The Desolate Guardians

by Matt Dymerski

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  You'd be surprised how easy it is to play chess against yourself. The game is uniquely suited to cold decision-making, and your next move doesn't depend on prior states. You can spend a few hours reading a book, come back to the board, and legitimately make a move in your own best interests before doing it all again as the opposite player.

  Of course, your opponent is perfectly matched to your level of skill, and there's no bragging, so nothing really gets decided. I did find, curiously, that black won more than fifty percent of the time?

  At some point, I'm pretty sure the human brain forces you to stop doing things you realize are pointless. Once chess became agony instead of welcome distraction, I had only the books left.

  And when I'd memorized all the books, I?

  I went for a lot of walks. They don't take very long, though.

  I've got seven chambers here. One has the shower and the toilet, and the marks I make in the wall for each day that passes. One chamber has my bed, my books, and a picture on a nightstand. The third chamber has a kitchen area, and a table that serves adequately as a ping-pong arena against my only opponent - the wall.

  The fourth chamber has the computers and communication equipment. Screw all this stuff. It's all held together by rubber bands and scotch tape. You know, I think I've finally managed to send a message out somewhere? but I always think that, don't I? This time, with everything going unbounded, with time slipping into time and thought slipping into thought? I really think I've done it. This message is going somewhere. It has to be.

  The fourth chamber has a wall of televisions and radios, incoming-only. Some goddamn genius got hired to make televisions and radios that couldn't be repurposed to send a message out. I hate that guy. I've been in and out of half of these things, even burrowed into the wall myself, and the crap back there just won't give me a break.

  I used to watch the TVs, but they just remind me how cooped up I am. And everyone out there seems to be getting dumber and more outraged at everything all the time. I wish I could shout loud enough for them to hear.

  The fifth chamber has, of all things, a couch. What am I gonna do, have a guest over? There are fake blinds, too, always down and closed because they only show onto concrete. Was this room supposed to make me feel a little less trapped? Idiots?

  The sixth chamber, offset a bit from the rest by a small tunnel, houses a vast little factory and furnace room that keeps me alive. Air conditioning, carbon scrubbing, an automated hydroponics bay, geothermal power plant, the works? that shit could run for a hundred years all by itself, if it hadn't been made by the lowest bidder.

  See, I know I'm not supposed to send messages out. I know that. That's the fundamental design of this whole place. Thing is? there's somebody down here.

  I mean, I might be losing my mind. I get that. But I can feel the curve of insanity ahead in the road, and I don't think I'm there yet. I really think there's a person in my furnace room. And I checked. I went over every crack in the wall, every nook and cranny in the air vents, even re-checked the welded-shut elevator like I do every day: there's no way in or out of this place.

  Yet, there's someone in my furnace room.

  I can guess what that means for me, and none of my guesses are good. I suppose there's no point in hiding, though. There's literally nowhere to go. And I chose this, so it's pretty much my fault. Time to face the music? and, more supposing - better to die now than to spend forever down here losing my mind.

  Actually, not like anyone will get this message in time to do anything. I might as well check it out first.

  I crept down that long, small concrete tunnel with the weirdest sense of anticipation. The furnace room had always creeped me out for some reason; it wasn't meant for anything but maintenance access, so it was like a series of mechanical caves and burrows that went on longer than I'd ever reached. It was always breathing and moving and clinking, even during my supposed night hours. I hated it.

  So, of course, an intruder had to have appeared there. Anywhere else would have been too simple. Crawling between the water recycler and a furnace duct, I tried to get a long vantage on whoever was back there.

  I froze as I saw a shoe move out of sight up ahead. Scraping across cement, it had been pulled forward by someone else crawling through the maintenance tubes. That was it: proof that someone was down here. But how? Was? was there a way out?

  "Hello?!" I shouted, immediately taken aback at the ragged and unfamiliar sound of my own voice.

  The only response came in the form of someone scrambling away in the distance.

  "Please, I won't hurt you," I yelled out.

  Eventually, I retreated back to the tunnel. If there was somebody in there, they'd have to come out sooner or later. I pulled the couch over, tilted it up on its end, and used it as a makeshift barrier in the tunnel. It could easily be moved - but it would make a noise.

  I moved through my chambers carefully, noting the placement of every object. Nothing had been moved, and I could find nobody around, so the possible intruder still had to be in the furnace room?

  I decided to get some algae paste from the kitchen and eat. There was really nothing else to do. I couldn't risk crawling around in there with some stranger on the loose? here, I'd at least have a clear view of what I was up against.

  The alarm went off as I was eating. Distracted as I was by the thought of an impossible intruder, I was initially terrified? but, then, I sighed, and went to deal with it.

  How long did I wait? A half hour? An hour? It didn't matter. Eventually, a voice radiated down the tunnel. "Hello?"

  In the kitchen, I sat up straight.

  It was a woman!

  Practically running to the sixth chamber access, I poked my head around the edge of the couch. "How'd you get down here?"

  I didn't see anybody, but her voice came from right around the opposite corner at the end of the tunnel. "Where are we? What is this place?"

  Processing her words, my head hurt a little bit. It'd been a long time since I'd heard anyone speak. All that mattered was getting out of here? "How'd you get in here?"

  Whoever she was, she paused. "I'll tell you, but only if you tell me where we are."

  Court-martial me if I ever get out of here - what was the use of hiding the information? "We're eleven thousand feet underground."

  Another pause, then a confused tone. "Seriously?"

  I could leave, I could leave, and I could start a new life? "How do we escape?"

  "Just one second," she replied instead, her tone growing more commanding. "What is the state of Earth?"

  I sighed. It was just an overseer using the comm system to simulate an intruder. Had I imagined the shoe? Or perhaps it was an adjunct, testing me. I hadn't heard from any of them in over a year, but they'd been bound to check in sooner or later? "Looks like business as usual in the TVs. Radio chatter seems normal, too. A few wars going on, but nothing out of the ordinary."

  "Is that so?" She stepped out from behind her corner hesitantly.

  Holy crap - she was really down here! A brown-haired woman in her early thirties crept down the tunnel. She wore unfamiliar clothing, but seemed otherwise normal. "You're not armed, are you?"

  I looked her in the eyes across the edge of my couch. "Why would I be armed? No one should be able to get down here."

  She approached me cautiously, and I retreated a chamber. She slowly moved the couch out of the way and entered my space proper.

  As she looked at me, I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my thickening stubble and unkempt hair. "Sorry," I told her. "I haven't had visitors in a long time."

  She circled around me, checking out each chamber with narrowed eyes one by one. Though I followed her from room to room,
she never completely turned her back to me. We stopped outside my bedroom, and she did not enter the bathroom area. "What is this place?"

  "My prison," I laughed. "Can we go now?"

  "Are you a prisoner? What was your crime? What justifies burying you eleven thousand feet down?"

  It occurred to me that she really had no idea where she was. This wasn't an act. What if she chose not to reveal her method of entry? "Oh? oh no, I was joking. I'm? I'm military."

  She set her jaw. I don't think she believed me.

  "Here, come here," I told her, going back to the fifth chamber. "These TVs? I watch the world here." I touched a device. "I listen? to the radios? see?"

  She remained at the edge of the chamber, watching me warily. "Why?"

  What could I tell her? Hmm? "There's a problem, see. It, um? it's like this. Say there's aliens. They want to take over the Earth for whatever reason. They're assholes, right? Except if they've got brains, they'll understand."

  "Understand what?" She slowly moved around the edge of the room, drifting toward the direction of the furnace room tunnel.

  I could tell I was losing her. "Say there are monsters, too. Shit, I don't know. Mind-controlling parasites. Things with eerie eyes that'll eat you alive. Or one that, like, rips out of your bones. Seriously. Your bones. Fates worse than death. Anything and everything."

  Her eyes went narrower, and she stiffened.

  "No!" I told her, highly aware of her body language. "I'm not saying this stuff exists. I don't know. Some people do, though, and some people are scared out of their goddamn minds. So if I see, on the TV, that people are in trouble? that those aliens are attacking, or stuff is getting people, or anything that seems to be condemning the human race to fates worse than death? well, then I give them the better option. I give them? just death."

  The glimmer of understanding grew in her eyes.

  I decided to push the offensive. "Yes! I can tell you get it. Aliens can't take us over if we threaten to kill ourselves rather than surrender. And we can't be trapped in fates worse than death if we kill ourselves first." I moved along the wall, touching embedded electronics. "All this? all this? it's attached to every single nuclear weapon in every single country all over the world."

  "That's why you're so far down," she breathed, taking in the logical madness. "None of those forces can find you, or reach you. They can't stop you from activating the? doomsday suicide pact."

  I nodded excitedly, my eyes wide. "Right? Right?! That's what he said, when he brought me down here. The only defense we have against nightmare is the power of self-sacrifice. That's our mantra." I thought about that, and? my hope slowly began to ebb as I realized something. "If you're not with them, then who are you? I haven't heard from my commanding officer in over a year."

  "The TVs look fine?" she answered.

  "They could be faked," I countered. "They're just signals. If the politicians told the enemy - whoever or whatever the enemy is - and the politicians would have told them, because the doomsday suicide pact is useless unless the enemy knows about it - you know, Doctor Strangelove style - then those signals could easily be fake. Everyone on the surface could be dead right now, or being kept alive as brains in jars, or being enslaved."

  "Then how do you know anything at all about the situation up there?"

  I glared at her. "My CO is supposed to check in every so often over a secure line. I haven't heard from him in over a year. The equipment broke. Goddamn government contractors! But I fixed it. I thought I fixed it. But he's still not out there."

  She looked down at my uniform for a moment, thinking. "If the signals are being faked, then the enemy up there has complete control of the planet, and masterful deception abilities. In that situation, would you detonate the system and destroy all life on the surface?"

  I nodded. "In a heartbeat. If They killed everyone, or enslaved them, or worse... well then They can all go to hell."

  "What if there are still human beings fighting for survival?" she asked, her tone quiet. "What if there's even one person left up there?"

  I smiled weakly. "All thoughts that I've had. In an endless mad cycle. Over and over. Every day. The fate of the world literally rests on me." My gaze drifted. "Can you please take me out of here?" My hope rekindled in a burst of warm fire as she finally just nodded.

  "Alright. No man should ever have to make that choice, let alone by himself."

  Almost sobbing, I nodded in agreement.

  She began to move toward the access tunnel when red lights began to blare and a loud noise echoed through the chambers. "What the hell is that?"

  Why did it have to happen then? I was almost out! Despair coiling around my heart, I carefully walked to the seventh chamber in my underground bunker. The heavy metal doors slid open in response to my handprint, and a single button lay within. Above, large red numbers counted down. 21? 20? 19?

  Coming up behind me, she studied the room, and shouted over the alarms. "What is this?"

  I said nothing. Instead, I pushed the button.

  The alarms ceased, and the chamber slowly resealed itself.

  Standing outside, I could only look at the cold concrete beneath my bare feet.

  She figured it out on her own. "It's not something you activate, is it?" she asked, her words horrified. "It's something you don't do."

  I nodded absently. "The alarm goes off at random three times a day. I have sixty seconds to push the button and stop the process. If I'm dead - if the forces worse than death have managed to disable or kill me - then it'll go off automatically. That's the only way to be sure."

  She backed away from me. "I can't take you with me?" She began moving down the service tunnel backward, her eyes on me, as I slowly followed her. "God? I can't take you with me? how long have you been down here?"

  She'd have known if she saw the bathroom, and the thousands of marks on the walls that each marked a single day. She shook her head for nearly ten seconds, probably trying to comprehend what she was condemning me to. "I'm so sorry?" She slammed the door to the furnace room behind her.

  Just like that, I was alone again. Had I ever really had company? Had I ever really had a guest over?

  I did eventually manage to get through the door, but there was no trace of her by then, and no trace of an escape route.

  I knew, then, that I was going insane.

  What if the signals are fake? What if they're not? What if there's one single person still alive and fighting for the fate of the human race? What if there isn't, and I'm alone on a dead world? What if the surface is covered in slimy, horrible, extradimensional creatures? What if it's a utopia up there, and some horrific series of bad-luck mishaps have cut off the line to my bunker? They could be drilling down to rescue me even now - if I just had a single communication, a single message, a single voice? if I just knew something?!

  But I didn't know.

  And I couldn't go on.

  Court martial me if you can. I decided to let the timer run out at the next alarm.

  I sat there staring at the button, letting the alarms blare, letting the red lights flash. I held the picture from my nightstand close.

  10? 9? 8?

  I wouldn't even notice a difference down here, would I? The surface could be obliterated by a hundred thousand nuclear explosions, and I wouldn't feel a thing eleven thousand feet down, would I?

  3? 2? 1?

  I took in a deep gasp as the timer actually hit zero, and a much louder alarm began going off. Deep in the walls, something began to move, vibrating the concrete beneath my feet. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, it was actually happening! A single number blinked on the screen above.

  0? 0? 0?

  What now? Oh God, what now?

  The words Final System Initiation flashed above, and then new numbers appeared.

  60? 59? 58?

  So it wasn't really only sixty seconds! I thought that was always cutting it a little short. I laughed out loud, barely hearing myself over the incredibly loud alarms.
What was the louder alarm even for? There was no way to sleep through the first set? unless?

  The proximity alarms?

  The vibrating beneath my feet?

  Why would anything vibrate here?

  Running out to the other chambers, I heard a loud drilling sound coming from somewhere above. Dust drifted down from the ceiling. They were drilling me out! Were they bringing down my replacement? Was my shift finally over?!

  Breathing hard, I ran to the button and slammed my hand down on it.

  It stopped at 6 seconds.

  The alarms all ceased, and the door to the seventh chamber slid closed once more.

  Laughing happily, I moved back out into the other rooms.

  I frowned.

  The drilling had stopped.

  It was eerily quiet once again.

  Confused, I waited.

  It wasn't until I'd done the same thing for two more alarms that I realized what you bastards did. You added fake proximity alarms and fake drilling vibrations to the final initiation. They're randomized, too, so I can never be certain they're fake. Every time I feel like giving up and letting the end come, letting all the bombs go bright? I can't. Because maybe this time I'm being rescued at the last second.

  Maybe this time the drills are real.

  I laugh a lot these days. I'm laughing all the time! The woman could have been a hallucination, or not; the signals could be fake, or not; the rescue could be the same old trick, or not - who knows?! It's the ultimate joke! And you've played it on me! If you want to know how I feel about it, you know where to find me! I'll be here, screaming your names! A Merry Christmas to all of you, straight from hell!

  And I'm here in the flames already, waiting for you, laughing?