/ Chapter 11 – Beneath Tomorrowland /
Frank smelled cool, musty air as he entered the cast-concrete passage, about 4 feet wide by 8 feet tall. Some very old light fixtures were in the ceiling, though there weren't any switches for them. He led the way ahead of Athena, shining his flashlight forward.
Ahead and off to the side was another door with a handle. Frank tried it. "Locked. I guess from the other side. I wonder if this goes up to the building."
"I would say that's likely," Athena agreed.
"I think there's some stairs ahead that go down," Frank said. "Wow, I wonder how deep it goes."
They reached the stairway and Frank shined his flashlight down, where he could see that it went down one flight and then turned back the other way. He started down, then turned and continued down the other direction, where there was another door with a handle. Frank pulled on it and to his surprise, it started to move. He was so startled by this that it slipped from his hand and self-closed with a loud, metal bang.
There was another flight of stairs that led away from the door even further down, but he figured they might as well see what was on the first level. He slowly pulled the door, which opened with a slight squeak of rusty hinges. It was spring loaded, so he held it for Athena as he walked through. Through the door was another concrete hallway, disappearing into the distance. The passage smelled very musty, clearly not having been traveled in a long time. There were old rusted steel conduit pipes running along the walls, with more light fixtures.
"Are you okay?" Frank whispered.
"Yes, I'm fine," Athena said in a normal voice, startling him.
He laughed, then turned and lit Athena with his flashlight, who shined hers back. "Ha! You scared me. I don't even know why I whispered. I wonder where the heck this goes?"
"No idea," she said. "I've never seen any of this on maps. I did know Tomorrowland had some underground tunnels. It's interesting that this tunnel is leading southeast toward the city."
"You think maybe it goes all the way?" Frank asked.
"I don't know," Athena said, with an excited smile. "Let's go find out!"
Frank grinned. He was really starting to like her. They continued walking, the hallway seemingly endless. He figured they were close to the industrial area when he saw something up ahead. Entering into a large chamber with a rounded ceiling, they both shined their lights around the room. It had a red tile floor, and Frank could see a large, tiled Plus Ultra symbol in the center. It was about sixty feet long and forty feet wide. The ceiling was black and white tile in some sort of pattern he couldn't identify.
But more interesting was that he saw a glass window at the other end of the room. "What's that over there?" he asked.
"It looks like some sort of control room," Athena said, shining her flashlight over. "I can see some panels inside."
Frank squinted but couldn't make out anything inside it. "You have really good eyes, I can't see anything. Well, let's check it out."
As Frank got closer, he could see that Athena was right. Through the glass were chairs in front of control panels facing the windows, with more panels in the back. To the left of the window was another steel door, this one with a doorknob. Frank turned the knob, expecting it to be locked, but to his surprise it opened easily.
"Wow, we got some luck, it's open," Frank said. "I hope we don't get in trouble for this, but it sure looks old."
They entered the room, which was about fifteen feet long and ten feet deep. They shined their lights around the room, where there were large numbers of very old switches and dials. It looked like something out of an old monster movie, like Frankenstein's laboratory when the monster came to life.
"Wow, look at this place," Frank said in wonder. "I feel like I should be shouting, it's alive! IT'S ALIVE!"
Athena looked confused for a second, then smiled. "We don't have an operating table to raise and no lightning storm."
He laughed. "Yeah and I'm happy about that. I see some old fashioned knife switches on the wall. What are they for?"
Athena walked over and shined her light on the switches, peering at them. He was about to ask her what she saw when she quickly reached up and flipped a switch. He felt a moment of panic, his hands waving in front of him with an inarticulate gurgling noise, wondering if that was really a good idea. But lights flipped on within the room, giving it a bright illumination.
The sudden tension of her doing it so abruptly and nonchalantly, but with the harmless result made Frank start uncontrollably laughing. He finally got himself under control and said, "I guess those are light switches," he snickered, as his breath returned. Athena didn't laugh, but just smiled at him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she said. "But I didn't see any danger in trying it. It was labeled as room lights."
Frank calmed down, giggles still escaping from him. His laughter subsided as he looked around the room, now able to see it completely. It was very utilitarian, with grungy steel cabinets and control panels. It was clearly very old. But the most interesting part was on the far wall from the entrance.
"Hey, those are maps!" Frank said.
They walked to the end of the room and stood in front of five large paper maps mounted to the wall. Frank looked at the leftmost map, which showed some outlines of buildings, with tunnels running across the landscape. There was an outline of the city wall on the map, and he could see many familiar buildings, including the spaceport in the northwest part of the map. He looked for his apartment complex, and sure enough, it was on the map as well.
"It looks like a lot of these buildings are recent," Frank said curiously. "I know the spaceport and the apartment complex aren't as old as this place. Someone must've updated this map at some point."
"I agree, though this room looks unused for a long time," Athena said. "There is quite a bit of dust in here. Apparently they must just update all the maps regularly, used or not. It's very interesting that the tunnel system travels through the entire city. I believe the other four maps are different levels, showing other tunnel systems beneath us."
"Yeah," Frank said, nodding. "And I see the building we entered on the map. It's labeled as 'Access Building 3.' It must be one of the original ways to enter the tunnels. They probably planned all this when they sectioned off the city way back when. Did you know about any of this?"
"No, I didn't. This is fascinating," Athena said. "I knew there were tunnels of some sort, but I had no idea it was so extensive. It looks like any part of city can be reached from down here. And there are many access points all over the city."
"Hmm, yeah, maybe those are used more often," Frank mused. "In fact, there's an access point right at the spaceport, so that explains why no one bothers to come over here. There's nothing above us, just an old junk yard."
He moved over to the next map, which seemed to be the level below them. "What do you think this is?" Frank mused. "It looks similar to the other map, but…"
Athena moved over. "It has the same accesses on it, but the tunnels are different. They seem more direct. I see that the tunnels are numbered, and… see that symbol?" she pointed to where two tunnels crossed. "That's a symbol that indicates a rail intersection – and that symbol is a switch controller. I believe these aren't just tunnels, but rail tracks."
"There's a… what, subway system?" Frank asked.
"I believe this is all for maintenance access," Athena said. "The size of the tunnels seem too narrow for a full subway."
"Wow, cool," Frank said excitedly. "I wonder if we can get to anywhere in Tomorrowland?"
He looked at the third level. "Hey, I know what this has to be," Frank said. "Look at that criss-crossing grid. This must be the TomorrowPost network that moves stuff around everywhere."
"I agree," Athena said. "This is extremely interesting. I've never seen a map of it."
The fourth map showed huge rectangular areas, sectioned off beneath the city. "What could that be?" Frank asked.
"I see some labeled as 'refrigerated storage less than one meter,' while another says 'dry storage less than two meters,'" Athena said.
Frank peered at the map. "I can't believe your eyes, that writing is so small. But those have to be the automated storage facilities, where the stuff comes from that T-Post delivers, right? It would make sense that it was right under the delivery network."
"Yes, I agree," Athena nodded.
They moved over to the fifth map, which showed a large complex outside the city, with thick lines from the complex and then webbing out to different parts of the city.
"I'm certain I know what this is," Athena said. "Tomorrowland is powered by a nuclear power plant behind the hills. That's the power complex leading back to the city and the power grid. The lower level must be grid maintenance and power distribution."
"That explains why I don't see any power lines anywhere," Frank commented.
He walked back to the first map. Studying it, he pointed to a spot on the map. "It looks like that tunnel there leads to something that looks interesting. Do you want to see?"
"All right," Athena said.
"I'm tempted to leave the lights on so we can see the room, but I guess we better turn things off so we don't get in trouble," Frank said. He flipped the knife switch and the lights went out. The switched to their flashlights again.
The walked down the tunnel that corresponded to the map. The concrete was still very old and more metal pipes ran along the walls. The other room was dry, but now he smelled a dampness to the place.
Abruptly the wall concrete changed. "I think we're heading into a newer section," Frank commented.
Suddenly some overhead lights switched on, making him jump. They could now see about twenty feet ahead but further up the tunnel was dark. Frank looked at Athena, who shrugged at him. "I believe these are automatic lights with proximity sensors," she said.
"You mean they turn on when they detect people?"
"It's motion based, but yes," she said. "I agree with you. We've crossed over into a newer section."
They switched off their flashlights and continued walking, the lights turning on and off, following their course. It was newer concrete, but still gritty and damp with pipes running along the tunnel and an occasional pipe turning into the wall.
"Do you hear that?" Frank asked.
"Yes, I believe it's the hum of polyphase synchronous A/C motors," Athena commented.
Frank stared at her. "How the heck do you know that?"
Athena looked carefully at him, then smiled and said in an off-hand voice, "Oh, I was just guessing. They have a distinctive sound and are used quite often in our large machines."
Frank returned her smile, thinking that he wasn't even sure how whatever-she-said was different than a regular motor, but what he did know was that Athena was seemingly full of endless surprises.
They came to an opening in the side of the tunnel and the sounds of the motor became louder, though not uncomfortably so. They walked into the room, the lights turning on automatically. Six huge motors were set up in a line, humming away with some sort of purpose, while large metal cabinets with control systems ran along another wall. He didn't know what the purpose of it was, but it was amazing to see a small part of behind the scenes.
A squat wheeled robot scooted into the room behind them, quietly going on about its business as it went over to a control cabinet. A small tool arm extended and inserted into a hole and a panel flipped open, exposing some internal components. Frank watched it, fascinated.
"What's it doing?" he asked
"Most likely doing an inspection, though it might be doing a repair as well," Athena commented. "There are many automated maintenance robots like this."
He shook his head and walked over, trying to see what the robot was doing. As he got closer, he saw a small pencil illustration on the end of the cabinets. He peered closer and there was a small Mickey Mouse drawn and underneath was written, "W.D. 10/25/1957" in a stylish, familiar handwriting. He laughed, thinking about who'd been standing just about where he was.
Frank looked up and around the room, seeing the machines, hearing the sounds, and feeling the vibrations. He let his imagination extend out, feeling exhilarated by an image of the gleaming overworld of Tomorrowland above them. Countless people living their lives with no conception of the reality of the dank underworld under their feet, containing the machines that actually ran the place producing the wonders they took for granted. He imagined tendrils of tunnels spreading from himself throughout the city and beyond, containing numerous machines and electronics, small and large. It all made him feel giddy and powerful and magical, in possession of a secret that he and Athena shared and most others would never know.
Athena was very happy.
She exited the tunnel, following Frank who squinted in the bright sunlight as they emerged out of the old underground access door of the brick building. She was feeling nearly overwhelmed with the stimulation of the day, from sharing in Frank's creativity of creating the key to exploring underneath Tomorrowland. Just the physical experiences were thrilling enough, but the social interaction she experienced with Frank was had been extremely stimulating. She had never had so much interaction that was completely in the context of her personality. It was entirely about Athena-the-individual, and absolutely nothing about her primary functions. The experience of being viewed solely as an individual person rather than (as was more typical) a useful tool was having a powerful effect on her.
Frank closed the door, relocking the padlock with their makeshift key.
"We'll definitely have to check that out again sometime," he said, looking very satisfied and waving his key in the air before putting it in his pocket.
"Yes, that was fascinating," Athena said. "I'm glad you had the idea to explore this place."
"I'm starving," Frank said. "We didn't even have lunch and it must be close to dinner time. You hungry?"
Athena wondered how to answer this tricky question. She considered whether to use this opportunity to tell Frank the truth of her nature, but she felt deeply affected with how enjoyable it was to explore with Frank and his sheer amount of novel human interaction and new experiences. She wasn't certain if things would continue, and really, there was no urgent need to tell him. In fact, her mother had said Frank needed someone to help him get established, so it wasn't unreasonable to wait until he was more settled. She felt pleased with this plan, since it helped her recruit and optimally fulfilled the needs of everyone involved.
But that meant she had to handle his question, without lying to him, which she didn't want to do. Technically, she could eat; the food would just go into a cavity in her chest, which was used when she needed to simulate eating in the field for tactical purposes of interacting with people. She decided to bypass the question of whether she was actually hungry and hope he didn't notice.
"All right, I'll eat with you," Athena said, giving Frank a warm smile.
Frank smiled back. "Great! There's a pizza place near my apartment; do you want to get some and bring it back to the apartment?"
"That sounds fine," she said, having no particular preference, other than pizza would be messier to clean out of her chest cavity.
About an hour later, they were back in Frank's apartment eating pizza. Frank was ravenous, while Athena ate hers more slowly and gracefully. Frank was just starting on his fourth piece when he noticed she hadn't eaten very much.
"You only want one slice? You can have more. Man, I was starving."
"This is enough for me," Athena said.
"I guess you 'eat like a bird,' as my mom used to say," Frank said with a grin. "Well, you're so slim, I guess it makes sense."
"I'll be right back, I need to visit the bathroom," she said.
"Okay," Frank said, finally starting to slow down slightly on his pizza.
Of course, Athena didn't ever need to use the toilet for waste purposes, but she figured it would be a good opportunity to clean her chest before she returned home, so her mum wouldn't be suspicious by catching her cleaning it or perhaps even smelling the pizza from her. It was also a good opportunity for Frank to see her use the facilities in some manner.
After entering the room, she pulled down her jumpsuit top and opened her access port. A split appeared down the center at the top of her chest and two small doors flipped open. Her graphene skin was composed of linked carbon atoms in a honeycomb matrix, almost like a flattened diamond. It was extremely impact resistant, but she had the capability of creating seams in order to open various access areas and auxiliary ports. Afterward, the split would be atomically re-bonded to once again form a perfectly intact surface.
She took some toilet paper and removed the pizza, which needed some hand soap and water to remove the grease. Athena wished slightly that Frank had chosen a different food, but she finally got it sufficiently clean, flushing the chewed but undigested food down the toilet. She closed up her chest once more, put her jumpsuit back on and exited the bathroom.
Frank was just putting leftover pizza into his refrigerator. "There's still some left if you're hungry."
"No, I'm fine, thank you," Athena said.
"By the way, that remote-freezer storage is amazing," Frank said, closing his fridge. "It's nice that there's a central freezer and you can just T-Post frozen food to it. Not that I even hardly need a freezer since I can order frozen or fresh food and the grocery store T-Posts it right to me when I cook dinner. It makes it easy to cook instead of just ordering from restaurants."
"Yes, I understand many people keep large supplies of food in their own houses on Earth," Athena said. "It's not very space efficient. What else have you found interesting?"
"The whole BorrowNet thing was really cool," Frank said. "It's nice to have common things just stored in shared inventory and people just get what they need, as they need it. The cost is so low and there's everything. I mean, I don't even have kitchen items like pans, I just get what I need T-Posted to me in a few minutes. The other day I needed a broom and Ka-Zam! I got a folded broom, used it and sent it back. It just makes so much sense. Why does everyone need to own and store their own broom, just to use once in a while? Or whatever common item. It's just so… efficient!"
Athena smiled. She enjoyed Frank's enthusiasm and his observations.
"It was definitely cool today to see where it all goes. Oh! And the laundry service is pretty crazy. I mean, I can just toss dirty clothes into a T-Post box and it comes back clean," Frank said, grinning. "Now that's what I call living in the future."
Frank walked over to a cabinet and opened up the door. "Hey, do you need to head home or can you stay longer? I was thinking we could play some chess; do you play? I just got a set – check it out! Back home, I used to play sometimes with these men who play all the time outside the general store."
"That sounds like fun," Athena said. "I don't need to be back yet."
Athena did enjoy chess; she played with her mother occasionally. She normally could beat humans easily, though she wasn't nearly as good as the specialized chess machines used in Plus Ultra computer science game research. But she was very strong at short-term tactics, because she never made the distracted mistakes that humans sometimes made. Her weakness was long-term planning, which was how she could be beaten. That typically required a very strong player, however. On a few of her recruiting trips, she'd played chess with some very strong humans who had managed to beat her, particularly in the Soviet Union.
Because she was so much better than typical humans, she had actually made a slightly different game of it for average players where she would intentionally leave herself in weaker positions than she otherwise would. Her goal was to win the game while keeping her board strength roughly equivalent to her opponent. This made the game much more challenging for her and often more enjoyable for the human. Of course, she still won nearly every time, but the human felt better about their loss, since they believed themselves "close" to winning. Her mother in particular hated to lose, but was less irritable if she felt it was close, and occasionally she squeaked out a draw or even a win.
They played several games, chatting about what they'd seen during the day. Athena won every time, though Frank came close to getting a draw one time.
"I guess it's getting late," Frank said, sighing, looking at the clock on his wall.
"Yes, I suppose I should return home before my mum worries," Athena agreed. "I had a very enjoyable day today, Frank."
Frank smiled. "I did, too! Um, are you doing anything tomorrow? Maybe we could see more of the city."
She wanted to very much, but had a recruiting trip the next day. The problem was that she didn't want to reveal that her primary function was recruiting, which could lead to questions about her nature. But she needed a way to explain her frequent absences that would satisfy Frank now and in the future.
"I'm afraid I can't," Athena said. "My mother has arranged a field trip to Earth for me. I often go on these for learning and research purposes."
This was bending the truth a little further than Athena liked, but technically, she did often do research and learn things on her recruiting trips, so it wasn't quite a lie.
"Really?" Frank said. "Wow, your mom really does plan your education out. When will you be back?"
The recruiting trip happened to be an extraction, which were not always predictable, but in this case she was breaking a political writer dissident out of a prison in a small province of China. It was very low security and most likely would have little risk of taking extra time.
"I expect to only be a single day and I'll return in the evening," Athena said. "We could go day after tomorrow, if you wish."
"That sounds great," Frank said. "I'll probably poke around some more tomorrow, but I'll save all the good stuff for when you're with me."
"All right," Athena said, standing up. "I'll call you in the morning, day after tomorrow. If I don't call, then I got delayed and I'll call when I return."
"Okay," Frank said, walking her to the door. "This was a really fun day. I'm glad I have a friend like you here, it's making things a lot easier."
Frank using the word "friend" made Athena very happy, making her believe he would most likely desire to continue their relationship going forward, which so far was one of the most stimulating and exciting times of her life with a constant stream of challenging and novel interaction. She hoped that when he learned about her nature (a small part of her mind inquired: when exactly was that going to be? Athena ignored it), he would still want to be friends.
"I'm glad I can help," Athena said with a warm smile. "I'll see you soon."
Author's Note: Enjoying the story so far? Did you know you get redeemable internet points by reviewing? :)
The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.