WORDCHASM (3)

Obsidian. That must have been what the walls were covered with in the stairwell. The steps themselves were black granite, filled with light and dark shades of gray pebbles. They were cut square and polished to a mirror finish. The walls, also, were mirror-polished, showing warped, obscure reflections in their inky blackness.

The stairwell was lit with an indirect, diffuse light at the tops of the walls and with large torches burning along the walls. A closer inspection of one showed the torches were actually mounted via a pipe that appeared to be a natural gas or propane supply. These would be perpetual flames, as long as the fuel supply remained. The ceiling was pale blue and curved, making the walls seem even taller than they were. The soft light above was almost completely swallowed up by the pitch-black walls, floors, and stairs.

Two huge, walnut-and-ebony doors were at the top of the long, wide staircase. They were half-open, the tongues of their locking mechanisms sticking out, taunting the shadowy visitor.

Approaching the door, he saw that there was some source of light from inside the room. He had slipped out of stealth mode since most of the hallway was in shadow. He pulled back along the wall. He stopped momentarily, pulling from his pocket the LED document reading light and the 3-by-5-inch card that had led him here.

The cryptic card was delivered in a plain envelope, with a return address that checked out as a PO Box at the Washington, D.C. Zoo. There was a link to a Google Map and a string of numbers printed on one side, and a hand-drawn sketch of what proved to be the floor plan of this building. There was also a key enclosed. The map, of course, had led here: a non-descript, tattered warehouse in the seedy, poverty-scarred badlands near the docks of New York’s West Side. It was the reality outside the barrage of the mind-bendingly shiny, beautiful excess of Times Square.

He’d decided to drive in under night’s cover. The parking lot was surrounded by rusty chain-link fence topped with sagging security wire. Tatters of some hapless intruder’s jacket or pants, captured by the security wire, fluttered in the chilly breeze. A few pink-orange security lamps glowered down from poles scattered around the pothole-ridden parking lot.

There was a chain at the corner of the rolling gate, fastened with a heavy padlock. The enigmatic key, of course, fit the lock as if the author had been struggling to state the obvious. The lock popped open and the chain scraped along the gate as it slid apart.

The gate was rusted and bent but it, too, opened, grudgingly, rolling to the side with a couple of metallic creaks and groans. He slipped back into the car, quietly closing the door, and pulled forward, slowly. A rat stopped to look at the sleek black sports car, then turned back to the moldy pizza crust it had retrieved from a nearby dumpster.

There was a somewhat out-of-place numeric keypad on the side of a ground-level receiving door. The code on the card opened the door, loudly, but he’d driven the car inside anyway. The area was not one in which you would leave a car unattended, if you had a choice. There were plenty of glitterati driving these sorts of vehicles all around the city, but you’d certainly want to have a ride out of here when you went back for it.

The others had suggested he not go it alone, but he resolved not to endanger the whole team. The envelope had been marked with a logo he was familiar with—a little-known crest used by the elite of the craft. A square composed of 3 connected, black-outlined white rectangles with 2 smaller black rectangles inset across the centers of the inner dividing lines… the symbol for the group known only as C2E.

C2E was not the group who had advised against his solo venture here. True, the stakes herein would be ones that most members of C2E would probably risk. But C2E was more of a professional organization than the day-to-day team. To calm the team—or avoid the haggling—he’d taken off when the rest of them broke for lunch. He’d kept a small bit of insurance by leaving detailed maps of the route here. He also left one of the computers open and locked on the micro-GPS he’d secured to the inside of his shirt. Since it was outfitted with a “panic button,” if anything went South, he could press the contact and, at the very least, alert the others as to where he was and that he needed assistance. He smirked at the thought, then shook his head to focus on the matter at hand.

A vague sense of motion from the corner of his eye. The inaudible whisper of cloth on cloth from the corner of the room. A slight change in the air pressure in the room. The slightest hint of the sound of breathing—just above the sound of his own breathing—helped him get away from the foray into woolgathering.

He shook off the sudden apprehension as being nerves.

He approached the raised dais. There was a large, thick table that jutted up in the center of it. It stood on 2 wide legs, like a trestle table, but was 6 inches thick. The surface, on closer inspection, appeared to have been made of plastic. The top of the table was covered with buttons and dials.

It was the stuff of legends, especially the legends shared by the elusive members of C2E. Maybe it was the geographical simplicity of the tool of their craft, or perhaps the complexity of the mechanics of those devices, but C2E members loved the shroud of mystery. One did not join the organization: the organization recruited members.

So here he was, and this, his second odyssey. So was this his initiation or was he here to guide another? The puzzles and conundrums would have maddened many; resting on the fulcrum edge between genius and madness was sitting in the catbird seat for C2E’s populace. Or so it has been alleged in some dusty old manuscripts thrown over the transom into Shecky Merman’s cell.

The buttons, dials, and slider switches atop the thick table seemed to be arranged in a familiar pattern. Was it Moog? No… not enough dials… and not many patch-cord sockets. Unusual. Newer? Oberheim…? No… a bit older… Arp!

He almost shouted it aloud, and stopped himself. He busied himself with the dials and slider switches. Oscillators… filters… old-school, hands-on synthesis. He set them in a pattern that, if electricity were applied and amplified, would create the sound of a whirling wind. He then set about the dusty ADSR panel… he set attack at 0, Decay at 30, Sustain at 60, and Release at 90.

There was a square button that had begun to glow with a blue light, more and more brightly as he set each of the ADSR sliders. He pressed it, hoping this would provide the next clue.
A vague whirring, as a small motor started and gears engaged, and a long, rectangular piece of the table slowly moved forward, disappearing into the table. A long row of black and white keys was gradually revealed. He counted the octaves—5—so it was a limited-range keyboard.

That probably wouldn’t matter. This puzzle hadn’t been too difficult… so what was the real point? He’d been hoping primarily to find a master’s keyboard and the elusive platinum logo, which would signify his upper-level abilities and membership in this ghostly fraternity. Jim Fetch had already become part of it… and it was his recommendation that had brought Giovanni this far.

He perceived another movement near him in the shadow. It made him stop and look up. He was sure there was someone else in here with him. “Come to the light,” he said, quietly. There was also a commanding tone in his voice that even surprised him.

Nothing.

Giovanni set back to the task at hand, uneasily, and attempted a few different musical passages on the keyboard. This was most likely a musical lock, which he’d seen before. It couldn’t be as simple as the last one had turned out, he reasoned. He did try playing Chopsticks here. Of course, it did nothing.

Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Nothing.

Polovtsian Dance No. 2 by Borodin.

Nothing.

Mary Had A Little Lamb.

An LED in the center of the table glowed bright red and went out. No other effect.

“Couldn’t be…” he murmured, aloud. He reflected for a moment and played Mary had A Little Lamb backwards.

A row of green LEDs flashed to life across the controller’s surface. A green LED came to life on the wall directly in front of him, and a section of the wall scratched, scraped, and slid to one side.

Another long tunnel, but this one lit with ordinary fluorescent tubes. The light was searing after the gloom of the C2E controller room.

Giovanni looked carefully around the rest of the once-inky controller room, now that the tunnel lights illuminated it. No one else was there, after all. A simple case of apprehension, apparently.

With newfound resolve, Giovanni walked down the tunnel. It was old—many years old—and made of light-colored brick. Most of the lights burned brightly, but there were a few that had darkened. Some sputtered as their gas had begun to dissipate and the electrons were lacking passage between poles. He could hear subway trains hurtling past, louder near several wooden doors along the tunnel.

There was a metal door at the end of the tunnel, simply marked “NBC,” with a red-eyed peacock crest above the lettering and a C2E logo beneath it. Giovanni reflected for a bit and realized that they were somewhat near Rockefeller Center, but that should still have been at least a mile away on the surface.

This door was locked. Giovanni looked around for the mechanism, since there was likely another musical lock here. Pressing on a small panel oddly placed on the hinge-side of the door, a tiny keyboard popped out.

He exhausted several more complex ideas, but finally understood the C2E concept of “simply complex.” You yourself would have known the combination. Since the early days of radio, the National Broadcasting Company had used a 3-tone chime to announce itself. Dong Ding DONG. The 3 keys played the famous chime, and the door mechanism unlatched.

As cautiously as he opened the door, Giovanni stepped into the next room. It seemed to be an odd laboratory of sorts. There was a master’s keyboard sitting on a desk, a tiny platinum rectangle sitting on its keys. “So this was the adventure,” he thought. “Lots of fun.”

A harsh, metallic voice rang out.

“Come to me.”

Giovanni whirled to see a strange machine, designed as if by a bizarre, reclusive professor from some early-1980s sci-fi thriller. The “head” had two cameras at its top; below them, a microphone sat atop a speaker, giving it a ridiculous “face.”

Pictures of various luminaries in some of their most-memorable moments adorned the walls—Nixon in China, the Reagan Assassination Attempt, JFK’s motorcade, even Britney Spears with a shaved head. A picture of Bobby J. Memphis’ superstar daughter, Kelly, was taped to the brick wall.

There was a huge glass cylinder, filled with a teal-blue liquid and a couple of bodies. . . one of which appeared to be that of Karl Rove. The others looked strangely like some authors from this very Wordchasm, into which you have fallen for this grim tale.

“Come to me.”

The machine spoke again, urging Giovanni toward it. There was a long table with a helmet wired into the machine and something that looked as if one would clamp it over the lower half of their body. It seemed so compelling.

“All of the musical knowledge in the world can be yours.” the machine said. “Come to me. Now.”

Suddenly, there was a growl, and a rush of motion from behind him. “No!”

A strange creature: part man, part animal, dressed in strangely medieval clothing—grabbed at Giovanni’s arm. He spun him away from the machine bodily. “Do not get into that thing!” he hissed.

A large, brightly-lit collar glowed angrily on the beast-man’s neck as lights on the weird machine began to flick on and off and sounds of whirring hard-drives emanated from it. The beast-man clutched at his neck, attempting to tear the collar away amid horrid, gurgling roars of pain.

Giovanni stepped up to the machine, hunting for a keyboard or some control to shut it off. Nothing, apparently, was a control interface. He noticed a large cable coming from the base of the glass cylinder. It ran from just below the machine’s “face” and into the tube. Though obscured by fluid, it seemed to run up to the head of the floating, corpulent body of Rove.
Giovanni pulled the connector out of the machine. Almost instantly, Rove’s body began to twitch inside the cylinder, but the machine went dark, as did the beast-man’s collar.

“I thank you,” said the beast-man. “But you are not safe now. The Shadowy Masters have been alerted, certainly, by the Mastermind going off the grid suddenly.”

“But who—what—are you?”

“It matters little. Let’s just say that I am a figment of an imagination from another time and another network. To protect you—and myself—I must take you away from here and come back and restart the machine.”

“Won’t that also restore your slavery?”

“Yes, but I can work far more effectively here in the guise of one of their minions… the guardian of their laboratory… underground. Also, the machine does help block out memories of the one I lost, and 2 more seasons of progressively-worse dialog.” His husky voice trailed off, lost in memories and recitations of Shakespeare.

Giovanni noticed a wistful look in the thing’s eyes, and could appreciate his pain at the mediocrity forced upon him by too many seasons of commercialization.

The beast-man looked up. “However, I mustn’t let you see where I take you to escape. I apologize, Giovanni.”

The thing lunged; Giovanni felt an impact on his head, then blackness.

~-~

Consciousness returned.

Giovanni’s head still ached, and he raised his hand to rub it. As he became clearer, he was inside his car, and it was outside of a different warehouse.

On the passenger’s seat was the platinum C2E logo and a small scroll. Giovanni turned, and engulfing in the small space behind the seats, was the master’s keyboard.

He opened the scroll to read the words.

These were printed from some form of printing device:

He who has determined the key
Is now a part of C2E

There were also words written in longhand with a pen.

Beware the Shadowy Masters, as they are aware of you. Your mystery intrigues them. You must understand that this was their trap to enlist you for their devious ends. V

Giovanni decided he’d better get back to Yanstebangus HQ as quickly as he could.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Previously…