City Out of Time. William Robison III
looked around for another way to climb up the rock, but could not find an obvious one anywhere around him.
“Well the animals must have some way of getting up to the trail,” Lanz reasoned.
He looked down the trail, but seeing nothing in the immediate vicinity that looked like a path back up to the trail above, Lanz turned reluctantly to the cave.
“Maybe…” Lanz pondered.
It seemed crazy, but at this point, Lanz was starting to feel more than a little punch drunk as the adrenalin started to wear off. He took a swig of water and decided to explore the cave as far as the light would allow him to go.
The narrow fissure was filled with cobwebs, plant remains, and a few small animal bones. Lanz suddenly wondered whether he was wandering unwisely into the den of some carnivore. Lanz pushed forward.
After a dozen or so feet the narrow fissure widened into a proper cave nearly twenty feet wide. Through the dim light that squeezed into the cave, Lanz could see Native American symbols and animal paintings adorning the rough natural walls of the cave. He didn’t stop to admire the work, however, because Lanz could also feel a steady, cool, breeze from ahead of him. There had to be an exit ahead – somewhere the animals could get up to the animal path above the cave. He’d made the right choice.
He moved so quickly ahead now that he almost didn’t notice the changes in the cave. The cave remained a uniform width for at least forty feet before the natural cave walls gave way to rough-hewn stone walls, and then, finally to concrete. The floor of the cave changed as well becoming less and less rock strewn until it finally became as straight and flat as a road. But the thing that Lanz actually noticed first was the light source up ahead – faint, blue, and completely man-made.
Lanz slowed down as he looked ahead to the blue light and tried to make out what it was. Though the ground did not change, the light around Lanz faded to the point that he could no longer make out the walls of the man-made cave. He was moving further and further underground, further and further away from the entrance to the cave, but Lanz knew not to stop. The blue light seemed familiar – like something remembered from a long ago dream.
He walked forward for at least another minute before he was aware that there were others in the cave with him, walking as he was, shadows in the darkness, shambling towards the same blue light.
“Hello?” Lanz asked into the darkness around him.
His voice seemed to echo around the cave, “Hello? Halo? Hola?” Each echo was a different timbre, a different language, a different age and sex. There were several hundred people in this cave; all moving forward, all completely clueless as to who else was here and why.
Lanz seriously wondered if he was dead. He stopped and two people nearly knocked him over as they went by. Lanz started to turn around.
“Greetings, Travelers.”
A pleasant English woman’s voice echoed throughout the entire cave. Lanz looked towards the blue light where he was certain the voice had come from.
“Welcome home. Please continue forward for processing.”
Chapter Four
The City Processing Center
Date Unspecified
An excited murmur rushed through the crowd of people emerging from the cave. For Lanz, all hesitation vanished at the sound of the greeting. There was a pleasant quality to the greeters voice that reminded Lanz of the first time he visited Disneyland. It was happy. It was inviting. And, perhaps most of all, it made Lanz curious as hell. Where the heck was he? And who were all these people?
A minute later Lanz emerged into a large rotunda with a high-domed ceiling and a pleasing blue light all around the walls. He stopped immediately and took in his surroundings.
Large crowds of travelers were entering the rotunda out of two large tunnels like the one he’d just been in. Other than those who were standing around trying to get their bearings like Lanz, everyone else was walking towards the center of the rotunda where a large entry gate with check points stretched from the right side to the left side, dividing the rotunda into two sides. In the exact center of the entry gate there was a large gap where soldiers stood guard.
On the other side of the gate, past the checkpoints, cheerful uniformed people directed the travelers towards one of eight different archways that exited the rotunda – four to the left and four to the right. All of the travelers passing through the checkpoints were exiting through the archways. In between the eight smaller archways, there was a large central archway that nobody was passing through.
There were absolutely no signs anywhere to give a clue as to where any of this was taking place. And the cacophony of languages floating around didn’t point to any one language group or region. As far as Lanz knew, geographically, he was still in Death Valley – but where he actually was… Lanz couldn’t guess.
“Keep moving please,” said someone behind Lanz in English, and before Lanz could respond he was pushed aside by not one, but several uniformed people walking through the crowd of travelers.
As Lanz watched, the uniformed people were waved through by the soldiers standing guard at the gap in the center of the checkpoints. Once on the other side of the gap, the uniformed people exited the rotunda through the main central archway.
Lanz turned to the guy next to him – a long haired rock and roll type who was still wearing his sunglasses in the cave – and asked, “Any idea where we are?”
The guy turned to Lanz with a somewhat glazed look on his face and said, “I don’t know, man… but it’s far out!”
“Welcome Travelers…” the voice announced again, “Please move forward so that you can be processed more quickly. Thank you. And welcome home.”
Lanz knew he wasn’t going to get any answers just standing there so he approached one of the check points on the right with many other confused travelers. As the line moved forward, it appeared to Lanz that none of the travelers knew where they were nor had expected to find anything like this. Yet, nobody was trying to leave. All were proceeding through the check point quietly as if it was to be expected.
At last, Lanz approached one of the checkpoints and overheard what was being asked to each of the travelers.
“Welcome to the City,” said a cheerful teenage girl, “All of your questions will be answered momentarily during orientation. Please state your name for the record and indicate the current year.”
Name and current year? What the… but before Lanz could even guess at why they might be asking those particular questions, he was at the front of the line and the young lady had already spoken. She looked at him questioningly as if perhaps he hadn’t understood. Lanz shook off his stupor and answered.
“Lanz Franco… 1996?”
The teenager suddenly perked up.
“Oh… uh… can you please wait here a minute? Please?”
Before Lanz could reply, the teenage girl had slipped into the crowd of travelers on the other side of the check point and was approaching a middle aged man who had the look of a supervisor about him. As Lanz watched, the girl spoke excitedly to her supervisor and then pointed towards Lanz. The supervisor’s eyes grew wide and then purposefully became calm. He gave some directions to the teenager before they both returned to the checkpoint.
The supervisor said, “Lanz Franco? We were told to expect you. This way please.”
Lanz thought about protesting… but so far he’d been treated exceedingly well. Although he really wanted answers, he decided to play along.
The supervisor led Lanz through the checkpoint and towards a spot on the wall in between two of the exit arches. As they approached the solid wall of the rotunda, Lanz was able to see a door that had been all but camouflaged by the large blue lights that illuminated the domed room. The supervisor reached the door, pulled out an electronic