The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 19: Magie, Alchimie et de la Science

Alexis had never before touched natural stone. As he descended the steps leading to the second basement, his head, bathed in the dim light of neon lamps, could not help but think this. The only pieces of that material he had seen were behind glass cases in museums.

At school they had explained to him that many generations earlier, thanks to the discovery of an orange-colored copper alloy with extraordinary properties, humans had decided to use it to replace old building materials. "Artificial stones," such as cement and concrete, were used when necessary; new buildings were erected on the rubble of old ones, and only wood was still used in its pure state as a matter of economy. Some friends had told him that the whole city was built on miles of increasingly dense layers of natural stone, but he had not believed them.

Now, as he saw those same layers pass over his head, he realized how hasty he had been in his judgment.

The flight of stairs ended in a rectangular doorway with no door. Alexis passed through it and found himself in a large oval-shaped cave; on either side of it were three tunnels, two of which were sealed by wooden planks in the shape of a cross. On the ground were empty crates and a few hand-cranked flashlights. A single lamp covered by an iron grating illuminated the room.

The boy took one of the flashlights with him and headed toward the accessible passageway, hoping not to get lost with all his heart. The corridor he had chosen still descended downward, but this time it was completely dark. The air was damp, and in some places he risked slipping; the tunnel continued for many meters, ending in another cave dimly lit by another grate. All three openings in front of him were blocked by piles of debris.

"Damn," he muttered. The deeper he descended, the more stagnant the air became: the idea of having to squeeze through dark, isolated tunnels made his nose twitch. He gave the flashlight crank a couple of turns and waited for the cone of light to illuminate the room better, pointing the beam in the direction of the debris. The middle and right entrances seemed completely obstructed, and going through the left one seemed the most feasible option. Alexis slid his backpack off his shoulders and rolled up his shirt sleeves, when he happened to lay eyes on something sticking out of the floor; like a lone buoy in the middle of the ocean, that sort of knob seemed to be out of place. The boy got down on his knees to take a better look at it; as soon as he rubbed it with his fingertip, a layer of dust was released into the air and let the orange color of the knob shine through, a color he knew very well. At that moment he had confirmation that something was wrong.

Blowing with all the air in his body and helping himself with his hands, Alexis cleaned the stone in the light of the flashlight, revealing a thin crack that ended right at the base of the knob. It was identical to some of those he had seen in the older departments of the Vintage Usine, built long after those underground passages: someone must have built something mechanical there. The boy did as his father had taught him, grasping the T-shaped handle between the middle and ring fingers of his hand, pulling it to himself and rotating it 70 degrees. A buzz of heavy gear made the walls of the cave vibrate, and Alexis fell to the floor with his backpack between his legs as the crack in the floor grew wider and wider, spitting out puffs of white steam. A blast of hot air entered his nose, his eyes reddened and began to water; the flashlight beam was useless in the face of that artificial fog, and the boy's hands tried to protect his airway between coughs. Everything returned to normal after a few minutes. Alexis looked around confused, gave another coughing fit and crinkled his eyes. When all five senses were operational again he saw that where there had been a gap before, an old-fashioned-looking spiral staircase had now appeared. He was no engineering expert, but even those stairs had an antiquated structure; once he got back up, Alexis picked up his backpack, flashlight, and, on reflection for a moment, a couple of rocks from the piles of debris.