Discovery - Chapter 3, City of Power
#3 of Theorium Chronicles
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We were standing at the entrance to the tunnel Nemo had gone down. Each of us was armed with a revolver, but we hoped we wouldn't have to fire a single round. Our flash lights only just barely lit up the room, casting faint, flickering shadows on the walls. And down the tunnel we went.
We walked carefully and slowly, and my mind began to wander. It was so boring and tedious. Then I noticed something. I think we all noticed it. There was a faint breathing sound from the tunnel. It sighed, heaved, and hissed. Whatever we were going to face must've been huge, or at least had an emmensly strong breath. The world shook and rattled under it's might, and we picked up the pace.
After a few minutes, we saw a small light at the end of the tunnel. We bolted to it and couldn't believe our eyes. Before us lay the biggest cavern on planet Earth, but it wasn't a cavern, it was a city.
Empty and void of any signs of life, the city was built around one massive, circular opening, at least a mile and a half in diameter. Looking downward, over the balcony rail, we found the thing went on deeper than anything in the world. Someone could fit an entire Empire State Building inside, without any struggle.
Running through out this massive city was another pattern like the one before, only this time it incorporated the third dimension. The water moved up and down pipes and drains, pulsing with electricity and energy. It radiated heat and light, removing any need for our flashlights.
We attributed the breathing the sound we'd heard earlier to the wind pulsing through the structure. It was also a lot bigger than we could see right there. There were hundreds of tunnels, rooms, and chambers, interweaving through out the structure. We spent a good hour just trying to map out that first floor, and realized it was completely symmetrical, save for the hallway that lead outside. We went down to the next floor and found the same pattern.
After a couple hours of trying to figure out how big this place really was, we finally got hungry and went back to camp. It took yet another hour to get there, and it was almost sundown.
Nemo looked up from the simmering pot over the fire when he saw us, "Did you kill it?"
"Didn't even see it. Although, how far did you get in the tunnel?" [Me]
"I was almost to the end of it, I think, when it attacked me."
"Well, at the end of the tunnel, is something none of you would believe." [Tristen]
"I don't know, I'm willing to believe a lot of things right now." [Dexter]
"There's a massive city at the end of the tunnel. It's completely void of life, and delves miles into the Earth." Veronica threw the map down on the table and stuck a nail through it so it wouldn't blow away.
"Another chamber?" [Abigail]
"No. This is different. The chamber's like an introduction, like a taste of what's to come. Deeper in is a massive, incredibly massive city, right beneath the island." [Me]
"How big is massive?" [Dexter]
"Miles deep, nearly two miles wide, and that's just the central chamber. Around it is a symmetrical pattern of chambers, rooms, and passages. It's all designed with a plan, and it's flawlessly built." [Me]
"And it's beneath the island?" [Nemo]
"Yup." [Tristen]
"I can't be the only one who realizes that something that big will break, right?"
"Well... Not if it's deep enough. I mean, if the earth holds itself together right, then the island could act as a kind of... cap stone. Something on top, securing the whole thing down." [Dexter]
"You believe us?" [Veronica]
"Yes. I mean, there's no point lying, and it's not like anything else makes sense here, so why not?"
"Well, anyways, you guys are just in time. The waddlefish are almost done being RUINED by Nemo." [Abigail]
"Hey, we don't know what they taste like, so we might as well eat them as pure as possible." He pulled the lid off the cauldron and started ladeling the muddy stew into bowls. We each got one and starred at the disgusting glop within.
"You know, I think I'll pass on eating them." [Dexter]
"It really doesn't help that they can speak." [Veronica]
"They're just helpless little creatures." [Abigail]
"Yeah, I'm gonna... not eat this." I set the bowl down, and everyone did the same except for Nemo who was just putting a bite into his mouth. The second it touched his tongue, he got wide eyed, and spat the goop out onto the ground, and spat at it.
"That stuff's disgusting! I'm... I'm gonna go purge my mouth now." He got up and wandered off towards the stream.
"Anyone want real food, like canned beans?" [Dexter]
"Yeah, that'd be really nice." [Tristen]
We ate dinner and managed to fall asleep. In the morning, we all went down to the city, and decided to test how deep the thing really goes. Nemo dropped his flashlight over the side, and we didn't hear or see it land.
"Well, I guess that means this thing is infinitely deep." [Dexter]
"No, that's impossible. But... It is possible that it goes so deep that the flashlight's sound became so distant that it didn't travel-" [Veronica]
There was suddenly an incredibly loud clanging sound as if a piece of metal smashed into a concrete slab and shattered into a million pieces.
"What's that, twenty five minutes deep?" [Tristen]
"My count is thirty six, and I was actually using my watch." [Abigail]
"Right..."
"So that's thirty six times sixty-" [Nemo]
"Which is like six cubed times ten-" [Tristen]
"Times a hundred. Ten meters per second squared?" [Dexter]
"Right, and six cubed is two sixteen." [Me]
"So it's twenty one thousand and six hundred meters deep." [Tristen]
"It's twenty one point five kilometers deep?" [Nemo]
"And a kilometer is two thirds of a mile, so what's two thirds of twenty two?" [Me]
"Seven- no, fourteen miles." Dexter looked over at his wife, "This place goes fourteen miles deep. You could fit almost anything in here!"
"This place is amazing..." [Tristen]
"Really, you just did that much math in under a minute, and now you're amazed by how big this place is? That's not backwards." [Veronica]
"You don't understand. No structure can possibly be even half a mile in size, and this thing is one massive building, that's as big as a city, and it's not just a city, but it's a massive circuit! Look at the water movement!" Tristen pointed to the water and Veronica knealt down, examining it.
"No... This can't possibly be..." She tapped the water, only to scream as she jumped away from it. "God! The water's boiling hot!"
"It is electrified. It's a circuit... The entire structure is powered by water. And not just powered by water, but it's power is the water! I'd sure like to shake the hand of whoever built this thing." [Tristen]
"So what sent the message?" [Dexter]
"I don't know..."
"It's gotta be deep in the structure though. Best place to hide is at the bottom of a massive, fourteen mile drop." [Tristen]
"So how do we get down?" [Abigail]
"My question is where did all this stuff go?" [Nemo]
"What do you mean?" [Me]
"Well it can't have just vanished! Think about it! There was once something here, and then... it came along and cleared all this out. So where did it put it all?"
"It? You don't think your magical disk monster did this, do you?" [Tristen]
"It did! How else could something this complicated have been built?!"
"Ancients?" [Veronica]
"Yeah, sure. And let me guess, the aliens helped them, right?" [Dexter]
"Oh, and they used Theorium to send messages-" I was suddenly cut off by the sound of a mechanical voice, radiating through out the structure.
"Ee... Een... Enow! Enough!"