The Men Who Weigh The World

Family

Finally, after the sun was long gone, Nick stopped the car, and killed the ignition. We were resting by the bottom of a cliffside in a large parking lot, speckled by cars that stretched at least a quarter mile in any given direction. Most of the lot’s vehicle density was awkwardly scattered about the asphalt, some not even within the fading parking spot paint lines. Nick started to undo his seatbelt and step out of the car. A little more than uncertain, I did, too. I felt the urge to say something at about this time:

“Come on, Nick, what is with all of this? Where are we?” I asked lightly.

“You’ll see, Dad...We’re right by it.”

We walked from the asphalt, and trekked through the fenced gate and across grass for ten minutes up to the cliff’s base, and right by a small cave. It looked about big enough for an adult to venture in unimpeded if hunched over.

“Does this have to do with anything about your mood lately, Nick?”

He was already bending over, ready to enter, but he peered back at me. He looked more than a little confused.

“Huh? What do you mean...?”

“Clarice noticed it too, you just seem a little...depressed, all the time. It’s nothing right?”

He looked back into the cave, and began descending in.

“Right?”

Still no response. I gave up, and followed right behind him into the cave. He took out a hand-held spotlight, and the crevice filled with light. It was a rather uneventful minute or so of crawling, yet I couldn’t help but bang my head on the ceiling twice during the journey. The throat of the cave was shrinking, to a point where we had to crouch down to even pass, until we were left in a subterranean pocket, about as long and tall as a comfortable living room. The rocks were smoother and cleaner here.

What I noticed, and what Nick approached, was a large silver door constructed into the wall. It looked very polished, and the brightness of Nick’s searchlight shone off of it in harsh white splotches. He turned the light off, and the room was bathed in a soft crimson from a book-sized monitor right adjacent to the door, red text flickering all over it. I was starting to approach the screen, but Nick beat me to it.

“IFJ6408KKJS,” he said quickly, his face to the machine. A small beep, and a scrolling of new red letters and words down the screen, and he continued, “55 dash 49 dash C-O-N-S-C-R-I-P-T.” More text flashed on the monitor, and I started to speak up.

“Ok, Nick, really, what is all of--”

“Dad, I need you to think of a code, three letters, then four numbers, then four letters.” He took out a slip of paper from his pocket, and a pen too.

“What is this, really?”

“Come on, just give me a code,” he said, a tad irritably. He softened, “They can explain it all much better than I can.”

I sighed, and began thinking of what he wanted me to. I said:

“YUE...uh...1131...ABDE.”

“Ok, good.” And he wrote it down, and handed me the paper. I pocketed it, and he repeated my sequence to the computer. Then he repeated “IFJ6408KKJS” to it, and then “YUE1131ABDE” once more. I was a bit confused by what he was doing, but apparently he wasn’t; the screen’s text turned to green, flickered off, a small chorus of electronic tones played, and I heard a decompressing sound, like air rushing out of tire. Nick pulled on a handle on the door, it gave way, and we walked right in.

~~

When I entered the first room, I was as surprised as I thought I would be. 

It was a long hallway, essentially, lit brightly by halogen lamps affixed to the ceiling, and it was claustrophobically narrow - I could easily touch both sides of the wall with my hands if I tried. Not that I dared to, of course; the walls were a chrome-white, and small sleek pipes lined them and the ceiling like veins, turning up down and back around this way and that, receding into and out of the wall here and there. It gave me the impression of a modern day technological pyramid, complete with hieroglyphics. While Nick was guiding, walking ahead of me, I put my ear up close to the pipes and listened...