, and pulled his dripping frame out of the water. He turned up his suit to an even higher temperature and sat, hugging his knees, breathing, and looking about him.
My God, Teddy! What is all this?
The room was the size of a church, a comparison that was made stronger by all of the statues that watched Asa. There were statues of angels on one side of the room, carved in the dark stone. They were life sized, with feathered wings stretching out beside them. They held spears in veiny hands and cast long shadows on the walls. Their noses, their eyes, their ears—everything about them was made with such precision that the pieces were comparable to some of the greatest works of art.
On the opposite side of the room were statues even more decoratively carved—demons. There were a dozen of these, perched about the area, and all roughly seven feet tall. They had claws for hands, long fingernails, and sharp, terrible teeth. Some were standing upright on the ground, stone assault rifles strapped across their naked torsos. Others were perched up in high corners, suspended thirty feet up into the air. Their expressions were of rage-filled agony, with wrinkled brows and noses. Their mouths were unnaturally wide, reminding Asa of the unhinged jaw of a python. Out of their hollow mouths, noses and eyes came thick, black smoke from red fires that burned within the statues.
My God, Teddy! Asa thought. How much time have you spent up here, friend? And why? Why work this hard on something so intricate—so obsessive? Have you gotten into some strange cult? Are you worshiping these creatures, Teddy?
A hypothesis rose to Asa’s mind. He compared his running to Teddy carving; maybe Teddy works in this place to occupy his mind so that he doesn’t have to think of other things.
But if that’s all that’s going on here, why didn’t he tell me about it?
Asa was convinced that the strange, cavernous enclosure held terrible secrets about his friend.
Thick wooden beams crisscrossed along the ceiling, adding support. Black stone crows hung down from these beams, supported by thin wires in positions that made it look as though they were flying. The room was entirely empty except for Asa, but there was a doorway near the top of the wall nearest the demons.
Asa looked up at the high doorway. Why did he make this opening so far above the ground? Is he trying to keep someone out? Is there an architectural reason that I don’t understand.
Asa extracted his wings as slowly as he could and then softly flapped them, rising himself up to the doorway. He locked his cold fingers onto the bottom of the doorjamb and pulled himself up, closing his wings behind him as he entered a hallway.
The stone hallway was cold, and packets of ice intermixed with the cracks in the stone. The place smelled of chlorine. At the end or the corridor was a room that glowed red with a roaring fire. Asa gingerly tiptoed over the rock in his bare feet; he was acutely aware of each noise he was making, frightened that his neurotic friend would appear from the lit room with pupil-dilated eyes and a hatchet in his hand. With every few steps his ankles popped and in the silence the noise sounded like fireworks to Asa, but he kept moving. At the beginning of the hallway, the floor was icy on his bare toes and he breathed out fog. Towards the end, he felt the heat of the next room, and his breath became invisible once more.
Asa halted at the threshold of the room with the fireplace, listening for any sound. There was nothing but the faint popping of burning wood in a fire. Someone has been tending to that fire in the week since Teddy disappeared. Is Teddy doing this? Or could he have been captured? What if a Multiplier killed him, and is living up here, enjoying Teddy’s mansion—tending to the fire, eating Teddy’s flesh?
Asa stared at the far wall for any movement of the jagged shadows that were projected onto the stone. Not wanting to rush himself into a dangerous situation, he waited there for minutes before peaking around the corner. He could hear blood rushing near his ears. He felt panicked. Moving at a glacial pace, Asa slowly tilted his head so that he could look around the corner. His eye made it past and the
n he was looking out into the room with the fireplace. The chamber appeared empty, although there were chairs and couches that could be concealing Teddy or a lurking Multiplier—some of the furniture was bare stone, some was wooden, and some was covered with animal furs. The wall in which the fireplace sat had dozens of hallways running to other rooms. How big is this place?
Asa retreated for a moment, and listened for more movement. He looked to his right, down the hallway, towards the cathedral-like room with the disturbing angel and demon statues. I should leave. I should get Conway or someone to come and help me. I shouldn’t enter this place alone.
Feeling like he might vomit, Asa entered despite his better judgment.
The size of this room sent chills up Asa’s spine. He felt like a field mouse coming into a barn. The room was rectangular, the width of a football stadium, and half a mile long. On the wall with the fireplace (which was the size of a one-bedroom apartment), the ceiling was over one hundred feet above the ground. The ceiling sloped drastically upward and connected with the opposite wall at a height that made Asa feel dizzy; it was a sensation akin to looking up at a skyscraper. The floor was sporadically carpeted with furs of all sorts—lambskin, skinned mutated grizzlies, and a stitched quilt of beaver fur.
Not only was the wall across from the fireplace incredibly large, but it was also almost completely covered in Teddy’s handwriting in thick black ink. There was a pulley system that hung from the ceiling by thick ropes. Suspended from this was a scaffold that a person could use to reach any part of the gigantic wall. Asa could see stone buckets and drying brushes hanging on the railing of the scaffold.
Asa felt his skin crawl up the back of his neck as he stepped backward and saw the entirety of the wall for the first time. Thousands of mathematical equations were painted upon the stone; all of these involved steps that Asa didn’t understand, and most had symbols that he had never even seen before. Some of the equations stretched thirty yards wide, with corresponding equations running down the wall all the way to the floor. Teddy had been using the wall as a type of mathematical diary, and used mathematics with such proficiency that he would intermittently slip into English at times. In between long, carefully painted equations, there were words like “…so…” and “…because of this, we can see that…” There was more than just math, though. There were three dimensional atomic structures of chemical interactions: Most impressive among these was a DNA double helix extending from the floor to the ceiling, with every neutron, electron and proton filled into a three dimensional diagram on the stone. Outside of the diagram, there were arrows running from spots on the double helix out to blocks of finely written mathematics that were bigger than a Winggame Plaid.
Mesmerized, Asa began to walk parallel with the wall, gazing up at the structure. He was disturbed to see a life-sized, terribly accurate drawing of himself flying through the barrel maze in Flying Class. Out of the animated Asa’s mouth came Doppler waves that were drawn so that they bounced off of the side of the barrel and came back to make contact with Asa. Beside this, there were more arrows, and more equations that Asa didn’t understand. Painted in enormous block letters were the words, “CHANGE TONES!” beneath the diagram.
Asa’s eyes flickered back over the strange equations. The writing was unmistakably Teddy’s—big, blocky, and geometrically organized. Is this how Teddy discovered that I should change tones in flying class?
Asa’s heart was pumping as he looked at the mathematical symbols that were alien to him. If he hadn’t seen this, he could have assumed that Teddy was merely insane and writing nonsense symbols. But changing tones in Flying Class had worked, meaning that it was safe to assume that the rest of the math on the wall meant something, and was accurate. Asa imagined Teddy working on these things—his insanely large pupils throbbing as his paintbrush added to his massive wall. Asa looked back at the door he had entered through and felt pulled by two opposing urges. Part of him knew that he should leave, but his curiosity kept him gazing at the painted wall.
The figures, numbers, diagrams and words went so high up onto the stone wall that Asa was unable to see it all from the ground. He walked further into the room and was past the fireplace when he saw his father’s riddle.
Solutions and weapons that are known
Can be used, or worse, destroyed
Best keep them in the void
There are two spaces that these secrets are maintained
One is metal, it’s locked away
The other, though, isn’t so easily disposed
You can’t see it, it doesn’t say hello
It doesn’t make a difference
It’s never seen
It doesn’t affect any pedigree
Where two come and give half each
This is where it will be
You’ll find that I’ve only stolen from me
The itch to leave was stronger than ever, but so was the fascination. Arrows ran from each word and pointed at a definition in the stone. Parts of the definitions were words, and looked like they were from a standard dictionary. But then the lining would expand down into row after row of dense mathematical equations. The word “metal” had the most extensive definition, and was flanked with Lewis Structures of electron shells. To the far end of all the definitions and equations, there was another double helix—this one was much smaller than the first Asa came across. This was circled.
What does the circle mean? Is this an answer to something? What does he know? Has he discovered what my father meant by the riddle?
There was a soft sound from behind him—mute enough that he barely heard it, but loud enough that he was sure he was no longer alone. Asa stopped breathing.
All was silent. Asa didn’t move his gaze from the painted wall, and saw a shadow there, beside his, that he didn’t remember from earlier.
There was a groan, and Asa turned slowly on the bear rug.
Teddy was crouched against the opposite wall, wearing the camouflage suit that he had been given for the Task. He had lost even more weight. His eyes were shadowed under his protruding brow, and he gazed up at Asa through blonde bangs of hair that had fallen in his face. He had the rest of his face covered with his hands; he was driving his nails into his cheeks and shaking.
Asa stood still, feeling trapped. Though Teddy hadn’t said anything yet, Asa thought—There is something very wrong here. Why has he been cooped up here all week? Why hasn’t he been going to class? And why is he shaking like that? Asa was thinking about how far he would have to travel to get out of this place when he noticed that blood was running from Teddy’s nails and over his hands and arms. Teddy was piercing the skin on his cheeks with his fingernails, trembling. Teddy’s breathing was ragged. The positioning of his hands prohibited Asa from seeing Teddy’s mouth, and the shadows made it so that he couldn’t see his eyes.
When Teddy’s voice came out, it sounded foreign to Asa. It was deep and grumbling, octaves lower than Asa had ever heard Teddy’s voice. It reminded him of a sports car’s motor. It reminded him of Volkner’s voice when he was angry. “I was waiting for Saturday. I was waiting for your Winggame match to leave.”
Teddy’s breath continued to rasp behind his hands and the blood from his cheeks dripped from his elbows onto the stone. He was creating two huge gashes underneath his eyes and ripping them open. Teddy continued to shake.
“GET OUT OF HERE, PALMER!”
Teddy was trembling more than ever. Asa took two steps backwards and stared at his friend. For the time, his feet felt glued to the stone. The fire danced behind Teddy, and he was only a silhouette now.
What did Teddy mean by, ‘I was waiting for Saturday. I was waiting for your Winggame match to leave.’ Leave what? Leave the Academy? Leave this mansion? Not able to control his curiosity, Asa asked Teddy, “What have you been doing up here all week?”
Teddy laughed, and then groaned. Asa couldn’t see his friend’s eyes because he was crouched in front of the bright flames in the fireplac
e. Teddy growled, “I’ve been trying to convince myself not to come down and get you while your sleeping. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. It’s all that I’ve wanted. I’ve wanted to bite you. I was afraid to leave if I thought you might be in there…so I told myself I’d leave during your Winggame match. That way you’d be gone. That way there wouldn’t be the temptation. NOW LEAVE! LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN!
Startled, not thinking, Asa began to sprint across the stone beside the wall. He didn’t know what was wrong with Teddy, but wanted to leave.
What is happening? Why is Teddy being so mean—so aggressive? Why did he dig out this mansion in the side of the mountain? What do all the math equations mean?
As he passed the fireplace, Asa was struck from behind. He fell, rolled, and then Teddy was on top of him, breathing heat into Asa’s face.
Still in the demonically deep voice: “Why did you come?”
Asa couldn’t talk; Teddy was atop him, pinning him down. One of Teddy’s feet was pressed against the wall behind him and the opposite knee was jammed into Asa’s diaphragm, making it impossible for him to draw in a breath. Teddy was holding Asa’s wrists in his own bloody, shaking hands. His grip was so hard that Asa’s hands were turning numb.
Asa opened his mouth in panic, but couldn’t scream. He’s going to break my ribs; he’s going to rip my arms off!
“Why did you come!?” Teddy growled.
Pinned beneath him, Asa got his first unblocked look at Teddy’s face in the red-orange light of the fire. Asa first noticed, Teddy’s overall complexion. He was more slender, yes, but he also looked stronger than ever. His face was pale, completely smooth, and blemish free. His cheekbones were more pronounced, and his jaw was more defined beneath his firm skin.
