Each minute of the day had crawled by at a snail's pace, and most of them were spent staring out of windows, or pretending to listen to whatever lecture had been prepared for the day. Arno had to fight to keep himself interested in what was going on, but that was far more of a struggle today, knowing about that old factory on the river. His thoughts continued to drift, and what he'd seen before seemed to be the only mental anchor he could conceive. These thoughts of what it was and what it was doing there helped to pass the time, but he could feel a pit in his stomach growing. It was a familiar feeling of apprehension, one that clung to his insides, digging its claws only deep enough to be noticed, but it was familiar enough that it could be ignored. The day did eventually end, after hours of struggling to keep his thoughts in one line, and Arno was free for the remainder of the day.

He spent about an hour or so in his dorm, waiting, thinking, wondering what exactly he was going to find in those depths. The gnawing feeling surged up once again, and Arno shoved it back down. He sat with his back up against his floor mattress, hands shoved in his pockets with his head still shoved into his hood. There was still some light that graced the room, mostly comprised of still-packed boxes, but the single window at the head of the room had been lazily covered with a blackout-curtain, tacked up only by a few pins. It was the only thing that properly distinguished his room from a storage compartment.

He waited, listening to the crowds outside his window, the students gathered in the courtyard to hang out or talk. He waited, hearing the voices dissipate and the crowds fade away. When the sounds and voices from the courtyard faded away, he pulled his worn flip phone from his jacket pocket. The time read 5:40. Arno could slip out of the gates, visit the old factory, and be back before lights out. With his time limit in mind, he pushed himself up off of the floor, and slipped out of his room.

The grounds were very sparsely populated. Most of those who were out at this hour were either starting the walk back to their dorm, or leaving the campus altogether. Arno scanned each individual, and thankfully, found no sign of Jonah. Through the main gates, and over the sidewalk he traveled, constantly moving his gaze about, trying to avoid any other such, his walk was uneventful. Past the gates, he saw no more than two people, neither of them taking any notice of him, or his path, as he quickly closed in on the factory that had consumed his daily thoughts.

He was very quickly drawing closer, and as the building began to loom far above his head, he felt that same feeling try to rise up once again. He swallowed it back down, and stood on the overshadowed bridge the led to the old building's gaping maw. Arno took one last look over the front of the structure, before turning back to the doors, and stepping inside.

Everything was the exactly the same as it had been before, as though the interior of the factory broke time itself. Arno made his way through the central room, and down to the same door he'd gone through before. Everything was exactly the same as it was yesterday, but now each rusted pipe and broken stone held an air of mystery. This old place was years older than he was, yet the machine he'd found in the core was more advanced than anything he'd ever seen before. Not that Arno had ever been exposed to much advanced tech before, but he'd heard of and seen fascinating things in the past. Seeing such a construction in person felt almost unreal.

His thoughts returned to him, and he was walking through the pipe room. Looking to his left, he found that the structure Jonah had toppled yesterday had remained perfectly still. He stopped for a moment, eyes locked onto the mess of pipes and beams. His walk only continued after collecting one of them for himself, gripping it tight enough to hold, loose enough to swing.

For the most part, his feelings were easy enough to pushy back down. Fear, anxiety, they were familiar to the point of being ignorable. What he wasn't prepared for, however, was shock when the silence was ruptured suddenly and excitedly.

"Hello there!" Cried a voice from behind him. In the back of his mind he knew the voice was a familiar one, but his body acted before he could even process what he was doing. His torso spun around, his arms raised the pipe to eye level like a spear, and he came face to face with a rather oblivious Jonah Dunn. In the sudden mix of feelings that rose to his chest, he couldn't tell whether he was more furious or relieved.

"Hello there." He replied flatly though locked teeth as he lowered his makeshift weapon. "Next time you walk up behind someone in absolute silence, would you mind not shouting?" He let his pipe fall to his side. "In fact, what are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be home?"

"I have a dorm here." Jonah corrected.

"Right, I'm sorry," Arno groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, "let me amend my question: shouldn't you be back in your dorm?"

"Well sure, if I wanted to miss out on more exploration of this place! I don't know if you noticed or not, but this place is awesome!" Jonah's excitement was worn all over, emphasized by the small movements of his legs as he spoke, and walked forward gleefully, as though he were set to run off at any moment. At this point, Arno considered it a possibility.

"Kid, this place is dangerous."

"Then why are you here?"

"I-" Arno sighed in frustration, his face twisting into a scowl. "Because I'm not just poking around with things I don't understand. I know when to quit."

"Well I can do that too! I know when to quit!"

"The incident yesterday with the pipes proves otherwise."

The boy huffed in response, taking a few large strides to get ahead.

"Oh come on! That was only one time!"

"It was yesterday. And there really only needs to be one time for you to get injured."

"What if I promise to be careful?"

"Are you actually going to be careful?" The young boy opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it, hesitating.

"I... can try?" His meek response was coupled with a nervous shrug, both of which only served to further agitate his companion, although he managed to stop himself from showing it. Instead, he knelt down to just below eye level with Jonah, and as gently as he could, laid his free hand on his shoulder.

"Look, Jonah, we both already know that this place isn't safe, and that you aren't the most careful person. Wouldn't it make more sense to explore the rooms above here, somewhere we haven't explored, and somewhere that's probably a lot safer than anything down here?"

Jonah seemed unsure for a moment, but something promptly clicked in his head, and he gave a short nod.

"Alright! But you gotta call me down if you find anything, alright?" In standard fashion, the boy left without waiting for a response, leaving Arno alone in the room. Part of him almost expected him to reappear after a few seconds, but he never did. He was alone again, and he didn't know for how much longer. He turned back towards his destination, the little room at the very end of the hallway. His first few steps were slow, and then his pace quickened. He didn't know how much time he had to spare, and he wasn't planning on letting any of it go to waste.

He followed the path he'd taken earlier that same day through the cobwebbed hall. The eerie feeling that was carried by the wear and tear was only made more intense by the existence of the supercomputer beneath his feet. He was able to ignore most of the feelings that crept through the back of his mind, although small worries and anxieties were able to slow his pace. He still had no idea what this thing was, what it was capable of. For all he knew, it was some sort of doomsday device, maybe the home to some long dormant malicious AI. Or it could simply be the highly advanced control center for the factory. One by one, each thought was tossed aside with a few shakes of his head. He wouldn't know until he'd checked it out, and chances are he still wouldn't know even after checking it out.

He finally reached the door, now the only thing separating him from the computer. He pushed it open, stepped inside, and glided down the short stairwell onto the slanted concrete floor. He took a deep breath, and kept going. Each step he took was soft, as though he were afraid one misstep would wake something up. As such, his descent was slow, uneasy, but he at last made it to the gap that opened up into the computer room.

Everything was just as he had seen it before. The circular ring holding the hardware in place, the central platform, and the room was still alight with the same shade that had haunted that day's daydreams. Despite feeling as though he could stare forever, Arno emerged into the room. He took note of the steel bars embedded into the wall to the left of his perch, and used them to make his way down to the floor.

The room looked nearly twice as big from the ground as it had from the ceiling. The lifeless steel loomed over his head, ominous and threatening despite the layers of dust accumulated over the years. From where he stood, the chair had its back to him, and the mechanical arm that held up four empty computer monitors hung to the side of the central projector. He waited for a moment, taking in the silence. The air felt thicker here; his hairs stood on their ends. His hands reached up to his hood, and it was flipped over his head in a single motion. He took in another breath, and eased himself forward, staying slightly lower to the ground. He gripped tightly to the pipe with both hands, looking around in an attempt to figure out what this machine was, what it could've been used for.

He walked past the chair, taking a quick glance at the computer monitors before his attention was drawn to a journal that sat in the chair. It was old, dusty, bound by leather now broken and cracked.

Lowering his defensive stance, Arno gingerly slid his hand beneath the old journal, lifting it up to get a better look at it. There was no inscription or design on the front or back, just a collection of thin papers and notes sticking out from between the pages. He sat the pipe down against the side of the chair, using both hands to hold the journal open. Page after page was filled with lines of chode, characters and symbols he couldn't recognize. Equations, theories, code, filling up almost every line of every page, cover to cover.

"What is this?" Arno muttered to himself, slowly thumbing through the pages, the corners of which had been yellowed, first by usage, then by time. Despite all of the information held within the pages, however, he quickly discovered that he wasn't able to properly decipher any of it. Even if he had been able to, he couldn't seem to find any sort of power switch on the computer, on which those codes would more than likely be more useful. The book was returned to its place of rest, the pipe was picked up, and he continued his search for answers; a search that was cut short almost immediately after the book had been laid back down. A shrill noise ruptured the silence, a noise that was startling, and just as frustrating as it was familiar.

"Oh my god, look at this!" Arno attempted to stifle any immediate screams of frustration or fear that rose to his throat, and a low growl was pushed through clenched teeth.

"Hello, Jonah." He muttered, almost hoping that Jonah could hear the malice trapped behind his teeth. Of course, he couldn't.

"Hi!" The young boy called back, almost leaping down the length of the ladder to reach the ground. "How did you manage to find this place? This is awesome! How long have you been there?" Jonah's questions were slowly drowned out by the sound of defeated sighs and internal screaming.

"Luck, yes, a couple minutes, I don't know," He answered the questions all at once as he turned to face the newcomer, "Didn't I tell you to go explore the upper level? The places that weren't as dangerous?"

"Well, I mean, yeah," he replied with a slight shrug, "but if I had stayed up there, I wouldn't have found this place! And just look at this!" He moved past Arno, lifting his arms and gesturing to everything around him. "This place is incredible! Have you ever seen anything like it?!" Before any response could be offered, Jonah's attention turned to the computer monitors, then to the chair, and the very quickly to the book.

"Wait, hold on, be careful with that book! It almost looks like it's been here longer than everything else!" Arno called out to Jonah, who shrugged off the warning.

"I can be careful! This isn't my first time holding delicate things."

"Just leave it by Jonah, that thing looks like it's ready to-" The book was lifted off of the seat, and Arno flinched, half expecting it to fall apart in the boys hands. Although it seems as though he were right this time, and he handled the book with care, and interest.

"Whoa." He said to himself, almost under his breath. The corners of his mouth slowly bent upwards into a wide smile. "Well look at this! This is an amalgamation of different coding languages! Cryptol, Neko, C++ and Java, this book is a landmine!"

"Goldmine," Arno corrected, before performing a quick double take. "Wait, what? You can read that?"

"Of course I can! This is all code, written in various forms of coding languages. It's not really any language I've seen before, but it looks like it took bits and pieces from a bunch of different ones."

"Do you... do you KNOW computer code?" Jonah looked up, and still wearing that smile, shook his head rather vigorously.

"Nope!" He looked back down at the book, continuing to look through the pages. "I mean, my dad was, and he was a pretty good one too! I never really managed to get as far as he did, but I think that if I look over this for a couple of days, I might be able to figure out how this works!"

Stunned disbelief was all that Arno could display as he watched Jonah try to make sense of the pages.

"How can you even-"

"It's really not that hard. I could teach you if you'd like!" He shook his head before even processing the request.

"No. But-" On the one hand, having the boy take the journal home could allow them to use the computer. On the other hand, having the boy take the journal home could allow him to use to the computer. Both options were considered, and both were deemed... shaky at best. "Look, let's just leave that thing here, alright? Exploring is one thing, but I don't think we should take anything from here."

"Why not? This place doesn't look like it's used very often. And if it was in use, don't you think this place would be hidden a bit better?" Jonah, journal still in hand, moved forward towards a large rectangular door that lay sealed on the other side of the room. It was mostly silver and grey, with black and white cautionary bars on the top and bottom, two golden triangular shapes on the sides, and a centerpiece of the same color in the center. Just to the left of the door was an old red button.

"Don't." Arno warned as Jonah nonchalantly waltzed up to the button, and clicked it without much thought.

"What? You said it yourself, exploring is one thing."

"The minute you try to turn something on, you're not 'exploring' anymore." He sighed, knowing that his words wouldn't do much to deter his younger companion from doing anything. In fact, they more than likely simply encouraged him instead. Nonetheless, he followed him as mechanical noises began sounded off from behind the door, coming from somewhere above them. They each looked on as the sounds drew lower to the ground, closer to them. After a few moments, the sounds ceased, the door began to move. The two black and yellow beams at the top were drawn back, and the center disk began to move, as though it were unwinding. The door split diagonally, from the top right corner to the bottom left. As the pieces of the door moved apart, they revealed the same elevator car they had seen earlier that day.

"Well, I guess we could've saved a bit of time by using this thing, couldn't we?" Jonah offered. Arno moved forward without a response. "Alright, I'll take that as a maybe." They both stepped onto the elevator, examining it from top to bottom. For the most part, it all looked the same, with one exception; one that Jonah found first. "Hey look at this!" He cried out. The key pad looked as though it had been jostled by the movement of the car, and wires could be seen poking out from the sides. He gripped the keypad, and moved it away, much to the dismay of his companion, who flinched at his recklessness.

"Are you just going to break everything that you see?" He sighed.

"Only the things that need breaking. It looks like the keypad was an afterthought, there are just buttons for up and down here!"

"Good. Maybe one of those buttons can bring us back up."

"Or better yet, even further down!"

"Sure- wait, NO!" Jonah pressed the button faster than Arno could pull him away, and the car shuddered for a moment. It then began to descend, carrying the two of them down deeper into the factory.

The few seconds that the elevator took to reach the bottom felt as though they spanned entire minutes of time. The tram shook and shuddered as the rusted wires slowly dropped them further and further, and all the while Arno's expression towards Jonah was souring more and more.

"If you push any more buttons Jonah, I swear-" He was cut short, both by his own hesitation to threaten the boy, and the sudden halt of the elevator. After a moment's breath, the doors slid open, revealing a large room far more foreign and alien than the room from before.

Before the two boys, was a room unlike anything they'd seen before. The first thing that struck them as odd, was the fact that it was empty; no sign of construction equipment or computer hardware anywhere to be seen. Even the smaller details of the room, like the golden hoop at its ceiling and the mismatched paint job on the walls had a haunting aura about them. Something about this room was enough to send a shiver up Arno's spine, like the soft caress of a ghost. He hung back, exploring the room with his eyes, as to not upset whatever force kept this room so silent. Jonah, of course, felt so such emotion, and marched right past the doors with sparkling eyes, clutching the journal to his chest. With his mouth agape.

"Jonah, no!" Arno hissed through gritted teeth. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm exploring!" He sang back to Arno, who nervously stepped out of the doorway, following Jonah with shakey steps.

"You're an idiot!" Arno snapped back. "Come on, let's go back!"

"Why?" Jonah stopped, for what felt like the first time. "This place looks so cool, it's like it stepped out of a sci-fi novel!"

"Yeah, that's why I say we should leave!" His tone only rose in volume and frustration as Jonah took a few carefree steps backwards, towards the center of the room. "Either we leave now, or I leave you behind before you activate-" A loud thud filled the room, coming from its center, and was quickly followed by the scraping of metal on metal. "...something." Arno's, and shortly after, Jonah's, attentions were both drawn to the source of the noise; a metal place with a strange insignia painted on its center; two circles, one outside the other with a large dot painted at the cert center, with four lines jutting from the outer shape, three along the bottom, and one at the top. It quickly split apart, separating into three different plates that slid into some unseen cavity, while a large pillar emerged from the new space. It was mainly a dull grey, but sections of this new shape were glowing a shade of gold that faded in and out of an orange hue, almost as though this machine was beating like a heart. As the pillar rose to its full height, another shape, similar in color but much wider, rose in turn, until this new machine was level with the two boys' knees, while the tall spire at its center was far above their heads. With a sudden and jarring hiss, the machine came to a halt, and the silence of the room was replaced with the hum of a computer

Arno, and for once Jonah as well, were both stunned into silence. Arno moved back with unsteady steps, hissing and snapping at Jonah to retreat to the elevator, but the boy's eyes were wide with shock, and completely absent of fear.

"Oh, my, god." He said slowly, each space between the words long enough for a full breath. He then broke into a wide smile, and even took a step towards the unfamiliar machine as his eyes fell down to a large switch at the base of the computer. The moment Jonah had spotted it, Arno had seen it as well, and stepped out of the safety of the elevator to stop him. With a few swift steps, he placed himself between Jonah, and the lever.

"NO." He barked, harsh and loud enough to stop and startle the overeager child. Arno recoiled at his own tone, and softened it with his next words. "Jonah, we don't know what that thing does. For once, can you please not touch it?" The boy looked past Arno, eyeing the lever with an expression of intense curiosity, which lasted for a good few seconds before he gave a relenting sigh.

"Alright, I'm sorry." He answered at last. Arno exhaled all the breath he had left in relief, but quickly recomposed himself.

"Good. Then go." He shot a finger to the elevator, and Jonah followed the instruction after a moment's hesitation, boarding the elevator to leave the room.

As the doors closed, they saw the pillar at the center of the room slowly lower back into the floor, as both the hum, and the golden lights, die down. Whatever that room was, whatever that machine was, it wasn't going to leave their heads anytime soon.

"I don't know, Jonah!" Arno's agitation was growing more apparent after each question Jonah had asked him. He didn't know what the room was for, he didn't know why it was there, he didn't know how long it had been there, and he didn't know if they would ever go back. For reasons beyond him, Arno had made Jonah promise that he wouldn't go back with him. At the time, this was so that he could potentially keep Jonah from going back at all, but he had a hard time convincing himself of that. He was curious about everything that he'd seen, from the room, to the computer, to that machine on the bottom floor. It was the kind of curiosity that would eat away at him over the next few weeks, until he went back, hopefully without Jonah in tow, although he doubted if that were possible. Even if he snuck out in the dead of night, the boy would probably still find a way to surprise Arno.

The two of them had walked out of the factory, across the road, and back to the brick wall that separated Kadic from the rest of the world. Along the way, Jonah had stuffed the notebook back into his backpack, and the two had agreed that they shouldn't tell anyone about what they'd seen: Or rather, Arno had said that shouldn't tell a soul, and hoped that Jonah had both been listening, and agreeing.

It was about 7:00 pm by the time they'd gotten back to the campus, and at that time dinner was already done. Most of the students were finding their way back to their dorms, while others were wandering about making friends or gathering in their little cliques.

"Remember." Arno whispered to Jonah. "Don't, tell, a soul."

"You mean about the factory?" Jonah asked. Arno took a quick breath in and turned to Jonah with a scowl. "Yes! Look, just don't tell anybody, got it?" Jonah sealed his lips, then dragged two fingers across them before making a flicking motion, and muffling a few words through closed lips. Arno didn't know when they would be going back, but if the anticipation he felt in his stomach was anything to tell by, then they would be going back sooner, rather than later.

Arno wasn't certain if he was more excited, or nervous.

Authors Note

I promise I'll try to have these out as frequently as I can. I know it's been a year since my last upload, and if you guys want I'll update you on what's happening.

The last time I worked on this was about a year ago, so if there's any alteration to my writing style, that's why.

Anyways, donate if you feel like it, I hope you enjoyed this piece.

/BlueWing10