Christian Clarity Review

Underground—

Hayt looks over the hydroponics. Here and there on the surface of the water is a bit of floating scum. The plants are healthy. The air exchange is good.

Everything is in order.

Radio Izzy: Bill, you finding any debris?

Hayt: None. Not even any dust. No bad odors. The foliage on the plants are clean. The place is just ..

Radio Izzy: Empty.

Hayt: Roger, that. So far. You find anything?

Radio Izzy: Negative.

Hayt walks through the laboratory. Nothing is out of place.

———–

Mary scans the room. On a shelf is a group of pictures. A group shot of the whole family when Bobby had just gotten his new uniform stands propped against the wall with the glass broken out.

The door is marked with a small handprinted card taped to the outside: Robert W. Reynolds.

A photo of Bobby, herself, Beth Ann and Sam, with Bobby holding the peace sign above Sam’s head hangs from the wall.

A deer antler with teeth marks lay on another shelf. It is a match to the one in her office; a gift for blessing and humility from her as he had left.

The room is clean except the bed is unmade; the covers thrown back. Half of a cup of coffee sits on the nightstand.

Izzy leans in from the hall: Anything?

She shakes her head.

Izzy points to the antler: He’s got one, too.

Mary: Yeah.

Izzy: Let’s go. We’ll come back later.

Mary: Anybody … sign of them anywhere?”

Izzy shakes his head. “Not yet. Hayt and Gregg are still searching the lower levels. I don’t want anyone alone.”

She walks into the hall and follows him.

———-

Jimmy can hear them talking. Something is wrong. He tries to remember something from before he has seen her face. There is nothing.

He watches them move with purpose, speak to each other; smile; frown. They are moving toward something and coming from something. The past pushes them forward beyond him because they have purpose for something else even as they are here and now. They speak to him and imply they have something in common by the sounds they make. He tries to remember. It pushes you too. It is invisible to him now, yet there with visible effects through them.

Their voices carry the certainty of their push, a companion they see and know, even as they are oblivious to its function.

Izzy: The entries just stop. No explanation, nothing appears to have happened. They just ..stop. But not eighteen days ago when the quake hit. Three days ago. Something isn’t right here.

Hayt: They’ve got to be here somewhere. There is nothing wrong with their subterrene–they didn’t leave. It gives a perfect signal.

Hayt moves past them and replaces the probe he is carrying into its container.

“All their personal things are in their quarters.” Mary says quietly, adjusting Jimmy’s I.V. “Pictures, uniforms, jewelry, everything was just as if they were still there.”

Gregg: No signs of a struggle. No stress cracks from the earthquake on the site. Nothing.

Izzy: “We’ll try again after we get some sleep. Bill, contact Virginia. Tell them we’ll be down for the next eight hours.” He stands rubbing the back of his neck. “Everybody hit the sack.”

Mike: Shouldn’t we have a watch?

Izzy: You scared, Mike?

Mike: No. Just careful.

Izzy: We need everyone fresh. If somebody knocks, I’m sure we’ll hear them.

Jimmy listens for the next half-hour as they settle down; one by one fall asleep. He drifts off to dreams of darkness and cold that has no place in the present.

Awakened suddenly, he listens for more of what has awakenend him. There is only the familiar breathing of sleepers near him. Sitting up slowly, he begins disconnecting himself from the monitor and the I.V.

The controls on the hatch take some time to manipulate. Down the tunnel, the steel door is ajar. He sqeezes through easily.

Walking is just the thing he needs. When he grows tired, which is often, he leans against the wall. He isn’t going toward anything, he is running from the bunk and the kind of attention he doesn’t want one step at the time.

Breathing becomes easier the more he continues in the sweat. He continues toward the brighter lights, leaning against the walls less and less.

Jack puts the coffee down, swivels into his chair and punches up the video. He quickly scans the monitors to see that all is quiet.The last report is that cmms are down with Team Two.

Secretary through the intercom: Sir?

Jack: Get Henry Fielding in here as soon he as comes in.

Young Man: Yes, sir.

He glances at the monitors again. Jimmy has been leaning against the wall and now moves again. Jack stares, frozen in place.

Jack: I was talking to her. Who is this?

The young man puts down his pen, walks over to the monitors. He shakes his head. “Never seen him. He must be that passenger they picked up.”

Jimmy stands panting from the effort.

Jack: What’s his name?

The young man backs over to the small table and pulls out a folder. He flips through it slowly. “Jimmy.”

Jack: Jimmy what?

Young Man: Just Jimmy.

Jack smiles: Just Jimmy. That’s a good one. He smirks: Albrite is screwed.

Young Man: Why? He knew..

Jack: “That’s not his real name.” Jack turns to the young man, his eyes brigh: “He changed his name to fit the prophecy.”

Young Man: Then he already knows.

Jack picked up his coffee: It won’t matter.

The young man watches Jimmy walk on; disappear underneath one camera to be picked up by another. “So you think its true.”

Jack sips his coffee, nodding slightly, then shrugs. “We’ll find out.”

The young man sits down slowly in the big leather chair. “I didn’t really think it was possible.”

Jimmy continues forward, coming to an intersection in the corridors. The lights are bright here. A draft blows into the side of his face. He turns toward the breeze and continues on. Several turns later, with legs white from the dust, he comes to the opening of a vast cavern, lit here and there with lights.

———-

Mike blinks and is awake. The insistent monitor alarm light is blinking its steady warning. The leads are hanging to one side. The I.V. has drained out onto the floor.

Jimmy is gone.

He brushes sleep out of his eyes and rolls out of the bunk. Slipping into his pullovers, he sees by his watch it has only been five hours. The others sleep as he heads out and discovers the hatch open.

Jimmy stands in the middle of the cavern staring at the immense white, breathing deeply but evenly.

Mike searches the lower levels finding nothing. On coming to level six he finds the escape tunnel blocked; picks, sledge hammers and shovels are strewn about the floor. There is some rock debris but the tunnel is smoothly filled to make the opening seamless with the wall. He runs his hand over the glass-like rock melt. It is dense, yet not solid throughout. Tapping on it, he hears the same acoustic as in the tunnel to the subterrene.

There is a break of squelch. Izzy’s voice comes over the radio: Mike where are you?

He taps the wrist control: I’m at the escape tunnel for the other subterrene. I’m looking for Jimmy.

There is a short silence. “Have you found him?”

Mike: Negative. Did you know their escape tunnel was filled in?

Radio Izzy: Filled in?

“Yeah,”, Mike runs his hand over it again, “..almost like it was never there. Some pick axes and shovels, digging equipment here by it.”

Radio Izzy: Any debris?

Mike: None. It doesn’t look like they tried to dig their way out, just had the tools here for it.

Radio Izzy: We’re all up now. We’ll meet up in the control room, search from there. He couldn’t get far in his condition.”

Mike: Roger. Any word from Virginia?

Radio Izzy: No. the com ops is still down.

——–

Izzy turns back into the crew quarters.

Hayt is rolling out of his bunk: Anything?

Izzy: No, we’ll go and find him. Who searched the escape tunnel on level six?

Hayt: I did.

Izzy: So you didn’t actually see the subterrene?

Hayt: No. That’s why I got the probe and tested their system. It’s still there.

“Say something next time.” Izzy grabs a radio collar as they walk out of the hatch.

Hayt secures his own radio: “I thought you knew. I told Albrite.”

Izzy: Next time tell me.

———

Jimmy walks slowly around a large stalagtite that is a column twenty meters in diameter all the way to the floor. He rubbs the chaulky surface and looks at the white on his hand.

“Jimmy! What are you doing in here?” Izzy calls from the entrance.

Mike appears behind him, followed by Hayt.

A small piece of rock over their heads, indistinguishable from the rest, rotates at the sound of Izzy’s voice and disappears into the rock.The calcite dust on it is cleanly pushed off of it as it melts into the interior of the rock.

Izzy steps back at the falling dust and looks up.

Nothing.

Jimmy smiles and waves. “I got tired of laying down. Isn’t this great!” He slides down next to the column, his legs unable to support him. “I never saw anything ..like it.”

“Hold on there, sport. We’re coming.” Mike climbs over a rock and heads out into the white toward the column. “You’re a bit weak to be up like this.”

Jimmy smiles: “That I remember.”

———

Yes. They are here.

The rock flows downward and rotates until Zarathrustra is vertical with the floor; recedes from around him. For the first time in eons, he breathes air again.

His hand is gone. There is no pain.

They have the Oracle. Everything is in motion.

Lucifer had been right: He should have moved his hand away from the Oracle. But he didn’t really think it would work.

Lucifer had only smiled at his doubts. They had planned it down to the smallest distances. Time was the only unknown. They had hit his outstretched hand in the very center. It is a clean cut.They hadn’t penetrated the rock.

Zarathrustra is amazed. Man had not dug to the left or right. They hadn’t gone any deeper than was necessary. Perhaps this is what it was to be the Most High: to plan it out to the smallest detail and see it all come true.

The others take a breath as well, look at him.

I told you that you would not be harmed. And it is so. The hand is ..a small thing.

Oreb: We are not the same. Look at us.

It is true. The are less even as their garments are white.

They stretch, then dissappear into the darkness.

———-

Jimmy smiles up at Mike: I’m just a little tired.

Mike: I can see that. You feeling okay though– other than that?

Jimmy sniffs. Yeah. I just had to get out you know?

Mike looks around at the cavern: I can see how this would be the place to go.”

The chain of lights shakes as a tremor runs through the cavern. A large chunk of calcite cracks off of the stalagtite and shatters close by. The dust rises, obscuring the rest of the cavern and filling the air with a choking haze.

Izzy and Hayt duck back into the entrance as dust rains down on the wall above them.

“We gotta go. Up and at ‘em.” Mike grabs Jimmy’s hand and pulls him up.

Jimmy crumples back to the floor: Maybe just a minute..

“We don’t have a minute.” Mike pulls him up again and picks him up over his shoulder. “We’re heading out. Hang on.”

Other large pieces of calcite and whole stalagtites out of the depths of the ceiling crash onto the floor around them. A light bulb explodes further into the cavern. Mike picks his way through the rising dust and keeps his eye on the entrance. The dust grows thick as the tremors grow in intensity.

Mike runs into the wall unexpectedly: Izzy?!

A light moves few feet to his left as he hears Izzy shout “Over here!”

Mike and Jimmy both fall over loose rock at the entrance as they are pulled through by Hayt and Izzy.

————–

Back at the subterrene, Mike lays Jimmy gently on the bunk. Jimmy is unconcious. The monitor shows an irregular beat; he breathes deeply.

“What happened to you?” Mary stands at the door, looking at Mike and Izzy, sleep still in her eyes.

Mike begins to set up another I.V. for Jimmy.“You slept through the tremors?”

“What tremors?” Seeing the look on Izzy and Mike’s face she says, “I guess so. Albrite and Gregg are still asleep.”

Izzy: Wait a minute. You didn’t feel anything? How long have you been awake?

“A while. I was just laying there; waiting. We’ve still got another..” she looked at her watch, “..hour and a half on that eight hours. But I’m up now. Did you find them?”

Hayt appears in the bulkhead. “She’s right. I did a sonar sweep to see the damage. The sonar history over the last thirty minutes doesn’t show any quake or any damage to the site. It was localized.”

Izzy hands Mike a towel. Localized?!

Hayt nods: We saw it but there’s no sonar to prove it ever happened.

Mike: What?

Izzy taps his own nose as he looks at Mike: You’re nose. It’s bleeding. (to Mary) No. We found some tools next to the escape tunnel. It was blocked off by rock.

Mike looks in the metal mirror and sees the red just beginning to flow. He wipes his nose and leans his head back as he sits on the edge of Jimmy’s bunk.

————————

The Institute
Jack’s Office

Jack watches the last of the debris fall and the dust settle.

On another monitor he brings up the subterrene. He watches Mary insert the I.V. in Jimmy.

There is movement on the other monitor. The dust is being sucked away and the debris is being swallowed by the floor in pools of liquid rock in the large cavern. He grips the sides of his desk and leans closer.

All that remains is an immaculate, shiny surface everywhere. A few of the huge stalagtites had been columns incrusted with calcite. They now stand in rows as far as the camera can see on a floor of polished rock. The walls are of the same polish and shine as the floor.The colums rise out of the light and disappear into the darkness above.

The lights remaining cast the room in an odd reflectance.

Jack stares at the monitor. “Hello.”

——————————————————————–

2 Kings 20:10 And Hezekiah said, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: no, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen