ALICE, page 1
AL:ICE
By CW Lamb
I would like to dedicate this to Jeanne Romano, who inspired me to write, and to my wife and family who supported that inspiration.
Copyright © 2014 by CW Lamb
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the Author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Third Edition
14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter 1
As Jake lay quietly on the table, he was trying to figure out what was happening. Everything around him was dead quiet, and completely black. He was waiting for someone to say something.
A member of the scientific team had just been speaking before everything went dark. Only introduced to him earlier that morning, the scientist completed attaching sensors to various parts of Jake’s body and the last thing Jake remembered was the man and his lab technician in conversation.
“OK, Captain, now just lie back,” he said.
Sitting in his underwear, Captain Jacob Thomas just smiled and silently nodded back, doing as instructed. The technician sitting at a console against the wall to Jake’s left declared, “All sensors are reporting in, sir.”
“Good,” the scientist replied, “power up the field generator coils and verify the status of the power cells,”
“Coils are energized and the power cells are at 100% charge,” the technician declared.
“OK Captain Thomas, are you ready?” the scientist asked.
“Good to go,” Jake replied.
“Great,” the scientist said, stepping away to stand next to the technician, he then commanded, “Create the stasis field.”
That is when everything went black. Jake wondered if there was a power loss. He’d been told that there were power problems in previous tests, but that it wasn’t supposed to be an issue any more. Had the field generation blown a fuse or something?
Taking a deep breath, Jake noticed the previously fresh filtered air was suddenly stale. He turned his head left to look for the two men against the far wall, but it was just too damn dark to see anything!
He was sure that’s where the lab technician and scientist were, just a moment ago, no more than a few feet away. Finally, he asked, “Hey guys, what’s going on?”
There was no response.
“Hey, is anyone there?”
Again, there was nothing, just quiet.
Jake sat up in one swift motion and started to stand, confused at the lack of response. Whoa, he had a head rush, and wasn’t sure why he felt slightly dizzy, he had just laid down? He wasn’t weak, he just felt as if things weren’t quite right.
A Captain in the US Marine Corps, Jake was little over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds; He tried to keep himself in good shape, so this wasn’t normal.
Moving a bit slower, he could get himself standing while leaning against the table, trying not to knock anything over. He felt dust on the floor with his bare feet.
“What in the hell?” Jake said to himself.
Stepping slowly to not stub his toes, he began sliding his feet. He headed to where he remembered seeing the workbench with the computer console where the technician sat. His toe touched the chair first and reaching forward, he grasped what felt like human hair.
Jake jerked his hand back and slid to the left while leaning forward toward the workbench. Running his hands over the bench, he could not find what he was looking for.
Earlier that day he had noticed the lab technicians cigarettes and lighter on the workbench next to the computer console. Where in hell the technician went to smoke down here, he had no idea, but the lighter was his goal.
“Down here” was a first of its kind, prototype research facility full of advanced technology projects. It was a top-secret underground military installation in the Nevada desert. This facility was the type of place that created the Area 51 alien stories.
Moving right now and skipping around what he was now absolutely sure was a body, he found the lighter on the right of the keyboard.
“Damn, I’m sure I’d seen it on the left?” he thought.
Flicking the lighter on, it blinded him for a moment as his eyes previously straining for any light.
Sure enough, sitting before him was the mummified remains of the lab technician, sitting in the same chair as before. The technician’s body was sitting rocked back in its chair as if he simply died while working. The scientist was nowhere in sight. Next to where he found the lighter was a notebook that the lab technician had been using to log his experiment.
Jake checked the entries and noted the last was on July 8th, at 9pm.
The 8th?
Jake was sure today was the 5th, the day after the 4th of July holiday. He was positive because he spent the weekend in Las Vegas to insure he was able to report in on time. How would he lose three days in the blink of an eye?
What was more important, bodies don’t mummify in three days. They didn’t even mummify in a month and that was all the power the cells in the table held. Jake was told the stasis field generator was inside the table he’d been laying on. The scientist explained its workings to him, in detail, and that it contained completely redundant components to prevent field size fluctuations or partial field collapses for his safety. In addition, its reserve power cells could maintain a human size stasis field for up to a month.
What in the hell was happening to him? Had he been in stasis all along, the missing three days? If more, then how long was he in stasis, anyway?
The team he met earlier briefed him on the experiment he was to be part of. They described how they discovered a way to create a stasis field that stopped time, or more accurately, it slowed time down a great deal. One of the presenters explained the stasis effect to him.
“Jake,” he started, “imagine being in a boat on a river, floating free with the current. The river is time. Now toss out an anchor so the river continues to flow past, but the boat remains stationary. In stasis, time continues to flow past, but you stay put in time. That’s what the stasis field does; it holds its contents close to the point in time the field is created while the flow of time outside the field continues.”
Using the lighter, Jake moved over to his clothes resting on a chair in the corner of the room. He’d placed them there when he first arrived and was instructed to strip down. First, he pulled all the sensors off his body, getting some hair with them and then he started to dress.
When the scientist attached those sensors earlier, he explained, “We discovered in earlier testing that even though the field is physically impenetrable and time is almost frozen inside, we can actually pass some wireless transmissions through the field. The rate of decay has been about 1 hour over 100 years, but don’t worry, you won’t notice anything.”
“For some strange reason, the field stops most high-energy transmissions but certain low energy frequencies aren’t affected. That’s part of the reason we use this facility as our lab, we are so deep underground here we can guarantee no outside signals will affect our testing.”
He continued, “Part of this test is to see if we can pass information to you, while you are in stasis. For example, this would allow a spacecraft crew in stasis to receive position and systems status information while in flight. Thus, when released they are fully aware of their situation. Because time isn’t completely stopped, you will be able to absorb some information. We need to measure how much.”
“In your case, we are going to feed you a training program and see if you can perform previously unfamiliar tasks successfully after coming out of stasis,” he finished up.
Jake pulled his shirt on over his head and noticed a stale smell that just said old.
Holding the lighter out in front of him, he stepped out of the room and headed into the hallway. Stopping and looking both ways down the dark corridor, he saw no sources of light. Just to be sure, he extinguished the light and just stood there while his eyes adjusted to the dark.
Nope, there was nothing, just dark.
Reigniting the lighter, he tried to retrace his steps back the way he’d come in before the test. Now and then, he tried a door, looking for something, anything that might answer what was happening to him. All he found were empty offices and lab rooms similar to the one he just vacated.
As he approached a major intersection where he remembered his hallway crossed the main access tunnel, he picked up his pace. Jake turned the corner to what should be the way out of the facility and 30 feet in front of him, he got his first answer, it was a solid wall of rock and dirt.
On his way into the facility, Jake had seen a massive construction project at this point in the passage, with work both above and below ground. As he passed through the tunnel systems to reach the completed lab complex he was now in, they had passed through partially completed access tunnels. The driver informed him that the original tunnels required expansion due to new requirements and a change in the facility design. An engineer himself, he cringed at the thought of all that weight pushing down on them from above and that the government contractor was the lowest bidder!
Apparently, the access tunnel the contractors were re-sizing had completely collapsed. There were dirt and rocks piled right up to the outer edge of the lab complex.
Jake wondered how long ago the collapse had happened. Surely, they were working to reopen the tunn
He just stood there for a moment and stared at the wall of dirt. Frankly, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He was stuck VERY deep underground, no idea how long he’d been there and no idea how to get out besides the way he came in.
Rather than head back the way he came, he decided, first he needed to find another light source. The lighter was not going to last forever, and secondly, he needed to find a way to let the surface know he was there.
Heading down the main tunnel, away from the collapse and perpendicular to the hallway, he had just come down, Jake started searching behind every door he came across. He figured the best way to reach the outside world would be through the control center for the facility. In addition, the best place for a control room would be in the center of the complex.
As Jake searched, he considered his predicament. This event seemed to reflect the story of his life. Multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq had driven a wedge between his wife and himself. She hadn’t approved of his military career from the beginning, but as they met while in college, he was already committed to the NROTC scholarship that paid his way. After eight years of trying to please her and the Marines, he left the Marines to focus on her and try to save his marriage.
As she was now focused and committed to her career that proved to be too late. Therefore, with his marriage over and with the economy in the dumps, it seemed like returning to the Marines was the perfect solution. He had no children from his marriage and as an only child himself; there were no other family commitments. The Marines were a ready-made paycheck and at 32, the only family he had left.
Once back in uniform, he settled into a comfortable billet stateside teaching combat tactics at the Basic School in Quantico, VA. Then the people from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency came looking for him. They were looking for officers with technical backgrounds for various projects. Jake was a perfect choice for them with his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science. He popped up in the personnel system due both to his education and lack of immediate family. This was a dangerous assignment and widows and orphans were bad press. “No next of kin” candidates got top consideration, so with his permission they sent him to Vegas as a test subject in an experiment around localized time suspension.
Forcing his mind back on task, he continued to walk along the main tunnel. Among the many doors, Jake found a few supply closets, and each contained emergency kits. None of the flashlights worked, but the kits each also contained a bundle of chemical lights. Called a cyalume, he set one off by bending it until he heard the snap and then shook it until it glowed. Much relieved, he pocketed the lighter. He then searched the small closet until he located a bag. After emptying the original contents, he dumped the rest of his lights in the bag and continued his search.
As he continued down the main corridor, he twice found, more mummified remains. One was a security guard in a connecting hallway, face down in the middle of the passageway, his traditional security Maglite dead like all the others. The second body was in an office, most likely part of the cleaning staff. Again, just like the technician, each seemed to have dropped in place, as if dying while performing their regular duties.
At the end of the main access tunnel, he stopped at a set of double security doors. He noticed a security badge reader on the right side of the doorframe, so he didn’t expect to just walk in. “These locks typically defaulted to the locked position, and these doors looked pretty stout,” he thought to himself. Suddenly he heard the distinct click of the magnetic lock releasing. Reaching for the knob, he pulled, and the door opened.
“Who the hell did that?” he asked aloud.
Stepping warily inside, he held up the cyalume and looked around the room. There were rows of desks with computer monitors and keyboards. From the layout and equipment, he could tell he’d located what must be the control center. As he walked into the room, a flash on one of the monitors caught his attention.
He walked over to what looked like a power geek’s desk. It was a multi-monitor setup with keyboard and other unidentifiable devices. Glancing at the central screen, powered up, it had text on it.
“HELLO,” was lit up on the display.
Jake quickly sat down and typed, “Who is this?”
The response quickly came back, “ALICE”
Jake entered, “Alice, I am Captain Jake Thomas. I am trapped underground in the lab facility,”
The monitor displayed, “I know, I am attempting to determine a path out of your location, unfortunately most of the sensors in your area are no longer operable,”
Jake responded, “What happened? Are they trying to dig me out? How long was I down here?”
ALICE replied, “I will answer your questions later. Your current location is not safe. The gas explosion that caused the tunnel collapse suffocated all the occupants. It was thought to be a total collapse with no survivors and was determined a total loss. Apparently that level eventually ventilated naturally, but no attempt has been made to re-access the facility.”
She continued, “I have identified two possible escape routes for you. One is through the primary power and communications conduit. It runs parallel to the main access tunnel and must have survived the collapse. If it were severed this communication wouldn’t be possible.”
“The second route is an auxiliary ventilation shaft that runs vertically from your level to another level of the underground complex far above you. Sealed off after the collapse, I can have it reopened for you. That path shows a higher percentage of success, but at a greater risk to life. You will need to climb 300 feet straight up a 3-foot diameter smooth wall shaft. A fall would likely prove fatal as you near the top.”
“The printer to your right will provide detailed instructions on both avenues of escape.”
Jake looked right and watched as the printer slowly came to life, but spit out blank pages.
It took him several tries before he got the printer to work properly. Eventually Jake pulled the print cartridge and banged it on the desk to get the toner loosened up.
“That just shouldn’t have been necessary,” Jake thought.
With instructions and his bag in hand, Jake decided to give the power conduit the first shot. “Should it be blocked, it’s a lot easier to back out of a tunnel than try to control a 300 foot fall,” he thought.
The instruction sheets Alice provided, explained the power conduit actually ran under the collapsed main access tunnel he’d seen earlier. According to the notes on the sheet, it provided all the power and communication lines to this level of the facility. That way had to be open or he would have been without the limited power or communication capabilities. His conversation with Alice proved that it was continuous and clear to some degree.
The instructions indicated access to the conduit was gained every 100 feet or so along the main tunnel. There were floor tiles down the middle of the hallway that covered the access hatches. He figured he would find the hatch closest to the tunnel collapse as his starting point.
----*----
ALICE attempted to monitor Jake’s progress as closely as possible. With so many failed sensors in the abandoned level, it was like watching someone stepping in and out of spotlights in a darkened room. His path was to the conduit under the tunnel collapse, the escape considered a lower risk. She was not confident that he would succeed, however, as the sensors on both ends of the conduit functioned but the central ones were completely unresponsive. That was why she scoured the remaining sensor grid for other means of escape. It is imperative that he be recovered intact and unharmed.
----*----
Jake pulled an access tile up, uncovering the hatch to the conduit below. The tile had one of those clever little retractable loops that lay flush to the face of the tile, letting you pull it off without any tools. He was no more than 15 feet from the tunnel collapse so was not likely to find another one any closer.
The hatch below the tile was heavy steel, made to support the traffic that moved over it. Besides the pedestrian traffic, the staff used electric carts similar to the one Jake rode in on the day he arrived. The carts also pulled flatbed trailers with supplies and lab materials.
