Second Drop: The Cave of Lazarus
The contrast between this night and the last was startling. The sky was amazingly clear, as if the blizzard last night had swept them all away, and the moon was brilliant and full, reflecting off the clean, white snow that blanketed everything within sight.
It was a dazzling thing to behold, and Ion Fortuna believed there was nothing in his memory that he could compare it to. It was almost as if the blizzard had swept the world clean, and left a vision of purity in its wake. He could go on standing where he was, contemplating it forever.
"Ion! I hate to interrupt your thoughts, but we have to get going!"
He sighed then, trying to hide his irritation as he wrapped the scarf more firmly around his neck. "I'm right behind you, Father."
Father Abel Nightroad smiled cheerfully. "I was just making sure. Wouldn't want you to get lost – after all, the Empress and your grandmother would have my head jellied and served on a silver platter if that happened…unless Asta got to me before them, which is just as bad, if not worse…"
At that, Abel's face took on a most comical expression that Ion couldn't help but smile wryly as he shook his head. He picked up his pace so that he was walking alongside Abel, and said: "Are you certain that I am the one who is going to get lost? I always assumed getting lost was your specialty, Father."
Abel gaped at him. "How cruel of you to say that!"
"After all, if you can get lost in Rome, of all places, what are the odds that you haven't gotten us lost already?" Ion surveyed the area around them idly. "Didn't we pass that snowdrift over there several minutes ago?"
Abel gave Ion a kicked-puppy look. "Why are you being so mean to me? You're just as bad as Tres, or Leon, for that matter."
Ion just shook his head, and pushed onwards. "Let's go, Father."
They slogged through the snow, Ion focusing on the little GPS machine that he carried with him – a very useful piece of Lost Technology that he had not, until very recently, ever encountered. The machines that he and Abel carried with them were actually just on loan: a little favor to them by Virgil Walsh of Albion.
His thoughts turned to Esther almost immediately at the thought of Albion. He wondered how she was doing, if she was holding up just fine. Were the pressures of the monarchy weighing her down? Did she ever feel lonely?
"Um, Ion, if you don't stop walking right now, you're going to hit that tree."
Ion halted dead in his tracks, and realized that, indeed, if he took one more step, he would have rammed face-first into the trunk of a pine tree directly in his path. Somewhat mortified by his mistake, he cleared his throat and stepped aside. "I knew that."
Abel chuckled behind him, but didn't say another word.
They continued in silence, focused mostly on the snow before them, occasionally looking down at their GPS machines to check if they were still on the right track. Their goal was actually something that had taken them several months of tedious research and information-gathering to locate: a cave hidden in the mountains of this area, a place which had, supposedly, aroused the interest of some of the higher-ups of the Rosen Creuz Orden. When they arrived at the village several nights ago, they also learned that there had been some activity going on within the vicinity of a place the locals called the Lazarus Cave.
No one knew the origins of the name. Even the village elder said that she had heard of the name from her grandmother, and that even she had not known why it was called that. When she was questioned about whether or not they knew what was inside, the old woman shook her head.
"No one has ever ventured very far inside," said the old woman's voice in Ion's head. "The minute they do, they claim that they hear a soft, strange humming, almost like that of millions of bees. And it gets higher and higher, as if drawing closer; and then there is a bright flash of light… But no one has stayed longer than that, and no one has dared venture deeper. We keep away from it, and we tell our children not to go there."
It was a most puzzling thing, to say the least. If that was what the Orden was after, it could only have been something that would help them in their quest to dominate the world. Ion could not imagine what it was – perhaps a hidden source of Lost Technology, but precisely what he could not be so sure. After all, Albion was currently the Papal States' primary source for Lost Technology, while the Empire had its own sources. Neither nation was willing to share whatever technology they had, except in extremely special cases, especially now that both sides were aware of the danger posed by that group Cardinal Catherina Sforza had dubbed Contra Mundi, "The Enemies of the World," but who saw fit to call themselves Rosen Creuz Orden.
All at once, the brilliant moonlight dimmed all around him, and when he looked up, Ion realized that he was standing in the shadow cast by a massive hulk of solid rock. The cliff of primeval rock towered above him, the moonlight only a faint halo glinting off the snow at the very top and along the bottom where the wind had piled the snow up in drifts, and he now understood why Abel said people came here for safety – as well as to hide their secrets.
"Well, this is where the elder said the cave was supposed to be," Abel said as he put away his GPS machine, even as his gaze traveled skyward up the cliff face. He finally turned his gaze to the piled-up snow in front of them, and sighed. "I guess we're going to have to clear away this snow."
Ion blinked. "And with what? We don't have any shovels, in case you didn't notice."
"Then we use what we do have: our hands." Abel turned to him, and perhaps noticing the expression on Ion's face, he grinned broadly. "Come on Ion, don't be such a spoilsport! Have you never played in the snow before? This can actually be rather fun, if you think about it that way." And with that, he walked right up to the cliff face, and started clearing away the snow that had piled up in front of it.
Ion opened his mouth to protest, but in the end, he merely heaved a sigh, and gave in, following Abel's lead. From time to time, he wondered just why it was that Abel Nightroad was such an important member of AX, or why people like his grandmother Mirka Fortuna, or the Duchess of Odessa Astaroshe Aslan, or the Empress herself all trusted him despite the fact that he tended to act like a bumbling idiot.
When he thought about it, though, he realized that it was precisely that bumbling, well-intentioned nature of his that endeared him so much to everyone around him – even to himself. And besides, Ion was beginning to understand that Abel's bumbling nature was really just a cover for an intelligence that was far sharper than many might have thought it to be, as well as a vast well of experience that stretched back to far more years than Ion could ever imagine.
His hands touched what felt like cold metal then, and when Ion looked, he blinked in surprise at what he saw. "Father, I think I just found something…"
"Hmm?" Abel left off from his digging, and came over. "What did you-" As soon as his gaze fell on what it was that Ion had found, Abel fell silent, and his eyes narrowed, the bumbling priest disappearing in a flash.
"Father?" Ion ventured after a moment of silence. "What is it?"
"The last thing I expected to see," Abel replied, his voice deepening in his seriousness. "Let's get rid of the rest of this snow. We'll need to find the keypad that will let us open the door itself."
Keypad? "Father, you're not making a lot of sense," Ion said even as he set his hands to brushing away the snow from what was turning out to be an immense, metal door.
Abel was silent for a long while, as if stubbornly refusing to answer, but at length, when they uncovered an unusual insignia inscribed on the door – the letters L and P fused together at their stems, so that the P was facing the usual way and the L was facing backwards – he finally responded to Ion's question. "A thousand years ago, people were obsessed with finding ways to preserve all that they had: plants, animals, knowledge…even themselves. One of the answers to the latter was to cryonically preserve people – to put them in a state of suspended animation so that they could be revived ten, twenty, a thousand years into the future. I know it sounds a little strange, but believe me, they tried."
Ion nodded his head. "So what does that have to do with the insignia on this door?"
"More than you can imagine."
"… So what does that symbol mean?"
Abel paused, and gazed at the symbol long and hard before answering: "It means Lazarus Project."
Ion opened his mouth again to ask, but Abel shook his head. "I don't know much about it myself," he cut in before Ion could so much as draw breath to speak. "What I heard of it was mostly rumor and speculation. I didn't even think it actually existed." He turned to look at the door. "But if this is the home base of the Lazarus Project, then…"
"Then what?" Ion asked, his impatience getting the better of him. He did not appreciate Abel keeping things from him like this. If anything, he thought he deserved to know what exactly was going on.
But Abel was resolutely silent on the matter, and only continued to clear away more snow. At length, he uncovered a small panel to the right side of the door, and after a few minutes of contemplation, he pressed one of the buttons. A green diode flared to life on the panel, and with a rumble, the door started to slide open.
Ion watched as the dark, gaping void beyond the door yawned at him, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold traveled up and down his spine. It was as if the cave was the maw of some monster that slept with its mouth open, in the hopes that unwary prey would wander in, and then it would close its jaws and swallow the poor creature whole.
Abel grasped his shoulder then, and Ion noticed that his pistol was out. Nodding in comprehension, Ion drew his own dagger, and with that in hand, followed Abel into the darkness.
--+--
The soft humming brought Abel out of his thoughts, causing him to look up. The sound echoed against the walls, and seemed to grow almost to a steady rumbling sound – a sound that Abel was quite familiar with.
"Was this the sound that the elder was talking about?" Ion asked. "It doesn't sound like bees."
"It's a generator – several generators," Abel replied, the hum building up to a crescendo, before there was a brilliant flash of light, as of several flashbulbs going off. When at last the flare died down and Abel looked around, and realized that he and Ion were standing in the middle of a large room in the cool, but brilliant glare of several fluorescent lamps that, amazingly, still worked even after all these years.
The lights revealed a large, circular chamber, paneled in what Abel recognized was a special material that would ensure that the room would be completely sealed, with no air inside at all. It would explain, then, why everything looked just as they might have the moment the facility was closed up forever; there wasn't so much as a speck of dust on the floor beneath his feet.
His thoughts turned back to Seth, his little sister, who was all the way in Byzantium, and wished that she was right there with him. She wouldn't have been troubled by this discovery, not in the least; she would have rejoiced and laughed, and set about immediately to finding out just what exactly this place was about.
Or perhaps she wouldn't be so excited. After all, if what he remembered was true, then-
"Father Abel?"
Abel snapped out of his grim thoughts, and smiled wanly at Ion. "I'm sorry; I was just thinking about something."
The young Methuselah nobleman frowned at him. "I don't like the fact that you are keeping secrets from me, Father."
"I don't mean to, Ion. But I don't like talking about things that I'm not so very knowledgeable about, and this is one of them."
Ion sighed, and shifted a little in his impatience, but that subsided relatively quickly.
Abel smiled at him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Ion. I think we're going to get our answers at the same time, anyway." He looked forward, and noticed that there was a console with a large monitor on it in the middle of the room – where it was sure to be noticed. "How about we try out that console over there?"
Abel had been a little afraid that the Lost Technology used on the computer would be far older than the technology he was used to, hence putting him out of his league, but fortunately, the system seemed to be based on the ones that he was familiar with, and hence he was able to turn it on. Before he could press any more buttons, however, the screen flared to life, and in less time than it took for him and Ion to back away from it, a face appeared. It was a middle-aged woman, a scientist of some sort judging from the lab coat she was wearing, and with a world-weary look to her face that added years to her real age. It took him milliseconds to realize that they were watching a video, set to play as soon as someone turned on the console.
Ion was about to ask what was going on, but the woman started speaking: "I do not know when or who will find this, but, whoever you are, if you can understand me, please listen carefully, for I speak on the behalf of thousands of people whose very lives now lie in your care."
Abel glanced at the top-right corner of the video, and frowned when he saw the year: 2081, seven years before he and Cain were born. He quickly focused on the video again, knowing that it would contain valuable information.
"You have found the facility of what is known as the Lazarus Project. It is an underground, private effort to preserve everything and anything about the world, from the year 2010 up to the present day. We have been eminently successful in our efforts, thanks to the advancement of cryonics and other methods that have allowed us to put living things in a state of suspended animation. Here, in this facility, we have preserved things both living and non-living, humans, animals, plants, bacteria and viruses. The Archives contain various kinds and classes of data, while the Sleeping World is home to the many people who have become a part of this project, as well as all other living things we have seen fit to preserve."
Abel felt his blood run cold at the idea that they had, indeed, preserved people.
The video continued: "If we have done wrong in the eyes of others, then know that we have done this for the sake of preserving what we know against the destruction and ravages that are sure to come in the future. We know already that our age will be lost, though we do not know how. What we have done has been in the hopes that future generations will find this place, and be able to aid us even as we aid them wherever possible. Awaken all who sleep here, and help them, just as they will help you." She paused, and then she smiled slightly. "Recorded on the eighteenth of June, 2081, by myself, Eva Bracken, Chief Director of the Lazarus Project."
The screen went blank, and then Abel heard a soft whirr, followed by a hiss. When he looked to the source of the sound, he saw a shiny disk on a tray, and next to it, a drawer containing what looked like small medallions to be worn around the neck. Abel had not seen such items in a long time, but he knew what they were: special keys that were read by scanners placed around doors and other such entry points. They acted like card-keys, but they were special in that one did not need to swipe them or place them against anything in order for them to work; one merely stood immediately in front of a door, the scanner would read the data embedded into the medallion, and the door would open. There were a lot of them in the drawer, so Abel took two, put one around his neck, took the disk, and gave the other medallion to Ion, who gazed at it for a while before he put it on.
"It's a key," Abel explained when Ion gave him an inquiring look. "It will help us get around." He scanned the chamber, looking for nearby doors – and there was only one other, apart from the entrance they had used, at the farthest end of the chamber. He started walking towards it, Ion right next to him.
The both of them were silent for a while, but as they neared the door, Ion asked: "I just realized something: how could the villagers have entered this place when the door was closed? I doubt that any of them know how to operate Lost Technology."
"The main entrance would have been left open in good weather," Abel replied. "A second set of doors, most likely made of a clear material, would have kept the main chamber sealed at any other time. But during bad weather, the main doors would close, sealing this facility more effectively to protect it from the harsher elements."
"But that would imply that this entire facility is run automatically – by a large computer system."
"I'm sure of it."
"Wouldn't that require a lot of power to work? And if it is as you say, then the system has been running for the past one thousand years. I doubt even those who used Lost Technology like this could have created a battery that could run for that long."
"And they did have such batteries, but the technology to make them has yet to be retrieved."
They were standing in front of the door now, and stood directly in front of it. A few moments later, there was a soft whir, click, and hiss, as of pressure being released, and the door slid aside.
Abel felt his heart beating harder, faster, his anticipation – and his fear – rising with every single thud, thud in his chest. Somewhere in the depths of the corridor beyond he heard the now-familiar keening noise of engines and electrical devices powering up, and soon the path before them was illuminated with a cold blue glow. He could already see through the doorway that the corridor split into two: one going to the left, the other to the right. There were signs on the wall, as well: the one above the corridor to the right read "Archives," while the one on the left read "Sleeping World."
"Father?" Ion's voice was almost too loud in the silence, despite the fact that it was quite soft, just above a whisper. "Where should we go?"
Abel straightened, and pulled out his gun. One could never be too sure. "I will go to the left; you go and take the right. I will keep in touch with you via our communications link." Here he tapped the tiny microphone in his ear. "If you see anything unusual, tell me right away."
Ion nodded, and drew his own dagger. They walked down the corridor together, and then, with a final nod at each other, separated, in the hopes of finding answers to all their myriad questions.