A Multi Leveled Planet

CHAPTER ONE

The Multi Leveled Planet

Chapter One

“This is it, Jason!” April yelled. “I’m sure of it. Pull over there!” April pointed to the Bronco’s tracks from the day before when she and Jason discovered the small cave. Today they were back with Kevin and Shelby, their spelunker friends.

Each of them inspected their own share of spelunking tools and coiled ropes, as well as special items each preferred ‘just-in-case’. With pitons, hammers, and simple hand winches, waterproof headlamps, even individual first aid kits filled with preferred items, their tack could double for mountain climbing. Everything tucked in backpacks with their tools hanging from loops and metal catches; they also carried a coil of rope around their left shoulders.

Around them Joshua trees, a tree-like cactus, dotted the arid desert while huge boulders spilled across the land. At the base of a hill, Jason and April led the others upward toward their 'own' private‘hole in the ground’.

They scaled the craggy hillside in short order. While catching their breath and standing on the lip of a hole that appeared to drop straight into an abyss, Jason met Kevin’s frown with a grin.

“Are you sure this is a real cave? It looks like a big hole in the dirt, nothing more.” Kevin eyed the black darkness beneath his feet a with some doubt.

“I’ve dropped far enough inside to look around, stalagmites don’t form in dirt. Even though I could see little of the formations, I'm hoping we will find the entrance to another room.”

“Sorry, dude,” Kevin did some fast backing. “I should’a figured that out. Come on, let’s get to getting and walk where no ma… uh, one has gone before.”

“Uh-huh, we girls caught that!” April threw Shelby a wink. Jason chuckled as he clipped his rope onto the piton already placed on the edge of the rocky opening from his and April’s first visit.

After clicking on his headlamp, Jason let himself fall in a controlled drop until at last his feet touched the cavern’s floor. “I’m down!” He yelled while the others peered into the gloom from sixty feet above him.

Among a scattering of stalagmites, piles of broken and shattered rock spread across the rocky floor. No sign of the usual dampness one would expect in a cavern. One by one, each of the teens followed him down into the earth.

In the light from their head lamps, the cavern didn’t seem large. Yesterday Jason only dropped down enough to see very little in the eternal night of the cave. Swallowing a sense of disappointment he and Kevin examined broken stalagmites while they left Shelby and April to explore together.

April, while exploring the surrounding walls with Shelby, suddenly called out with a squeal of excitement.

“Look! I think this might lead to another room!” She dropped to her knees, probing at a hole where the cavern’s floor met the wall. Shelby knelt beside her to help move a piece of fallen stalactite.

“You girls find something?” Jason stepped across the room to see what caused the sounds of excitement.

“I think so,” April glanced over her shoulder. “If we can get this broken piece moved a little…”

He stooped to help and in a moment the piece of chipped limestone moved a stubborn inch, then stopped.

“Kevin!” Jason’s voice echoed in the gloom. “Would you give us a hand? I think the girls just found the entrance to another room.”
With all four pushing, the piece of stalactite moved until with a shout of elation, they shoved it out of the way.

“It looks a little more than two feet across and about the same in height, it might prove a bit tight, but I think we can make it, what do you think, Kev?” He asked while he shined his torch into the passageway. It appeared to stay about the same dimensions, thooughout.
.
Kevin, eyes following Jason’s light agreed, “I think we can, yeah, but it’s going to be a bit tight.”

Jason went first, the girls followed, shoving their packs ahead of them, leaving Kevin to bring up the rear. Keeping his headlamp trained ahead, Jason crawled with difficulty, relieved to know he was the largest of the four, if he could make it, so could they.

“Whoa!” Jason whuffed as he tumbled clear of the opening. While the others struggled to join him he flashed his head lamp around. “Now this is more like it,” he chuckled, excited again.

The echoes in the room they entered gave the impression of a much larger chamber. Here he could hear the soft patter of moisture dripping from the distant ceiling in different areas of the cave. Stalagmites stood tall where the beam of torchlight touched. Many formed huge columns where they connected with stalactites hanging from a ceiling that disappeared into the darkness. Evidence of the recent earthquake activity showed where several smaller stalactites lay fallen and broken into pieces around the huge surviving pillars.

“Wow!” Kevin breathed in awe. “I think we just might have stumbled onto a major find.”

“Could be,” Jason agreed. For the moment no one moved from where they emerged through the tiny tunnel.

“Maybe there are even more rooms,” April wondered aloud.

“Let’s go check,” Shelby’s headlamp flashed here and there, studying what she could see from where they sat on their knees close to the opening.

“Hey, feel that? A breeze, I think. Maybe there’s…”

“Fresh air, April,” Jason answered her, rising to his feet. He sniffed the current of air, it smelled fresh and cool and not stagnant at all.

Together they began to track a cool draft that wafted through the room. They trod with care across slippery damp rock, proving this part of the cave was very much alive and well. Water dripped everywhere as they struggled not to stumble on the littered remains of limestone chunks; their headlamps showed an abundant scattering of small pools.

Even with due care, the explorers found the water lying in puddles so clear that at times the pools were hard to see. Several times one or the other of them almost stepped into an almost invisible pond or tiny stream.

Flashing their lamps around as they traversed the floor, they could see whole areas where limestone made beautiful mimics of the outside world. One branching with tiny limestone pipes looking like branches on a tree frozen in time, complete with a thick twisted trunk.

In another place they found a flowstone perfectly mimicking a mighty river, cascading from high above when suddenly it froze in mid-stream. Like ice, the formation appeared pearly white in their lamps with millions of glittering points that sparkled as their lights passed across its surface.

“I hear something,” Shelby broke their long silence.

“Yeah, like a distant roar.” Kevin paused and cocked his ear toward the remote sound.

“Maybe we can stop for a while and eat lunch.” Shelby hinted with a glance toward Kevin.

“I’m starved too!” April rubbed her mid section, eyeing Jason.

“Okay, okay people. I could use a little bit of something, too, but first let’s find out where that sound comes from.”

They continued on until they could make out the sound of rushing waters, with the cavern amplifying a mighty falls somewhere ahead. They followed a small stream to find it merged with a wide river that soon flowed over a lip to disappear into a black abyss.

“Wow,” Kevin shouted over the noise. “I wonder where that goes?”

“We’ll leave that mystery alone, I think. Right now we eat.” Jason moved away from the thunder of water and let himself drop to a sandy shore where he immediately opened his backpack. From within the waterproof carryall, he removed a large ziplock bag full of lunch. Without saying a word, the others followed suit.

“Okay,” Kevin managed to say around a hefty bite of drumstick. “What’s next?”

Shelby frowned, deep in thought. “Obviously this room has something else beneath it, maybe another room, or maybe just the river traveling miles beneath the earth. This is the first time I’ve ever been in a cave that has a living underground river. I mean, I’ve seen little streams flowing, but not a whole river. Should we try to go further, or should we leave well enough alone and let someone else do the real exploring?”

April quit chewing her piece of chicken to stare in question into Jason’s face. It was obvious she would do whatever he decided, but then, she was the youngest member of the team.

Jason found himself surprised to find Shelby looking toward him with the same question on her face.

“Well, I think we should check it out.” Kevin frowned “What do you think bro?”

“I think we’d better be careful, that’s what I think. I’d hate to find myself sucked into the navel of the earth, never to come back out again.” Swallowing the last of his own drumstick, Jason grabbed a second one after chugging a can of Pepsi. Even as he took a bite of the meat, his eyes located his mom’s slice of chocolate cake, salvaged from the night before.

As the oldest of the four, being twenty in a couple of months, Jason, for the first time in his life, felt the weight of responsibility for the younger ones. He was an only child and until today never had to feel responsible for another's life. He glanced at each of them thinking Kevin was only a year younger than he, Shelby was almost nineteen, while April just turned seventeen. He took the slice of cake, chewing thoughtfully as he looked out into the stygian dark beyond the limit of the lights.

Jason stretched, knowing this jaunt concluded his holidays. Exploring and all that kind of fun would end when he returned to his junior year at Phoenix U, at least until Spring Break. No, he thought, the smart thing would be to return to the entrance and leave. They would have the rest of the cave to explore later, something to definitely look forward to in the coming months.

With their lives and careers planned, none of them wanted to rush into exploring the bottomless pit that opened a hundred feet away. As they finished their lunch, they unconsciously kept glancing to where the midnight-black waters plunged out of sight. Only the roar from the river broke the silence.

* * *

“Okay, now that we’re filled up, let’s head back the way we came.” Jason began to pack the remains of lunch into his back pack.

“I wish we could find a way to cross the river and go along the wall, rather than go over aready explored ground,” Shelby mused.

Jason empathized with her. Also there was the obvious  reluctance to leave the mysterious river behind, without knowing what lay beyond. Biting his lip, he shook his head.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he warned. Curiosity often came close to getting cavers killed, in far too many circumstances.

“I think we can.” Kevin, ignoring them, pointed to an indistinct lip of cavern floor on the far side of the abyss. The edge appeared to be the remains of the floor when long ago, in a forgotten era, the river found a crack in the floor of the cavern. Over the ages it would have eroded until it became large enough to swallow the river whole.

Jason aimed light at his wristwatch. “We’ve been in here four hours already, we’d better think of cutting this short and heading back. Any of you agree?”

“Darn,” Kevin groaned. “I guess you’re right. I know you’re right! Tomorrow’s the last day before the new quarter. I need to do some last minute packing. It’ll be a while before I can get back out here.” A chorus of ‘me too’ answered him.

“It’s going to be hard to stay away until spring break, but I doubt I’ll get a chance to come back before then.” Shelby placed a hand on his shoulder as she stood, hefting her coil of rope and backpack onto her shoulders.

In the light of head lamps they could see how close the lip of the ‘abyss’ came to the wall. How thick was the lip or the bridge to it? Jason bent forward trying to see, but the soft light didn’t reveal any secrets. His battery would soon need replacing but he hated to change it since they were leaving. By his reckoning he could get another hour of use from this one. He frowned, studying the small portion of floor beyond the abyss. The rock looked stable enough, from what he could see. If they followed the wall like Shelby suggested, they might even find it easier and faster to maneuver back to where they entered. It would lead them around to the entrance to the first room without having to traverse all the already seen formations and pools.

“Okay, team.” He made his decision. “Let’s move around this waterfall after all, carefully. Now is not the time for disaster. It will take us a while to get back to where we came into this room. We know it was at the wall, it stands to reason that following the wall we’ll eventually come to our entrance site. From there it’s an easy climb upwards and we’re homeward bound.”

Without a word of dissent, the four explorers turned to make their way around the abyss and over the existing bridge to the wall. Jason sensed that no one wanted to quit just yet, but things like packing must be done before school started full swing again.
He led first, stepping onto the ledge he could now see was a short and sturdy looking bridge. He quickly made his way to the wall where he stood while waiting for the others. April and Shelby followed with no problems. The span over the abyss seemed rock solid, and now only Kevin remained to cross over.

As Shelby reached the wall, Kevin stepped out. Within steps of the wall he halted as a low grumble echoed through the cavern. Shocked, he flung both arms wide for balance. Jason could see the whites of his friend’s eyes as he listened.

“Hurry, Kevin!” Jason shouted. “It’s an earth…” The whole cavern seemed to slide as if it was a giant train car, moving beneath their feet.

Kevin staggered and fell forward. Jason moved forward, back onto the bridge, as the rock where Kevin stood still trying to catch his balance, gave a loud CRACK!

“I’m going to fall!” Kevin’s cry, full of mindless terror, mingled with the roar of falling rock. Instinctively he fell to his knees, trying to throw his arms around the limestone to keep from falling.

Jason jumped to rescue his friend. Without hesitating he reached  for Kevin’s hand. Only then did he realize what Kevin already knew, the lip was crumbling away beneath them. With a loud grinding noise it suddenly dropped away! Without thinking, Jason threw one hand toward the girls. Shelby and April, both acting on instinct, leaned forward to catch his hand.

With a shout of warning, Jason felt himself dropping into nothingness.  Kevin’s grasp burned his wrist as he still tugged Jason. He heard a shrill scream hammering at his ears above the roar of water. Locked in Kevin’s grasp, he fell with him. As he fell Jason’s mind raced. Had the girls managed save themselves? The shrill screams that still followed his fall, answered his question.

* * *

Jason plunged into the icy black water after what seemed an eon of helpless falling. The water struck him as hard as a belly flop from a high dive in a topside pool. The air in his lungs slammed out of him with a bubbling whoosh. Knocked half unconscious, he struggled against his plunge. Slowly, slowly, he managed to fight his way upward and when he broke the surface his mind dimly received the sounds his ears absorbed.

Other collisions with the water sounded muffled and distant, crashing all around him. He veered to the right when a small piece of rock struck his shoulder. Regardless of sudden sharp pain, it helped to bring his mind back into focus. Frantic to get away from the unending bombardment, he struggled harder when suddenly his hand struck a body. Limp and lifeless it was sinking into the depths. He managed to grab an arm and he descended with it, then struggled even more to re-surface.

Unseen bits of debris struck him in a dozen places before he managed to drag himself and the arm he clutched, into a calmer area. As he did, Jason realized his eyes were seeing through the darkness. Confusion returned and at first he couldn’t understand where the light came from.

“Help me.” A weak cry sounded from the maelstrom behind him. He turned to see who called.

The flood from above was waning, which confused him again. Jason’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to understand the phenomena. Why was the waterfall slowing?

A second cry for help reached him. He glanced toward the owner of the arm he held. Long blonde hair floated behind a small white face. April! Frantically he looked around. The beam of light showed a close shore; at the same instant a like beam of understanding cleared his head. His head lamp, water-proofed , still functioned perfectly! He pulled April onto the shore before turning to dive back toward the splashing and struggling he heard behind him.

He found Shelby and Kevin alive, though half-drowned. Saving his much needed breath, he managed to grab them before pointing out the direction in which to swim. Kevin nodded and launched ahead, leaving Jason to guide Shelby to safety.

Moments later all four lay alive, bedraggled, and in various stages of confusion on the shore of a veritable underground sea. At least, to Jason’s eyes, it looked like a sea. Waves lapped in the glare of his head lamp. Not big ones pushed by an ocean wind, but waves all the same. The air didn’t smell salty, either, or… he took a quick sniff, not like the smell of an ocean breeze. Experimenting, he licked his wet lips. The water dripping down his face tasted brackish, like maybe it contained some desert salts, but not salty like ocean water, in fact maybe it was even drinkable.

“What happened? Where are we?” Moisture filled coughs interrupted Kevin’s query.

“The lip gave way from another earthquake, probably an aftershock. Anyway, we fell with the river. We… are lucky we’re still alive.” Jason shook his head, amazed all four of them still breathed. At the same time, a darker thought snagged his thinking. It might have been better… Jason bit his lip as he dispelled that line of thought.

They lay silent while April, after regaining consciousness and coughing water, drifted into an exhausted sleep. The other three watched her, exchanged glances of empathy, and in silence agreed to let her rest awhile.

“What are we going to do?” Shelby whispered to Kevin, who glanced toward Jason, a subconscious acknowledgement that he offered the eldest of them undisputed leadership.

“Right now I think we’d be better off just to rest like April.” Jason heaved a sigh. He considered their situation. “Let April regain her strength and give us time to think. We can plan our next move when we feel better. I think though, we’d better forget about getting home in time to do any packing.” With a weak chuckle, he tried to lift their sagging spirits.

The corners of Shelby’s lips twitched. Kevin just shook his head, and then met Jason’s eyes and Jason knew what Kevin was thinking. He gave his friend a slight shake of his head, warning him to keep quiet. His head lamp flashed toward the ‘sea’, then to the broken scene around them. Both April and Shelby’s lamps showed signs of dimming, just as his did. Kevin’s torch looked the same. He reached toward the sleeping April and gently removed her lamp and switched it off.

“It’s almost time to replace our batteries.” Shelby muttered. “Ohmigod! My backpack! And my rope! I’ve lost them!” She twisted to stare with a woebegone look at Jason.

Jason’s backpack was still with him, and Kevin’s remained where it belonged, too. April’s pack dangled from one shoulder along with her rope which was loose, half of it straggled to the shoreline where it disappeared beneath the black waters. Losing only one backpack and one rope, he sighed, well… better than losing everything. His eyes searched, with the dimming light, the restless Styx-like Sea.

He pulled his head lamp off and removed its waterproof seal, then opening his backpack; he found the carryall remained dry inside. Relieved, he found and replaced the torch’s battery before palming a second battery and replacing the seal.

“We’ve only lost the one backpack and rope, Shelby. I think we are in a lot better shape than we might be. Still, here’s another battery for your lamp, maybe one of us can spot your backpack still floating.”

Shelby and Kevin replaced their head lamp batteries, then Kevin stood and approached the gentle waves where the water met the shore. He stood for moments, Shelby and Jason joined him, their eyes scanning the water.

“There! Look!” Shelby pointed. Her jabbing finger directed the boys’ search. Not far from them, a bright yellow pack floated, waiting for someone to pick it up. Kevin, without saying a word, jumped in after it.

“I was looking in the distance,” Jason chuckled.

“Oh thank god,” was all Shelby answered.

Once the girl held the pack, she opened it. To Jason, who watched her, it was evident that everything appeared safe and dry. Sitting beside April while the other girl slept, she checked the contents. Like each of the explorer’s packs, everything of value rested in plastic zippered bags; a double protection within the waterproof pack itself.

“Well, bro? I…” Kevin again met Jason’s eyes. He lowered his voice to a soft whisper. “I think we’re in a bit of a pickle…I think we need to talk.”

Jason glanced toward the girls, April still slept and Shelby was busy with her backpack. She placed a new battery to one side, no doubt to replace the one he’d loaned her. The rest of her zipped bags with their unseen contents she placed around her. She no doubt knew what they contained might mean life or death. He raised his brows, impressed.

“I think you can say that. I wonder how far we fell,” he said in a low voice knowing it wouldn’t carry as far as a whisper would. It wasn’t really a question; his mind tackled the answer as he spoke. “I know when I hit the water it knocked the breath out of me, knocked me half unconscious. Remember when we swam in the diving competition last year?”

Kevin nodded, casting his mind back to that blazing day under the desert sun. Jason and he walked away with awards that day, and the school took home a gold trophy because of them.

“That dive won me the award, remember? It’s the highest diving board, Coach Klotz said, in the states of Arizona, California, and New Mexico combined. This fall was twice that at least, maybe even further.”

“How are we going to get out of here?” Kevin asked the question that circled in Jason’s mind ever since he’d caught his breath.

“I… don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to take it one step at a time. Maybe we’ll find a passage leading upward, I don’t know. But let’s not scare the girls, okay?”

“Why not?” Kevin snorted, “I’m scared!”

“So am I, Kev.” Jason hesitated, then muttered, “damn scared!”

“Well,” Kevin pointed his light straight up. “We can’t see the ceiling even with the new batteries, which means we can’t get back up. We know we’ve dropped quite a ways, no telling how far, but unless we find some passage up we’re going to have to find a passage that comes out somewhere else. Hummm… does that make any sense?”

“More than I want, yes. That’s about what I figure, too.”

Flashing their lamps around, they could see that this place seemed boundless. A few small stalagmites marred a nearly smooth floor. Although the cave dripped with moisture, little  indicated growth, or this being an active cave. In fact, except for the tiny stalagmites, it seemed unnatural,and nowhere showed normal cavern formations. Odd, in fact it seemed more like a room once covered with water which now was drained away into the underground lake, or was it an underground ocean?

With a habitual glance, Jason checked the ‘shore’.

“Look!” He gasped. The shore appeared to slip away even as they watched. The water was receding.

“What the hell?” Kevin checked out the ‘shoreline’ now a good foot further to the edge of the water than a half hour ago.

“There is something going on, Kev. The river we fell into has stopped flowing. It must have stopped before we even made it to shore. The aftershock must have cut off the underground river, even as the lip gave way.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Kevin pulled his ear. “So we dropped into this basin, which is now losing the river water…”

“Which means,” Jason continued, “this basin is draining away.” Shaking his head, he added. “Sound right to you, so far?”

“I can’t think of any other explanation at this point.”

“Okay, then it stands to reason if we wait until the water drains away, we can follow the river bed to see where it goes. Hopefully, maybe, it will lead us to the outside world.”

“That’s not a given.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jason agreed, nodding. “But that’s all I can think of right now.”

“Hey!” Kevin took a step closer to the receding water’s edge. “Look, there seems to be some sort of stairs or steps here.”

“Yeah,” Jason came close and bent over, allowing his lamp to follow what definitely appeared to be artificially made.

“At least we know more than a few minutes ago, but what the devil are stairs doing this far underground?” Neither could answer that right off and they both turned and walked back toward the girls. Shelby now dosed, leaning on her backpack, exhausted no doubt. April rolled against her, falling back asleep even as they approached.

“Maybe we should put in one of the used batteries so we won’t be plunged back into blackness.” Jason suggested in a whisper, “then catch a few zees of our own. We need to be alert, don’t you think?”

“Good idea,” Kevin agreed.

While Jason changed his fresh battery back to the used one, Kevin turned off his and Shelby’s head lamps. The total darkness,  before Jason turned his lamp on, slammed at them like a living entity. Thick, stygian blackness, the total absence of light, it tried to smother them without weight. With relief, they both welcomed the dimmer light Jason finally clicked back on.

Jason didn’t think he could sleep, but in moments both young men fell into a deep slumber.

* * *
April pushed herself up from the rough limestone floor. She couldn’t see a thing, and like an experienced spelunker who’d spent more than one night in a cave, didn’t panic, but searched for her ever-present backpack. Her hand bumped something soft.

“What?” A sleepy voice responded to her touch.

“I’m trying to find my head lamp; it’s too dark to see my hand before my face.”

“Oh, I need to find mine too!” Shelby joined the search.

“Good,” April said as her hand found what it sought, “Just a minute now.” A second later a welcome beam of bright light lit up the space around them.

“Wha…” Kevin raised his head, “Shhh, you’ll wake up Jas…”

“I’m awake, who could sleep with this racket going on? Is everyone okay?”

“It seems so,” April answered. “Where are we? What happened? All I can remember is falling and falling…”

“You were knocked unconscious, April,” Jason reassured her. “But I don’t think you were hurt any. You might have been hit by some of the falling debris. Do you hurt anywhere?”

She ran her hands over her face and scalp before answering, “No, I think I’m alright. I don’t remember anything hitting me. I just remember feeling like I was falling forever.”

“You probably just fainted. I grabbed you by the arm and pulled you up to the shore. Then I heard…”

“Shore?” Confused she looked around them, “What shore?”

Jason looked to where the water had been, ‘had been’ were the appropriate words. They could see light reflecting off an expanse of wet silt. The ‘shore’ was gone; a flat muddy looking expanse went on from the bottom of the stairs to disappear into the black beyond the reach of their lights. No sign remained of the sea except for the wet, silty floor.

“Kevin and I figure the river stopped up, probably from the earthquake, maybe changed course or something. So we decided to wait until the lake drained away. But I wouldn’t have thought it would all have drained out this fast.” Jason rose on his knees hoping to see further.

Kevin jumped up to examine the new landscape. As one the others soon joined him. In moments, with all four headlamps burning bright, with Jason’s dead battery replaced with his new one, the only sign of water remained in the form of a muddy silt. It stretched into a black infinity beyond the lights' limits.

Before them, about twelve feet wide or so, descended a well cut stairway. Chipped and cracked though it was, it proved that somehow this was once a room where people walked to and fro, going about their daily lives.

“Let’s stick close together in case one of us steps into something deeper than this.” They descended below the stairs into about an inch of muddy silt.

“Maybe,” Kevin suggested. “It might be better to rope ourselves together? That way if one of us did step off into something, uh… bottomless, we could save them.”

“I agree,” April nodded as she pulled at the rope she’d recoiled around her shoulder. In moments, with one tied to another, they made their way across the cavern’s muddy floor.

With no wall in evidence, Jason held out his arm to stop April.

“Whoa, hold up! What in the world is that thing?”

Ahead of them, barely seen in the lamp light and at a distance, stood a square object. It was covered with the same silt as the floor that stretched without evidence of any stalagmite now, even a tiny one.

“It’s…” Kevin started to say as they approached the object. “It’s too perfect.”

“My first thought,” Jason agreed, his forehead creased as the light of his torch illuminated faultless corners and straight edges.

“It has to be man-made,” mused Shelby, her arched brows lowered and her lips pursed. Like Jason, she stretched her hand toward the object.

“Wait,” Kevin snatched her arm back, “Let Jason check it out first.”

“Why?” Shelby’s dark eyes narrowed, her shoulders squared, while an edge of irritation rasped in her voice.

“I don’t mean anything by that, Shelby; I just think there is no reason more than one should …”

“Okay, okay. I just want it noted…” Shelby interjected, ignoring April’s soft chuckle. “As long as it isn’t because I’m a girl, a little girl needing protection…”

“No, nothing like that, please Shel,” Kevin raised a placating hand. “We don’t know what lies ahead of us down here, I mean...”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I think she’s right though,” Jason offered. “Look, I’ve cleaned as much slime and silt as possible and the corners of this thing are perfect. It isn’t made by nature.”

“Then who…?”

“Or what?” Shelby finished for Kevin.

“I can’t tell what it was,” Jason took a step backward, looking at the thing,  “but I’m sure the ‘who’ is Men. This is a human manufactured machine, of some kind. It looks like an abandoned air conditioner, but surely not...”

“Down here?” Kevin squawked. “What is it? Hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the ground?”

“Well… maybe not hundreds…” Jason tried to say.
“We entered into a cave, bro,” Kevin continued as his voice jumped in pitch, “not something conducive to human-kind I’d say, and this was certainly not built by some Neanderthal, either. This thing was made, deliberately constructed by someone who knew what they were doing. I mean… they made it for a specific reason … don’t you think?” He finished in a rush.

“It looks like a machine,” Jason agreed, “or part of one, but for the life of me I can’t figure what it is doing here, or how someone got it down here, or… or… how long it’s been here.”

“Let’s push on,” Jason turned without another word and started walking away.
***