Discovery! – Jason Wakes Up 46

Discovery! – Jason Wakes Up 46

Feb 05, 2021

Blackness...

Searing pain...

Blackness...

Searing pain...

Jason opened his eyes, his vision was blurry and it was dark and light and dark,light,dark,light.

Jason took a ragged breath, closed his eyes and shook his head. It was cold, and Jason hurt all over. Especially his chest and back. He shook his head again trying to clear it.

"Stasis pod. I'm in the stasis pod." Jason thought, remembering where he was.

"Emergency evacuation procedure. By the numbers, Jarhead." Jason remembered hearing SSGT. Darvy tell him.

"One: emergency release, rectangle strike bar, right hand side." Jason groaned as he struck the bar as he'd been instructed to do.

The pod upper half rose, a light came on at the foot of the upper half of the pod and partially illuminated the room with it's light. Jason could now see the darkened and sporadically lit remainder of the room. The large fluorescent light was hanging by one of it's two mountings at an angle, but was not on. From his seated vantage point, he couldn't see very well, and too it was mostly dark with only sporadic flashes of light from an arcing wire somewhere above and behind him.

Jason clearly heard the buzz of an arc beginning, then he distinctly heard the building buzz and crack as the arc flashed.

"By the numbers, Jarhead." Jason heard SSGT Darvy in his memory.

"Two: remove your IV Catheters' connections from the pod".

Jason released the pod connections by squeezing the pod side connectors, which caused them to be separated and sealed the ends in Jason's arms simultaneously.

"Three: sterilize your arms with the alcohol, found in the right arm of your stasis chair."

Jason found and opened the compartment in the arm of his chair. Inside, he found, a roll of stretchy tape, that medical personnel used to tape cotton balls onto where a blood draw or any other needle had been inserted into a vein. He also found a small plastic bottle, labeled alcohol in bold black letters, a small box containing some cotton balls, and a package of band-aids.

Jason was never a big fan of the fastidious way medical personnel, were always trying to prevent infections but, understood the need for cleanliness in medical situations. He was tempted to forgo the alcohol swab and tape or band-aid.

"By the numbers, ya fuckin' Jarhead." SSGT Darvy's voice echoed in Jason's head.

Jason grumbled as he got out a cotton ball and poured some alcohol on it. The plastic bottle which was supposed to be a full bottle, as small as it was, was only half full. Jason wondered if they had been trying to save a 100th percent of a penny by only filling the bottle half way.

Jason swabbed both of his arms' vascular catheter areas and heard SSGT Darvy's voice again.

"Four: gently remove the vascular catheters from your arms and be sure you're not bleeding from where they were inserted. Put tape or a band-aid on the area of insertion to prevent infection."

Jason gently pulled the vascular catheters out of his arms and grudgingly put a band-aid on each insertion point.

"Five: release your restraints by pressing the round release in the center of the 'X'"

Jason slapped the round buckle at the center of his chest. The auto-rewind mechanisms sucked the connecting belts into their, spring loaded compartments, zzip, click.

Jason leaned back into his chair and took a deep breath thinking, "Okay, dumb-ass, now what?"

"By the numbers, Jarhead!" SSGT Darvy's voice echoed again, insistently.

"Six: drink those ampules in the re-enforced safety container, all of them. If you don't, it could kill you or worse, you could end up, bat shit for brains crazy, ya dip shit, Jarhead. Not that you aren't already, of course. You volunteered, remember?"

Jason, chuckled to himself at SSGT Darvy's assertion, that he had volunteered for this human test of stasis and revival. Marines learn early that one should never volunteer for anything connected with the government. History had shown that the government was not always working in the best interest of volunteers for scientific research.

Jason took another deep breath, steeled himself and painfully rose to exit the stasis pod.

Jason looked around the dimly lit stasis room and could tell that some sort of catastrophe had taken place. The floor was broken in several places and those breaks were tilted chaotically in differing directions. Jason also noticed that the room didn't seem as deep as it had been. As if the far wall had been pushed toward him about a foot or so, it was also cracked and slightly bowed inward at the center.

Then to his horror, Jason saw that the re-enforced cabinet that contained the neutralization serums had been crushed in the back by a large piece of the ceiling that had collapsed. Jason made his way to the cabinet as quickly as he could, over the broken floor.

When Jason reached the cabinet, he was relieved to see that the compartment doors appeared to be intact and functional, although the rear of the cabinet was obviously crushed.

Jason opened the door that had the red circle on it and removed the 2 ampules of liquid. He snapped off the tops of the ampules and drank the contents as he had been told to be sure to do. Those vials were supposed to keep him from going, "bat shit for brains" crazy. It tasted coppery and had a slimy feel to it, but didn't taste terrible.

"By the numbers, Marine. Both sets. All four vials, Jarhead." SSGT Darvy's voice echoed in Jason's head.

Jason opened the door with the blue circle on it, retrieved the two ampules, snapped their heads off and drank both of them as he had been instructed. Supposedly, these ampules would keep the nanites from doing something they're not supposed to do and maybe killing him. This neutralization serum had a distinctly metal taste to it and left his mouth feeling a bit dry.

Jason carefully searched the room and found the large back-up battery bank for the entire system. It had a lighted digital readout that said that the emergency protocol had been initiated due to a low battery state. Upon further inspection, Jason found that the arcing was coming from where the original system had been wired into the main room electrical feed. It had been set up as a buffer to defend the system from a possible power spike or outage.

After Jason finished his inspection of the room, he had come to the conclusion that the area had been hit by a major earthquake and that there may be a lot of damage above. Jason reasoned that there had been some pretty serious earthquakes in the recent past and that this was just another one and perhaps one that was much worse than those before it in the area.

Jason thought it fortunate that the exit door to this room opened out from this room into the hall. After opening the door, Jason looked down the hallway seeing that it was partially blocked by debris. He knew that he would have to crawl and/or climb through it, in order to get to the locker room at the other end.

Jason began his trek through the hallway first, by crawling under a nearly collapsed section of the hallway being held open by a wall section that was leaning across the hallway. When he had cleared the fallen wall, he had to squeeze himself over a large bolder that had been thrust through the floor of the next section of hallway for about 10 feet. Once he had cleared the boulder, he could see a light through the window of the door to the locker room above another boulder in the hallway.

Finally finding an area where there was light, Jason rested.

Having to feel his way through the hallway, in the dark. Crawling and squeezing through the dark passages had exaggerated his dizziness, he was nauseous and ravenously hungry at the same time, plus his vision was blurry. As Jason sat there resting, the thought occurred to him that there might well be emergency personnel trying to get to him and he silently hoped that was the case. He listened for anything that might not be silence. All he heard was the arcing of electricity from the stasis pod room, faintly.

Jason had rested for about 15 minutes, thinking on and hoping, that there were rescue workers frantically working to find and free him from this underground cage.

As Jason was pondering on these things, he was looking around the roughly 10'x10'x10' area. The floor, walls and ceiling were all solid concrete slabs. This whole small area had no seams and appeared to have been poured as a single unit.

To make it even stranger and more of an indication that there had been a major earthquake here, this section, he had managed to get himself to, had been pushed upward some 5 feet or so and about 6 inches to the side of the door. Since the door opened by swinging into the hallway, there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell, that he'd be able to open that door.

But, the window above the door was made of glass with a lattice of wire, molded into the glass itself. Jason knew those types of windows were designed to prevent or at least delay unauthorized entry from unauthorized personnel from his years working in the commercial building construction trades.

Jason rose and searched for a rock, large enough to smash the window and beat the wires out of his way, so he would be able to enter the room.

After finding a suitable stone, Jason set to beating the glass and wire, molded within, out of his way.

When Jason had begun the removal of the reinforced glass, all he could have seen was the light beyond, due to it being a frosted and textured window. Within the first few minutes, he had a view of the inside of the locker room, where his boots, clothes and his "personal kit" were inside his assigned locker. There was a stale smell to the air and something else, Jason knew that faint smell, it chilled him to the bone. It was the smell of death. After about 5minutes, Jason had effectively removed the obstruction.

Jason knew without doubt, that he had left a couple of energy bars in his old ammo bag. He had purchased the bag at the surplus store, to replace his old one, just days before he had gone into "stasis". Jason had no idea how long he had been "in stasis". At this point, "how long" was the furthest thing from his immediate attention. Right now, Jason was ravenously hungry, nothing mattered but getting some kind of food down his neck to quell his ravenous hunger. He would have eaten a rat, alive at this point. Jason was still dizzy, weak, with mildly distorted vision and he assumed, that is was from the lack of food. He knew that he hadn't eaten for at minimum of days, possibly a few weeks. The need for food had his full attention, his hunger refused to allow him any distraction.

Jason nearly jumped head first, into the locker room after the energy bars, nearly falling the 8 feet to the floor inside, on his head. Fortunately, his stasis suit had snagged on something, ripping a long tear down Jason's right leg as he slid head first, catching himself with his hands and arms, before his head hit the floor. Jason felt sharp pains on the palms of his hands, then his forearms, as he halted his downward, ripping slide, through the window above the door, leading into what used to be the hallway to the stasis pod room.

Once Jason had managed to get his leg free of whatever had snagged and ripped his suit. He righted himself, rose and went straight to the locker that SSGT Darvy had indicated was his by slapping it during their first conversation. Jason jerked the locker open, grabbed his military ammunition bag and stuck his hand inside to retrieve, two wrapped energy bars. Jason had purchased them on the way to his appointment to begin the suspension study.

Jason ripped off the wrappers and wolfed down the energy bars as fast as he was able to chew and swallow them. From almost the instant that Jason had eaten the two energy bars, he felt noticeably better. His vision cleared some, his dizziness all but vanished, he was still hungry but, not ravenously so and he was thirsty, parched in fact.

Now, his thirst began cracking the proverbial whip. He needed water or anything liquid. Jason made his way to the toilet area, thinking that he might find running water there. "The mirrors are all broken because of the earthquake," Jason thought as he turned the faucet. Nothing happened, aside from the squeak of the faucet handle. He knew that modern commercial and institutional toilets have a metering device, that controls how much water is used in the flushing of a toilet between them and the main supply, rather than a reservoir.

"Yet, the bowls should have water in them," thought Jason as he turned toward the stalls. Jason pushed the door to the 1st stall open. The thought of drinking water from a toilet bowl would have never entered Jason's mind normally. But Jason wasn't thinking straight, he knelt down and stuck his cupped hand into the toilet. There was surprisingly little water in the bowl of the toilet and Jason wondered about that as he slated his thirst.

Jason began feeling better and realized what he had just done. "Well, I was thirsty, damn it." Jason grumbled at himself, out loud. He got up, left the stall and started looking around the locker room. Jason found the locker room largely intact yet tilted at a noticeable angle. The lighting was tolerable but, much dimmer than Jason remembered.

One bank of lockers in the center of the room, had fallen over and beyond it, there was an open door to what would have been originally designed for an instructor or the like. Jason went to the doorway and saw SSGT Darvy's body on his bed, a 9 mm Glock lay on the bed in his outstretched hand. On the nightstand, next to the single cot there was a long note.

Jason looked around the room. What he saw astounded him. There were several MRE wrappers and empty water bottles thrown in the far corner of the room. SSGT Darvy's body was desiccated and looked years old. Jason marveled at this.

The long note caught Jason's attention, he picked it up and read it.

This is my good bye.

There was some sort of earthquake and I am cut off from both the surface and the stasis room.

I was seriously injured with a crushed ankle during the first quake and cannot make the climb to the surface. I had hoped that there would be help from above but after 3 days, I know there is no help coming. My ankle is useless and would never allow me to climb out of here.

The hard line to the surface is out and not functioning.

There is no wireless communication functioning.

A/C power went out during the earthquake and I am on battery back-up, I hope the guy in the stasis pod never knew what happened.

I've held out this long from the stores for disaster emergencies and could hold on for quite a while longer if I thought there was any point.

I'm convinced that the earthquakes have destroyed the area above and that my family is dead.

I know that I'm dying slowly and am in great pain.

I have decided to take the honorable and fast way out.

May God have mercy on me.

Goodbye

SSGT. Douglas Darvy U.S.M.C.

Jason looked at SSGT Darvy's ankle which was obviously badly broken, with his foot in an unnatural position. He searched the body, taking the duty belt, harness and holster off of it. Then, out of respect, covered the body with a wool blanket that was folded neatly at the end of the cot. Jason went through the duty belt and it's contents. He found, a canteen containing whiskey and water, 36 rounds of 9mm ammo in 3 magazines, 30 rounds of 7.62 NATO rounds in a magazine, a Tonfa knight stick, hand cuffs and a bunch of keys on a large key-ring.

Jason carried the shoulder harness and duty belt rig to his locker, got dressed in his utilities and put his boots on over his stasis suit with the tear in the right leg, which seemed to be shorter than it had been when he had first torn it. He didn't really think about the stasis suit, as it had become like a second skin and felt right to leave it on. Then, he put the harnessed belt rig on, fastened the belt, grabbed his ammo bag, slung it over his shoulder across his chest and returned to SSGT. Darvy's room.

Jason searched Darvy's room, found an M16 with a 30 round magazine in it, some of SSGT Darvy's personal affects and SSGT Darvy's log book. Jason's stomach growled to let him know that he really needed more food. Noticing that made him also think about his thirst but, toilet water was not on the menu at the moment.

Jason then widened his search of the locker room for food, armed with a large key ring. Before long, Jason found the door where emergency rations were stored. Supposedly for relief efforts in the event some disaster or emergency on campus caused a need for it. As this was in an area of the United States where Tornadoes were actually a common occurrence, emergency rations wasn't an unusual item to have stored on a college campus.

Jason wondered about how or why a government funded research experiment would be in a subterranean facility, on a college campus, with armed Marines as guards.

Jason shrugged and thought, "Armed guard at ground level. Armed guard on this level also in some sort of month long isolation study, yet armed. And the Science and Technology wing has it's own emergency rations stored in a secure, underground location. That's a hell of a lot of security for a science study. Although, it is government funded, and it has to do with space travel. Okay, it figures... Overkill... S.O.P.... For the government."

Jason opened the door and looked inside. The room was perhaps 10x12 feet with heavily loaded shelves of cases of MRE rations with cases of bottled water as well.

Jason's stomach grumbled and his mouth was very dry. He grabbed a bottle of water and drank it. Then he reached into an opened case of MREs, took out 3, sat down in the main room and promptly ate them.

Jason became very sleepy after eating the MREs. He decided that from what SSGT Darvy's note said, Jason might well be able to climb out of this hole he was in. That comforted him enough that, he decided to go ahead and take a little nap. Jason stretched out right there, on the floor and went promptly to sleep.

Military personnel, especially those who've experienced combat situations for long periods of time, learn to sleep anywhere and at any time there is a relatively safe period of inactivity. Jason had never lost this "ability" to figuratively "sleep with his eyes open".

When Jason awoke, he felt much better and actually refreshed. His hunger had subsided and he no longer felt parched with thirst. He had no idea how long he had slept or even what time it was. The room seemed to be a little bit darker. Jason had the feeling that it was late and that he needed to hurry before "sundown".

Jason remembered that SSGT. Darvy's note had said that he was on backup batteries for power. Darvy's body appeared to be perhaps years old and the lights had been on, the entire time. Jason's sense of urgency returned. It wasn't as intense as it had been, yet it was there. Jason knew he needed to hurry.

Jason got up and continued his search of the locker room. He found Darvy's locker, searched it, founding a sheathed bayonet for the M16, 50 more rounds of M-16 ammunition, Darvy's spare uniform and a set of Kevlar body armor. Jason mounted the M-1 A-1 bayonet sheath with handle down, to the harness he was wearing. Jason removed his old ammo bag, emptied it of it's contents, rolled up the Kevlar and stuffed it into his ammo bag. Jason put the 50' length of survival para-cord in the left side pocket of his utility trousers, along with re-chargeable batteries and solar charger. In his right side pocket, he put the weather radio and hand crank flashlight. His two lock back pocket knives went one in each trouser front pocket. Jason then removed his belt from 3 belt loops, put the high quality multi-tool in it's sheath on it, returning the belt to their loops and fastening it. Jason was happy that he'd always kept a crank weather radio and flashlight with him.

After all, he lived in the Midwest's Tornado Alley, where natural weather disasters were actually a common occurrence. He had been born and raised where, when tornado sirens go off, some people get out their lawn chairs and sit watching for them, swilling beer or drinking iced tea. Jason was one of those kind of people.

Even earthquakes didn't rattle him. He had been through a couple while he had been an active Marine, stationed in California and later after he had become inactive as a civilian. When he had been near ground zero in one of the more powerful earthquakes that had happened within months of Jason going into stasis, he just rode it out and continued as if it was common place for him. That made a few of his friends nervous who had been with him at the time.

Jason returned to Darvy's office and found the logs he had been filling out daily per his orders. Jason scanned them and they were consistent for about 4 days from the day he had gone into stasis then nothing. Jason didn't agree with Darvy's choice but, understood that Darvy had just chosen to hasten the inevitable ending in his mind.

Jason was shocked, he had been in stasis for at least two or three years, not 30 days! He felt better and it didn't hurt as much as he moved. Jason thought, "The infusion process may have worked out for the treatment of arthritis after all. But, if it has been at least 3 years. Why hasn't the government had someone here to investigate by now?" The implications of that line of thinking were rather bleak. As for the prospects for both getting out of here, and for what might be waiting for him on the surface, they were not looking good.

Jason put that line of thought from his mind and was finally rewarded when he found the building schematic blueprints.

Jason's many years of doing commercial construction coupled with the knowledge of what was represented on them, gave him a virtual map that could show him all available routes to the surface from where ever one was, on the "map" of the building.

Jason saw that there were 3 direct routes to the surface. There were two stairway exits and according to the print, a freight elevator ladder in the event of a power outage. Jason was currently at the lowest level of a four level underground building.

Jason made his way to the hallway of the freight elevator. It had been left at this level the last time it was used. With no power, using it for upward movement was out of the question. Jason checked the stairways and they were both blocked by large boulders of red granite, like the stairway to the stasis pod room nearly had been.

Jason reasoned that this level was originally designed for the top tear and most likely graduate students, in the science and engineering course disciplines. "It's just like Uncle Sam to stuff our finest minds in a hole in the ground." Jason thought ironically. The freight elevator only operated between 2 floors in each location, likewise so did the stairwells. The reason for this, Jason reasoned. Was for security.

If some sort of device, mechanical, electronic, or both, in the form of robotics, was developed. It would most likely be large and heavy. Moving it by theft, would require that it be transferred from one freight elevator to another on each floor to remove it from the facility. Jason thought that there were doubtless sensors that would indicate a breach of security on all of the floors. And they would be placed in lots of places on each floor, which would make it extremely difficult to enter from outside without proper access clearance. Jason liked the layout in both terms of safety and security. Jason was fairly certain that there would not be a direct route from this floor to the surface, anywhere.

The most direct path with the best chance for being clear was up the path of freight elevators to the surface.

Jason knew from experience that, elevator shafts were nearly always built with thicker, more heavily reinforced walls. For dedicated freight elevators, those practices were often doubled or tripled, because of the weight involved when moving a heavy piece of freight. Jason hoped that those reinforced walls were enough to provide a relatively clear path to the surface.

The Identification Placard for this floor was "Advanced Robotics Engineering", which made sense to Jason from a security aspect. After opening the doors, Jason found a corresponding card reader on the inside of the elevator. Even with power, this car might not move without Darvy's or some other person's ID designated with clearance. There was no power and it was dark inside the freight elevator car. There was only dim light, that was getting dimmer in the hallway, from being on battery back-up power. Jason, folded the blueprint, put it in his ammo bag, took out his hand crank flashlight, cranked it for a second or two, turned it on and started his ascent to the surface.

The ladder leading through the ceiling of the elevator was pretty sturdy and rather easy to ascend. Once on top of the elevator car, there was about a 12 foot ladder made of steel bars bent and molded into the concrete of the shaft walls, but no light. There was no light from above and when Jason shined his light on the doors of the elevator, it looked to be intact and functional. Jason climbed the ladder and pulled the flat, nylon loop that was the inside door handle down, opening the doors. Jason climbed into the hallway and shined his flashlight all around.

What Jason saw surprised him. Down the hall, it looked like there had been an explosion in the room that would have had a doorway where the walls had been literally blown across and into the walls of the hallway itself.

In the center of the concrete wall sandwich, across from the room missing part of it's wall, there was a round, glass smooth, circular impression, about two feet in diameter. It looked for all the world like a two foot ball had been pressed half way into a soft, yielding block, of modeling clay and removed. Jason felt a chill run down his spine.

Jason knew that what he was seeing was not caused by an earthquake. Blast and scorch marks were unmistakable to Jason's mind.

Having seen the aftermath of rockets destroying concrete bunkers, while serving actively, in the Marines, Jason was sure this was not caused by an earthquake. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

Unconsciously, Jason quietly un-slung the M-16 he was carrying, removed the bayonet from it's sheath, affixed the bayonet to the rifle, pulled the rifle's charging handle, releasing it slowly, as quietly as he was able and began creeping across the hallway. Then forward, as quietly as he was able. He was being drawn like a moth, by a faint flickering of light, coming from the room where the explosion occurred.

Jason moved sideways with his back against the wall of the hallway closest to the room, his rifle at the ready. As stealthily and rapidly as he could, he closed on a possible enemy position. He stopped, took a slow deep breath, then quickly peeked around the edge of the hole, into the room.

Jason stepped out quickly from behind the wall, slinging his weapon while uttering a surprised, "What The Fuck?!!"

What Jason was seeing was a physical representation of a magnetic field, using the inner parts of a generator armature, including the copper wires used in the windings.

Jason couldn't believe his eyes. He had seen practical demonstrations of how magnetic fields are formed and what they do, on TV even before he had started school. And too, he "retired" as a "master technician" for commercial equipment. He understood the concepts, had seen many drawings and artistic representations of various magnetic field configurations, but what he was seeing had never been represented in any way he was familiar with.

There was what appeared to be a highly polished ball made of differing metals, floating suspended, stationary in the center of 4 rings. On a horizontal plane in a circle, around it, extending out from the ball, like a plate dividing it in half, were bits of what appeared to be, tiny bits of insulation, plastics and bits of dust. On a left leaning diagonal there was a ring of what looked like tiny metal pieces of dust in a solid ring around the strange metal ball, like a perfect circular orbit indicator, floating motionless in the air. The exact same thing was at a right leaning diagonal, only made of bits of what looked like copper dust. The forth ring, wasn't really a ring. It was a tiny ball of what Jason could only describe as ball lightening, only tiny. It was at the same distance from the metal ball and moved from place to place as if in a stop motion orbit vertically. He had never seen anything even remotely like it in real life. Some photos might have looked similar, but he had never seen anything like this. He didn't think it was even possible within the laws of physics, as he knew them.

Jason stood there for a second or so with his jaw agape, wondering what he was seeing and trying to reconcile his vision and knowledge/belief opposition. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it, just in case. When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed. Jason tore his eyes from the oddity and looked around the room.

To his left, from the closer edge of the door frame to this point, next to where the generator frame housed the oddity, had been blown across the hall and was gone. But from the other side of the doorway, for 10 feet had not been damaged in what ever explosion had taken place here. There at the far end of the room, was an obvious bank of batteries. They could have been for battery back-up for the generator that had been destroyed. That bank of batteries had been melted half way down, puddled around the bases they had been standing on. Jason thought that was also rather odd but, considering what he had just seen, wasn't surprised. Jason didn't smell anything but the smell of electricity arching, ozone and dust.

Jason looked on the oddity again and started thinking out loud, "Hey God, I was only kidding about being the star in a Sci Fi Movie. Really! And what would I be screaming at the friggin' screen, right now?"

Jason had been at "port arms", with his rifle held at the ready for anything. He turned to face the oddity. "No! Don't touch it! For God's sake, don't touch the weird thing!"

Jason was inching closer to the oddity. "This is where I turn to the camera and say, But, I just gotta know." Jason said, standing within arms reach of the oddity, looking intently at it.

"Thanks Darvy, for suggesting I'm in a sci-fi movie as a character." Jason lowered his bayoneted rifle, blade first, moving slowly closer.

"I'm the lead." Jason's hands were shaking a little.

"I can't die." Jason's bayonet tip touched the ball.

CRACK!

Jason flew backward as a blinding arc of green static electricity arced between his bayonet tip and metal ball, as well as, the toes, soles and heels of Jason's steel re-enforced, custom combat boots and the floor. Jason crumpled in a heap, unable to control his limbs.

Jason "saw stars", little black dots surrounded by lights, flashing in front of him. Then Jason saw little bright lights chasing each other around before him. His vision took on a green hue and the room seemed to brighten. Jason got to his knees and looked over at where the oddity used to be. It wasn't there. The strange, polished metal ball was there and there were stripes of copper dust and steel dust on the floor around the base of where once sat a generator.

Jason rose and took a closer look at the steel ball and area in which it rested.

It was then that Jason realized that the ceiling had a hole in it that looked like it had been melted through. The hole was about the size of a softball, directly above where the armature of the generator would have been. Except it just wasn't there. As if it had simply just been cut out and disintegrated or turned to dust. The metal ball was laying there on the frame of what held the entire generator unit, like a giant electric motor frame, without the motor. Jason poked it gently with his bayonet, nothing happened. He toed it gently with his boot, it rolled an inch or two and nothing else happened.

Jason reached into his ammo bag, got out his full fingered gloves, put them on and reached for the odd metal ball. He picked it up and nothing happened. It felt like a ball bearing. It was about an inch in diameter and oddly colored but, looked like a ball bearing of that diameter to Jason. Inside Jason's ammo bag, he had sewn in a leather bag that was a "catch all" pocket and it was currently empty. Jason dropped the ball in there and returned his gloves to the larger section of his ammo bag.

Jason realized that it had become dark and started to wind the flashlight in the dark. Jason noticed lines appear in his vision outlining joining surfaces in his sight. The lines he had seen started to fade, Jason clapped his hands. The room and hallway beyond, became a 3D line drawing. Jason switched the flashlight on. The room looked like Jason was holding a directional sun for an instant, then looked like Jason was holding a very bright spotlight.

Jason returned to where he had entered and shined the flashlight on the floor identification placard over the closed freight elevator to the floor above. It read, Power Generation Research. "What the hell did I find!?" Jason thought out loud as he opened the freight elevator door. Jason's flashlight had run down again and needed another wind up recharge.

Jason stepped inside the freight car line drawing, to his view. So, he continued thinking out loud, as he climbed the ladder to the roof of the car. "A new kind of generator?"

Jason climbed the rungs set into the wall and pulled the handle to open the doors. "What all were you working on down here, Doc."

Jason climbed out of the opening. When he grabbed the side of the opening with his palm, his fingers hit a rocker switch, which operated the lights.

"Or did Uncle Sam have something else going on down here?"

Jason heard the tink, tink of fluorescent lights "clix-on" firing and knew the hallway was about to be filled with light.

Jason squinted and was rewarded by not being blinded, by the suddenly bright, fluorescent lighting, running on battery back up.

The placard above the elevator read, Engineering Research. Jason saw that the hallway looked untouched aside from a crack at the far end of the hallway on his left. He decided to search the hallway to the right first and warily did so. He didn't kick any doors, because none were locked. It looked like he'd have expected an engineering lab that had never been used to look.

Jason didn't find anything that he might have need of in his search and headed back to the elevator. The freight elevator to the next floor was blocked. Jason pulled out the building blueprint and looked it over. There were two stairwells at the end of the hallway which led to the surface. He walked down the hallway and checked the first door to his right.

When Jason opened the door, he looked into a crushed room. As if something big had just squashed it. The next room down the hall was on the left and it looked fine inside. The last door was on the right and when he opened the door into the room, it too was squashed where the far wall should be. Jason went across the hall and checked the room beyond. It looked as if it had been shaken from side to side, spilling any loose items to the floor and moving anything that wasn't secured to the floor. Jason was hopeful when he reached for the doorknob of the last door in the hallway, knowing that it was the "fire door" for the stairwell to the surface.

Jason opened the door and looked inside the stairwell. He was relieved to see that the stairs within the stairwell were intact from this level up. There was, however a large rock face taking up the stairwell, 4 feet below this level's landing. Jason knew that the stairwells only connected 2 floors at a time and alternated ends of this main hallway. So, that direction would only access a janitorial storage closet. Jason's goal was one floor above.

Jason climbed the first set of metal stairs to the concrete landing half way to the next floor on the far side of the stairwell, looked up at the door above, on the next landing and shot up the final set of stairs at a dead run.

Jason reached the landing in 6 double steps upward and stopped to catch his breath and collect himself. He didn't really need to catch his breath but, expected to need to and that mildly puzzled him as he composed himself. He was about to open the fire door that should open into the lobby he had entered on ground level.

As Jason was composing himself, he recognized the simplest of security precautions, the access to the stairwell opened out from the stairwell. To open the door from the lobby side, it would have to be pulled, making it impossible to kick open from that side.

Jason took a deep breath, adjusted his gear, armed himself with the 9mm pistol and put his ear against the door to see if he could hear anything from beyond. All was quiet. Jason used his hip to push the bar that would open the commercial fire door to the lobby.

Jason stepped into the eastern end of the lobby in a crouch looking around warily, pistol at the ready. He had thought that he was prepared to see anything

He wasn't.

What he had expected to see were fires, fallen buildings and perhaps refugees scavenging for anything they could find.

What he saw was a bowl, a huge bowl where the mechanical section of the building used to be. Everything in that area had been melted, forming a puddle at the bottom of the bowl. The strange thing was, that there were no signs of scorching or burning beyond where the solid objects within the bowl or sphere, Jason realized, liquefied completely, forming a pool at the bottom. Beyond, there was indication of destruction from above. As if it had been hit with dropped ordinance with no explosion on impact. And too, it did look like the area had experienced a level 5 magnitude or better earthquake as well.

There were buildings leaning over or collapsed completely, yet that wasn't the most striking thing that he noticed. It was deserted. There were no people. There were no traffic sounds, no sounds of airplanes, trucks, buses, cars or motorcycles. Jason thought of it as a deathly quiet, the hackles went up on the back of his neck. He holstered his 9mm, unslung the M-16, checked the breach for a round and began searching what was still standing of the structure.

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