The Hunt for the Secret City

The Hunt for the Secret City, Part 1

Hi, my name is Chris. I am 28 years old.  Today was weird. There were clouds everywhere. It's the year 2221. People either somehow didn't notice the rapidly changing climate, or they ignored it because of money. Either way, the earth is NOT safe to live in. It is polluted as ever, and has a terrible quality of life. We have an estimated 2-4 weeks left to live. Obviously, people are in a purge-like situation saying goodbye to family and friends. The government of the United States created a "Secret City" open for anyone in the world to get to, with the plan of rebuilding the earth with a more environmentally friendly state. You may ask yourself, "Why would they spend the money on a giant building like that instead of saving the earth?" They might have spent all of that money on a giant building instead of saving the earth because it was simply too late. The damage was uncontrollable by the year 2221. Their only option, after releasing their mistake, was to make this "secret city." Regardless of how this happened, I would enjoy surviving, rather than dying in a polluted dust ball, or in one of our now daily/weekly natural disasters. Besides, my job is a treasure hunter, how hard could it be to find a WHOLE city?
Hard. Really, really, hard. In school you are not taught how to find a city. This will be a giant challenge. I have spent all week making a plan. I'm starting to lose all hope. It took way too long to create a plan, and worse case scenario, I only have one week left to live. How am I going to search the entirety of the U.S, but also the world?!?  I am only human. I do not feel safe with getting another person to help me. I do not know where to look. With one week left it will be quite literally impossible. I only can rely on faith. The "only" problem with that is I am not religious what-so-ever.
    Before my father died, he would also talk about conspiracy theories. He himself did not have many. He mainly would talk about others theories and why they did not make any sense. However, he did have two theories that he whole-heartedly believed in. One, he believed that there was some sort of secret bunker for the elites under the Denver International Airport. Two, he thought that if there was not a bunker for the elites of the world under the airport, it was a bunker to restart human life if a nuclear war ever broke out. When I first heard this theory as a kid, I would think to myself that it was dumb and there would never be a need for some sort of a massive bunker. Well, I thought that until the government released a video saying that we were all dying and there is a hidden bunker with first-come first-serve tickets. Am I really about to base my survival over a theory my father had? I think I am. I am not seeing any other possible options. Of course I think there is no way there actually is a bunker under this random airport in the middle of Colorado, but I am seeing my only option being to believe in faith.
Problem number one with following some random memory from my childhood in order to not die from pollution: going from West Virginia to Denver International Airport with enough time to look for a very well hidden bunker without any airlines operating, and no personal plane. I seriously think I am about to steal a plane because of a childhood memory. If i'm actually going to do this dumb idea, I will need to do it fast before my common sense kicks in. As I go to start my car, I see I only have a quarter-tank of gas. That will get me pretty far, but not to the airport in Baltimore, which is the only airport close enough to me that has plane hangars to steal from. You might be thinking to yourself, "why don't you just go get gas?" Imagine trying to get gas while everyone KNOWS they are dying in a matter of 1-2 weeks. I know of a gas station that keeps a back-up tank in the back for their own personal use, and I might just have to take some of it.
Turns out the roads are very crazy, but on the bright side I got the gas with no issues. I just arrived at the airport, which obviously is closed. I spot a gate that leads to the runway/hangars. However, there are two security guards there. As to why they are guarding an airport instead of trying to survive, don't ask me. I slam my foot on the gas and drive through the gate. The airport security is getting on some weird slow golf cart and trying to chase me. It kind of seems like I, in a car, will not have a problem being chased, by them, in a golf cart. I head for the nearest hangar I see, with the human entrance open, because none of them have the plane entrance open. I'm still going as-fast-as-possible for some reason. After an adrenaline busted drive, I am beyond shaking. I arrive at the hangar and walk through the door, and cannot believe what I am about to do. This is not your average plane like a Scensna, which I have flown before and know how to fly. Oh no, this is a two story plane. It's an Airbus A380, which is made for very long flights with lots of passengers. I have NEVER flown a plane this big. There is a loft in the hangar that leads to the gate of the plane. I head my way up the stairs and unlock the plane door. The motion-activated lights turn on smoothly, as I find my way to the cockpit. I searched for a button to open the hangar door for the plane. I find it and press it, just to see the security guards have finally found their way to me. They stare in confusion, as I turn on the plane, and the loud engines roar. I very, very, slowly make my way out of the hangar and towards the runway, in my giant of a plane. I find the air traffic radio, and I turn the volume up. Down the runway I spot a private plane trying to take off.  They go to speak into the radio, and it can't be. I recognize that voice. It was my biggest competitor/ enemy. Martha Jones. She has been my enemy since high school. During my treasure hunts, she would attempt to steal the items I found. Sometimes she would get herself hurt from it, and once even got her leg amputated, and now has to have a personal assistant. I pause for a moment to try and hear her destination. I hear, "..headed to Denver International Airport..." How is it that she, my biggest enemy, is heading to the same location as me. Is it a coincidence, or did she somehow know I would be heading there? Air Traffic control sees me on the radar. They ask for my destination, and the purpose of the flight. I decide I do not want Martha to know for a fact that I am heading over to Denver. I say, "BSIA." It is a random airport in Alabama. Hopefully she will fall for it. However, knowing Martha, she will likely not fall for it. I tell ATC I am going on runway one, which I have no idea if I actually am. I go down the runway the same way I do on small planes. I ease the throttle up, and we reach the end of the runway and take off. Somehow, on this random hope of faith, I am the pilot of a GINORMOUS plane, heading to an airport on the other side of the country hoping not to die. I look over at the flight computer and type in "Denver International Airport," and just follow the path.
On the radar, I see a smaller type plane, likely a private jet, getting closer and closer to me. On the radio Martha says in a questioning tone, " I thought you were heading towards Alabama?" I responded with, "Maybe you heard wrong?" knowing she didn't. I just didn't know what to say. She keeps getting progressively closer, and closer to me. It gets to the point where we are side by side. She gets too close for my comfort. I tilt the nose up. I am only going about ⅓ of the full speed this plane can go. I set the throttle to ⅔ and breezily lost her. The flight computer has us an estimated 10 minutes away from Denver. I'm starting to get anxious thinking of landing. I have never been great at landing, even in the small planes I flew.
The flight computer now shows us at about 1 minute away. In the middle of me thinking about all possible outcomes of this landing, I managed to forget about slowing down and going to a lower altitude. I cut my speed to almost zero, and contacted ATC. I say, "I'm coming down to land a massive plane, on one of the runways, but I don't know which one." They try to say something back to me but I just ignore them. I see the runway. My heart is beating faster than ever before. I look over at the radar to see what will be in my path. As I am looking over I see an orange button with a big "AL" on it. I looked at the manual and it was released, it is the year 2221. I may be going light headed because of the terrible airqualty, but we have auto land on our planes. I press the button and it brings us down to where I typed in on the computer earlier. We are about 50 feet above the runway, when it starts flashing red. I don't know what it could mean. The plane starts shaking like crazy. I grab the wheel, and start a manual landing. I cut the throttle to zero, and glanced at the radar. I see Martha's plane is right behind me. She must have done something to my plane! She probably got one of the 20 people on her team to hack into my flight computer. Regardless We are skidding on and off of the runway. I hit the brakes and we slowly came to a stop. The end of the runway is approaching closer, and closer. I do not know what to do. It does not feel like we are slowing down fast enough. I see the guard rails about 50 feet away. It feels like we are slowing down, but not fast enough. I press one of the thousand buttons I see. We come to a sudden halt. We are 1 foot away from the rails. I ran out of the cockpit with the limited things I brought. As I'm heading for the emergency exit, I pass by the cargo section of the plane and see there are what looks like 30 motorcycles. I grab one, and luckily it's electric so I can start it on the plane. 
As I open the emergency exit door, an inflatable slide pops down and fills up with air. I rode the motorcycle down it. I am trying to leave the plane as fast as possible, because I have the fear of it blowing up. In Denver the air is so polluted, I can't see any buildings. I do not see Martha, either. The air is very thick and hard to breathe. It almost feels like a fire in my lungs. I head towards the biggest blob I see. I hear planes. Whether or not they are taking off or landing, I do not know. I shine the lights on my motorcycle so hopefully I don't get run over. The building is getting closer and closer. As I cross one of the many runways, I almost get hit by a plane, but I barely miss them. I arrive at the building, but I don't know how to get in. Even If I knew how to get in, I doubt I could find it in this smog. I ride along the side of the building when my motorcycle lights flash on a glass object. It is a door to the airport. I walk through it. The airport feels... different. There are people here as if it was a normal day. They are acting like they are waiting for a flight. The airport staff is here, as well. They are acting like there isn't smog so thick that you can't see five feet ahead of you outside. I go up and ask someone what's up. They give me a confused look and put on their headphones. Something similar to that happens every time I ask someone what's happening.
Trying to ignore this weird scene at the airport, I look for any hint of a secret city.  I try to find my way to a lower level of the airport for if it's a bunker. I brought a list of everything to check. The first thing on my list is some sort of hint in the pictures, or something behind them. I go up to the nearest painting. I looked at it and I did not see anything. I feel it, and it seems normal. Even after looking behind it I find nothing. I continue this for every single painting in the airport and I do not find anything. Next on the list to check in every single door, and railing in this massive airport. I go up to the first one. First, I glance over it. I see absoluting nothing. Next, I go to wipe it down to feel for any grooves or anything that would click into place. I found nothing. I go up to the door beside it. I look over every single inch of it. To find: nothing.  I wiped the door down. I found nothing. I open the door. It leads to a supply closet filled with... brooms and mops. I repeat this for every single door and railing in the airport. I did not find anything. I look over every single inch of the airport for the whole day. It is closing at night. I can just give this useless airport my last week left to live. To get to this stupid place, I made last minute plans to search every square inch even though I have only been here once, I drove through a highway with purge-like drivers and almost got killed in the process, I stole a literal MASSIVE plane, almost got killed because of Martha hacking into it, I.... wait. Martha. I have not seen her in a hot minute. After all, I am pretty sure she landed here. Did I miss something? How have I not seen her? I have seen every single person in this weird airport.
I have to find her. She must be up to something. I thought she was following me, not searching on her own. I ran as fast as possible trying to find hints that she entered this place. After around 45 minutes of searching for the person I hate most in the world, I am ready to go to bed and lose all of the little faith I had left in me. As I slowly look for a place to sit down, I see a group of people dressed in black security coats heading through a hall. I stealthily follow them. They walk into this closet. There is a small window on the door. I peek through the window and it can't be. It's Martha's team. They were following me. They are telling her the bad news, that I did not find anything after almost a full day of searching. Martha is very visibly upset. How have they been able to follow me? I have been going on a maze of a path. There is zero pattern to how I have been searching. The only possible thing is for them to be tracking me. I pat myself down, to find a pen I didn't notice before in my jacket pocket. It looks like a generic pen, except it has no branding on it. Regardless of whatever she did to me, I put it in one of the airport staff's pockets, and found a nice, hidden spot to take a quick rest.
After what was planned to be a quick rest, and then turned into just one more hour, which then turned into just one more minute, which turned into 3 more hours, I slept through half of the day. It is already noon. The air quality is so bad, you could just barely see out the windows. Even though the airport has an air filtering system inside, some of the outside air is seeping in, making me very light headed. There are only a few more things left on my list to check. The first one left to check is the baggage claim area. When this airport was built, they put in an over the top expensive baggage claim that never worked. Some, including my father, think it leads to something. I don't see any way to enter into a secret-room like thing. I wait for there to be less people around me. Which ends up never happening. So, I awkwardly climb onto the conveyor and lay down. I seemed to forget that the people inside this airport are, in a polite way, not normal. No one stares, looks, or even seems to notice. The conveyer, which is filled with the same bags spinning over, and over, and over again, slowly but steadily brings me to the back room of the baggage claim area. It is MASSIVE. There are so many computers, sorters, and areas for workers to be, but that are not there. If I had seen this room at first, I might have guessed that it was the "secret city." After what felt like all day, I am done searching the baggage claim. There was nothing to be found. Just cold metal and old bags. The only exit I see is the conveyor belt, so I hop back on, this time less awkward, remembering the...strange... people in this airport won't say anything. I look in my backpack to find the checklist. There are only two more things left to look for.
Next on the list is, the tile in the bathroom? How would the tile in the bathroom mean anything whatsoever?  I also did not specify what bathroom. There has got to be at least fifty in this building! I go to the janitor's closet and steal a crowbar. I walk to the first bathroom I see. I tear up the tiling. No secret doors open. Nothing pops up. Nothing strange happens. There are zero hints as to what to do. I go to the next bathroom. I tear up the tile once more. Nothing pops up. No secret door opens. No signs light up. I head to the next one. I tear up the tile again. Nothing pops up. No secret door opens. No sign lights up. I repeat this for hours, as tearing up tile is a lot harder than it seems. I walk up to the last bathroom in this building. It was just south of the entrance I originally entered the airport in. I check both sides of the door before walking in. I see someone on Martha's crew trying to find something on one of the nearby railings. I chuckle to myself, and walk in. I start tearing up the tile. Nothing pops up, no secret entrances open, and no signs light up. I have one more piece of tile left to take off the floor. After picking it up, I noticed a note left under it. The note had a date on it. Well, I should say year. It had the year 1994 written on it. That was more than 200 years ago! This airport has been almost completely torn down to stay new, so I don't understand how this note could have stayed here under the countless remodels done. The note only has a few words on it. They say, "The mustang at sunset." Mustang? Sunset? It's about 25 minutes till sunset! And what does the statue of some random horse have to do with a secret city? I look at my clipboard to see what I have left to search. The last thing I have written is the carpet. I would almost rather die from polluted air, then rip up the carpet in this place. I quickly decide to head towards the statue. I sprint, not run towards the exit closest to it. In the distance I see a car parked. I run up to it, and see the keys left in it. I do not feel bad taking it, knowing it probably belongs to one of the creepy zombie-like people inside the airport. I see the famous mustang in the distance. There are 3 minutes left until sunset. I know I probably can make it there before sunset, but will I have enough time to do whatever it is I need to?  I push the accelerator as fast as it goes. It is an electric car, so it's pretty fast. I'm going as fast as possible, especially for not even being on a road. I have to drive through grass, rocks, etc. There is 2 minutes, 30 seconds until sunset. I arrive with just a little bit of time left. How am I supposed to do whatever it is that I need to do in under 2 minutes?! I glance over the whole statue trying to figure out anything that I think possibly would glow, or pop out. I don't see anything that would stand out. 1 minute left. I am officially freaked out beyond belief . There is no way I will get inside. There's around 4 days minimum left to live. What will I do!! 40 seconds left until sunset. I start to get weazy. The crappy air is giving me a massive headache, along with the fact that it is making me pass out. 30 seconds left. I freak out and start to just touch every little thing on it. No one in the world is tall enough to reach all of it. You would need a ladder or something like that. 20 seconds left. Touching what I could do nothing. I start frantically kicking it. 15 seconds left. I am about to give up. Just as I go to kick it one last time. The bottom of the right leg glows red, and a screen and keyboard pops out. 10 seconds left. It wants my name? I put in Chris Rutherford. The screen pops up with a loading three dots. 8 seconds left. It feels like it's going so slow! One dot goes away. 7 seconds left. One more goes away. 6 seconds left. Just one more left. 5 seconds left. The screen disappears as flashing green. An opening beside it appears with a staircase going down. I ran through it. 3 seconds left. I am barely down the stairs, and the opening closes, but the stairs stay. I see light at the end of the staircase. The air feels much, much cleaner.
I reach the end of the staircase. I am in a medium sized room. The staircase disappeared, and in its place is a regular door. It looks like im in a waiting room, almost like a doctor or dentist office. The secretary waves, and says someone will be here for me soon. She points towards a section of chairs, where there are about 7 other people. 10 minutes pass. No one talks to each other, and everyone is equally freaked out, and confused. After one more minute of anxious silence, 1 woman in a suit walks in, with a variety of people behind her wearing more casual clothes. The first thing she does is apologize. She apologizes that the earth got polluted to the point where people are going to a random horse statue in an airport, to live. She apologizes that they couldn't share the location with everyone, because they don't have the capacity. You almost could feel the relief from me and the people around me after we learned we were going to live, and we found the only way to survive. She did not talk about what the rest of the bunker, or whatever it was, looked like, felteled like, or anything. She brought us all into individual rooms. We were tested for different forms of disease, and illnesses that in the regular world, we didn't know there was a cure for. I overheard one doctor cured this person's cancer, that they didn't even know they had! After our health screening, they gave us all vaccines for different purposes. Then, the girl left, to go "attend other important things." I had no idea what that meant, and I honestly don't really care. The other people that came in with her brought us to this other room. It was set up almost like a classroom. There was a projector and a seminar on our new life. They explained that we were all about to enter a giant city, way bigger than New York City, Infact, it was half the size of Colorado! After we learned how big the city was, we learned most of it would be unusable. They were using 2/3rds of it as a manufacturing facility. As we are learning about the city, they are developing air purification systems. They will be these massive planes that emotionally are giant filters(huh). These planes are giant. To put it in perspective they would be around 3-6 times bigger than the plane I flew to Denver. We are then given phones, computers, and keys to an apartment. The phones and computers are like the ones we have at home, just with a few extra things made by the city. We each were given an apartment, which we won't have to pay for, until a couple months. We all are given jobs based on our previous knowledge/ place of employment. They use an almost identical economical system to the U.S. The facility is run by the U.S government, also. They are in the process of making a new constitution. We were then shown where our houses were, and how to get to work. I will start my new job in a week. Every week, Monday-Wednesday, we will attend classes on the plans to rebuild the earth, and clean it. I will really miss my old life. I, however, will not miss the awful air, and environment. As we are walking out of the building, I look up at one of the TVs. It says, "MARTHA JONES: ACCESS DENIED." This actually makes me sad. I will miss my little competition and friendship with her. I read more and found out she was denied because of the amount of felonies she has, and apparently is on the run from the U.S government.  We walk out the doors to the building, and my mouth drops. It looks as if we were above ground. It sounds like we are. It feels like we are. It looks like we are. They went as far as getting an artificial sun and moon. It looks much nicer, and cleaner I should add, NYC. The air feels... fresh. I think I might be able to get used to this.