Here it is, another chapter. Thanks for the kind words.

Suggested soundtrack: Hannah and the Institute: www. youtube dot com / watch?v=ApIUaG7bID8&list=PL7956D0F09A1AB992&index=13


Chapter Four: Ásgeirsson Institute for Progressive Volcanology

"Are we there yet?" Jason asked, whining it perfectly to sound like a five year old.

After several minutes of trying to shove all their things in the trunk of the rental, many curses at Damian and perhaps some sneaking away for the snack machine from Dick; they finally headed out from Reykjavík Airport.

They had been on the road for three hours, and not a single thing in sight except rolling green hills and an empty road.

"You mean annoying? Yeah, we just past it." Tim snapped, finally having achieved the front seat.

"Hey, don't get snippy at me. It's your Uncle we're trying to rescue."

Dick sighed, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a large folded map, then tossed it to him.

"You want something fun to do? Navigate. Where are we?"

Jason began to unfold the map, taking several minutes to pull it out and flip it around to see any resemblance of what looked like English. He may have hit the younger Wayne next to him a few times, but if he was asked later about it he would deny it.

"Have we passed…Hafnarfjördûr?"

Tim and Dick turned to look at him with odd expressions.

"Hafnarfjördûr?" Dick repeated confused, his accent completely off. Not that Jason's had been any better.

"Isn't that in the opposite way we want to go Todd?" Damian interrupted, taking his headphones out to listen to the conversation.

"Alright, how about…Faxaflói?"

Dick looked at him blankly again.

"What? Uh…no?"

Jason cleared his throat, looking again at the map.

"Thjorsa?"

"I don't know."

"Isafjördur?"

"I don't know."

"Vathajökull?"

"I don't know."

"Are you making these up?" Tim asked, turning in his seat to look at him. Jason looked offended, holding the gigantic map up and thrusting it into his face.

"You want to try navigating? I sure as hell don't know what these places are. We're lost."

"We're not lost." Dick countered, still keeping his eyes on the road as they continued on. The road seemed to have no end in sight.

Damian turned to them with a very serious expression.

"What?" Tim snapped.

"I believe I saw a goat in the passing lane." Damian helpfully supplied.

They kept going down the one road they were on, since there had been no turns from where they had started. It was dark, and the environment had started to get fewer hills and more of a resemblance to mountains in the distance. It had been a good while on the road when they finally came across the first building they had seen in ages.

"Here, let's stop and ask for directions." Tim said, pointing to the tiny little shack.

Dick frowned.

"We're not lost." He argued continuing to drive. Jason leaned forward between the two seats to look at him incredulously.

"Oh no, we totally know exactly where we are. Let's just keep driving past the first sight of humanity we're had in hours. That sounds like a splendid idea. "

Dick scowled and finally slowed the car, pulling off the road on to a gravel driveway. He barely got it to a stop before Jason practically flung himself out of the car to stretch. Dick was not far behind.

"Are we here?" Damian asked, looking slightly dazed as if he had fallen asleep.

"No, we're asking directions." Tim supplied, leading the way up the path. He got a flashlight from inside the car and lit it up as the others fell in behind.

"Looks nothing more than a ski shack to me," Damian commented.

Tim walked over to a sign with over grown vegetation on it, lighting it up so the others could read. There on a aged white sign were the words 'Ásgeirsson Institute for Progressive Volcanology' printed in black neat letters. He let out a breathy laugh.

"Look at that! I told you we weren't lost, here we are. Not too shabby either," Dick announced with a beaming smile. He clutched his jacket closer from the chilly wind and took the lead towards the small little building on the hill up ahead.

"Doesn't look like any institution I've seen." Jason muttered following.

All four of them ended up on the rickety front porch of the building, but it was Tim who knocked on the door. There was some shuffling inside before a young female voice called out in Icelandic to them, which made them all look awkwardly at each other.

"I'm sorry!" Dick called through the door. "We don't speak Icelandic!"

"That's a first; none of us know how to speak a language. You would think all of us combined, someone would know it."

"I believed we discovered that with the navigation fiasco in the car a while ago, Todd." Damian sneered, which Jason would have been more upset if he hadn't been laughing inside at the knit hat he was wearing with the puff ball on top.

The door slowly opened to reveal a young brunette, with ice blue eyes looking quite taken aback by the four males standing on her doorstep. She held a mug of hot chocolate in hand and had a warm knit sweater hanging over her figure.

"Hi, can I help you?" Her accent was heavy, but she at least sounded friendly enough.

"My name is Richard Grayson, and these are my three brothers, Jason, Timothy and Damian." Dick started, acting formal in hopes of looking creditable.

"Hello," She responded. "I'm Lori, how are you?" She shook hands with Dick before turning to look at the others with a reserved expression.

"We're with Wayne Industries investigating a project that involved this institute a few years ago, we we're hoping to speak with…forgive me here- Sigurbjörn Ásgeirsson?" Jason snickered at the brutal mess up of the man's name.

Lori frowned.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you but Sigurbjörn Ásgeirsson is dead. He passed away two winters ago. I was not aware that there were any projects still going on with Wayne Industries."

Dick turned to look uncomfortably to the others, so Tim stood forward.

"Do you run the institute?"

"Nobody does," She responded, "I'm afraid there is no Institute."

All four dark haired males looked at each other in defeat.

"The sign down the road clearly stated-"Damian began a little irritated that they had gotten out of the car for no reason. Lori held up her hand to gesture she meant well.

"Progressive Volcanology was a failed idea, like the Berlin Wall or eight track tapes." She explained. Her eyebrow poised as she noticed their reactions. "Would you like to come in?" She held the door a little wider.

0o0

"So did you work with Mr. Ásgeirsson?" Tim asked, once they we're all comfortably seated around a kitchen table in the small house. Lori had offered them a warm meal and some hot cocoa for their troubles, and now Tim wanted some sort of answers.

"Oh no, he was my step-father." She explained, seating herself.

Tim pulled out 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth,' and placed it on the table before her so she could look at it clearly.

"Yeah, I know it. What about it?" She responded, seeming uninterested by the old novel.

"It belonged to my Uncle Christopher Drake; it was one of his possessions before he went missing. We believe he may have been in contact with your step-father before he disappeared on a scientific expedition about volcanic tubes, almost eighteen years ago."

"Christopher Drake?" She sounded surprised at the name. "Yeah, he was. Your uncle was a Vernian."

"Well that sounds dorky, must be right." Jason sniggered, but was silenced by a kick from Dick under the table.

"What's a Vernian?" Dick chimed in.

Lori sighed, before picking up the novel and beginning to explain.

"Someone who believes that the writings of Jules Vern were actual fact. However, the guy is a science fiction writer, and yet this society of believers regarded Vern like a visionary. My step-father was the biggest Vernian of them all."

Tim scrunched his eyebrows tight, looking disbelieving.

"My uncle was no Vernian, he believed in scientific fact. He spent his life's work on the idea of progressive volcanology. He may have been wrong, but he didn't believe that Jules Vern wrote nonfiction works." Tim defended.

Damian snorted, but remained in an arrogant silence.

Lori snapped the book shut before getting up from the table and heading to one of the many book shelves. From the middle row she pulled out a large thick hard cover, and placed it on the table before Tim. She opened to a random page, and taking Tim's copy she opened to the same page and compared them.

"This was my step father's copy, take a look." She nodded in the direction of the writings. "See? The markings are exactly the same. Your Uncle was a Vernian."

"Wow, your uncle was really out there." Dick mumbled, taking the books and looking for himself at the identical markings.

Tim snatched his book back.

"You didn't know him, Dick."

Jason grabbed it from him.

"I'm starting to think maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought."

"He went missing before I was even one year old." Tim snapped, irritated. "He was no member of a secret society. My dad would have told me."

Lori sat back down, giving them all an intrigued look.

"Then, what are you doing here?"

"Well, like we said we work for Wayne Industries, and were here because there is an old seismic sensor going off thirty clicks north of here…that we think we should check into." Dick explained. "It's that plain and simple."

"And you think looking into this sensor will give you a clue as to where Christopher went eighteen years ago?" Lori asked, gratefully taking her book back.

"It would seem so," Damian scowled.

"You do know there are no roads to the north? I'm a mountain guide I could help you find your sensor." Lori offered.

"Oh no, that's alright. You've been a great help as it is. We really appreciate it, we're just going to head out in the morning and hopefully be back by sundown." Dick thanked her graciously.

She smiled.

"Alright, if you need a place to stay my doors are open."

0o0

They set out at dawn, Lori giving them basic instructions as to where to go once they hit the base of the mountain. Their packs were filled with previsions and supplies, courtesy of Damian's over packing, and Jason made sure Dick held to his deal and took up the rear of their little company.

"C'mon you imbeciles, I want to be back by sundown like you promised. There's a storm on the way," Damian called out from the head, making his way up the side of the mountain with ease. His training had included mountain climbing on a regular basis, thus no struggle for him to stay on pace.

Jason stumbled when a rock fell lose under his boot.

"Fucking mountain climbing is nothing like scaling a skyscraper. I can't believe you all dragged me into this."

"Oh come Jay, look at the sunrise! We're completely free of responsibility up here, and absolutely nothing to bother us." Dick chimed in, holding up the end with equal grace to Damian.

"I wouldn't say nothing." Tim commented looking down the rock side at the two. He looked fairly tired, but seemed to be enjoying a seemingly quiet hike. "You're here."

"Haha," Dick commented. "How much further?"

"Shouldn't be much more," Tim replied, checking his compass. He hiked his bag a little up his shoulders. "We already have traveled a good distance."

"This damn mountain is going to be the death of me," Jason sighed, as he gripped some rock beside him. "And I don't want my do over of death to be worse than the first time."

"Well, Mount Sneaffles is particularly deceptive, Jason. You better be careful." Tim jibed.

"Mount Sniffles? What the hell kind of name is that?"

"Sneaffles Jason and it happens to be the mountain that the main character from A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Liedenbrock, apparently found a portal to the center of the Earth." Dick explained, pulling out the book as e spoke. "Listen to this:

"…in the center of the Jokul of the Snaeffles when the shadow of Scartaris touches, at the kalends of July, you will attain the center of the Earth." Dick waved his hands at the passage and made an 'oo'ing noise.

"Kalends of July?" Jason questioned.

"The first of July, which happens to be today," Tim frowned. "Let's just find that sensor."

0o0

"There it is!" Damian announced about mid-afternoon once he came over a crest in the rock. Heavy storm clouds had rolled in, blocking out the sun. Thunder had been rolling for the past ten minutes of their journey.

"Oh thank God."Jason praised. "What exactly do we need to do with the stupid thing again?"

Tim held up a small silver key.

"We got to unlock it, inside there's a little black box that has recorded all the seismic activity that has transpired over the past twenty years. It could tell us a lot about what my Uncle was doing before he went missing."

Thunder rumbled fairly close. Then, a light rain began to fall.

"Perfect, let's just hurry up." Jason groaned.

Tim, Dick and Damian crowded about the tiny little metal cylinder with an antenna that was attached to the ground. A red light blinked rhythmically on top. The rain just got harder, coming fast and in sheets.

That's when the first lightning bolt hit, sending a static shock up their spines.

"Shit, that was close! We need to find shelter now!" Jason called over the gathering rain. Damian stood, looking around before he spotted a small cave not far on the other side of the rocky clearing.

"There! We got to get under there or we'll be fried alive."

Tim and Dick continued working on the sensor, pulling hard on the metal cover to get it to move up so they could see inside.

"It must be corroded!"Dick shouted, pulling hard. The small cover moved barely a half an inch. Tim looked up just in time to see another strike, this time much closer, striking the rock where they had come over the ledge.

"Dick, we have to leave it! We got to find cover like Jason and Damian said!" Tim replied, letting go. Jason and Damian we're already half way to the small cave that had been spotted.

"No! This is important Tim! I almost got it! I'll be right there!"

Tim looked at him astonished.

"It's not worth your life! Dick, come on!" He pulled on his backpack strap, but he refused to let go of the sensor. The other two had reached the cave and had turned to start yelling at them.

"Dick, I'm leaving! We can come back!" Tim began to take off just as Dick finally got the thing released from the ground.

"Yes!" Dick shouted in triumph holding the sensor in the air to show the others. "I got it!"

Tim saw it coming before Dick did.

"DICK!" Tim screamed when lightning struck again, this time far too dangerously close to when they had just been standing. "What the hell are you thinking?!"

Jason and Damian we're screaming for them to hurry up.

"I got it, I'm coming!" He cried, chasing after Tim. Tim stopped and turned in horror.

"Dick! The sensor's attracting the lightning! You have to drop it or you're going to get hit!" Tim cried, only to hear Jason screaming to drop it as well.

"What?" Dick called over the storm. "I'm not going to drop it! This is our only chance to find out-"

"It's attracting the lightning!"Tim screamed. "God's sake, Dick, let it go!"

The older man barely got the warning in time, finally throwing it down just as the fatal strike hit; completely destroying the remains of the sensor. They all swarmed into the cave, Dick diving in, just as the last lightning strike came down.

The rocks in the entrance came raining down upon them.


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