This bit of Wasteland/Fallout fanfic is pretty old, like my other ones. It started off as a collaborative story, with different writers taking turns, but this was the first and only part, until I jumped ahead with the next part, "Siege of Groom Lake". Please R/R- on this one as well as my other chapters.

MYSTERY HOLE

Somewhere, a bell rang. It was strident, even muted as it was by the twisting and turning of the concrete corridors. Corporal Bigsby hurried toward the elevator, clutching his package tightly. As he rounded a corner, he collided with some form of living wall. The olive drab mass solidified into a cursing behemoth of a Recruitment Officer, Lieutenant Graper.

"Sweet Jesus, Bigsby! You're under my wheels again!"

Bigsby mouthed an incoherent apology that was unheard in the storm of imprecation that continued down the corridor past him. He swallowed, and walked to the elevator. The button was already lit, but in his agitation, Bigsby pressed it several times rapidly. It earned him a strange glance from another corporal who was posting bulletins on a tall board in the center of the room.

The door opened and Bigsby stepped inside. They shut again and the lights in the elevator dimmed for a moment as it lurched downward with surprisingly little noise. Only a moment and it stopped, the door sliding open with a slight whoosh. It was quiet here on the lower level of the Ranger Center, the Sanctuary.

It was an old tradition to place the people in charge below ground, and the tradition was upheld here as well. The lower level, when the Center was a federal prison, had held maintenance, laundry, and storage facilities as well as solitary confinement. It was still dark and dreary despite the lights and neutral-painted walls.

Bigsby carried his package through the vestibule, noticing that there was a similar bulletin board down here. It didn't bear the uniform size and typing the enlisted men and lower-level officers were required to use. These memos were handwritten in the arcane scrawl of majors, colonels, and generals. The slips of paper used were of every size, color, and state of soilage. The lower level of the Ranger Center was almost a different world.

He continued into the long hallway that bisected the level. It was lit by bare, hanging bulbs. He ignored his first set of two doors, which were the offices of Senior General Vargas and Senior General Squid. He stopped at the next set of doors. The left-hand door was Major General Romulus' office, and the right-hand door, which bore the sign "Laundry" was his destination. He knocked on the door timidly, almost losing the package. A voice penetrated the metal door somewhat muffled, barking what seemed to be an invitation to come in.

Twisting the handle, Corporal Bigsby felt a trace of fear. He had never spoken to a general personally, and never visited the Sanctuary. He opened the door.

The room was enormous, and had definitely once been a laundry. It had a high ceiling, and bore evidence of a great number of machines that had once been there. It had been reconverted, and the walls were covered in tasteful wood panels.

Its contents not withstanding, the room showed evidence of some order, though a kind of order produced by a warped mind. A long table in the center of the room was covered with papers in disarray, and his eye was drawn to one of the walls. It bore an enormous map of the United States, though it had been altered and annotated to be almost unrecognizable. There were thousands of notes written on the map, or on slips of paper that had been posted to it. For a moment, Bigsby had forgotten where he was, and as he gaped at the map, he heard a throat clear.

Bigsby's head snapped in the direction of the noise, and saw an ancient rolltop desk in the corner of the room. Major General MacManus was seated there; a giant man in some sort of bastardized uniform. He wore the khaki dress shirt and jacket, but had on a kilt over his extremely hairy legs that ended in plaid socks and combat boots. His face, coarse-featured and stubbly with sandy hair, was turning bright red.

The bottom dropped out of Bigsby's stomach when he realized that he had forgotten to salute the general. He dropped the package from nerveless arms and watched it hit the floor with a look of surprise. He attempted to salute, but his arm flailed uselessly at his head. The general now looked merely bewildered, and Bigsby's line of sight fell to the level of the general's boots as he fell forward in a dead faint.

He woke from the ammonia fumes of a smelling salt, with a wide, rough hand slapping his face back and forth. It was General MacManus. Bigsby saluted, and the general burst into laughter.

"I've seen men go insane from a firefight, Corporal, but I've never seen a man faint at a map."

"I'm sorry, sir, I-"

"Don't worry about it, Corporal." He looked at Bigsby's prone position and sneered. "At ease."

Bigsby stood up hurriedly and saluted again, doing his best to look dignified.

"Sir?"

"Corporal Bigsby… you're the science whiz I heard about, eh? You brought me this package, but who gave it to you?"

"Sergeant Jennings, sir. Sergeant Hattori brought it back with him from his recon."

"Hattori, eh? He's back?"

"He was found dead between here and Highpool. A patrol found him just before a party of scavs got there, sir."

"Hmm… well, this must have been worth something, then. Any other word from his recon group?"

"No sir, not since their last radio transmission."

"When was that?"

"A week ago, sir. They radioed in from the coast, just east of Toluca Lake."

"They made it, then." The general turned to his map and traced a finger to the jagged line that demarcated the new coast of California. "Toluca Lake, now Toluca Island. Home of the Toluca Lake Mystery Hole."

"Mystery hole, sir?"

"Nothing. That's what the recon was there for. To explore the island and its hole."

"Yes sir."

MacManus hefted the package and considered it for a moment. "I take it he wrote my name on the wrapping?"

"We think so, sir."

"Thank you, Corporal. That will be all."

Bigsby saluted and about-faced as the general began unwrapping the package. The young corporal resisted his curiosity until he got to the door, and could not resist a sneak peak as he was shutting the door. General MacManus opened the box, and an astounded look passed on his face. He seemed to be in awe. Rapt in his examination, the general spoke out loud.

"Dear Lord, we need more of this…" He noticed that Bigsby was still there and shot a glare at him. "Corporal Bigsby! I said that would be all!"

"Y-yes sir!" He was about to leave when suddenly the general had grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

"Wait a minute, Corporal. Run a message to the Senior Generals. Tell them I'm going to be sending a four-man party of my Heavy Infantry to find out what happened there. I'll have it written up in a bit. And ASAP, Corporal." He saluted, and Bigsby returned it. "And Corporal? Outfitting shouldn't take but an hour and a half. Report to me at that time. You'll be heading out at 2100 hours."

Corporal Bigsby felt the bottom drop out of his stomach again as he realized what the general was saying. MacManus looked surprised again as Bigsby fell to the ground in a dead faint for the second time that day.